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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 17 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I heard you saying that we are all enlightened. If so, why am I waiting for something to happen? Is it an old habit?It is one thing to hear; it is another thing to understand. You certainly heard me saying that we are all enlightened, but you did not trust it – at least you excluded yourself. “Perhaps everybody else is, but I am enlightened?” This was too much for you to accept; hence the question.Your question shows your innermost turmoil. You are saying, “If so…” I had not said that your enlightenment is some probability – perhaps you are enlightened, perhaps you are not. There were no ifs and no buts; it was a simple statement. I repeat again:You are enlightened and you cannot be anything else.But I can understand your difficulty. You have been told you are ignorant and you have accepted it. You have been told you are unworthy and you have accepted it. You have been told you are not beautiful and you have accepted it.Just look at how many things you have accepted without creating ifs and buts, without even asking a question.When I was a student in the university, my philosophy class consisted only of three persons. Two were girls and I was the third. And a certain Professor Bhattacharya – a little cynical, as is almost expected from professors of philosophy – had a certain idea of celibacy. He used to teach the class with closed eyes. When I saw this on the first day, I could not figure it out – what is the problem? After the class I approached him and asked him.He said, “I cannot see women.”I said, “If you cannot see women, why do you close your eyes?”He said, “You don’t understand me. I don’t want to see women.”I said, “Even then, you have seen them; it does not matter whether you want to or not. Women are all around. Just by closing your eyes, do you think you are not seeing women? Then what are people doing in their dreams? I insist on the point that if you are keeping your eyes closed because of the women, you will be consistently reminded only of women. And remember that no woman is so beautiful with open eyes as she becomes when your eyes are closed. Then the woman becomes a romantic dream. Reality is not so romantic. With your eyes closed you are taking a very dangerous step.”The next day I also closed my eyes. He looked at me and thought perhaps I had also become convinced of his ideology of celibacy. After the class he asked me, “So it seems you are also convinced.”I said, “The reality is that I slept the whole hour. And now I will sleep every day: if you are free to close your eyes, I am also free to close my eyes. It does not matter what happens with closed eyes – you dream, I sleep.”He said, “But then what is the point of attending the class?”I said, “There is no point at all, it is just that one has to be somewhere. Do you mean to say that wherever I am I have to answer the question why I am here?”And I told him an old story, that a man comes home, finds his wife naked on the bed, sees the shoes of his friend by the side of the bed, looks all around, suspects he must be in the cupboard. He opens the cupboard; certainly the naked friend is standing there. He is really angry and he says, “I used to think you were my best friend.”He said, “I am.”He said, “Then why are you standing here in the cupboard?”The man said, “This is strange – everybody has to be somewhere, and this cupboard of yours is very cozy. And this is not the first time that I am standing here. It is my usual habit.”I told Professor Bhattacharya, “Never again ask me about any reason, because I don’t believe in rationality. I simply mean, things are and there is no reason for them to prove why they are, where they are, who they are.”But from your very childhood, you have not been given the right vision. You have always been pushed and pulled this way and that way: “Become this, become that.” Nobody ever thought that if existence wanted only Gautam Buddhas it could have manufactured Gautam Buddhas just the way a Ford factory produces Ford cars, on an assembly line, all exactly alike, with tremendous efficiency. Each minute a single car comes out of the assembly line, twenty-four hours around the clock.But existence does not believe in a situation where everybody is like everybody else. The enlightenment of Gautam Buddha is going to be his enlightenment. Your enlightenment is going to be your enlightenment.The problem arises out of comparison. You started thinking that “If I am enlightened, then why am I not a Gautam Buddha or a Jesus Christ or a Bodhidharma? I am just Veet Vigyanam. Nobody worships me. I go around, nobody even takes any note of me. What kind of enlightenment is this? Certainly I have yet to achieve it. Certainly it has not happened yet, it has to happen.”The idea has been propagated with such consistency, for so many thousands of years, that enlightenment is an achievement. I say unto you, enlightenment is not an achievement, it is your very nature. If you are missing it, the reason is not that you have not achieved it, the reason is that you are looking for it all around in every place excluding yourself. Going to every temple, reading every holy scripture, visiting all kinds of stupid people who are pretending to be masters.I want you to declare this very moment that you are enlightened. It does not matter, it is not needed that everybody should worship you. Why should anybody worship you? You are making unnecessary conditions for enlightenment.This is not only your problem, it has been a problem for many. The Buddhists cannot accept Mahavira as enlightened, because he is naked and Gautam Buddha is not naked. Because Gautam Buddha has beautiful hair and Mahavira pulls out his hair, how can both these men be enlightened?We have, without contemplating, accepted an idea that every enlightened person is going to be the same. It is absolute nonsense. In existence, variety is the beauty of it.I would also like everybody to be enlightened in his own way and express his enlightenment in his own way. Otherwise this whole life will become a boredom. Just think – as Jesus says to his disciples – “everybody has to carry his own cross.” Just look around, imagine everybody carrying his own cross…there are not even people to crucify them, because they are carrying their own crosses! The whole thing would be so hilarious.Existence never produces the same person again. Similarity is not the rule of this beautiful universe, but uniqueness. And the moment you accept uniqueness, you accept a tremendous respect for others as they are.Let me say it in a different way. The moment you respect yourself as enlightened, you cannot do anything other than respect everybody as enlightened, as they are. There is no need for everybody to fit into a certain category. Enlightenment is not a category such that you have to eat the same kind of food. If there was a certain rule like this, rather than eating spaghetti I would have renounced enlightenment. It is good that no holy scripture says that spaghetti is absolutely the characteristic of an enlightened man.If you understand me, what I am saying, I am saying that in your very ordinariness you are perfectly good. Nothing needs to be added to you. And if you can relax in this ordinariness, this very ordinariness, because of your relaxation, will become radiant, will start blossoming. Your acceptance, your self respect will be a nourishment, will bring the spring to your being, and the flowers will start opening their petals.But you are never at home. You are looking into other people’s homes. Somebody is in Gautam Buddha’s, somebody in Lao Tzu’s, somebody in Jesus Christ’s, somebody in Moses’…it is a very strange situation that you have been diverted in such a way that everybody is somewhere else, where he is not expected to be, and he is not where existence wants him to be.I teach the immediate and ultimate ordinariness. It is the most beautiful experience, because now there is no desire, no tension, no search, no inquiry, nowhere to go. You are already where you wanted to be.And you are asking, “If so, why am I waiting for something to happen?” Now, do I have to answer this? Perhaps this is your unique enlightenment, that even though you are enlightened, still you are looking for some happening. A little crazy, but that does not destroy your enlightenment. And a few crazy people are also needed. They bring salt to existence. Existence without crazy people will lose something very interesting.But you cannot even accept that. You go on, asking, “Is it an old habit?” Just trying to console yourself, that although you are enlightened, just because of the old habit you go on looking here and there. But the more you will look here and there, the more you will be nourishing the old habit. You will be practicing the old habit.It is very difficult to see that eating your food silently and joyously, sleeping with as much blissfulness as you can contain, having an ordinary life of being a carpenter or being a shoemaker, or being a painter or a poet or a dancer and relaxing in whatever you are without making ideals….But man cannot be destroyed without ideals, and he cannot be enslaved without ideals. He cannot be condemned, he cannot be made to feel guilty if there is not an ideal that he has to become. And nobody ever becomes the ideal that he has tried his whole life to become.Have you ever seen any Christian becoming a Christ? Almost half the humanity is Christian and for two thousand years these people have been trying hard to fulfill the ideal of being a Christ. Why do they go on failing? And it is not only the Christians – the Jainas, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Mohammedans, nobody has been successful.The reason is so fundamental that you cannot go against it.You can either be yourself or just a wastage.These are the only two alternatives.Love Gautam Buddha for his uniqueness, but never imitate him. He himself never imitated anybody, that’s why he is enlightened. It is strange that a simple fact has not been recognized. Mahavira never imitated anybody and that’s why he’s enlightened. You show me a single enlightened being who has ever imitated anybody.I am reminded of a very beautiful man, Kabir. In India, Hindus believe that the Ganges is a holy river, and if you die near the Ganges then your paradise is absolutely guaranteed. Then it does not matter what crimes you committed, what sins you committed, what immoralities; everything is washed out by the Ganges.Naturally, all the Hindus cannot live by the side of the Ganges. That will be too much of a crowd. Those who live there are fortunate; those who cannot live there at least go in their old age to live there, when they see death is coming. In cities like Varanasi, you will be surprised to see – why are there so many old people, old women? No other city can compete in that respect. All these people have come there to die and now they are waiting for their death; it may come any moment.Sometimes it happens that some nearby village…Varanasi is costly, it is available only for rich people to live there to die; the poor people live in nearby villages. Naturally it happens that they die in their villages, but immediately their friends and their relatives take their dead bodies to the Ganges. It doesn’t matter, just a few minutes or half an hour or one hour…God cannot be so cruel. He will forgive even these people also.Kabir lived all his life in Varanasi, the holiest city of the Hindus. Just on the other side of the Ganges, there is a small village called Maghar. I don’t know how the idea became prevalent that anybody who dies in Varanasi goes to paradise and anybody who dies in Maghar becomes a donkey. And Maghar is just on the other side of the Ganges.Before Kabir felt that now his time had come, he told his friends, “Take me to Maghar.”They said, “Are you mad? Nobody wants to die in Maghar. People who are living there are continuously afraid – before death they have to escape from there. And you have lived your whole life in Varanasi and now, when the right moment has come, you want to go to Maghar? You know perfectly well that people who die in Maghar become donkeys.”Kabir said, “If you don’t listen to me, I will have to walk down to Maghar. But I don’t want any obligation, either to the Ganges or to any God. If I am enlightened, I am enlightened in Varanasi; I am enlightened in Maghar. Let me set the precedent, because the poor people of Maghar have been condemned for centuries. Let me die in Maghar, because after me it will be difficult for anybody to say that anybody who dies in Maghar becomes a donkey. At least about Kabir that cannot be said.”Kabir died in Maghar. He changed it; now nobody says that if you die in Maghar you will become a donkey. On the contrary, many people who love Kabir live in Maghar; Maghar has become a holy place for the followers of Kabir.It happened that Meera, another woman mystic, had come to Varanasi just on a pilgrimage. And Varanasi has the highest council of Hindu scholars, the so-called wise, and the saints. There was trouble because many of those people wanted Kabir to be invited to their annual conference but Kabir was a weaver; not only that, it was suspicious whether he was a Hindu or a Mohammedan. His name was Mohammedan – Kabir in Arabic means Allah, another name of God. And he was found on the bank of the Ganges by a Hindu monk, Ramananda – left by his parents, a small child. And the story is very beautiful….It was dark, early morning, when Hindus take their bath before their worship of the sun. As Ramananda was coming down the steps, the small child took hold of his robe. Surprised – who is there? – he looked: a small child, not more than four years old, sitting on the steps. What to do with this child? There was nobody else around; the parents had abandoned the child there.Ramananda was a man of courage. He took the child, although all his disciples said to him, “You are taking an unnecessary risk. You will be denounced by the Hindus, by the same people who worship you. You are not supposed to do such things. Moreover, on the hand of the child is written in Arabic “Kabir,” his name, which is an absolute proof that he is a Mohammedan. And a Hindu monk is not supposed to have children, he has renounced life.”But Ramananda said, “I have not done anything in respect to gaining worshippers, followers. If they have come, they have come on their own. If they go, they go on their own. Nobody dictates to me what I am to do, because I have never dictated to anybody what he has to do.” So Kabir was brought up by Ramananda. Because of Ramananda people think he must be Hindu, and because of his name people think he must be Mohammedan.And now, because he has become known as the wisest man of his times, a few people wanted him to come to the holy conference of the Hindus. He was a weaver. There was great opposition. But they did not want any split in their council, so finally they came to the agreement that they would invite him.But when they went to invite Kabir he had a condition: “You have to invite Meera also, because she is staying with me. You can leave me out. In my place, invite Meera.”But that was even more difficult. She was a woman. Never was a woman invited into the wisest council of the Hindus. A woman is not accepted as pure; basically she is impure and unless by arduous disciplines she becomes born as a man, she will not be able to reach paradise. There is no direct way from the woman to paradise. She has to go via man. Now Kabir was making a condition which was even more difficult.They told him, “It has been very difficult for us even to invite you, and you are making an even more difficult condition.”He said, “I never change what I say. If Meera is not respected by you then you don’t understand anything, and I don’t want to mix with ignorant people.”Kabir’s followers told him, “It is a great opportunity. No weaver” – weavers are the lowest Hindu class – “has ever been accepted by the brahmins as wise. Don’t miss this opportunity.”And Kabir said, “I am wise or unwise on my own accord. I don’t depend on anybody else’s acceptance. But I am making this condition because for centuries Hindus have behaved with women with such ugliness that the time has come to change it.”Because of Kabir’s insistence, Meera was the only woman – for the first time – who entered the Hindu council of wise people. It was a very uneasy conference. One Mohammedan was there, one woman was there. The whole Hindu idea of their purity and their superiority was absolutely destroyed.Kabir continued to be a weaver his whole life. Even kings were his disciples and they asked him, “We feel ashamed that you go on continuously weaving in your old age and then you go to sell your cloth in the market. We can manage everything that you want. There is no need.”Kabir said, “That is not the question. I want the future humanity to remember that a weaver can be enlightened, and even with his enlightenment he can continue to weave. The ordinary profession of weaver is not a distraction from enlightenment; on the contrary, his weaving becomes his prayer. Whatever he does is his prayer; whatever he does is his meditation. Whatever he does is his expression of gratitude to existence. He is not just a burden on the earth, he is doing whatever he can do.“I cannot be a sculptor, I cannot be a great painter, but I can certainly say that nobody can weave the way I weave. I weave with each breath full of prayer and gratitude. And the cloth that I make is made not just to sell but to serve God, to serve existence in the way in which I can serve it the best.”The Hindu word for God is Ram. And Kabir used to address every customer who came to his shop by the same name, “Ram.” He would say, “Ram, I have been weaving for you. Take care, this is no ordinary cloth. Each fiber in it is vibrating with my gratitude, my love, my compassion, my prayer. Be respectful to it.”Sometimes it would happen…he would wait, late, when the market was closing. People would ask, “For whom are you waiting? The market is closing.”And he would say, “I am waiting for my Ram, who has not come, and for whom I have made the cloth.” A certain man had asked him and he might not have been available on that day, or might have thought that he would go on the next market day. But Kabir was waiting there.People would inform the man – “What are you doing? It is getting late and Kabir alone is sitting in the marketplace waiting for you because he says, ‘I cannot accept the fact that Ram would have forgotten or that Ram could have given me his word and go against it. I have to wait even if I have to wait for seven days.’” Because in India, in villages, the market day is only once a week, four times a month. “I will wait for seven days; perhaps he is in difficulty, perhaps he is sick. But I cannot move from this place. If he comes and finds that I am not here it will be sheer ingratitude on my part.”Now Gautam Buddha lived in a totally different way. Meera lived in a totally different way. Meera danced all over the country, and she reached Mathura, where stands the greatest Krishna temple. The priest of the temple was a fanatic celibate. I used to tell Professor Bhattacharya, “You are an incarnation of that fanatic, and unless you drop this fanaticism you are not going to be relaxed and relieved from the wheel of life. You will have to born again and again and again.”In the temple of Krishna, no woman was allowed. They could worship only from the outside. The priest had not seen a woman for thirty years – he never used to go outside, and inside the temple no woman was allowed. When he heard about Meera he was worried, because she would certainly come to the greatest temple of Krishna. He had put two guards at the gate: “Prevent that woman if she comes dancing here.”But when Meera came dancing, those guards completely forgot their purpose, why they were standing there. The dance was so beautiful and Meera was so beautiful, so radiant, that without anybody noticing she entered the door, dancing.The priest was in the middle of his worship. The plate that he was holding in his hand, a golden plate full of roseflowers…seeing Meera dancing and entering into the temple, the plate fell from his hands. He was very angry and he said to Meera, “It is against the rules of this temple – no woman can enter here!”And you will be surprised to know the answer of Meera, which stands out in the whole history of the mystics with a strange flavor, an aliveness. She said, “My God! I used to think that only Krishna was the man and everybody else is a woman, a lover to Krishna. Today I have found two men. You are also a man!” And the way she spoke to the priest, the priest trembled. Perhaps she was right.There are only two ways for the devotees to conceive of God. Either God is conceived, like the Sufis, as a woman – she is the beloved and the mystic is the lover – or God is conceived, like the Indian mystics, that they are women and God is the man. He is the lover and they are the beloveds.Meera said, “The thing has to be decided here now: either you have to declare yourself a man or you have to declare yourself also a woman.”Under the impact of Meera that poor priest had to accept, “I am also a woman.”Meera said, “Then from now onward the rule is changed. Only women can enter this temple. Those who think they are male, cannot enter.”If you look into the lives of these mystics, these enlightened people, you will not find any similarity. You will find only utter uniqueness. Sometimes they are so ordinary that you may not even recognize them. Sometimes they are so radiant that even those who are blind will see their light. But there is no general rule and there are no fixed characteristics. You don’t have to fulfill certain ideals.My own approach is to take away all ideals from you and to take away the very idea that enlightenment is going to happen to you in the future. Future does not exist! In fact the idea that it is going to happen in the future is simply to avoid the self respect that you can have only in the present.There have been teachers – they were not masters, they were as unconscious as you are. They were not aware of their own enlightenment. They were teaching morality, discipline, methods, how to become enlightened. But do you understand the inner logic? If you can become enlightened then there is every possibility you can also become again unenlightened. If there are methods to become enlightened there can be methods to make you unenlightened. This is a simple thing. If you can become sick, you can become healthy, and you can also become sick again.Enlightenment is not something that you have to attain, because that which is attained can be stolen. That which is attained can be robbed. That which is attained can be lost.I say unto you, you are enlightenment itself.I don’t want you to attain enlightenment, I want you to live it. From this very moment, whatever you do, do it in the way enlightenment is bound to do it.I love one statement of one of the most important people of the West, Alan Watts. He was a drunkard, but he was the man who introduced to the West the most essential parts of Zen and enlightenment. He wrote not as a scholar, but as a master. Before he was dying, he was still drinking and a disciple asked him, “Have you ever thought…if Buddha had seen you drinking alcohol, what do you think he would have thought about it?”Alan Watts said, “There is no problem. I always drink in an enlightened way.”The question is not what you do, the question is how you do it. Yes, I accept Alan Watts’ statement. There is a possibility of a man to drink alcohol in an enlightened way. Enlightenment should not have any limits. And it should not have a particular formula, a particular pattern that you have to follow.Enlightenment should be an individual experience – the most individual experience, incomparable and unique to everybody. Once this is understood, all the clouds that surround you with darkness start dispersing.Veet Vigyanam, I will go on repeating again and again, until it sinks into you, that you are enlightened. And you are not to do anything special for it; you have just to be as you are, totally relaxed, at ease with existence. Not going anywhere, no achievement, no goal. All goal-orientation is what is making people miserable.Disperse all the goals and you will start dancing this very moment – because you have so much energy involved in your process of achieving. Moving far away in your imagination, you don’t have time, you don’t have space, you don’t have energy to be here. If you can gather all your energy in this very moment, just the accumulation of that energy will become a dance in your heart. And that dance transforms everything, not your efforts.A Polack walks into the travel agent and books for a special sea cruise to Hawaii. The travel agent directs him to the next room to fill out some forms. Just as the Polack walks through the door, someone hits him over the head, throws him into the corner and mugs him.Later in the same day, an Italian enters the travel agency to book for the special Hawaiian sea cruise. As he is directed to the next room, he too gets hit over the head and mugged.When the two of them wake up, they find themselves floating in the middle of the ocean on a small raft. The Italian looks over at the Polack and says, “I wonder if they will fly us back?”“I doubt it,” replies the Polack. “They didn’t last year.”Father Murphy is chosen to do some missionary work for the Catholic church, and is sent to a remote part of the Arctic.After a few months, a bishop comes to visit.“How do you like it here,” asks the bishop, “among the ice and polar bears?”“Just fine,” says Father Murphy. “The Eskimos are very friendly people.”“And what about the weather?” asks the bishop.“Ah,” says the priest, “as long as I have my rosary and my whiskey, I don’t care a bit about the weather.”“I am glad to hear of it,” says the bishop. “Speaking of whiskey, how about a glass or two?”“Great idea!” says Father Murphy. “Rosary! Can you bring us the whiskey?”Hymie is a little drunk when he comes home. “Becky,” he calls to his wife in the bedroom, “start nagging, or else I won’t be able to find the bed!”Just enjoy your life.It is perfect as it is.The whole idea of perfectionism creates only neurosis, pathology and a derangement of the mind. I teach you the ordinary. I teach you the simple, I teach you the natural, I teach you that you are where you have been trying to reach, exactly at home. Don’t waste your time running here and there.But you have been told always to become something, someone – that’s why every religion is against me, all the moralists are against me. I can understand, because if I am right then all the traditions and all the teachings that have been driving humanity toward some faraway goal are proven absolutely criminal. Because they have taken away people’s chance to live, chance to love, chance to sing, chance to dance. And in the ultimate sense, the very opportunity to feel the divine in the herenow. Unless you can feel the divine in the mundane, you are not an intelligent person. If you cannot manage in your small things an expression of gratitude, joy, awareness, then you are bound to remain miserable – not only in this life but perhaps for many lives.I can’t see much opportunity for you to find a man like me again. You will meet all those religious teachers, missionaries…try to find one and you will find a thousand. But I am absolutely respectful to your ordinariness. My reverence for the mundane is absolute; I don’t want to improve on anything. For centuries people have been improving and improving and improving, and nothing is improved.Just give me a chance. Stop improving.And you will be surprised to know that the energy that was involved in improving becomes your dance, your celebration.

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 18 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,As you glide into Buddha Hall, slowly turning toward where I sit waiting for your gaze to touch me, a strange overwhelming fear grips me. I say to myself, “Darshan, after all these years of being with him, why this fear?” Then as your eyes caress me, the fear melts immediately, I melt and something lovely starts dancing within me.Beloved Osho, please speak a little about this crazy partnership of fear and love that takes me so completely by surprise again and again.Deva Darshan, your question is much more comprehensive and complex than you may have realized. Man is an organic unity. And the moment I say an organic unity, I mean you are love, you are fear, you are anger…the whole panorama, all the colors of the rainbow.But it is very rarely realized, because our minds try to dissect things, divide things, arrange things. They are very clever and intelligent in a way, as far as parts are concerned. The moment the whole arises in your view, the mind freaks out. It cannot understand that even in fear, all the rainbows of your being are involved.To explain a simple fact, in the schools they use a device. They make a fan with seven wings of all seven different colors. When the fan is not moving you can see what is red and what is blue and what is green. Just two colors you will not find in those seven colors: the black and the white, because they are not really colors. It is just from long usage that we have grown accustomed to calling the white and black also colors.Then they plug the fan into the electricity, and the wings start moving as fast as possible. A strange phenomenon – you can see that all those different colors disappear. There remains only white.When you see the white color, it means all the rays that create colors are being reflected back, so you cannot find any color. White is an absence of all colors. Black is just the opposite of white; the black absorbs all the rays of color, not allowing a single ray to go back. Hence you cannot see the color because your eyes can only see reflected rays.The black became – strangely enough, even before it was discovered by science – the symbol of greed, the symbol of the devil, the symbol of all that has to be avoided. And the white became a symbol, around the world, representing renunciation – because it rejects all the rays. It has also become the symbol of compassion, because it is no longer greed but only sharing. It does not take anything in, but only gives you back everything. White also became the symbol of innocence.Perhaps poets became aware of it centuries ahead of the scientific research. It has been happening all the time, although nobody gives the credit to the poets because by their own contemporaries they were thought crazy. They could not produce any scientific argument for what they were saying. But centuries afterward, science was amazed: without using any instruments, without any scientific facilities, how did these people come to certain conclusions? It is very mystifying….I have told you about Van Gogh that he always painted his stars as spirals. No other painter in the world has made stars as spirals; naturally even the painters, his own colleagues, told him, “You are not aware of the fact that stars are not spirals.”But Van Gogh said, “What can I do? My innermost intuition is that they are, and I believe more in my intuition than in my physical eyes.” A hundred years after Van Gogh, just recently, it has been found by science that he was right and everybody else was wrong. Stars only appear not to be spirals because of the distance. And the distance is vast. But now with more accurate instruments, they can see that the stars are spirals.A strange question arises: How did Van Gogh, a man who was not only thought to be crazy but was forced to live in a madhouse…? And his best paintings are those which he painted in the insane asylum. Seeing that he was a harmless fellow…it doesn’t matter if he paints things which are not according to the common-sense view of things. It harms nobody. You need not agree with him, but to force him to live in a madhouse is going a little too far. He was released from the madhouse – he was only thirty-three – and he committed suicide.His suicide stands as an indictment of the common humanity and their stubborn insistence that every individual should agree with their conceptions. He wrote a small letter to his brother before committing suicide, saying, “I am not committing suicide out of any depression, I am simply committing suicide because perhaps the society in which I can live as a sane man is yet to come.”Your question makes it clear that in your mind you go on dividing things into categories: this is love, this is fear, this is anger….Just for a change, don’t divide.Whatever arises in you is part of your total individuality.The division has come into existence because parts of you have been condemned and parts of you have been praised. Naturally, the condemned parts should be repressed – at least should not be allowed to surface – and only the appreciated, the valued, the respectable parts of your being should become your personality. This has created such a split in you that with this split you can neither love nor can you sing nor can you dance. For all that celebration, your whole being is needed.Let me tell you the truth, with absolute frankness – because it has not been told to you even by courageous people like Gautam Buddha or Jesus Christ, or even Socrates, Pythagoras, Chuang Tzu. They all went a little beyond the crowd, but not far away. They always remained on the boundary line – any moment they could slip back into the crowd.The most difficult problem is not that your fear is against your love – your fear is simply an indication that love is going to absorb you and your ego starts trembling. What you are calling fear is not the authentic fear but just a phony American fear. The ego is afraid that again you will fall into an unknown space. Naturally, the mind asks, “Are you aware that you are moving into the unknown? Is it possible for you to find the way back to your own identity?”Love dissolves identity.In love, I am not and you are not; only love is.Love does not happen between two persons. Between two persons what happens is only fight, in different names. It may be in the name of love, it may be in the name of something beautiful, but as long as two persons cling to their identities, to their personalities which they have cultivated their whole lives…Naturally, there is great investment.Love comes like a wild breeze and takes away all your cultivated identity. You are left just a pure silence, a serenity. You cannot even say that “I am.” Even that will be a disturbance.There is tremendous isness, but there is no identity left.I will read your question:“As you glide into Buddha Hall, slowly turning toward where I sit, waiting for your gaze to touch me, a strange overwhelming fear grips me…” On the one hand, your innermost core is waiting for the taste of not being, for the immense joy of merging, melting, dissolving into the whole. But your personality is there, which immediately creates a fear, an unknown fear.You have to understand that this fear is natural, because you have not been left innocent and natural by your society and culture. They have substituted a personality around you. Your whole religion, your whole education, your whole upbringing is involved in a single effort: to create a personality around you. That personality starts trembling and becoming afraid.It is this personality which is destroying people’s love. Everybody says he loves – husbands say they love their wives, wives say the same thing. Parents say they love their children and force their children also to say that they love their parents. The teachers say they love their students. In every nook and corner of your world…If this were true, that everybody is loved in so many ways by so many people, this world would have been a totally different world. It would not have been a world always preparing for war, it would not have been a world divided into nations….To divide the earth into nations is to take away freedom of movement. We ordinarily think we are free, but this idea of being free is created because the jail is so big. Your whole nation is your imprisonment. Just try to get out of the boundaries and suddenly you will realize the freedom was fake. You have been deceived. Even birds are more free, because they don’t have to carry their passports; more free because they can go thousands of miles, the whole sky is theirs. But unfortunately the whole world is not ours. The structure, the way a personality is created, needs all these discriminations.The American has his own pride, the Indian has his own pride. The Indian does not think that anybody else in the world is spiritual; only they have the monopoly on being spiritual. And as far as I know, I have rarely come across an Indian who can be said to be spiritual. They are the most materialistic people in the world. But the personality not only deceives others, it finally deceives you too.The Americans think they are the richest people in the world. But I created a simple joke with ninety-three Rolls Royces and all their pride was gone. Even the president became jealous, the governors became jealous, the bishops became jealous. The bishop of Wasco County, every Sunday, may have forgotten Jesus Christ completely but he could not forget ninety-three Rolls Royces. He would bring up some way to condemn them. And you will be surprised that when I was bailed out of jail, he wrote a letter to me. He asked, “Now you will be going back to your own land – what about donating at least one Rolls Royce to my church? It will be a great act of charity.”Now you can see the mind…. I was teaching meditation to thousands of people; America was not interested in it. Thousands of people were coming to the commune; America was not interested in it. Each festival, there were twenty thousand people coming from all over the world; America was not interested in it. The whole of the news media were continuously talking about ninety-three Rolls Royces.I used to think, perhaps in a poor country this could be expected…but I destroyed the pride of America! I don’t need ninety-three Rolls Royces. It was a practical joke, and not even a single so-called intellectual of America could realize the fact that I cannot use ninety-three Rolls Royces simultaneously. And all were of the same model, the latest model; there was no difference between one car and another. Even the president of the Rolls Royce company came to visit, because this was the first time that in a single individual’s garage, there were ninety-three Rolls Royces. But I never went to that garage.The director of the garage, Avesh, is here. I was telling him, “Soon I will be coming.” He wanted me to see – he had made such a beautiful garage, and even the president of Rolls Royce appreciated it and said, “Your cars look in far better condition than our newest cars in our garages.” Naturally, Avesh wanted me to come some day. And the garage was not far away, it was in the campus of my own house. I used to pass by the garage every day, but I never went in.People have been cultivating all kinds of discriminations: the white man thinks he has something more special than the black man, that he carries the burden of the whole earth. But the black man does not agree about it. He has his own ideas.Marco Polo went to China in his world travels and in his diary he noted that, “I have always suspected that there is some truth in the theory that man is born out of the monkeys. Seeing the Chinese, I am convinced.” But you should also remember, when the Chinese emperor gave an audience to Marco Polo, he could not believe that he was a human being. In his biography, it is stated that he thought that there must be subspecies of human beings around the world – of course the Chinese is the highest expression. The same kind of stupidity….Religions give you the idea that you have the truest religion in the world. But the basic mechanism you are not aware of: all these things are created to nourish your ego and re-place you from your center, which is your authenticity, to a false center which is just an artifact created by all kinds of methods.Love is a danger to the personality. The personality starts trembling. But the difficulty is, your innermost being is waiting for it. It is imprisoned and it is waiting for a fresh breeze from the outside, fragrant. Perhaps it may bring a few songs of the birds, a few rays of the sun. So you are in a duality: the personality is afraid but your reality is absolutely inviting, waiting, watching for the moment when it happens.You have to be very decisive to renounce your personality completely. It is your falseness. Being a Hindu, being a Mohammedan, being a Christian – drop all that nonsense.Just be a pure consciousness. That is your nature. And then there will not be any conflict.You are saying, “I say to myself, Darshan, after all these years of being with him, why this fear?” You can be with me for lives – that is not going to change the fear. But a single instant of understanding, just like a flash of lightning, that you are carrying a load of false ideas about yourself, and the transformation will come.It is a complex thing. Sometimes it happens to people who are very new. And sometimes it becomes more difficult the more you are with me, because the more you start taking me for granted, it becomes an everyday experience. You know: the fear will come, the love will come, and it has become a routine. You will have to get out of this trap.And when I say you have to get out of this trap, I don’t mean you have to make any effort. Because what has to be dropped is false; it has no roots in you. You can do it in a single moment of awareness.I am giving you these moments of silence for a single purpose. I don’t have a teaching, I have only strategies for transformation. I speak to you not to convey anything in particular, I speak to you so that I can give you a few gaps of silence.Listening to me, there are two possible ways: the way of the scholar – he will listen to my words – and the way of the seeker, who will listen to my silences.My silences are my communion with you.My words are only to divide small pieces of silences for you. One word is being used only so that before I utter another word, you can feel a silence sweeping over you. Nobody has used language in this way. Language is just creating possibilities for silence. Alone, your chattering mind does not allow you to be silent. But with me, I am chattering and you are freed at least for a few moments because in those moments you are waiting for what I am going to say. Naturally, a waiting gives you an experience of silence.As you become more and more aware of the false in you and the real in you, there is no need to make any effort to drop the false. Just being aware that “this is false,” the false disappears. But there are stupidities which go on and on….Just the other day, Anando brought me a news clipping. Perhaps England is the most ghost-haunted country in the world. It is easy to conceive that in a primitive society, a house is haunted by ghosts. But in England, a ship was found to be haunted, and the ghost was creating continuous trouble. Something was going wrong again and again in the ship, and the people who worked on the ship finally became afraid, because it was not natural. They abandoned the ship; they said their lives were in danger.The vicar was called to investigate whether the ship was haunted. And do you think it is the twentieth century? The vicar came and he found that it was haunted, but the ghost was not of a man but of a fish. And there was no need to be worried – he did some ritual with the crucifix and baptized that ship into Christianity.And the most amazing part is that since then, nothing wrong has been happening. The ship is going perfectly well. Naturally, anybody will conclude logically that whatever the vicar did has helped: the ghost has left the ship. But the reality is that the idea of the ghost was disturbing people. Because they are all believers in Christianity and Jesus Christ, immediately, when they saw that the vicar had done the whole ritual and now their ship was protected with Christianity, by Jesus Christ himself, there was no fear.Because of false things, religion has existed in the world.Religion is almost like homeopathy. If you are a hypochondriac – finding this sickness, that sickness – then allopathy cannot help you. On the contrary, it may disturb you because if the disease itself is false, you don’t need a real medicine for it. The real medicine will create its own effects in your body which are going to be disturbing. If there were a real disease it would have destroyed the disease. It is because of false sicknesses that things like naturopathy, homeopathy, continue to exist.And in a recent survey it was found that seventy percent of sicknesses are just mind fictions. So all these homeopathic sugar pills, if you believe in them…the question is belief. Homeopathy cannot help me, but homeopathy can help you if you believe in it. Then that false pill, which has no effect, will cure you.Your personality is a false disease.It does not need actual methods to destroy it; all that it needs is the awareness that it is false. It is enough – to know the false is to finish the false. And the moment the false is gone, the real asserts itself without any effort on your part.So when I say to you, “You are enlightened,” I simply mean that you are believing you are not enlightened and that is creating the trouble. That is giving you a false idea of an unenlightened sinner, an ordinary person. And all the religions have been exploiting you on that point.If you drop the idea of unenlightenment and you simply accept your natural being….Relish it, sing it, dance it. You will be surprised that this is what you have been seeking all your life. And it was prevented because of your seeking.Jesus says, “Seek and the doors shall be opened for you.” I say to you, “The doors are always open. There is no need to seek, simply enter.” Jesus says, “Ask and the answer will be given to you.” And I say to you, “You are the answer. Don’t ask; otherwise you will get thousands of answers and you will forget the answer that you are.”Jesus says, “Seek and ye shall find it.” And I say to you, “Seek and you will never find it. Why start with seeking? Why not start with finding? Find it and there is no need to seek!”But all the religions, all the priests…and the greatest exploitation and slavery of man has existed with the small idea that you have to seek, that you have to go somewhere else, that you have to be somebody else. They have distracted every human being from his natural self.Insist, because unless you insist, the crowd is going to push you here and there. Insist that you are what you are, and you are absolutely happy to enjoy yourself. You are not going to waste time in seeking, searching, and reaching your grave. I want to make your this very moment the explosion.Darshan, you are saying, “Then as your eyes caress me, the fear melts immediately. I melt and something lovely starts dancing within me.” If you have been experiencing it, then why not drop that fear? Because you know already that it melts and you enjoy that melting. Then why go on nourishing the fear again and again? Then it becomes a vicious circle.Jump out of the circle.Tomorrow when I come in, you start enjoying even before I have entered the hall. Why should you wait for me? And why create unnecessary diseases, fear – fear of what? What have you got to lose?There is a Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin. He is traveling in a train and the ticket checker comes, and he looks into all his pockets – except the pocket on his coat on the left side. He opens all his luggage, looks into every suitcase, perspiring that the ticket is lost. And it is an obvious fact – all the other passengers are waiting – the ticket checker says, “You have looked everywhere. Why are you not looking in your left coat pocket? Because I see that is the only place you have not looked.”Mulla said, “Don’t mention it.”The ticket checker said, “What do you mean?” He said, “That is my only hope, that perhaps the ticket may be there. I cannot look into it.”You are searching, you are seeking, you are opening all kinds of luggage. Why don’t you look into yourself? That is the only hope. You don’t want to destroy even that hope. And I say to you, it is not just a hope, it is a reality.The ticket is there.Now a few moments for prayer….An Englishman, an American and a Polack go on safari to Africa together. On the first day, they decide to hunt alone and go off in different directions. That night they meet again back at the camp and exchange hunting stories.“I had a great day,” says the Englishman. “I shot a lion, two elephants and a hippo.”“That’s nothing,” says the American. “I shot two lions, three rhinos and a giraffe.”“I did better than both of you,” says the Polack. “I shot seventy-five no-nos.”The two other men look at each other and then ask the Polack what a no-no looks like.“Well,” says the Polack, “they walk on two legs, have black skin and curly hair and when you point a gun at them, they shout No-no! No-no!”Hamish and Maggie MacTavish are queuing for a movie called “The Miracle.” The girl selling the tickets tells Hamish that there are no cheap seats left anymore, only a few of the ones costing six dollars each. Hamish hesitates and consults with Maggie and at length produces two five dollar bills and a handful of loose change. Hymie Goldberg steps out from the queue and says to Becky, “We can go home now, I have just seen the miracle!”One night, after their owner is asleep, the parts of the body are arguing about which has the toughest job. “I’ve really got it rough,” moan the feet. “He puts me in these smelly sneakers, makes me jog until I have blisters…it’s awful!”“You’ve got no reason to complain,” says the stomach. “Just last night, I got nothing but beer, spaghetti and aspirin. It’s a miracle I kept it together.”“Ah, quit bitching, you two,” moans the prick. “Every night, he sticks me up a dark tunnel and makes me do push-ups until I throw up!”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 19 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,There is nothing I need to know – I just love the sound of your voice. Please comment.Deva Pagalo, it is not a coincidence that I have given you a name which means “the madman.” It is a very rare and unique situation to be meditative and to be mad. There have been millions of mad people but their madness is a sickness, their madness means they have fallen below the mind and they have to be brought back at least to the normal state of mind. That’s the whole profession of the psychoanalyst, the psychiatrist, the therapist.But there have also been a very few mad people who have not fallen below mind but who have gone beyond mind. As far as mind is concerned, both are out of the mind. Both are mad, but the man who has gone beyond the mind has come to a state which is the ultimate blessing in this existence.When I gave you the name Deva Pagalo I had seen the possibility in your eyes that you can be one day a madman of the highest quality, a divine madman. It is not sickness, it is the ultimate in health.What you are saying actually needs to be understood by everyone. You are saying, “There is nothing I need to know.”Certainly, there is nothing that one needs to know. In a deeper sense, there is no one who can have the need to know. You are an utter emptiness, silence, serenity.This silence is not ignorance; hence the need for knowledge is not there at all.Knowledge is needed by ignorant people – this is so simple – and the more ignorant they are, the more knowledge they need. It creates a vicious circle. The more knowledgeable they become, the more they become aware of their ignorance. As they advance in knowledge they become aware of a tremendous space which has not been traveled yet, and a vast possibility of knowing more. It is unlimited, they will never come to a point where they can say, “Now I have known all.”These are the scholars, the pundits, the rabbis. These people have dominated humanity simply because they have more information than you have. They have made a tremendous treasure of their information. For centuries, they have been defending the citadel of knowledge and not allowing everybody to enter into their realm.For example in this country, brahmins for ten thousand years have not allowed one fourth of the population of the country to read or to learn writing. It was the greatest crime for these simple, innocent people even to hear a few words of the Hindu Vedas, which are the Hindu Encyclopedia Britannica. It hurts and it makes me utterly sad to say to you that even a man like Rama, who is being worshipped by the Hindus as an incarnation of God, punished a young poor sudra because the brahmins reported that while they were reading the Vedas he was hiding behind the trees and trying to listen.In the first place, even if he was trying to listen he could not have understood, because brahmins never allowed their language, Sanskrit, to become the language of the people. It has remained a language monopolized by the brahmins, by the learned, by the scholars. Even though he could not understand, Rama punished that young man by pouring melted, burning hot lead into both his ears. The young man was killed. And nobody has even objected against Rama, that even this single act is enough to prove that he is a murderer – and murderer of a man who has not committed any crime.But instead of being condemned as a murderer, he is worshipped as God – of course by the brahmins, and when the brahmins worship him as God, everybody else follows. And this is the case not only in this country; in every country of the world, all kinds of information has been monopolized.Lord Acton was right when he said that power is the reason why people have tried to monopolize knowledge. Because knowledge is power. Perhaps it was not such a great power in the past, but today science has become the greatest power. And the word ‘science’ simply means knowledge.Only a man of silence, innocence, has no need for knowledge. He is not sick; hence he does not need any medicine to cure him.To go beyond mind is to go beyond all pathology that mind creates. To be in the mind, you can be either normally mad or abnormally mad. If you are abnormally mad, you will be in the minority. The normally mad, who are the majority, will bring you back into their fold. It is strange to say, but it has to be said that all the branches of psychology are in the service of the normally mad. Their function is only to bring the abnormally mad back into the normal fold.But there is a totally different kind of madness which is not of the mind; hence no psychiatry, no psychoanalysis is needed – neither can it disturb it. Meditation takes you beyond your mind into a deep innocence which has no need to know, which is absolutely blissful as it is.Your saying, “There is nothing I need to know,” makes me immensely happy. Don’t fall from this state. The mind will try to pull you back by creating new questions, new queries – persuading you, seducing you to explore new areas. Be very alert. And be on guard, because there is no treasure which is more valuable than innocence. That needs no knowledge.In other words, this is your second childhood. You are born again. Your eyes are no longer filled with the dust of knowing. But this not-knowing is a tremendous perceptivity, a great clarity. It does not need to know, because it feels, and feeling is a higher state than knowing. As the clarity becomes more and more transparent, instead of feeling it becomes your being.The moment your very being is nothing but a simple, silent clarity, perceptivity, you don’t need even to feel. Let me say, the man who knows is a scholar; the man who feels is a poet, a painter, a dancer. But the man who simply is, is a mystic. He has entered into the mystery of existence – not as separate from it…but as a dewdrop slips from the lotus leaf into the ocean, he has also slipped into the oceanic that surrounds you.Now, in a sense you are no more, and in another sense you are the whole ocean. There is no knower and there is no question to know.Your second statement is also important to be understood. You are saying, “I just love the sound of your voice.” I really want you not to take my words the way they are being ordinarily taken and understood – as meaningful, as imparting some information to you. I am not teaching you anything. I don’t have any message. I am not converting you.I am simply singing my own song. The meaning is not in the words, the meaning is in the silences between the words.So many times people have wondered, how can I go on speaking four hours a day? And I have stopped reading for fifteen years. I don’t know what my next sentence is going to be and I don’t know why I am going to say it. Because I am not speaking out of knowledge, I can go on speaking for eternity. Knowledge is very small.The man of knowledge is really repeating something which he has accumulated in his memory. He is behaving like a computer. I am speaking because I simply enjoy to see the moments of silence when you are waiting and I don’t know what I am going to say. It is a miracle that somehow sentences make themselves, somehow the whole appears to have some interconnection, but I am not making any effort.Even if people find contradictions, it is perfectly good, because only a very ordinary knowledgeable person is concerned about consistency. A man who is speaking, using speech as a means to convey not meaning but poetry, not meaning but some significance, not meaning but some fragrance, not message but presence….I have nothing to say to you, but I have much to share with you. Speaking to you is just an arbitrary method to be with you and to allow my heart and your hearts to dance in the same rhythm, on the same wavelength. The moment your heart starts dancing in the same rhythm, I have reached you. Without converting you, I have transformed you; without even touching you, I have brought a new light and a new joy into your being.I have sown the seeds which, in the right time, are going to blossom into beautiful madness.If I can create as many people as possible who can dance madly, laugh madly, sing madly, who can make every moment of their life just a celebration, I have introduced you to the authentic religion for which man has been searching for centuries but has not been able to find. I have found it and I want you also to be partners in this immense finding:Religion without words, religion without creeds, religion without fictions of God, heaven and hell.A religion without sins and virtues, a religion with no condemnation, no appreciation.A simple religion that transforms each moment into a glory, into a gratitude, into a prayer.I have not said anything to you, although I have been speaking for thirty-five years continuously. And as long as I live – or even a few minutes afterward – I am going to speak. If I see the moment when there is still an opportunity for someone to be involved in the universal madness, I can even speak after my death, it doesn’t matter. Death can wait a few moments. I have been keeping it waiting for thirty-five years, so there is no problem. A few minutes more….As far as I understand, thirty-five years is such a long time that death itself may have forgotten. It has to take care of so many people – a file that has been hidden behind thirty-five years…it will take too much time for death itself to discover.One thing is certain: whether I live or I die, my every gesture, my every word has a single purpose – to help you get rid of knowledge, to help you to become again a small child with eyes of wonder and a heart which cannot believe! – wildflowers, clouds in the sky, the sun rising and all the colors that the rising sun spreads over the horizon! This amazement is the authentic religious element, and if you can keep this amazement fresh without being covered by any experience and dust, you have attained that which was your birthright – what I have called enlightenment.Solomon Finkelstein at his annual checkup is given a clean bill of health. “It must run in your family,” comments the doctor. “How old was your dad when he died?”“What makes you think that he is dead?” asks Sollie. “He is ninety and going strong.”“Aha, and how long did your grandfather, old man Finkelstein, live?”“What makes you think that he is dead, Doc?” replies Sollie. “He is a hundred and ten years old and getting married to a twenty-two year old next week.”“At his age?” exclaims the doctor. “Why does he want to get married to a twenty-two year old?”“Doc,” says Sollie, “what makes you think he wants to? He has to!”Grandma Schaeferstein is a feisty old bird. So when she gets admitted to the old people’s home, she is constantly in trouble. One morning, just for a laugh, she comes downstairs stark naked and, letting out a wild shriek, runs through the entire length of the dayroom before disappearing into the garden.Old man Finkelstein and old man Kravitz are watching TV at the time. And Fink turns to Kravitz and says, “Who was that Mendel, making all that noise?”“I don’t know,” replies Kravitz, “but whoever it was, her clothes need ironing.”And the last….One day Herman Horowitz goes into a pet shop and says, “I want a parrot. I don’t care what it looks like, as long as it talks.”“Okay, Sir,” says the assistant. “I have got just the bird for you. That blue and green one talks very well.”Herman likes it, but the assistant warns him that it does not have any feet. “No feet?” cries Herman. “Then how does he stay on his perch?”“Simple,” says the man. “You may have noticed, he is a male bird. He just wraps his prick around the perch and stays up that way.”So Herman takes the parrot home and has a very long talk with him. The next evening, when Herman gets home from work, the parrot says, “Thank God you are back, I have got something to tell you.”“What is it?” asks Herman.“Well,” begins the parrot, “when you went to work, a man came to the door and your wife let him in and they sat on the sofa together.”“What happened next?” cries Herman.“And then he opened her blouse and sucked her tits,” says the parrot.“And then what?” cries Herman.“I don’t know,” says the parrot, “I got an erection and fell off my perch.”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 20 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Can you please talk about the art of nourishing oneself with love?I feel so much love for you! Is this enough?Love is never enough. There are mysteries in existence which don’t have any limitation. Love is the closest experience to understanding all those mysteries – because as far as the mind is concerned, it imposes limits; it cannot accept anything that is unlimited.Just think of the whole universe. The mind can conceive of it as very vast, perhaps the boundaries of it are not available to us, but the mind finds it intrinsically impossible to conceive that there may be no boundaries at all, anywhere.The universe has no boundaries; life has no boundaries.And love is our closest experience of this unbounded, unlimited pure space, extending and extending and you never come to the point where it is written, “This is the end.”Because of this intrinsic incapacity of the mind, it always inquires, “Is it enough?” It wants it to be enough so that it can create a boundary around it. Anything that can be limited by the mind becomes an object. Love is not an object. You cannot put it on the scientist’s table to dissect it, to find out what basic elements it is made of.Because the scientist cannot make love objective, there are only two possibilities for him. If he is authentic and sincere, he will say, “I do not know love,” because his way of knowing is only objective and love cannot be reduced to an object. But if he is not a sincere scientific mind but a fanatic, then rather than accepting his own ignorance he will deny the existence of love itself. He will say it is all imagination, it is all emotion, it is all sentimentality; it is not even worth considering.There is not even a single treatise on love written by any scientist. But that is his general attitude about love, about life, about consciousness – anything that he cannot hold in his hand, he simply denies its very existence. You cannot ask a scientist, “Does beauty exist? Is there something like blissfulness? Is there a possibility of an inner ecstasy?” His answer is going to be consistently “No.” Basically, he denies the inner world of man.And the most hilarious part is that scientists fall in love, scientists feel hurt if insulted. If there is nobody inside, what does it matter whether somebody insults you, abuses you? And if love is not existential, then no scientist should dare to fall in love. But the scientist is not just a one-dimensional being; science is not his whole life, and cannot be.Life contains many dimensions. The most important is the fact, the interiority, of man. And the interiority of man is as infinite as the exterior universe.Love is part of the interiority of man; it has no limits. But there are misunderstandings which have to be clarified.Your question is, “Can you talk about the art of nourishing oneself with love?” There is no art because there is no need of any effort. Love is the nourishment. But humanity has been so confused by its leaders that one does not know the most inner realms of one’s own being. Love is nourishment in itself. The more you love, the more you will find untrodden spaces where love goes on and on spreading around you like an aura.But that kind of love has not been allowed by any culture. They have forced love into a very small tunnel: you can love your wife, your wife can love you; you can love your children, you can love your parents, you can love your friends. And they have made two things so deeply rooted in every human being. One is that love is something very limited – friends, family, children, husband, wife. And the second thing they have insisted is that there are many kinds of love. You love in one way when you love your husband or your wife; then you have to bring another kind of love when you love your children, and another kind of love when you love your elders, your family, your teachers, and then another kind of love for your friends.But the truth is, love cannot be categorized the way it has been categorized throughout the whole history of mankind. There were reasons for them to categorize it but their reasons are ugly and inhuman, because in this categorization they killed love.Either you can have a loving heart…it has nothing to do with who you are loving; the emphasis of existence is that you are loving. It has not to be directed toward a certain person, because that is accepting that if someone is not part of the direction in which you are forcing your love to move, you become indifferent to them; you become even unloving to them. There are possibilities that you may even become hateful to them.The reason why all the cultures have insisted on categorization is because they have been very much afraid of love, is because if there is existential love, then it does not know boundaries – then you cannot put Hindus against Mohammedans, then you cannot put Protestants against Catholics. Then you cannot draw a line saying that you cannot love this person because he is Jewish, Chinese. The leaders of the world wanted to divide the world, but to divide the world they have to do the basic division which is of love. Love is only for our people.And it has to be insisted so deeply in your unconscious that in wars, in riots, when you kill other people who don’t belong to your clan or to your country or your tribe, you don’t feel anything. It is simply the way things are. A German killing an Italian will not think, “I don’t have any personal enmity with him, and just as my wife will be waiting for me and my old mother may be praying for me and my children will be hoping that soon I will be back home, the person I am killing is in the same situation. He also has a wife, he also has old parents, he also has children, and they are waiting for him to come back. I don’t have any reason to kill him; neither has he any reason to kill me, except that some idiotic politicians are not satisfied with the power they have. They want more power. They want to be world conquerors.”Because of this lust for power, love has been completely destroyed. Both cannot exist together.I want it to be absolutely clear to you:Lust for power and the beauty of love cannot exist together.But religions would like you only to love people of your own religion – others are foreigners. Countries would like you to love only the people who live in that country. And you can see, there are divisions upon divisions.India became independent in 1947. I was very young, but I had kept my eyes clear and uncontaminated by the older generation. From my very childhood I have insisted on having my own insight, my own intelligence, and I don’t want to borrow any knowledge from anybody.My whole family was involved in the struggle for the freedom of the country. Everybody had been in jail. Although I was never in jail because of the liberation movement, I suffered as much as one can suffer, because all the earning males were forced into jails and the family was left without any source of earning.I asked my father, “Are you aware that once you are liberated from the British empire…and it is going to happen, because now Britain is burdened. They have exploited the land to the maximum; now the situation has reversed – they have to help the country to survive. It is better for them to escape from here and get rid of a burden which has become absolutely unnecessary.” They were not here to serve the people, they were here to exploit. And that’s exactly what happened.The revolution happened in 1942 without any effect. It was quashed completely within nine days, and with those nine days all hope of freedom disappeared. But suddenly, out of the blue, Britain decided in 1947 to make the country free.I told my father, “Don’t think that your freedom movement has succeeded. Between the freedom movement and the actual coming of freedom there is a five-year gap. This is not logical. You are being given freedom because now you have become a burden and a trouble, just your existence.”And I have come to know that researchers, looking into the whole history of the British Parliament and their decisions, found out that the British Prime Minister Attlee sent Mountbatten with the message: “Do it as quickly as possible.” He had given him a set time, that, “by 1948 we should get rid of this burden.”Mountbatten proved even more efficient. He managed it one year earlier. But I told my father, “You have been fighting, not knowing that once this country is free it will start having new fights, within itself.”Now Mohammedans have taken Pakistan – it was part and parcel of the freedom, because Mohammedans refused to live with the Hindus. They had lived together for almost fourteen hundred years and there was no problem. In my childhood I have participated in Mohammedan celebrations; Mohammedans were participating in Hindu marriages, Hindu celebrations. There was no question of fight, because everybody was fighting the British empire. Once the British empire was leaving, suddenly the Mohammedans and Hindus became alert – a new division. They declared that they could not live together because their religions are different. Mohammedans became adamant: “Either the British empire remains…we can risk freedom, but we cannot live with Hindus in an independent country because they are in the majority. They will rule, and Mohammedans don’t have any chance of ruling.”The situation became so ugly that there were only two alternatives. Either accept the slavery – which the British empire was not ready to continue – or to accept the division. The division was accepted; the country was divided into two parts. The Mohammedan part became Pakistan. But they were not aware, and neither were Indians aware that the Mohammedans got two parts – one part in the east, Punjab and Sindh, where they were in the majority, and another part far away, thousands of miles away in Bengal. Half of Bengal was Mohammedan.So Pakistan became a strange country, and immediately…both parts were Mohammedan but Bengalis saw that they were being dominated by the Punjabi Mohammedans. The shift away from the division of religions was immediate; now it became a question of language. Bengali Mohammedans speak Bengali; the Punjabi speaks Punjabi. Now they forgot completely that they were together in the fight to gain Pakistan.Finally, the Bengalis separated from Pakistan and created a new country, Bangladesh. The distance was so great that it was impossible for Pakistan to keep control over it. But the same situation goes on happening every day.Forty years ago the constitution decided that Hindi should be the national language. But it has not been implemented because in India there are thirty languages. Taken as a whole the Hindi-speaking people are the majority, but if those twenty-nine languages are against it, then they are in the majority. Each single language is not capable of fighting against Hindi, but those twenty-nine languages together are a tremendous force. Now you cannot believe it – that they are all Hindus, and they have been killing other Hindus because they speak different languages! It is not a question that you can give all these thirty languages the status of a national language. Then suddenly you will find…for example Hindi is spoken in one way in one state, a slightly different way in another state. And there are five states – soon they will be fighting: “Our Hindi is the right Hindi and the others are only distortions.”Man has been trained to cut humanity into so many pieces on any excuse: religion, country, language, color. But the basic root is in teaching human beings that love is a limited phenomenon, and secondly, that love has varieties.I am trying to say to you that love has no varieties. It may have different expressions – certainly the love between husband and wife will have a different expression than the love between the couple and their children. It will have a different expression, but the expression does not change the quality. It is the same love.And its center is not the other – that’s how we have been told, that the center of love is the other: you love somebody. The emphasis has to be completely changed. It is not a question of loving somebody, it is a question of being a loving human being. Love should not have an address; it should be simply a radiation of your being. Whoever comes in contact with you will find the immensely nourishing energy of love.You are saying, “I feel so much love for you.” I would like you to feel the same love for the whole existence – for the trees and for the birds and for the oceans and for the stars. Your love should not be confined. You can love me as much as you want, but that does not mean that I should become the only object of your love. Then it is not nourishing. On the contrary, it starts becoming a poisoning force.Love is a nourishing force if it spreads all around just the way the sun rises, and it showers its light, its rays, to all the trees without any discrimination. Not thinking that “this is just a poor marigold, just a little bit less will do. This is a beautiful rose, a little more. This is a lotus, shower as much as you can.” No, the sunlight showers over the whole planet without any discrimination.Your love should become subjective, not objective. It should become a radiation, from the center of your being to all directions. Then it is nourishing and then it has a certain quality which can only be called divine.Our so-called love only creates jealousy, only creates conflict, only creates two people living in intimate enmity, judging, looking, watching. Just look on the road and you can decide without asking anybody whether the couples who are walking together are husband and wives, or just boyfriends and girlfriends. I have never seen a husband and wife together smiling. What kind of love is this? Yes, they are both detecting each other…. The husband cannot look around if a beautiful woman passes by. Just looking at that beautiful woman can create so much harassment that it is not worth it.What kind of society have you created? Is it human? It is absolutely human that if a beautiful woman passes by, the husband should tell his wife, “Look, a beautiful woman!” Beauty should not be made a question of jealousy or comparison. You can say that the roseflower is beautiful and your husband or your wife will not object to it, because you can’t have any relationship with it.Just the other day I was listening to a song of one of the most beautiful singers of India. The meaning of the song is, “I was just passing by here and I thought just to say hello to you, although I know if my wife comes to know about it, this hello is going to be very dangerous. Because her insistence is, ‘You should not see anybody else except me. Your whole love is monopolized by me.’” And the singer says – his name is Jagjit Singh – “That is her insistence. But my hobby is that wherever there is beauty, I should at least be respectful to it.”We have created an idea of love as a possession. And all kinds of possessions ultimately turn into poisons. One should live a life non-possessive, available, open, respectful. There is so much beauty around you and so many different ways the beauty is expressing itself; to confine you is to destroy you.And remember: anyone who confines you, you are not going to be loving to that person. Husbands don’t love their wives, wives don’t love their husbands. How can a wife love a husband who has confined her infinite capacity of radiating love, who has forced her to accept that he is the only one that all her love should be directed to? This is insulting and this is against nature, against existence.But religions have been doing everything to destroy the individuality of man. It seems to be that without destroying man, they cannot exist. Either man can exist in his dignity or your so-called churches and popes and priests can exist, with great power.Just the other day…I could not believe it, but I have to believe because it is a fact. Anando brought me the news that the Catholic church has decided that there will not be any other kind of music in the churches than that which is absolutely devoted to the church. Even in weddings – and it has been going on for centuries; it is not something new. Even the classical music and the geniuses of the past are no longer allowed in the church. In a church wedding the music should be only what is approved by the church, and its function should be religious – no other music.Why are these people afraid of people becoming light, rejoicing, enjoying? They have a certain investment in your misery. The more miserable you are, the better, because only the miserable people go to the churches. Only the miserable people are in the bondage of the past. Only the miserable people are under the domination of the dead.A man who is alive can be alive only if he is allowed total expression of his individuality.Who are these people to decide? On what authority do these people go on deciding things for millions of people? A very strange strategy has been used. First they invented God, then they invented his son Jesus Christ, and now they have imposed themselves as his representatives. Only they have the direct line to God.A few months ago the Catholic church has prohibited that anybody should confess to God directly. He has to confess to the priest, everything through the right channel. Then the priest will inform Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ will persuade God the Father – “Let this poor man be freed from his sin.” But directly you cannot confess to God. And not a single Catholic in the whole world revolted against the idea.At least man should be given the freedom to be in direct relationship with existence.But the business point is clear: unless you confess to the priest, the priest cannot punish you. And what is the punishment? Five dollars, ten dollars…and I don’t understand how these dollars reach to Jesus Christ. And then he gives the bribe to God the Father: “Just forgive this man, he is a good man. Just look, he has sent ten dollars.” Those ten dollars disappear in the pocket of the priest. They have nothing to do with Jesus Christ or with God.I have heard that one rabbi and one bishop were very friendly. The friendship had arisen because both were golf lovers, and they decided that on the next Sunday they were going to the golf club.The rabbi waited and waited outside, but it was getting late so he entered the church. The bishop was in the confession booth – it is a small room, partitioned. On one side sits the bishop with a small window; on the other side stands the confessor. The strategy is that the confessor should not be made embarrassed; his face should not be seen, so that he can confess wholeheartedly because unless he confesses wholeheartedly he is not going to be contributing dollars wholeheartedly either.The rabbi entered the booth and said to the bishop, “We are going to be late.”The bishop said, “I am doing everything as quickly as possible, but there is still a queue.”The rabbi said, “I don’t know what this confession is, just let me see what you are doing. And then you can get ready while I function in your place, because nobody can see from the other side.”The bishop said, “It is very simple; you just watch.”One man came and he said, “I have committed a rape.”The bishop said, “Don’t be worried. Just contribute ten dollars to the charity box and I will pray for you.”The rabbi said, “It is very simple. Now you go and get ready.” He sat in the bishop’s chair. Another man came and he said, “I have committed two rapes this week.”The rabbi said, “My son, don’t be worried. Thirty dollars.”The man said, “Thirty dollars? Has the rate increased? Just in front of me, for one rape you asked ten dollars.”The rabbi said, “Don’t be worried. You just put thirty dollars in the box – ten dollars are in advance.”These are the people who have destroyed everything that is beautiful in man. But they are exploiting and they will cling to their exploitation to the very last. Otherwise, there is no reason for all these organized religions to exist.Each individual should have a direct contact with the universe, its beauty, its tremendous glory – which creates without any effort a gratitude, a prayer, perhaps a song, a dance. If we can remove all these organized religions from the world, organized nations from the world, and allow each individual his dignity and respect, there will be immense love, immense respect, immense understanding. We can change this ugly world which has been created by the past, into a beautiful garden where everyone can rise to his potential height, can shower his flowers and can release his fragrance.I stand for the individual.All organizations have proved criminal. There is no need of any organization either in the name of politics or in the name of religion or in any other name. And the world will be an ocean of love, an ocean of beauty.But this needs a tremendous courage to revolt and assert your individuality, whatever the consequences. It is long enough that we have been exploited, sucked, destroyed. And the end result is this miserable world – where once in a while perhaps you can smile, but even that smile does not come from your deepest core; where once in awhile you can love, but even that love is surrounded by all kinds of fears. Nothing in you has been left in freedom. And the people who have done this greatest crime are the people you worship. That makes it more difficult to take humanity out of their clutches.You have to learn to love yourself first, to respect yourself first. And then certainly it will give you tremendous nourishment and it will start spreading around you.Osho,Why does spontaneity create so much fear in me?Having no structure feels like a death. How can I turn this fear into a let-go, a welcome, a rejoicing?Perhaps you are not aware that you are again asking for another structure. I will read your question so that you can become conscious of what you are asking:“Why does spontaneity create so much fear in me?” It creates fear in everybody, because spontaneity means you are taking the responsibility for your act, whatever it may be. If you rely on the conditionings you have been given by your parents, by your teachers, professors, priests, leaders, and instead of being spontaneous just act out of your past conditioning, there is no fear. Because you know you are not alone; you know your action is approved.The fear arises when you find yourself alone and you are doing something which goes against the whole training. You know you are revolting; you are going against your parents, you are going against the whole heritage of humanity. The weight of the past is so big and huge, so Himalayan, and you seem to be such a small individual, afraid of going against it. You may be crushed.In my childhood I loved having hair as long as possible. My father had a shop and the house together, and I used to move in and out through his shop. He felt very embarrassed because people asked him, “Whose girl is this?” Such long hair in India is allowed only to the girls, and naturally he felt embarrassed and angry that I was creating every day some trouble. Finally he became so angry that he took his scissors, caught hold of me and cut my hair.I said, “You can cut my hair but remember, I am not going to leave it at that.”He said, “What do you mean?”I said, “You will see tomorrow.”And I went just on the other side of the road, where all the hair-cutting salons were. I had a friend, an old opium addict. I loved the man, because sometimes he would cut half somebody’s mustache and say, “Wait, I have to go somewhere.” And he would be gone for hours, and the man would be caught because he could not leave with the half mustache. Sometimes people would ask him for a shave and he would shave their heads. And by the time they became aware, he had already done some work – now there is no point in preventing him. And he was such a nice man; he would say, “There is no need to worry – if you don’t like it, don’t pay me anything.”I used to sit in his small salon discussing with him, because it was a joy. He used to come up with really original ideas. One day he told me, “If all the opium addicts of India are organized, we can take over the whole country.”I said, “The idea is very good.”He said, “But you will have to help, because these opium addicts don’t listen to anybody.”I said, “I will try to contact first all the opium addicts in this town. Let us create one small organization here. If it succeeds in taking over the municipal corporation…”So I went to him, because he was the only man who could have done this. In India a child’s head is completely shaved only if his father dies. So I told him, “I am tired of this long hair. You simply shave my head completely clean.”For a moment he hesitated. He said, “Your father will be very angry, I am telling you!”I said, “You don’t be worried. It is my responsibility. And you are the only man of guts; no other barber is going to cut my hair.”So he said okay. He finished all my hair and I entered my father’s shop. Looking at me, immediately his customers asked, “What happened to this poor boy? His father has died?”Now it was even more embarrassing for him to admit, “I am the father.”He came to me inside the house and he said, “This is too much.”I said, “I have warned you. Whenever I do anything I do it totally. From now onward if you interfere with me, remember, I can move to the other extreme.”People from the neighborhood started coming to inquire…and when they saw my father they said, “What is the matter? You are alive? And I have seen with my own eyes that your son is completely shaved.”From my school, my teachers, my headmaster, seeing that my father must have died were very sorry. They told me, “We are going to your house to express our sadness and our mourning. Your father was a good man.” I allowed them to go, and when they would see my father sitting there they were in such a strange situation – what to do? because it had never happened.And my father would ask, “Why have you come? There must be some reason.”They said, “There was…but your son is so strange that we were telling him, ‘He was a good man’ and he did not even tell us that you were still alive.” That was the last time he interfered with me. He knew perfectly well that it was going to be dangerous.Spontaneity means you are acting in the moment – not reacting, but acting. That is the difference between those two words. When you react it comes from your past accumulation of knowledge, experience. But when you respond, it is a pure act out of your present consciousness – not from memory. These are two different sources within you. Memory is comfortable, because everybody will appreciate that you are doing the right thing because they also have the same memory. But if you act on your own, then you are taking a risk. It may not fit. Most probably it is not going to fit with the structure which has been created around you. Hence, fear arises.But I would say to you, it is better to suffer fear rather than remain a slave of those who had no idea in what situations you are going to be. They have given you fixed ideas, answers to questions and they don’t know in what form the question is going to arise in your life.Five thousand years ago, they wrote Rig Veda, and Hindus are still following the structure. It is no longer relevant. But the same is the situation everywhere. Mohammed allowed Mohammedans to have four wives. It was perfectly right at that moment because in Arabia the proportion was exactly one man and four wives, because men were continuously being killed. They were continuously fighting; war was their life. They would rape the woman, but they would not kill her. That was not according to their culture, to kill a woman. So there were four times more women than men and naturally it was creating a very difficult situation. If three women remained unmarried, there was going to be great prostitution, corruption of all kinds. To avoid the situation, Mohammed suggested that every man marries four women. It was perfectly right in Saudi Arabia fourteen hundred years ago, but they are doing the same in India even today.Now India wants fewer people. It is already past the limit; it has never been so crowded in the whole of history. In 1947, when India became independent, the population was four hundred million, and just in forty years the population has gone to nine hundred million. By the end of this century it is going beyond one billion. For the first time India will have a greater population than China. But Mohammedans insist that it is their religion and the government cannot interfere with their religion.It is difficult, because in India the proportion of men and women is almost equal. They go on raping women who are not Mohammedans; and once a woman, whether raped or not, has been kept in a Mohammedan house – Hindus are following another tradition five thousand years old – she has fallen, she is no longer acceptable. Neither her parents will allow her into the house nor her own husband. She has to become a Mohammedan or commit suicide.And when Mohammedans go on marrying four women, naturally they produce four times more people than Hindus. Soon this country will have more Mohammedans than Hindus. Already, you will be surprised to know, India has the largest Mohammedan population in the whole world. There are Mohammedan countries – Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan – but no country has a greater Mohammedan population than India. And the reason is simple, because in those countries there are only Mohammedans and the proportion between men and women is equal. It is very difficult in a Mohammedan country to find four women. What will happen to the three other men whose wives you have taken? So it is only in India where they have a good pasture around to get more and more women and more and more children.To respond to the situation that is facing you needs intelligence, not memory; needs awareness, not your past heritage. So even though it creates fear, which is natural, decide to be spontaneous in spite of all the fears. Soon those fears will disappear.It is only a question of acting out of spontaneity more and more, and then you will see your individuality becoming more integrated, more solid, freer from all the chains that the past has put around you. The fear will disappear, but it will take a little time. If you listen to the fear you will never be able to gain your dignity as an individual.Even trees have their individuality. Every animal has his own individuality. It is simply shameful that man has lost his individuality. So in spite of all your fears, take the risk. Be courageous and act according to your own consciousness. And soon you will see that whenever you act spontaneously you are right, because you are answering the situation directly.But you are asking, “Having no structure feels like a death.” There is no harm. Die! Your life is not much more valuable. Rather than be a prisoner of all the dead, it is better to die spontaneously. At least you will have the dignity to say, “At one point I am at least free from the whole past and all the prisons of religion, nation, race, color.”Then you are asking, “How can I turn this fear into a let-go?” Do you understand? How means again filling your memory with a new structure. But no structure can be spontaneous. You cannot know what is going to happen the next moment. You cannot conceive of what tomorrow is going to bring to you. So whatever structure you make, whatever homework you do, is going to be irrelevant to the situation.I have never done any homework. In my schools, colleges, universities, I made it absolutely clear to all my teachers and professors, “Never ask for any homework from me.”And they said, “But this is so strange, nobody has ever said such a thing.”I said, “I don’t care whether anybody has said such a thing or not. One thing is certain: you can answer me, you can question me, you can do anything you want – I will be spontaneous, I will not be prepared.”Homework is preparation; you have already prepared everything. In my final examinations of post-graduation, the professors who loved me very much were so afraid, because I was not preparing anything for the examination. I was still reading whatever I wanted to read in the library. It had no concern with the examination. I was asking questions in the classes and one professor had to say to me, “Now only one month is left, and you should not bring such questions which have no relevance to your examination.”I said, “I am not here to be worried about an examination which is going to happen one month later. My concern is this moment, and this is my question.”One of my professors was so concerned that he gave me one of the questionnaires, telling me, “I have made this so that you can at least be ready for these five questions. They are going to be asked because I am the composer of the paper.”Without reading it, I threw it away and I said, “You should not insult me in this way. I want to live life unprepared. Whether I fail or succeed, it doesn’t matter.”He used to come to my hostel room just fifteen minutes before the examination was going to commence. Everybody had gone into the examination hall. He would pick me in his car and tell me, “Unless you enter the examination hall, I cannot feel at ease. I am always afraid you may be sleeping, you may be discussing things which have nothing to do with the examination, you may be reading things.” And he used to say to the superintendent of the examination, “Don’t let him out before three hours.”I used to answer those questions in one hour or one and a half hours. The superintendent would say, “I am sorry but I have promised your professor that I will not allow you to leave.”I said, “It is up to you. If you don’t allow me to go out…has he told you that I cannot even sleep here?”He said, “He has not said anything about sleep.”I said, “That’s okay. You take this paper; I am finished with it. And for one and a half hours let me rest.”When my professor came to know, he said, “It is very impossible to deal with you. I prevented you from going out but you managed to go out! And how can you answer those five questions in three hours? Others find that they have answered only four; somebody has answered only three.”I said, “They are prepared people. They have done so much preparation that they want to impress the examiner with how much they are informed. I am absolutely uninformed. Sometimes I simply write one sentence as an answer and sometimes I ask another question because I cannot agree that the question is right. But I am absolutely free. I have no preparation.”One professor had asked the question, “Can you define Indian philosophy?” And I simply answered him that “There is no such thing as Indian philosophy so the question of defining it does not arise. There is Western philosophy because the very word philosophy means a search for knowledge, a search for wisdom, a love for wisdom.” In India we don’t have any word which can be translated as philosophy….The Indian word is darshan and its approach is totally different. It means an inquiry to see the truth. Darshan means seeing. It is not a question of thinking. A blind man can think about the light and can be a great philosopher, can propose hypotheses about light. In India there has never existed anything like philosophy. What has existed is seeing. We want to see the light, we don’t want to philosophize about it.Just by coincidence that paper was sent to one very eccentric retired professor, Dr. Ranade of Allahabad. Basically he belonged to Pune. And he gave me ninety-nine percent out of one hundred, with a note to the vice-chancellor saying that “I always wanted somebody to answer spontaneously, and I always wanted somebody to answer as sharply as possible.” He had never given a first class to anybody else in his whole life. With him, even to pass was a difficult job. But he wrote the note and he also wrote, “What I am writing you should show to the student. I loved his answers and I loved the way he made me aware that Western philosophy is one thing and there is no equivalent in India for it.”He has written books on Indian philosophy and he said in his note, “I am too old now to change it, but your point is absolutely right. We don’t have anything similar to what has happened in the West.”It is because of this difference that Western philosophy has never come to meditation. It was always contemplation. And the Indian counterpart has never bothered about thinking, contemplation, concentration; its whole concern is meditation. In fact they are two such different directions that a single word cannot describe both.My professor was amazed. He said, “I was thinking you were going to fail, you were so unprepared.”I said, “Your whole idea is preparation and my whole idea is to be simply spontaneous.” I got the gold medal, topped the whole university, shocking everybody. And as I came out of the auditorium I threw that gold medal into the well. A professor was standing by my side. He said, “What are you doing?”I said, “I have nothing to do with gold, and I don’t want to be appreciated as topping the whole university. I would love it if somebody appreciated that spontaneity has its own beauty, freshness. Whether it fails or succeeds is irrelevant.”You should not ask, “How can I turn this fear into a let-go?” Because whatever I say to you will be your structure again.Just be simple.Whenever you find a situation, act!Put the fear aside and rejoice in the spontaneous response. It is only a question of a few times and you will find the fear has disappeared. Because the spontaneous response gives you such a joy, such an opening of the heart, such freshness…as if you have just taken a shower. But don’t ask for any strategy – “How to be spontaneous” – because how simply means a structure.Just be spontaneous. Don’t ask how.Try it. Without knowing, innocently, respond to a situation and you will learn out of it the great experience of let-go. And you will rejoice because you have attained your freedom from all kinds of fears.In my childhood I had a friend whose father was a magician. They had a very good business – the business was that they had a few snakes. Being continually in their house, slowly I learned that ninety-seven percent of snakes don’t have any poison. Only three percent of snakes have poison, and only one percent, the cobra, is very dangerous. Once the cobra bites you it is very difficult to save you. Death is almost certain. But the snakes all look alike.The father used to have non-poisonous snakes, and he would send his son – who was my friend, and I accompanied him many times – to somebody’s house. There we would leave two or three snakes around, and then the father would come with his special musical instrument that was used for snakes. He would announce, “If anybody has snakes in his house, I can catch them.” As he started playing on his instrument, the snakes that we had left around the house would start coming, and for that service the housekeeper had to pay. He would say, “It is very good of you – once in a while you should come back, because we were not aware that there were snakes in our garden.”Knowing that there are snakes which don’t have any poison, I would enter into my class with a snake in my pocket. I would just leave it on the table of the teacher, and he would stand on his chair and shout, “Save me!” The other students are running out…who is going to save him except me? And I would tell him, “I will save you, but remember that I have saved your life. You should not be nasty with me. Promise?” And with that snake sitting on his table, you could have taken any kind of promise.Finally it was reported to the principal that a strange thing was going on. But a principal is just the same as anybody else. When he called me, I went there with two snakes. And I left them on his table, and he stood on his chair, and everybody in the whole school was looking through the windows – what is happening? I said, “Now, do you have something to say to me?”He said, “No. Just don’t bring these things in my office!”I said, “I have not come on my own, you have called me. Now I cannot go without your promising me that you will not be nasty to me.”He said, “This is strange…but I promise, I will not be nasty to you.”I said, “That’s okay; then I can persuade the snakes.”People have lived with such fear. Fear always seems to be around them – anything can create fear. And if the man had been a little spontaneous, he could have seen that if I can manage those snakes, certainly there must be some trick and there is no need to be afraid. But the very word snake is enough to trigger all the fears, of centuries of humanity, that you are carrying within you.To my father it was reported, “Now your son is becoming more and more dangerous.” My father said, “I have promised him, just as you have promised, not to interfere. Otherwise he will start bringing those snakes in the house!”What are your fears? What can you lose? The only thing that you can lose is your life. And that does not belong to you, that belongs to the universe. One day you are going to lose it, so what does it matter? In a week there are only seven days. Either you will lose your life on Monday or on Tuesday…so it is only a question of seven days. But I have never thought for a single moment that I have anything to lose.I don’t have anything to lose.That has given me a tremendous freedom to act spontaneously, to act without any fear, to say whatever I want to say – to be against all the governments of the world, to be against all the religions of the world. And I don’t think that even a shadow of fear arises in my heart.On the contrary, the more I hit these idiots the more I rejoice, because according to me they are criminals. According to me they are the greatest calamities that have happened to humanity. There is nothing to fear from these people. There is nothing to be afraid of in the ghosts who are lying in their graves. But everybody is injected with fear from the very beginning, so that his whole blood becomes full of fear. This fearfulness helps all these criminals to dominate you, to destroy you, not to let you live your life of love and blissfulness.As far as my sannyasins are concerned, fear should not be at all a part of their being. The fear exists in the darker corners of your being – bring more light. Bring more consciousness, bring more awareness, and the fear will disappear.A lady health inspector, after checking the sanitary conditions in Boccala’s Bakery, summons the proprietor.“Listen,” she complains. “One of the bakers back there is throwing the dough against his bare chest to flatten it out for pizzas!”“That’s-a not-a so bad-a,” says Boccala. “You should-a be here yesterday when he make-a the doughnuts!”The newlywed Greek couple is in a deep embrace. While kissing and caressing her, he whispers, “My love, now I will put it where nobody else ever has!”In a frightened voice she cries, “No, no! In my ears? Never!”What is there to fear? There is everything to laugh and there is nothing to fear. Laughter has to be our sword to cut all these heads who have been torturing humanity for centuries.

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 21 (Read, Listen & Download)

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OshoIt is so good to be back again. Sitting in your discourse I find myself connecting with my inside to an extent that doesn't happen in the West. What is this alchemy?Your question can be answered only if you can understand the phenomenon of energy fields. Every place in the world has its own energy field, created by thousands of people who have lived there. The way they have lived, the way they have loved – they are gone, but they have left behind them a throbbing energy that continues to exist for centuries.And if it has been a continuous reinforcement of the energy, as it has been in the East…The whole genius of the East has been devoted to a single purpose: for thousands of years they have been trying to look inward – not one or two people, but millions and millions, generation after generation. It has created a certain vibe which is missing in the West.Here in the East, meditation is something that you can float in. The whole energy around you is just like a river; it is already going toward the ocean. You don’t have to swim, you have just to float. In the West you have to fight against the current, because for centuries the extrovert mind has created a totally different kind of energy, not just different but absolutely contrary to the East – the outgoing, the extrovert.If you are working as a scientist in the West you will find an invisible support from the whole atmosphere. In the East this happens only to those who are going on an inward journey; then the skies and the air and the trees, everything starts helping you. Not that they have any intention, but simply that for centuries this is how they have been pulled again and again – toward the inward center.There are beautiful stories, which may not be factual but I insist on saying that they are true. I want to make a clear-cut distinction between the fact and the truth: something may be factual and still may not be true. Your dreams are factual – when you kill somebody in a dream you really kill them – but they are not true. When you wake up you suddenly find it was just a dream. Just as something can be factual yet not true, the opposite has also to be understood: something may be true, absolutely true, but may not manifest as a fact. The fact is a lower phenomenon. I can explain it only in a way….On a full-moon night, sitting by the side of a silent lake, you can see the full moon in the lake. It is factual, but not true. And you might not look at the real moon which is far away in the sky; it might not become part of your factual knowledge, but its truth is indubitable.The beautiful stories that have surrounded people of inner growth create a problem for the historian, but not for the meditator, because the historian is concerned only with the factual. The mystic’s concern is far deeper, far higher. He is not interested in the factual, he is devoted absolutely to the truth.I would like to give you a few examples.It is said that whenever Gautam Buddha moved – and he was continuously moving, for eight months of the year except the four months of the rains. He might come to rest under a tree whose leaves had fallen, whose branches were standing naked against the sky – it would be the time of fall. But it is related that, seeing Buddha resting under the tree, it would seem very shameful to the tree that there is no foliage, no shade, no flowers rejoicing and welcoming a man who has reached to the ultimate peaks of consciousness. And in the morning when Gautam Buddha would wake up, all his disciples would see a miracle: the tree which had been absolutely without leaves, without flowers, has suddenly become so green, such beautiful foliage around it and hundreds of flowers. And just the evening before, they had seen it – the miracle has happened in the silences of the night, and the flowers are showering on Gautam Buddha.This incident is repeated so many times, in so many different sources, that it cannot be simply denied as symbolic, as poetic. As far as I am concerned I take it for granted to be a true and existential experience.Whenever I have read such things – and there are so many instances – I have always remembered the incident in Jesus Christ’s life, for which Christians cannot give any explanation. They try to hide it. But before you can understand the incident in Jesus’ life I have to give you some relevant information.Jesus came to India when he was fourteen, and he lived in India for almost fourteen years. Gautam Buddha was still in the air, he had lived just five hundred years before, and he left behind him hundreds of enlightened people. The air was so full of his fragrance that young Jesus must have been tremendously influenced by it. And the route Jesus followed for his traveling proves it: he went to Ladakh, which is where one of the oldest Buddhist monasteries is still functioning, and then to Tibet, which had become more in tune with Gautam Buddha than India itself.This attraction was pulling him into the very unknown and dangerous spaces of Ladakh, Tibet. The reason was that he wanted to know as much as possible about this strange man, Gautam Buddha, who had transformed the whole atmosphere in the East.He must have come across these stories that when Buddha passed by, trees blossomed even though it was not the season for them to blossom.Just one hundred and twenty years ago, one Russian traveler remained in Ladakh for six months, studying the old records. He has reported that those old records remember Jesus as a young man but of immense silence, beauty, and a great search, who had come to the monastery and lived there for three months. They described Jesus exactly: that he was coming from Judea, a faraway country; that it was very difficult for him to understand because of the language barrier, but he tried hard and accumulated as much honey as he could from every possible source which was still available. After Gautam Buddha, although five hundred years had passed, the air was still full of remembrance. The mountains had not forgotten. And there were hundreds of people who could have been called contemporaries of Gautam Buddha as far as their consciousness was concerned.I am telling you these facts because now Christian missionaries have removed all those records from Ladakh. There were records in Tibet which were destroyed by Christians in the time of the British empire. They tried to remove any possible evidence that Jesus had been in the East learning the art of inward-going. But in spite of all their efforts, there are intrinsic proofs. And now I come to the story in Jesus’ life:For three days he and his disciples had gone hungry, because the towns they were passing through were very fanatically Jewish and they would not give them shelter. On the contrary, they stoned them and threw them out of their towns. And Jesus came to a fig tree and he was very angry with the tree. He was not a man of anger, certainly. He was a man of immense love and peace. But this incident stands, on its own, without any explanation.In the first place it is absurd to be angry with a fig tree because they are hungry and the tree is not welcoming them with figs – and it is not the season for figs! It looks simply absurd and insane: Jesus cursed the tree. Now for Christians it is very difficult to explain what happened. A man like Jesus cursing a tree without any reason or rhyme, because it was not even the season. And even if it were the season, the tree has no obligation to anybody. You cannot expect that the tree should welcome you.From where did he get the idea? Because in the whole Jewish tradition there is not a single instance from where he could have got the idea. The only explanation is that he got the idea from the Buddhist stories in which trees are welcoming Gautam Buddha with flowers, with fruits. Even whole forests forget about the season, the climate; they become green, they rejoice in the enlightenment of Gautam Buddha. They rejoice in the company of Gautam Buddha and they show in their own language their joy, their appreciation, their blissfulness – because if even a single man recognizes his enlightenment a part of the universe becomes enlightened. Just because of a single man, the whole level of consciousness in the universe rises.This has been a recognized truth in the East. Without being in the East, Jesus could not have dared to expect the fig tree…But he forgot completely that the fig tree also needs a certain climate, a certain vibration and a certain tradition. Unless the fig tree knows that for thousands of years its ancestors have always welcomed the buddhas; that this vibration is enough for the tree: a provocation to dance and to express itself in all its beauty….Neither was the fig tree aware nor was Jesus an enlightened man. He had heard about enlightenment, he may have sat at the feet of enlightened people in the East, he may have created a desire in himself to become enlightened, but enlightenment and its language was so foreign to his own people in Judea. They had never heard the word, they had never heard that anybody becomes self-realized. They had lived a totally different kind of religious tradition – of prophets, saviors, messengers, claimers that they are coming from God and if you believe in them you will be saved.The whole Judeo-Christian tradition takes away the responsibility from every individual of becoming enlightened. And people unconsciously think that it is far easier to believe in someone and to be delivered from misery, from this dark night of the soul, rather than to take the responsibility in their own hands. But they are not aware: the moment you give the responsibility to somebody else, without your knowing you have also given your freedom. Responsibility and freedom are two aspects of the same coin. You cannot give one and save another.You cannot say, “The responsibility to save me is that of some prophet, and I am still free to be myself.” The moment you become a believer and you give your responsibility to Jesus Christ or Moses or Ezekiel you have already given your freedom too. Now it is no longer an urgency for you to realize your being, or even to bother about who you are. It all depends now on the prophet you believe in, it is his responsibility. You think that you have become free from responsibility but you have forgotten that you have also denied your freedom. With your responsibility gone you have reduced yourself to a slave.Jesus could not speak the language of the East. He had to speak the language of his own people. But here and there the influence of the East is clear. For example, the Jewish God in the Old Testament says: “I am not a nice fellow. I am a very jealous God, I am very violent, and whoever is going to disobey me is going to suffer indefinitely. Remember,” finally he says, “I am not your uncle.”When for the first time I came to the part where he says, “I’m not your uncle…” He is reminding you: “I am your father! And obedience is the only religion.”That’s the whole story of creation in Christianity and Judaism: man was thrown out of the Garden of Eden – not for committing any sin, not for murdering anybody, not for raping; he was thrown out of the garden of God because he disobeyed. That makes the thing absolutely clear: that the Judeo-Christian tradition believes basically that obedience is religion and disobedience is the greatest sin, the original sin.And it is strange to know what things Adam and Eve disobeyed. If you are impartial, not prejudiced, you can see a very strange scene: God says to Adam and Eve, “In this vast garden you can eat the fruits from any tree; just two trees are prohibited.”It is a parable, but immensely significant. It may not be factual but is certainly true. One is the tree of wisdom, which God is denying you. You can translate it: one is the tree of enlightenment that God is denying you, because enlightenment is nothing but wisdom. And the second tree is of eternal life. He is forbidding man to eat the fruits from these two trees.He has taken away everything that can make life an ecstasy. He has taken away your enlightenment and he has taken away your experience of the eternal. What else is left? He has taken your very dignity. He has destroyed your freedom. He has taken away even the urge to go inward, because those two trees grow inside you. The tree of wisdom and the tree of eternal life are not really two trees. It is one experience with two fragrances.Unfortunately, Jesus became acquainted with words which don’t fit the tradition from where he was coming. He went back when he was nearabout twenty-eight; it took two years for him to travel back to Judea. It is natural that he would have to speak the language that could be understood. For example, if he talked about nirvana, enlightenment, inner ecstasy, he would not have been understood. He had to translate it into a language that might have some meaning to the people he was talking to. He talked about the “Kingdom of God” and he tried his best to manage somehow to bring in the flavor that he had learned in the East.That’s why he is the first man in the West to say that “The kingdom of God is within you.” It is not in the Old Testament. Nobody had ever heard that the kingdom of God is within you. This was simply a very clever translation to say that you are the god. “The kingdom of God is within you” is a way of saying that looking outside is not the way of the seeker; you have to go inward.This created the whole trouble. The Jews could see that he was using words from their tradition but he was giving them some strange meanings. It was absolutely clear: the Jewish God says, “I am a jealous god, very angry god, I will not forgive you if you commit any sin.” And it is proved by the expulsion of Eve and Adam because they committed the sin of eating the fruit from the tree of wisdom.They were not quick enough to eat from the other tree too. They were caught red-handed on the first tree. That is the only sad part in it.And sometimes, if you are unprejudiced, you can see things which prejudiced minds are absolutely incapable to see. Eve is persuaded by the Devil to eat from the tree of wisdom. Eve is naturally afraid – God has prohibited it – but the reasoning that convinces Eve is very significant. The Devil said, “You don’t understand why. He has prohibited you from the two most significant experiences. He has prohibited you from wisdom, he has prohibited you from immortality, because he is very jealous. If you are also enlightened, and you are also immortal, you will become a god in your own right. And that is his jealousy. He wants to remain as the only god and does not want anybody else to attain to that position.”I am surprised that nobody has appreciated the Devil, because what he is saying is more significant – in comparison to God’s orders, which are fascist. God looks like any Adolf Hitler.I should remind you that the word devil and the word divine both come from the same Sanskrit root. Both mean the same. Perhaps the Devil is the first great revolutionary. His own fault was that he had revolted against God; otherwise he himself used to be an angel, but because he had the mind of a revolutionary he was thrown out of the company of God, condemned as evil. But the way he persuaded Eve makes me deeply respectful to the man. He is teaching exactly what all the enlightened people of the world have been teaching, that you can become a god. You are essentially a god, it is just that you have forgotten it. Perhaps you are asleep and you don’t know who you are; all that you need is an awakening.Jesus tried, and that very effort became the cause for his crucifixion. He was not yet enlightened – that can be said without any difficulty, because he was still believing that he was superior, the only begotten son of God, and every other human creature is inferior, needs support. No one can become part of the kingdom of God without believing in him. Now this is not the way of an enlightened man.The moment Gautam Buddha became enlightened the first thing that he suddenly became aware of was that the whole existence is enlightened…just unawareness, people are just fast asleep. Perhaps trees are more deeply asleep; perhaps mountains are in a coma, but the essential core of every being – asleep or awake – is the same. There is no qualitative difference.Jesus could not be enlightened, because he still believes in phony ideas of virtue. What is virtue? – obedience, slavery. And what is sin? – disobedience, revolt. And he was teaching the same things, but he got mixed up. Being in the East he could not say that God is jealous. That was impossible. He had seen in the East a totally different atmosphere: he had seen godly people and he had seen millions of people who did not have any idea of a ruling god.Existence has been accepted in the East as autonomous; it is not a creation. Long before Charles Darwin, very long, thousands of years before, the East had come to understand that existence is an evolution with no beginning and no end. And you will not believe that Ronald Reagan is trying to prohibit in America – he has already prohibited – Charles Darwin. Books on evolution have been burned, universities have been forced to teach the idea of creation, not evolution. Charles Darwin’s name is no longer mentioned in American universities, in American colleges. Strange! And the whole world is simply silent; nobody says anything.We have become accustomed to think that we are already civilized and cultured. Now, what Ronald Reagan is doing is so uncivilized and so uncultured that even a primitive society will be ashamed of it. We have heard stories that in the Middle Ages, Mohammedans burned libraries, the great library of Alexandria. That library was so big that it took six months for the fire to settle down. It contained all the ancient scriptures from Atlantis, the continent that had drowned. And we have thought that this was absolutely primitive behavior, but it is being done in the most pretentious country of the world – which thinks it is democratic, which thinks it allows freedom of speech, but there is no freedom for Charles Darwin. Books have been burned this very year! And whole educational systems have been completely cleaned of the idea of evolution: creation should be taught. Why? – because creation is the Christian idea.There is no scientific evidence for creation. There is every evidence for evolution. The Christian idea of creation is so foolish that one feels not angry but hilarious: God created the world four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ was born. That means the world has existed only six thousand years. It is such utter stupidity.Because of this idea they have not much space, so they have to fix everything within six thousand years. They cannot accept the Hindu idea, which has absolutely scientific grounds, that Rig Veda was written ninety thousand years ago. How can it be arranged in the Christian compass? Everything has to happen within these six thousand years. At the most, Christian scholars have agreed, Rig Veda can be five thousand years old.But they are not aware that Rig Veda contains intrinsic proof that it is ninety thousand years old. It describes a certain constellation of stars which happened ninety thousand years ago. Astronomers of all the world are absolutely agreed that that kind of constellation has not happened since. And if it is described in Rig Veda, that means the people must have seen it, there is no other way. The description is in such detail that there is no need for any other proof. The book must have been written when the constellation happened.There have been found fifty-thousand-year-old skeletons of human beings in China. Christian theologians have been in such a great difficulty – how to manage? But there are always great idiots…. One great theologian has proposed a theory that God created the world exactly as it is described in the Bible four thousand and four years before Jesus was born, but he also made things look like fifty-thousand-year-old skeletons simply to test your faith. Now, these are the great idiots of the world.And Ronald Reagan is forcing on America the idea of God creating the world – against the constitution of America, because the constitution wants the state and the religion to be kept absolutely separate. But he is being cunning. He is saying, “This is not a religious idea, it is a scientific idea.”The idea of evolution means existence is eternal. It has never been created. It has always been here and it goes on evolving to new peaks of consciousness.Now it was very difficult for Jesus to say such things, but a few things he managed. He said that God is love. Now that is absolutely against the Jewish tradition: God is not even your uncle and you are saying God is love!Of course for Gautam Buddha the ultimate consciousness is nothing but pure love. Jesus has taken those ideas and tried to give them a Jewish flavor, but he could not deceive the Jews. They immediately suspected he was bringing foreign and strange ideas which would corrupt their tradition, their religion – particularly their younger generation. Jesus was crucified because he was the first man, according to me, who was trying to introduce a few Eastern experiences into the West. The climate was not ready.The climate is not ready even today.I have been to the West and I have seen the difference of the climate. I have seen a different vibe, in which meditation becomes fighting against the current. It is not a let-go; it is not easy simply to flow in. All the forces around you are pulling you out.This idea is a little difficult to comprehend, that we are surrounded by different kinds of waves. The people who are outgoing will find meditation to be the most difficult thing. The people who easily relax inward will find scientific projects, experiments with objects, very difficult and against their innermost desire to relax. They will become tense and will feel a certain anguish. It is unfortunate that this is so, and it has to be changed.Man is both, in and out, and humanity should have both kinds of small pools of energy. For example there can be universities absolutely devoted to outer exploration, and there should be universities absolutely dedicated to the inner exploration. Then those universities will slowly become more and more different from each other and finally completely separate from each other.In India there have been universities – long before Oxford or Cambridge existed, there was one university, Nalanda. Every professor in Nalanda – and Nalanda had almost one thousand professors – had to be a meditator. Unless a person had meditated for years there was no possibility for him even to become a student in Nalanda. Nalanda had four gates…and it is beautiful to remember that at these gates, the gatekeepers were no ordinary people. Unless a person was able to answer their questions, unless they were satisfied that he had a possibility to become a meditator, the person was refused from the very gate. There was no question of entering and having an interview with the professors. The gatekeepers were as much meditators as the professors.And once you were accepted by the gatekeepers into Nalanda it was more than you could have ever expected: a great opportunity opening before you. The whole university was concerned with only one thing, that everybody has to be reminded of enlightenment. All scriptures indicated toward it, every sermon, every act, every exercise, was meant purposefully to take you inward. There were a few other universities…Takshila…but they were all concerned with the interiority of man.We can create a world where each university can have two different areas. There is no need for any conflict; both the areas can become complimentary. But something has to be done urgently to destroy this difference between the East and the West.One of the great English poets was Rudyard Kipling, who was named by the British empire as the royal poet, the poet laureate. He lived mostly in India, and his experience of India and England is condensed in his two lines: “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” I can see that he had a certain insight, and what he was saying was factual. But if what he is saying becomes the prophecy of the future, if it is forever going to be a fact, then there is no hope for humanity to survive. Then humanity is going to remain schizophrenic.I would like to say that at least in this temple West is not West, East is not East, and the twain are already meeting. I don’t see that there is any existential reason for their not meeting. We have lived wrongly in the whole past and this is the ultimate consequence of it. Our whole reasoning about man has to be completely transformed.If man has an inside – and certainly he has an outside – then any worldview, any lifestyle must be inclusive of both; nothing should be excluded. In this possibility of a whole man, of man as an organic unity of the inner and the outer, of the mundane and the sacred, is the whole hope of allowing this beautiful planet to survive. Otherwise we are already on the brink of committing a global suicide.You are right that you find it difficult in the West to go inward and here it happens easily. There is certainly this alchemy: the East is vibrating with so many enlightened people that when you meditate here, everything around you invisibly helps you.We are aware now of radio waves; radio waves are always passing all over you, although you cannot hear them. Just a mechanism, a receptive mechanism is needed, a radio, and immediately you can catch almost all the broadcasting stations in the world. Do you think when the radio is tuned to a certain station, then the waves start coming here? The waves are already passing by; it is just that there is no receptive center for them, so you remain unaware of it.It happened in the last world war…A man was very badly damaged, and as he regained consciousness he felt a strange thing: he felt as if he were listening to some broadcast from a radio station. He could not believe it. He looked all around…there was no radio. He finally told the doctor. The doctor laughed and said, “You must have imagined it.”He said, “It is not imagination. The exact time is announced; the broadcasts, the news…”At first nobody believed him, because how can it be?But finally they had to try in some way to figure out what was happening. They put a radio in another room and told the man, “Whatever you hear, go on writing down.” The man wrote down exactly everything that was being broadcast!But it was a very difficult situation. It opened a new door; it made it clear that our ears are capable to receive radio waves. Perhaps one day we may have some mechanism, just a small mechanism attached to the ear. But that man was going mad, because he could not sleep – and as he became more and more clear, it was not only one station that he was hearing; he was receiving many stations simultaneously. He was going mad. He told his doctor, “Stop your experiments and your findings; otherwise I am going to commit suicide! You fix my ear back as it used to be, normal.” An operation had to be done.But an accident suddenly made it clear that we are capable; all that we need is a switch to turn the radio on or off. Or just a small mechanism so that we can fix which station we want to listen to. One day it can be – it has to be. It has been delayed because radio has almost become out of fashion. The television has taken its place.But what has happened with radio waves could also happen with your eyes. We may have to wait for some accident, but the possibility is there, because those are also certain kinds of waves that are bringing pictures to your television screen. Why couldn’t they bring them directly to your eyes?Scientists say that our capacity to see is very limited. We can hear only certain wavelengths, we can see only certain areas. For example the owl can see more than we can see; its capacity of seeing is far bigger, far stronger. That’s why it can see in the night when we can see only darkness. But because of this, his eyes have become so delicate that he cannot open them when the sun is there. He can catch only very delicate rays; the sun is too much, too harsh. And we are perfectly aware that when we think it is day, for the owl it is night. The owls have lived for millions of years, perfectly capable of seeing in the darkest night. The darker the night the more receptive the owl becomes, because his eyes are so delicate.There are other waves of which a few people become aware, and they are thought to be a little crazy, nuts. But they are not nuts. They may not be normal….For example in India, medical science developed in a totally different way – ayurveda, the Indian medical science. Even its name is indicative of its difference. “Medicine” simply means that you have accepted the disease and you are trying to cure it. Medicine is curative. “Ayurveda” means the science, or more accurately, the “wisdom of life.” It has nothing to do with disease. Its emphasis is that life should be made stronger so that disease cannot happen. It is not curative, it is preventive.Just a few days ago, a Japanese sannyasin was here. He is a great scientist, particularly about atomic radiation. He has been working for twenty years in Hiroshima, and he has discovered…He has brought a few things and he is going to bring more. He discovered these things by chance, because for twenty years he has been working in Hiroshima, where the radiation is becoming less and less.The bomb was thrown on Hiroshima forty years ago. In forty years’ time, the intensity of radiation has become very much lower. And he was surprised: when he came back from Hiroshima after twenty years, his colleagues in the university could not believe it. He had gone there when he was forty-five and when he came back again he was still forty-five! His colleagues were already retired.That made him aware that a small amount of radioactivity, atomic radiation, can be not destructive to life, but on the contrary can be immensely protective to life. So he has created a few things. He has created belts – you can wear the belt twenty-four hours a day. The belt is filled with radioactive material, and it goes on radiating into your body. A few of the sannyasins here have used it and they all say it feels just great. One feels younger, one feels more energetic. He has made small plates to put in your bathtub while you just rest in the bath. And that radioactive material will make the water radioactive around you.His understanding is that life can be prolonged, many diseases can be prevented; those which have already happened can be cured. And he is making many different kinds of things. He has been reading me, and he was very much interested when he heard that I have been poisoned by the American government. That was the reason for his coming, to bring a few things which according to him can take the poison out of the body. Those things he has made for the emperor of Japan, Hirohito. A special tea with radioactive material….Those small belts…One belt costs two thousand dollars, but they look just like a belt not worth more than five rupees. The real material is inside; it can be simply anything that has been exposed to radiation. It can be earth, it can be any rubbish, but because it is still radiating, it is costly.This scientist was told by America’s biggest manufacturer of nuclear bombs that they wanted to purchase – whatever the cost – all his inventions and their patents. He refused because he knew: the idea must be not to let those inventions reach the market for everyone to use. Because if everybody is using radioactivity and radiation, he will become less and less receptive to any dangerous amount. He will create a certain wall within himself; he can survive any atomic explosion. He will have enough atomic energy in himself to resist it.There are other spheres of energy, and particularly you can try some small experiments. You can plant a few rose bushes of the same height, in the same soil, using the same fertilizers, taking the same care, but do one thing: with one bush, be very loving. Just talk to it, sit by its side. And you will see a strange phenomenon: they are all receiving the same nourishment, same food, same soil, same water, but because this bush is receiving something which the others are not receiving, this bush will become bigger, with more foliage, greener, and it will bring bigger flowers than the others. You have created a certain energy field of love around the bush. Neither can you see it, nor are there scientific instruments available to judge, but your eyes can see the difference.If for thousands of years a country has been producing meditators it is filled with invisible vibrations. It is not a coincidence that for centuries, seekers of the inner have come toward the East. A certain pull, a certain magnetic energy has accumulated, and it is still functioning. Although the East has fallen into dark days of poverty and slavery, of hunger, famine, not even water to drink – but still the vibrations of Mahavira, Parshvanatha, Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, continue to reach those who are ready to receive them.It all depends on you. If you have an honest search, then the East is the place for you. Here you can blossom more easily, more spontaneously, more effortlessly. This may not be possible anywhere else – you will have to fight for it, you will have to struggle against forces that you cannot see.An Englishman, an American and a Frenchman are on a sea cruise, when the ship hits a rock and begins to sink. “Women and children first!” cries the Englishman. “Women and children first!”“Fuck the women and children!” shouts the American.“Oo la la!” says the Frenchman. “Do we have time?”An Englishman goes to visit his doctor. “Doc,” he says, “I’m madly in love with this Polish girl. You’ve got to help me become a Polack.”“Are you sure?” says the doctor. “In order to do that, we’ve got to surgically remove half your brain.”The man says that it doesn’t matter what it takes, he wants the operation anyway.Afterward, when he wakes up, he finds the doctor standing beside his bed. “I’m terribly sorry,” says the doctor, “we made a bad mistake. We removed three quarters of your brain.”The man slaps his forehead and cries, “Ah, mama mia!”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 22 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,The other night you were like a master musician playing a beautiful melody on the strings of my heart. Beloved Osho, is this your secret in letting me sing my song more and more?Music is the only language that comes very close to silence, the only sound which is able to create the soundless. It has to be understood that music has no meaning. It is sheer joy, celebration. It is the only art that can somehow impart the inexpressible.The ancientmost tradition of music is that it was born out of meditation. The people who meditated could not find any way to impart their experiences. They invented different instruments so that something can be said without creating a meaning in you but certainly a joy, a dance.It must have been a tremendously valuable revelation for those who in the beginning discovered a language which is not a language. Sounds in themselves have no meaning. Meaning is man’s imposition on sounds. Sounds are natural. The wind blowing through the pine trees has a sound and a music of its own. Or a river, descending from the mountain through the rocks, has its own sound and its own music.It is my assumption that meditators, listening to the inner silence, must have felt the tremendous difficulty of how to share it. It was in those beginning days that music was discovered. The discovery is simple: take away the meaning from the sounds and instead of meaning, give the sounds harmony, a rhythm which penetrates to the very heart. It says nothing, but it says the unsayable too.The ordinary idea of music is that it consists of sounds, but that is only half the truth – and of lesser importance. As the music becomes deeper and deeper, it consists of silences between two sounds.An ancient proverb in China is, “When the musician becomes perfect he throws away his instruments” because instruments can only create sound. The silence is created by the musician. But at the perfection, the same sounds that were creating small pieces of silence start becoming a disturbance. A strange idea, but perfectly meaningful, significant. It applies to every art. When the archer becomes perfect he throws away his bow and his arrows; just his eyes are enough to look at a flying bird and the bird will fall down. The bow and arrows were only a preparation.The same applies to music, to painting, to all the arts which man has discovered. At the ultimate peak, you don’t need the steps, the ladder which has helped you to reach the peak. It becomes irrelevant.The classical music was devoted to silence and to meditation. A beautiful story is told about a nabob of Lucknow. Lucknow remained for centuries the most cultured, sophisticated city in this country. Arts were respected, wisdom was highly prestigious.The nabob, the king of Lucknow, was certainly a man of tremendous courage, insight. But these are the people who become misunderstood by the common man. Before I tell you the story about the musician, it will be good to know about the king who invited him to Lucknow, to his court. He was the last king of Lucknow, and when the British armies invaded Lucknow he was listening to music. He was informed that the British armies were coming closer and closer. He said, “Just welcome them. They are our guests.” Perhaps nowhere else in history has there been a king who accepted his enemies as guests. And he told his people, “Make every arrangement for their comfort, and tomorrow I will receive them in the court. If they want to remain here, they can remain. If they want the power, they can have it. There is no need for unnecessary violence. Things can be settled in a more cultured way. But as far as this moment is concerned, I will not disturb the musicians just because a few stupid people are attacking the city.”This nabob was very much concerned that all the great musicians had played in his court except one. He inquired: “What are the reasons?”His people said, “His conditions are absolutely insane. He says that while he is playing his music, nobody should move. If anybody starts moving or swaying with the music, his head has to be immediately removed from his body. He will come only if this condition is fulfilled.”The nabob said, “You should have told me before! Invite him and tell him the condition is accepted. And declare to the whole beautiful city of Lucknow that those who want to hear the musician should know the condition; otherwise they should not come.”But almost ten thousand people came to listen to the musician. And the nabob was not a man to go against his word: one thousand soldiers with naked swords were surrounding the listeners. The order was that they should note down whoever moved, because to remove his head in the middle would be a disturbance.Only twelve heads moved. They were noted. In the middle of the night, the musician asked, “Has my condition been fulfilled?”The king said, “Yes, these are the twelve people who moved and swayed and forgot the condition. Now it is up to you: what do you want? Should we behead them?”To everyone’s surprise, the musician said, “These are the only people worthy to listen to me. Now let the whole crowd go. They were not listening to me, they were simply protecting themselves. Just an accidental movement could cause death, just a change of position could be dangerous. They were too concerned with their lives. Music is not for them; let them go. Now the real music I can play for you in the remaining night, and for these twelve people.” It took a strange turn! The nabob said, “But this is a strange way to find the right people.”The musician said, “That is the only way to find the right people. These are the people for whom music means something more than life itself.”And in fact they had simply forgotten all about the conditions. Music touched their hearts and they start swaying, a kind of dance entered into their beings. He played his music for those twelve people the remaining night. And he told the nabob that he did not need any reward. This was enough reward, to find the right people who could listen to music. “I would pray to you: reward these people, because these are the people to whom music is meditation.”There are two possibilities, looking at this story: either meditators found music, or musicians found meditation. But they are so immensely and deeply connected with each other…my own experience is that because meditation is a far higher, far deeper experience, music must have been found by the meditators – as a language to bring something from their inner dance, inner silence, to the people they loved.The ancient music in the East needs not only the training for the musician, it needs immense training for the listener. Everybody cannot understand the ancient classical music. You have to be capable of falling in tune with the harmony. In a certain way you have to disappear and let only the music remain.It has been the experience of all great musicians, dancers, painters, sculptors, that while they are deepest in their creativity, they are no more. Their very creativity gives them the taste of disappearing into the universal. That becomes their first acquaintance with meditation. So both are possibilities: either music has led people to the point of meditation, or meditation has tried to find a means to express the inexpressible. But in any case, music is the highest creation that man is capable of.Meditation happens.Music is your creativity.But we have lost contact with the authentic music. And slowly slowly, as humanity has become less and less interested in the inner world, its music has become lower and lower. The contemporary music is absolutely the lowest that has ever existed. It touches you, but it touches you at your lowest center of sexuality. The contemporary music is sexual, and the classical music was spiritual. I would like my people to create music on the path of meditation – or create music if you have found meditation, as a language to express the silence of it.Many mystics have done that. The mystic Nanak always was accompanied by a musician, his disciple Mardana. Before he would speak, he would tell Mardana to play on his veena and create the atmosphere for him to speak. And as he would stop speaking, he would again ask Mardana to create music as beautiful as possible… “So that these people who have come to listen to me understand perfectly well that words are impotent. The beginning is music and the end is the music. I have to use words, because you are not aware that there are higher ways of communicating.”Mardana followed Nanak…and Nanak is the only mystic who stands aloof in a way, because he traveled the most. He traveled all over India; he went to Ceylon. And finally, he traveled to Afghanistan, to Saudi Arabia, and reached the holy place of the Mohammedans, Kaaba.It was evening time when he arrived. His fame, his name, had already reached ahead of him. But the people, the priests of Kaaba, could not believe that a mystic of the quality of Nanak, as they have heard about him, should behave in this way. The night was falling and he prepared his bed and told Mardana to make arrangements for sleeping. And they both kept their legs toward the Kaaba! That was absolutely insulting to the Mohammedans. They are so touchy about it that even the graves of all the Mohammedans in the world are made in such a way that their heads in the grave are pointing toward Kaaba. They don’t allow even the dead people any freedom.Certainly they were offended. And they told Nanak, “You are not a mystic and you don’t know even how to behave in a gentlemanly way. You are insulting us.”Nanak said, “Don’t be annoyed with me. I have my own troubles. My trouble is, wherever I keep my feet they are always pointing toward the divine. Because except the divine, nothing else exists. I have not knowingly done it, but if you feel offended, you can move my legs in any direction you want.”And the story is so tremendously beautiful: As Nanak’s legs were moved in all directions, the priest became puzzled – the Kaaba started moving in the same direction where Nanak’s feet were moved! Perhaps that is a parable. Kaaba is only a stone, and stones are not supposed to be so sensitive. But one thing it indicates clearly – that the whole existence is full, throbbing with only one music, one dance, one godliness.So if you can feel in my words the sound of silence, my purpose is fulfilled. Because my words are not being used in the same way they have been used by everybody. I am using words just as instruments of music. I am not a musician, but I can create the same situation with words and the silences in between. Those who cling to my words, miss me. Because they start interpreting. They start finding contradictions, they start an agreement or disagreement, but certainly a process of judgment starts in their being. That was not my purpose. My purpose was to start a silence, a music, a fragrance in you.You have to change the gestalt. From words – which is the ordinary way humanity has used words forever, and nobody has insisted on changing the gestalt – listen to the silences. Read between the lines and you will find a tremendous explosion of silence, music, celebration. And flowers go on growing in your being.Your question is, “The other night you were like a master musician, playing a beautiful melody on the strings of my heart.” I am doing that every morning, every evening – for thirty-five years. But the other night was special for you. I am a very stubborn person; I will go on hitting on your head till you get the point. Last night you got it – now don’t lose it. Because these are such subtle experiences, you can get them and you can lose them. Once you have got any insight, remember not to lose it.Yes, whatever I am doing is closer to music than anything. It is not philosophy, it is not religion, it is not theology. What I am saying is not in my statements but just in those small spaces which remain utterly silent, empty.But they are neither empty nor silent.Once you have stumbled on those small pieces of silence and emptiness, you will be surprised that the silence is not silence; it is full of music, it is alive, it is a dance. And the emptiness is not emptiness; it is the only fullness that exists in the universe.So there are two ways of listening: one is jumping from one word to another word and another is jumping from one silence to another silence. Those who are following the second way will be immensely rewarded by existence with great blissfulness, with tremendous ecstasy and with an immortality, an eternity. The treasures are incalculable. But if you are listening only to the words, you will end up at the most in a certain system of thought. This makes me sad, because I am not here to create systems of thought. Millions of people have done that and distracted people from their inwardness.All thought systems exist in the mind, and all silences exist beyond the mind. My simple message to you is to transcend the mind, transcend the word.In the Bible I have found so many places to argue against. From the very beginning, it does not appeal to me. The Bible says, “In the beginning there was the word, the word was with God and the word was God.” I absolutely disagree with this stupid beginning. How can there be a word in the beginning? Because “word” means a sound with meaning, and meaning can be given only by someone else. The sound itself is meaningless. It would have been better if they had said, “In the beginning there was sound.” But even that would not have been the perfect beginning, because even for sound to exist you need some ears. Without the ears, there are no sounds. The best and the most perfect would have been, “In the beginning there was silence.” From that statement in the Bible it already starts in a wrong direction and goes on moving into that wrong direction.Silence is the greatest spiritual experience.And the universe consists only of silence. Silence can become expressive as sound if there is someone to listen to it, and the sound can become meaningful if someone is there to give meaning to it. But silence is absolutely and utterly pure, untouched by human hands.Its purity is its godliness.Its purity is what every meditator comes to know. Every meditator stands in the beginning of existence. It is not a question of time. Each moment can be transformed into the beginning of existence, if you can fall into silence. And silence does not divide people because it is not an ideology, it is an experience.So whatever happened the other night to you, I have been hoping that it will happen sooner or later to everybody. I want you not to belong to any belief, not to belong to any idea, but simply to relax into the universal silence. And you will taste the sweetness of music and you will come to know that existence is not a misery but a mystery – a mystery that can be lived, loved, but can never be made part of your knowledge. You can become part of it, but it cannot become part of you.You are asking me, “Is this your secret?”Yes, this is my secret.This silence.The Jesse James Gang holds up a train in the Wild West. When they have overpowered the guards, Jesse and the gang burst into the passenger compartment.“Okay!” says Jesse. “You folks had better get ready, we are going to rob all the men and rape all the women.”“Look here, you outlaw,” says a pretty young woman, “you can go ahead and try to rape me, but you’d better not lay a finger on my old aunt Sally.”“You hold your tongue, young lady,” says old Sally. “Jesse knows what he’s doing.”Alvin Pimpleburger turns sixteen years old, so his proud father gives him twenty dollars and sends him off to the local whorehouse.On his way into town, Alvin passes his grandmother’s house and she calls him in. He explains where he is going, and his granny insists that he saves the twenty dollars and makes love to her instead.Alvin returns home with a big smile on his face. “How was it?” his father asks.“Great!” replies Alvin. “And I saved the twenty bucks.”“How did you do that?” asks his father.“I did it with granny,” Alvin explains.“Do you mean to say,” screams his father, “that you fucked my mother?”“And why not?” replies Alvin. “You have been fucking mine!”And the last….Moskowitz, Horowitz and Shapiro go on safari, where they are captured by a large tribe of fierce and hostile savages. Bound and helpless, they are brought before the chief. Pointing to Moskowitz, he says, “You have a choice: death or chi-chi?”“What could be worse than death?” cries Moskowitz, “I’ll take chi-chi!”There is a loud cheer and he is seized and viciously sodomized by the entire tribe.The next day, the chief says to Horowitz, “Death or chi-chi?”Horowitz trembles and says, “Chi-chi!” and he too is abused by the whole tribe.The next morning, Shapiro is summoned to the chief and is asked the same question: “Death or chi-chi?”Shapiro, who has watched the fate of his friends, looks the chief right in the eye, and says, “Death!”“Terrific!” says the chief, and turning to the assembled tribe, yells, “Death by chi-chi!”Just be silent and you will discover an immense laughter that is going on all around the earth. Trees are laughing, birds are laughing. Except man, there seems to be nobody who is sad. This sadness is because of your clinging to the words.Let your life be a life of a dancing and laughing silence, and you have entered into the only authentic temple of godliness.I am not interested in what kind of ideologies you are carrying in your head. They are all bullshit. I want you to drop them all, irrespective of what they are. Let your whole being be filled with laughter. Let each of your cells be singing, let each fiber of your being be a part of the universal dance. To me, this is the only revolution, the only transformation which can bring this earth millions of joys.It is our own stupidity that we have been listening to idiots of all kinds. And their whole purpose is to make us sad, because if they succeed in making humanity sad and serious, they have taken away the possibility of your being in tune with the tremendous festivity that surrounds you. And now that you are taken away from the universal festival, you can be exploited, enslaved, oppressed. Every kind of crime can be done to you, and you will not revolt.Only laughter can be a revolt, a revolution, a transformation. Start laughing against your so-called religious pretenders, hypocrites. Start laughing about your politicians, who have been deceiving mankind for centuries. Don’t pay any attention to this whole gang of criminals, and we can enter into an absolutely new era, where everybody is joyful, loving, laughing. And everybody is carrying his own guitar – no need to carry any crosses. I want to change every cross into a guitar. Right?

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 23 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Would you like to comment on the differences between being withdrawn, being introverted and turning in?Western psychology has created a very schizophrenic situation by dividing man into extroverts and introverts. Man is one. This division has been destructive of all humanity and its whole past.The moment you divide any organic unity, it dies. You can divide only mechanical entities but not organic ones. You can take a bicycle apart and you can put it together again and you will not lose anything. But if you take a man apart and put him together again you won’t have the same man you had divided; you will have only a corpse.It is of utmost importance to understand that organic unities cannot be divided – neither into higher and lower, nor into outer and inner, nor into sacred and mundane, nor into material and spiritual.Man is all. What appears to be contradictory is only complementary, to those who understand. Your question raises great implications.Just a few days ago one Japanese scientist was here to attend a world science conference. He became aware about me only at the last moment, but before rushing to the airport he came here. He had not more than fifteen minutes, and I was asleep. He wrote a letter stating many important things: the first one was that nobody understands him. He has been around the earth in search of a man who can understand him.Looking at his letter I could not contain myself from laughing…because this is a much lower stage, when nobody understands you. I have also been around the world – everybody misunderstands me.I have invited the scientist, his name is Fukuoka.[Somebody giggles at the name, and the joke becomes contagious. Osho waits for it to subside.]…You can laugh in English, but not in Japanese!I have written to him, saying, “Most of the things that you are saying cannot be understood because you yourself don’t understand that they are based on a dual conception of reality. On one hand you condemn the famous philosopher Descartes, saying that he is responsible for dividing science from religion, and his division has created tremendous trouble for the whole humanity….”I can understand. But Fukuoka himself goes on continuously talking in his letter about the inner man and the outer man.Man is not divided into the inner and the outer. You are both. You can open your eyes and you are outside, and you can close your eyes and you are inside. Just small eyelids – that is the only division. Not much of a division. But the blindness of man is such that although Fukuoka understands that Descartes is wrong, he himself goes on doing the same thing without being alert at all. The materialist, the spiritualist…he wants the whole world to become spiritual. He goes on praising Gautam Buddha….And that makes me laugh because if you go on dividing man into lower and higher, into material, into spiritual, you may have changed the direction of division but division is there.I stand for the whole man – to be accepted, appreciated, loved in its total “organicity.”Your question is, what is the difference between “being withdrawn, being introverted and turning in?” All belong to the extrovert man. There is not much qualitative difference.Being withdrawn means simply being indifferent, aloof, uncaring. But you are still outside.Being introverted simply means you have closed all your doors and windows; you will not receive the fresh breeze and you will not receive the sun and the moon and the stars; you have become closed to reality. An introverted man is just vegetating, not living. Because life needs both – a tremendous balance between the inner and the outer, between the day and the night, between life and death. They are not separate. Nowhere is there a demarcation. The introverted man is a dead man, a corpse.And the third – turning in. There is no need to turn in. It is the philosophers, the people who are too much concerned with words, language, and not at all concerned with experience, who go on creating such ideas as “turning in.”You have never been out – how can you turn in? You have always been there; from there you can radiate outward, but there is no question of turning in. “Turning in” means you had gone out of the house, roamed around and finally came back home. But you have never left the home – you cannot, because you are the home.Wherever you go, it will be the same: your inner and your outer will be balancing wherever you are. You cannot leave one behind and go ahead with the half; that’s an impossibility.But the professors and the philosophers are more concerned with words, never bothering to look into reality and existence itself.I have heard, there is a commune in Poland which has only four members. Their names are Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.One day there is an important job to be done and Everybody is sure that Somebody will do it. Anybody could do it but Nobody does it. Somebody gets angry about that because it is Everybody’s job. Everybody thinks that Anybody can do it but Nobody realizes that Everybody won’t do it. It ends up that Everybody blames Somebody when Nobody does what Anybody could have done.Here in this place, all those four are present – and enjoying immensely! There is no need to condemn anybody. Everybody is what he is supposed to be. But man has been dominated by the idea of condemning this, condemning that: this is right, that is wrong. It has created so many layers, so many categories, that some way or other it has made everybody guilty…in so many ways guilty. It has wounded everybody’s psyche and destroyed man’s dignity, his individuality.Fukuoka is not understood because he is asking things which are only symbolic, symptoms. He is not raising questions about the roots – he himself believes in the roots.He was here attending an international conference. Naturally, just out of etiquette, he praised India too much – “this is the only land which can save humanity.” It is not capable of saving itself! And you are putting the responsibility on the poor human beings of this devastated, destroyed, enslaved, hungry, uneducated, uncultured people to save the whole humanity.It reminded me of an old Jew who was praying his last prayer before dying. Somebody heard, and could not believe what he was saying. The old Jew was saying to God, “God, it is time you should choose somebody else as your chosen people. We have suffered enough.” Jews would have never suffered if God had not named them as his chosen people. Who bothers about ordinary people?This country is being praised and this country feels very comfortable with all this praise, without looking at the reality.Fukuoka mentions in his letter that the world needs an ecological change. It is true – the world needs deep ecological understanding. But the way he expresses it destroys the whole truth it contains. He says, “I loved the Indian roads, where cows are sitting.” This is ecology – where men and animals are together, drinking water, taking baths, doing all kinds of stupid things together.This is not ecology, this is nonsense, and he was very much impressed when he saw it. But he does not understand: these cows are hungry, they are dying, their owners have disowned them because their owners cannot feed them and they are of no use anymore; neither can they give milk nor they can give more cows and bulls. On the streets they are not resting, they are simply waiting for death – hungry, uncomfortable. Death will come to them not in a natural way, it will come through the traffic. They will die and they will take a few more people with themselves. They will not die alone.And when he saw a temple of the monkey god Hanuman, he was immensely impressed. This is ecology – man worshipping hungry, mangy…all kinds of animals are being worshipped in India, elephant gods….I have always been sad that Charles Darwin never came to India. Otherwise he would have found the most valid reason for his theory of evolution, that man has evolved out of monkeys. The worship of the monkeys proves that they are your forefathers.That reminds me of Ronald Reagan. He has tried to stop, in the universities of America, in the colleges, in the schools, all teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Not only that, his teachings have been taken out of libraries – the books have been taken out and burned because the theory of evolution goes against the theory of Christianity which proposes not evolution but creation. But the real reason to me seems to be that Ronald Reagan does not want to accept monkeys as his forefathers. But just burning those books does not change anything.Fukuoka cannot be understood by Ronald Reagan. But he is proposing something which is not even worth proposing. He is not hitting at the roots. Whether monkeys are worshipped or not, is not going to change the fate of the coming humanity. But the problem about hitting the roots is that it is dangerous. It immediately annoys the vested interests.I went through his whole letter. He seems to be a sincere and nice person; he really wants a better future. But he has not the insight that by pruning the leaves of the trees nothing is changed. You will have to cut the roots. And the moment you start on the roots you will be in difficulty, because the politicians are in the roots, the organized religions are in the roots, all the races are in the roots….You cannot change anything in this world unless you cut these roots completely. Unless there is only one world government and no divisions of nations and freedom of movement without any need of passports and visas and all kinds of idiotic conditions, you cannot do anything about the ecology.For example, Bangladesh is suffering every year with great floods. It cannot do anything about it because the roots are in the division of nations. Nepal is the poorest country in the world and it has nothing to sell except its ancient trees. Two-hundred, three-hundred, five-hundred-year-old trees – it has sold them to the Soviet Union and now the Soviet Union has cut so many trees that for miles and miles the land is without trees.The trees used to slow down the flow of the rivers. Now there are no trees; the waters from the Himalayas come with such a force that the ocean cannot absorb them in so much quantity, it has never done it. It turns them back, and every year Bangladesh suffers. Thousands of people die, thousands of houses are destroyed. It is beyond the power of Bangladesh to do anything. If Nepal sells its trees, who are you to say anything to Nepal? And if you say anything then you have to understand that Nepal has nothing else to sell. Then feed Nepal.The ecology is so interdependent…. It became clear that if anything goes wrong in the Soviet Union, in their nuclear plants, then the clouds of nuclear radiation will spread wherever the winds take them, and winds don’t think about national boundaries. Now the problems are international, and your solutions are national. Unless humanity is one there is no hope.But the politicians will not allow humanity to be one because it is their whole power trip. If there is only one world government, it will not satisfy so many people’s egos to be presidents, to be prime ministers, to be ministers, to be governors. To fulfill these people’s egos, we have to suffer. Everybody has to suffer.In India there is enough coal and not enough wheat. But Russia has burned wheat in its railway trains instead of coal because it does not have coal. It could have been a simple understanding, but the barriers of nations prevent a bird’s-eye view of the whole situation. And although this country is so poor, it has been selling its wheat to purchase more atomic plants, more nuclear technology. And almost half the country is hungry and starving.The European Common Market every six months goes on drowning billions of dollars worth of food in the ocean. And in Ethiopia, every day one thousand people will go on dying, but that food cannot be given to them. The European market has its own problems: its economy will collapse if it starts giving things free to people. Then its own people will ask, “Then why should we pay? We create – Ethiopia eats. We work hard and you are throwing our earnings to other countries. We have nothing to do with them.” America goes on drowning food in the same way – mountains of butter and other foodstuff. Last time it took millions of dollars just to carry that foodstuff to the ocean; that is not including the price of the food.Now, do you think we are living on a sane planet?Roots have to be hit hard. But the moment you hit any root you become dangerous.My attorney, Swami Prem Niren, is sitting here. He is now doing deep research into what was going on behind the screen when I was arrested in America. And such hilarious facts are coming out! One cannot figure out whether this world is sane or a big madhouse.The politicians and the church leaders were trying to force the supreme court of Oregon to arrest me, send me to jail, or at least deport me. But it was difficult for them to find any legal, constitutional reason. They knew perfectly well that it was not going to be a small thing. So first, a preparation was needed. And you will not believe – just to arrest me, they wasted five and a half million dollars in research work to find something that I might have committed so that my arrest could be valid. They were at a loss, because I am such a lazy man – to commit a crime is such an impossibility. I have not even prepared a cup of tea for myself in my whole life. Most of the time I am asleep. The few hours I am awake, I am talking to you.After five years of research, wasting five and a half million dollars in the research…and the pressure was increasing. But this is strange…A man cannot just be deported, because then you are afraid that he will fight up to the Supreme Court. On what grounds are you deporting him? And neither can you allow him to live there – not because he is doing any harm to anybody, but you cannot allow him to be, because he is hitting your very roots.I don’t have to go anywhere to hit the roots. I can hit those roots from here.The Christian fundamentalists were angry because I said that Jesus Christ, to me, is not a man of enlightenment. He may be good entertainment, but he is not…And to crucify a man who has not done anything except making statements which are simply stupid – “I am the only begotten son of God.”Now anybody you meet in the street who says to you, “Listen, I am the only begotten son of God,” do you think it is right to crucify him? At the most you can say, “It is perfectly good.” What is criminal in it? If he was saying, “I am the one who can save the whole world”…so who is preventing you? Save! But I don’t think that he is worthy of a cross. And when I said this, that the more I look into Jesus and his psychology, I see only a crackpot and nothing else….But that I can do from here. I am doing it from here. America is not that far away. Neither is Italy that far away. And the Italian Consul is here, just by my side. He wanted to see me alone and because my secretary insisted that I never see anybody alone…because whatever I say has to be recorded. He started perspiring. He became so nervous, he said, “Then cancel the appointment.” What could be the fear?The fear is that for one year, the Italian government, against any reason, has been trying to prevent my entry into Italy. A whole party, the Radical Party of Italy, is fighting continuously. Eighty-four prominent citizens of Italy – Nobel Prize winners, poets, painters, professors – have protested. The government goes on saying that next week they are going to issue a visa for me, and this has been going on for one year. Because of the fear of the pope, the fear of the Catholics….Just what happened in America is happening in twenty-five countries. Sitting in my room, mostly sleeping, I am fighting in twenty-five countries.In spite of the supreme court and the politicians and the church, the head of the FBI refused to arrest me because he said there were no valid grounds. Otherwise they are very famous people for doing anything wrong – even they could not think that it was right to arrest me. Then they asked the CIA, and the CIA chief simply refused. He said, “There is a limit to some things; innocence is not crime.” And you will not believe that the research that is being done by my attorneys in America has brought out a very strange fact: finally, the supreme court asked the army to arrest me! They could not find anybody else to arrest me, because everybody wanted evidence. And the head of the army laughed. He said, “This is unprecedented. To arrest a single individual who is not even a citizen of this country, who is just a tourist, the army is being called? The whole world will laugh at it.” He simply refused.Finally, when I was arrested they had no arrest warrant because nobody was ready to issue one. Even the immigration department, which had put five and a half million dollars into research – their head refused to issue an arrest warrant because, he said, “Your research shows nothing. There is nothing that you can call a crime for which an arrest warrant is needed.”They must have persuaded the city police of Charlotte to arrest me without an arrest warrant. They had nothing even verbally to tell me about what were the reasons that I was being arrested and six of my friends were being arrested. They had only a list saying that these people had to be arrested. And strangely enough, the names of these six people were not on that list. We told them, “Our names are not on your list. You are doing simply an absurd act. You can look at our passports. Your list contains other names, but we are not the right people.”Because they were not yet ready for evidence, finally they managed what they could have done in the very beginning. They simply fabricated thirty-four charges against me – just pure fiction. Obviously, they had to give some result; they had wasted five and a half million dollars. And you will not believe what the government attorney who was fighting in the court against me, for three days continuously, finally said: “I have not been able to prove anything, but neither has the other party been able to prove anything.”Can you see the stupidity of the statement? Does innocence also need to prove that it is innocent? No constitution of any country requires that innocence be proved. But these politicians are so much afraid that if the roots are opened and cut, then their vested interests will be gone. If there is no God, and Jesus Christ is a crackpot, then what is the pope? Just a representative of a crackpot….And it is not only in one country. Today I have received the news from Germany that one of its major political parties, the Green Party, has asked the government about the fact that it is now two years that they have been keeping the law, the special order that I cannot enter into Germany. Not only that, I cannot even land at any airport of Germany – even for refueling the plane – because I am a dangerous man.Now their own party, a major party, is asking the government, “You have to explain: what is the danger? And for two years you have been avoiding the issue. You should appoint a commission to do the research: what is the danger?”And if I am a danger, are there other people also in Germany who are in the same category? Just now, one German psychoanalyst has published a book after many years of research which says that Christianity has created more crimes in the world than any other religion. Now the Green Party is asking, what are you going to do about Christianity?It is basically a question of bringing out the roots of all our misery, of all our torture. But those who are in power will not allow you even to know where the causes lie. You have to fight only with the effects. That’s why no revolution has been able to be successful up to now.Now why should this Italian Consul be so insistent to talk with me alone? What is the fear that the talk should be recorded? From where does this fear arise? What was the fear in America? because when they deported me, the United States Attorney admitted that I had not committed any crime… “But our purpose was to send him out of America, because he is dangerous.” Dangerous to what? Dangerous to morality, and the man who was most emphatic about this point…his name is Michael Stoops, a fanatic fundamentalist Christian. Today I have heard that he has been charged with child abuse – sexual child abuse. And this was the man who was in favor of my being deported because I am dangerous to people’s morality. Who are these people and what is their morality?Just a few weeks ago in America there was a conference, an international conference of homosexuals. One of the men from Britain, a member of the Parliament, represented the homosexuals of England in the conference – obviously, he must be a homosexual. And he said, “I know at least fifty-six members of the Parliament in England who are homosexuals.” It is absolutely confirmed that one of the popes before this Polack pope was a homosexual. Who are the people whose morality has to be saved? In fact, a deep research is needed into who has already destroyed people’s sense of purity, integrity, responsibility.The roots are very strange, because they remain hidden underneath the earth. You only see the flowers and the trees and the leaves – you don’t see the roots. All the religions of the world are responsible for homosexuality. And to find why they are responsible, you will have to go a little deeper. It is because they insisted that celibacy is very spiritual, that without being a celibate you cannot be spiritual.Now, celibacy is absolute nonsense. It is against nature, it is against medical science. I am amazed that not a single medical institute stands up and says to the world that celibacy is not possible, it is not in your program. In your body, everything has been programmed by the sperm and the egg of your parents. Celibacy is not in the program, and we don’t yet know how to change the program. So anybody who claims to be a celibate is a hypocrite – or he will be finding some perverted ways…one of them is homosexuality, another is sodomy.Who has created all these prostitutes? If you dig up the roots, you will be very much surprised to know that to protect marriage, prostitutes are an absolute necessity. Because the man gets fed up with the woman, the woman gets fed up with the man. Then just for a change…in the past, women were not courageous enough and not educated enough. That’s why there have not been male prostitutes. But now in London, in Chicago, in San Francisco, in New York, you can find male prostitutes. This is a by-product of the women’s movement for liberation. Obviously, if men can go to prostitutes, why not women? And the whole thing is to protect marriage.Protecting marriage is one of the causes of homosexuality, it is one of the causes of child abuse. And then all the monasteries – Christian, Hindu, Buddhist – are full of homosexuals. I am not condemning their homosexuality. I am simply saying that they are victims of a stupid ideology, teaching celibacy. And the governments are still doing the same. Now they are making laws against homosexuality – not against celibacy. You can make laws against homosexuality but that will make homosexuality go underground. Or, men will start finding new ways to express their sexuality – maybe plastic women; they are in existence already.But no court in the world has thought to cut the very root: make a law against the celibacy which drives people into perversion. But that will go against all the religions, and religions are tremendously powerful – from the outside and from the inside, because you are conditioned by them.The whole of human history is full of violence, full of war, and we know perfectly well that it is because of the existence of nations. There is no need of nations. This whole planet is one. Its problems are one, its solutions have to be one. But why is it not being implemented? And anybody who says this….Yesterday I received a letter from a sannyasin, Ma Prem Madhu from England. She had won the first prize in a competition for creating better and more beautiful neighborhoods, more in tune with nature. Prince Charles gave her the prize – and she went there in orange clothes with my mala. Everybody was shocked – all the celebrities must have been there, all the idiots and all the Lords – and Prince Charles looked at my picture and said to Prem Madhu, “This is dangerous.” Now, what danger I am causing to the world? Princes find me dangerous…. When the Prince of Wales had come to India, Queen Elizabeth insisted to him, “You can go everywhere in India, but not to Pune.” He himself confessed it to his cousin-brother Vimalkirti, who was my sannyasin, and his wife, Turiya. Both were present in Bombay to meet him, and he was so much interested in me but the queen had told him not to go because it is “dangerous.” I have been wondering what this word ‘danger’ means. I have never killed a fly in my life.Twenty-five countries have prohibited my entry into their land. The grounds are the same: that I can destroy their morality, religion, tradition. And these people don’t even consider a simple fact that a man who comes as a tourist for three weeks, if he can destroy your morality of two thousand years, then your morality is not worth saving. It should be destroyed. You are accepting defeat by refusing my entry for just three weeks. Your religion is not courageous enough to answer me, your politicians are cowards.And from where does this cowardliness come to all the politicians and all the priests? It comes from a root that Friedrich Nietzsche has called “will to power.” Anybody who suffers from an inferiority complex, feels in some way inferior – it may be intelligence, may be strength, may be beauty; it can be anything – if one feels inferior…and it is bound to happen to almost everybody, a kind of inferiority, because our whole educational system is based on competition, comparison. And the moment you compete and you compare, naturally you have to put yourself somewhere; you are inferior or superior.The moment you feel yourself inferior, your whole being takes a certain root: will to power. Somehow you have to prove to yourself and to the world that you are not inferior.Your presidents, your prime ministers, your ambassadors, your kings, your queens, are all in the same boat: just trying to prove they are not inferior, they are great leaders of men. And I have seen many of these great leaders of men – just phony. If you look inside, you will find nothing but bullshit.Otherwise I cannot see how a man who does not have a paper knife with himself, is so dangerous that the army is needed to arrest him. And all agencies of the government refused to arrest me, because they didn’t see any point. They would look stupid. And that happened, finally.The United States Attorney from Oregon who was fighting the case…because he could not manage a crucifixion or something more contemporary. It was not his fault, it is my fault. I have not committed anything; what could that poor man do? He tried his best. Now the reward for that man is that he has been fired. He tried his best, but for fictions.He said in the court that I had arranged thousands of marriages, just for the purpose of getting residence – at least certainly one marriage. Just look at the point: I have arranged thousands of marriages and he himself ends with the conclusion that at least one marriage certainly. Then from where do those thousands of marriages come? He could only bribe one couple. He tried to persuade many couples that they should say that I had arranged their marriage, and they said I had not been speaking for three and a half years; I had not been seeing anybody. It would look simply stupid. Out of five thousand sannyasins, perhaps they managed to bribe somebody – to give him a job, to give him a green card. That was the only proof.And the head of the army laughed at the point – “If he has married just one couple, it does not require the army! For such a small, messy affair!”But politicians are everywhere basically hollow people, utterly empty and completely in fear, in paranoia, because their position is never certain. Today they may be the prime minister and tomorrow they may not be. Today they have so much power and tomorrow they will be just a beggar on the streets. The man who was the prime minister in Russia before the revolution, a man named Karentzky, fled the country. He died in 1950 in New York. People had completely forgotten about him. He was one of the most powerful men of his times, being the prime minister of the czar of Russia, one of the greatest lands. And he died as a grocer. He had been running a grocery store since the revolution, in New York, hiding in disguise.The politician originates out of the inferiority complex. He wants to have more power, more power so he can fill his emptiness. But strangely – by the side – as he goes on climbing ladder upon ladder, more and more fear also grows on both sides. The fear that he can be pulled down, because so many people are pulling at his legs, so many people are competing for the same position. He cannot remain forever in power – that fear is the reason why a man like me becomes dangerous. Because I simply want to say that two and two are four.Religions have made men’s minds retarded by creating beliefs in fictions. And politicians have destroyed man into as undignified a life as possible, because their power depends on your slavery. Unless we cut these roots….This earth has the capacity to feed at least five times more people than exist today – that is a scientific calculation – but these barriers should be removed. And science should be employed not in the service of death and destruction but in the service of life and love, affirmation, celebration.We are in a situation today such that either we will let these rotten politicians and priests destroy the whole humanity and the earth, or take the power from their hands and decentralize it to humanity. No army is needed, because no nation is needed. No destructive weapons are needed, because no war is needed. And if this whole energy – right now fifty percent of our energy goes to war – if a hundred percent of the energy and a hundred percent of the intelligence of humanity goes together hand in hand to create a better society, a more scientific education, a better humanity, which for the first time we are capable of….It was not possible in the past. Today it is possible. Much of the work can be done by robots; there is no need to destroy human life in unnecessary work. Much of the work can be done by computers; there is no need for small boys and girls to burden their memories unnecessarily. They can just carry a small computer in their pocket which contains everything that they want to know. And to me, it is even more significant because if the whole memory is shifted to the computer, meditation will become such an easy job. Then you don’t have to fight with any thoughts and memories; you just have to take your computer off, deposit it at the gate and enter into the temple! You need not be worried about anything.A better man than any which has ever existed on the earth is possible, according to the people who work in the realms of physiology, biology, genetics. It is a confirmed fact that man can live at least three hundred years without any difficulty, without even becoming old. Three hundred years – the implications are great. If Albert Einstein can live three hundred years, his contribution will be tremendous, to physics, to mathematics. If a Mozart can live three hundred years, certainly his music will become more and more meditative, more and more silent. If a Rabindranath can live for three hundred years, his poetry will become pure fragrance of the beyond.It is within our hands to choose what kind of people we want. It is in our hands to decide how many people we want. But we have to remove these barriers of politicians and religions – otherwise they are going to force humanity to commit suicide.I would like Fukuoka to know that he is in a better position because nobody understands him. He should feel some sympathy for me – everybody misunderstands me. And I am making everything as clear, as logical, as rational as possible. Fukuoka is not logical or rational in his statements. He has a beautiful heart – that I can see from his statements. But he has not worked out interconnections. For example, he thinks that if we move back to nature, all problems will be solved. This is not new. Leo Tolstoy was teaching “back to nature.” Rousseau was teaching “back to nature.” Mahatma Gandhi in this country was teaching “back to nature.” And all three were in the same trouble as Fukuoka, that nobody understood them.The problem is very complicated. First, there is no way to go back. And even if some way can be found to go back, where is the line? Where will you think you have gone back enough? It will certainly be when the first monkey jumped on the earth and stood on two legs – against nature. The first scientist, the founder of civilization….I don’t think that before that, you can stop. And I don’t think anybody would like to go to that state again. It will be very difficult. In these thousands of years, your body has changed so much: you cannot jump on trees, naked in the rain, in the cold, in the heat. And you cannot live on just fruits. Most probably everybody will be having fractures, multiple fractures, and there will not be any ambulances because Mahatma Gandhi does not allow even railway trains. Even something innocent like telephones he is very much against.I know one thing is wrong in the telephone. That is the last part of it, “phone,” because from that phone has come “phony.” But otherwise, it is innocent. You can change the name.He was against telegrams. He thought that if man goes back – as Fukuoka also thinks, without having a clear-cut conception…At the time of Gautam Buddha, twenty-five centuries ago, the whole population of the world was twenty million. Even then there was poverty. Even then there was crime, murder, rape. People don’t find it in history books, and when I first said it, a Buddhist scholar, Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan, stood up and said, “From where have you found out these things?”I said, “From the teachings of Gautam Buddha! Because he is teaching people they should never commit a rape. That simply means people were committing rape. He is telling people, ‘Be content in your poverty.’ If there were no poverty, there was no need to make such a statement.” And for forty-two years continuously he was telling people not to steal, not to murder, not to be violent. To whom is he talking? Either he is mad or I am right.Now, just as India became free in 1947, forty years ago, the country’s population was four hundred million. And Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa and all the shankaracharyas, all insisted that birth control is against God.In the first place there is no God.In the second place, if it is against God, let it be! It is his problem, not our problem. But nobody listened and just in forty years’ time, from four hundred million, India has reached the population of nine hundred million. By the end of the century, India will have more than one billion people. For the first time, India will be the most populated country in the world. Up to now, China had that privilege; now India has defeated China in stupidity.The whole world will have five billion people by the end of the century. Going back to nature, what do you think will be the result? Even twenty million people cannot live, going back to nature. There will be simply corpses all around. And this is being taught by people like Mahatma Gandhi who think they are nonviolent. What can be more violent? Genghis Khan killed four million people. Nadir Shah killed three million people. Adolf Hitler killed eight million people. But if Mahatma Gandhi and Fukuoka are to be followed, they will kill at least five billion people. The whole earth will be full of corpses.Back to nature is simply back to death. If humanity decides to go back to nature, I will suggest then first do one thing: dig your grave, prepare it, because there is nobody else who is going to prepare it. Everybody will be dying himself. So right now, prepare your grave and lie down in it and then go back to nature.All that you have, ninety-nine percent of it is because of science and technology. It is true that science and technology have taken a wrong turn. Descartes was wrong when he said that man and nature are enemies; Bertrand Russell was wrong when he said that we have to conquer nature. These people gave a wrong direction to science. Nature and man have to be friends. There is no question of conquering. We are part of nature, and the part cannot conquer the whole. The part can only dissolve into the whole, rejoice in being one with the whole.Science has to be given a new turn so that it becomes a bridge between man and nature. And the same science that has created atom bombs and nuclear weapons can also create a far greater consciousness for man, far healthier human beings, more beautiful trees, bigger flowers. This planet, although it is very small, contains the potentiality of being the richest planet in this vast universe where millions and millions of stars are surrounded by more and more planets.Right now the count is three million stars, but they don’t say that is the end. That is as far as our scientific instruments can see. There is beyond, unlimited, with no boundaries. But in this whole expanse, only this small earth has evolved to the point of consciousness, of love, of beauty, of music, of poetry, of sensitivity, of meditativeness.It should be a determination in every intelligent being that we are not going to allow any vested interest to destroy this planet. This planet has to remain. And there is a golden future just ahead on the horizon – but we must cut the roots, whatever the cost. This is the only revolt I teach.All revolutions have failed because they were cutting leaves and branches. I teach a total revolt against the past, against all vested interests.The question is of tremendous importance: to save man is to save the greatest creation of the universe. It has taken four million years for this earth to create man. It is so precious…and the future is much more valuable, because inside you the possibility of a Gautam Buddha, the possibility of a Zarathustra, the possibility of a Lao Tzu is there.You can also blossom in the same silence, in the same peace, in the same beauty, in the same ecstasy.I forgot to look at my watch!Ronald Reagan, his cabinet members, and his wife Nancy, traveled to the Rocky Mountains for a skiing holiday. Waking up one morning, Reagan opens the curtains and there in the snow, in yellow letters, someone has pissed the message: “Reagan is a wimp.” Enraged, Reagan orders an analysis made of the urine to find out who the culprit is.An official returns with the results and tells Reagan, “I have some bad news and some terrible news. The bad news is that the urine belongs to your attorney general, Ed Meese.”“What?” shouts Reagan. “I will shoot that bastard! And what is the terrible news?”“Well,” says the man, “the terrible news is that it is written in Nancy’s handwriting.”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 24 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,All my life I have been intrigued by power and the recognition I can take from it. Now, that seems very confined and petty. Yet, I sense also that there is a more authentic type of power, not dependent on other people or their reactions – more within myself.Can you please talk about my attraction toward this?Your question needs deep scrutiny, because I can say yes to it and I can also say no to it. Yes I will not say; the greater possibility is for the no. And I will explain the reasons to you.This is how mind goes on playing games with you all. You are saying, “All my life I have been intrigued by power and the recognition I can take from it.” This is a truthful recognition, sincere. Many of the power-oriented people are not even aware of it; their will to power remains almost unconscious. Others can see it, but they themselves cannot see it.As I said last night, this will to power is the greatest sickness man has suffered from. And all our educational systems, all our religions, all our cultures and societies, are in absolute support of this sickness.Everybody wants his child to be the greatest man in the world. Listen to mothers talking about their children, as if they have all given birth to Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Joseph Stalin, Ronald Reagan….Five billion people are rushing toward power. One has to understand that this tremendous urge to power is arising from an emptiness within you. A man who is not power-oriented is a man fulfilled, contented, at ease, at home as he is. His very being is an immense gratitude to existence; nothing more is to be asked. Whatever has been given to you, you had never asked for. It is a sheer gift out of the abundance of existence.And these are the two separate paths: one is will to power, the other is will to dissolve.You are saying, “Now that seems very confined and petty…” Not only confined and petty, but also sick and ugly. The very idea to be powerful over other people means taking their dignity, destroying their individuality, forcing them to be slaves. Only an ugly mind can do that.You continue the question, “I sense also that there is a more authentic type of power, not dependent on other people or their reactions – more within myself.” There is some truth in what you are saying, but it is not your experience. There is certainly a power which has nothing to do with domination over others. But the power of a flower opening its petals…have you seen that power, that glory? Have you seen the power of a starry night? – not dominating anybody. Have you seen the power of the smallest leaf dancing in the sun, in the rain? Its beauty, its grandeur, its joy? It has nothing to do with anybody else. It does not even need somebody to see it.This is true independence. And it brings you to the source of your being, from where your life is arising every moment. But this power should not be called power, because that creates a confusion.The very word power means “over somebody.” Even people of great understanding have not been able to see the point. In India, one religion exists, Jainism…the word jaina means “the conqueror.” The original meaning certainly must have been what you are talking about: the power that arises within you as a petal opens and the flower releases its fragrance. But I have looked deeply into the tradition of Jainism. When they call a man a conqueror, they also say about him that he has conquered himself. Somebody has to be conquered.They changed the name of Mahavira – his name was Vardhaman. Mahavira means “the great conqueror,” the great, victorious man. But the very idea that Mahavira has conquered himself, if reduced to simple psychological terms, means that he can stand naked in the rain, in the cold; that he can remain hungry in the name of fasting, continuously, for months. In twelve years of discipline and preparation, he ate for only one year; for eleven years he was hungry. Not in a continuity – one month he would remain hungry, then one day he would eat; two months he would remain hungry, then for a few days he would eat – but in twelve years the number of times that he ate comes to a total of only one year. For eleven years he tortured his body.It needs a deep insight to understand that whether you torture others or you torture yourself, there is no difference at all – except that the other can defend himself. At least there is that possibility. If you start torturing yourself, there is nobody to defend you. You can do anything with your own body. This is simply masochism. It is not, in my understanding, finding the source of your inner being. Hence I would not like to call it power, because that word is contaminated.I would like to call it peace, love, compassion…you can choose the word. But power has been in the hands of violent people; whether they were violent with others or with themselves does not matter. I think the people who were violent with others were more natural and the people who were violent with themselves were absolutely psychotic. But the people who have tortured themselves have become your saints. Their whole contribution to the world is a discipline of how to torture yourself.There are saints who have slept on a bed of thorns. They are still there; in Varanasi you can find them. It may be good showmanship, but it is ugly and has to be condemned. These people should not be respected. These are criminals because they are committing a crime against a body which cannot even go to the court.So the second part has to be understood very well; otherwise your first desire, of being intrigued by power, will be there again in a different disguise. Now you will start making efforts to find power over yourself. And that’s what it seems to be.You say, “…a power not dependent on other people or their reactions – more within myself.” Even the reference to other people and their reactions implies that you are not thinking in a very different way. First you were interested that people should give you recognition; you should be a powerful man, a world conqueror, a Nobel Prize winner, or some other kind of stupidity. But everybody cannot be Alexander the Great. Neither can everybody become a Nobel Prize winner, nor can everybody be greater in some sense than others.This takes a turn: finding yourself in a situation where this is not possible – or perhaps there is too much competition and you will be crushed; there are far bigger people, far more dangerous in the competition – it is better to withdraw within yourself and try to find a power that has no reference to other people, that is independent of other people. Even this much connection is enough for me to conclude that now you are going on another trip of the same kind. First you were trying to dominate others, now you will try to dominate yourself. That’s what people call discipline.I am reminded of Aesop’s very famous fable. The season of mangoes has come, and a fox is trying to reach the ripe mangoes but they are too high. The jump of the fox is not high enough to get them. She tries a few times; then seeing the impossibility she looks all around to see whether anybody is watching or not. A little rabbit has been watching the whole scene. The fox walks away, not showing her defeat, but the rabbit asks, “Auntie, what happened?” The fox says to the rabbit, “My son, those mangoes are not yet ripe.”If you change your desire for power, it should not be like Aesop’s fable. You should first understand from where the desire to power has been arising. It has been arising from your emptiness, inferiority.The only right way to be freed from this ugly desire to dominate is to enter into your emptiness, to see exactly what it is. You have been escaping from it through your power trips. Now put your whole energy not into torturing yourself, not into making any discipline of masochism, but simply into entering your nothingness: what is it?And there blossom roses into your nothingness. There you find the source of eternal life. You are no more in the grip of an inferiority complex and you don’t have any reference to other people.You have found yourself.Those who are intrigued with power are going away and away from themselves. The farther away their minds go, the more empty they will be. But words like emptiness, nothingness, have been condemned, and you have accepted the idea. Rather than exploring the beauty of nothingness….It is utter silence. It is soundless music. There is no joy that can be compared to it. It is sheer blissfulness.Because of this experience, Gautam Buddha called his ultimate encounter with himself nirvana. Nirvana means nothingness. And once you are at ease with your nothingness, all tensions, conflicts, worries, disappear. You have found the source of life which knows no death.Still, I would like to remind you: don’t call it power. Call it love, call it silence, call it blissfulness, because that “power” has been so much contaminated by the past that even the word needs tremendous purification. And it gives wrong connotations.This world is dominated by people who are basically inferior but are trying to cover up their inferiority with some kind of power, any kind of power. They have created many ways. Certainly everybody cannot be the president of the country – then divide the country into states. Then so many people can be governors, chief ministers. Then divide the work of the chief minister – then many people can be cabinet ministers, and just lower than them, many people can be state ministers. This whole hierarchy consists of people suffering from an inferiority complex. From the lowest peon to the president, they are sick with the same disease.Indira Gandhi remained in power for a long time. When she was in power, she told my secretary many times that she wanted to see me and meet me, and she had a few questions. At least six times the date was fixed and just one day before, the message would come that “some emergency has arisen and she will not be able to come this time.” When it happened six times – that emergency arises, exactly! – I asked my secretary to ask her, what was the real thing? This emergency is not the real thing. And she was honest enough to say, “The problem is that my cabinet ministers, my colleagues in the parliament prevent me. They say, ‘Going to Osho can be disastrous to your political power.’”Then she was defeated and my secretary said to her, “Now there is no problem. Use this opportunity. You are no longer prime minister of the country, you can come.”She said, “It is even more difficult. Now my people are saying, ‘If you go there, then forget forever about becoming a prime minister again.’”Her son Rajiv Gandhi was a pilot and he told my secretary many times that he wanted to meet me and to have my guidance about his future career, whether he should enter politics or remain a pilot. Since he became the prime minister, he has not asked for any guidance. Now the same fear….I have become such a danger that if you come to me, all those who are against me will be against you! I have such a great company of enemies around the world – I enjoy it really – a single man without any weapon is at war with twenty-five countries! And those great countries, having all the power, seem to be absolutely powerless.In Germany, my people have filed a case against the government because in the parliament they were calling Christianity a religion and my movement a “cult.” In the Christian theological world, the word cult is condemnatory. In two courts we appealed that either they should also call Christianity a cult or they should call our movement a new religious movement, but they cannot call it a cult. And two courts have given their verdict in our favor, saying that the government has no right to condemn and use condemnatory words for people who have not done any harm in the country. It is a religious movement. But the government goes on continuing to use the same word, “cult.”I am informing my people that those two courts should make it clear to the government that they are destroying their constitution, their law, themselves. And against the court’s ruling, if anybody in the parliament again calls my religious movement a cult, he should be treated as a criminal. It may be the chancellor of Germany itself, it does not matter.These people are all trembling inside, worried that they can collapse; just a push is needed. They know that inside there is nothing, and outside a great competition for power.It is not a coincidence that twenty-four tirthankaras, the masters of Jainism, were all coming from royal families. Gautam Buddha was a prince. What happened to these people? Rama and Krishna, the Hindu incarnations of God, are also in the same category, belonging to royal families. It seems nobody else can become enlightened! Only royal blood is needed for enlightenment….The point that I want to make clear to you is that these people were at the top already. They had power and that power they experienced did not destroy their inner emptiness. They renounced power to find out what was their interiority. Finding it, they blossomed – in a beauty, in a truth, in a statement to the whole world that “I have come home.”People have not recognized the fact of why these people renounced their kingdoms. They had all the power that they needed, but just that situation…all the power that they need, all the money that they need and still, inside there is nobody. The house is full of money, comforts, luxuries, but the master is missing. It was out of this urgency that they renounced power and went in search of peace.Ordinary people, naturally, don’t have the power. They only look at powerful people from far away and think, “If I was also given the same honor, the same recognition, I would also be somebody. I would leave my footprints on the sands of time.” They become intrigued with power. But look at the people who were born in power and renounced it, seeing that it is an exercise of absolute futility. You still remain the same inside. Even if you have billions of dollars, it will not make any change within you.Only the change, the transformation within you, is going to give you peace. Out of that peace will come your love; out of this peace will come your dance, your songs, your creativity. But just avoid the word ‘power’.Right now you are only thinking about it. Thinking will not help. Thinking is perfectly good if you want to compete in the world for power, for money, for prestige, for respectability. But as far as settling in your being, mind is absolutely useless. Hence, the whole effort here is how to help you get out of the mind into meditation, out of thoughts into silence.Once you have tasted your inner being, all greed, desire for money, power, will simply evaporate. There is no comparison. You have found God himself within you; what more can you desire?Osho,What is this universe made of, besides this silence which I don't know, and with which the sages are overflowing?This universe is certainly made of silence. But the silence is not dead, it is not the silence of a cemetery. It is the silence of a temple. It is alive! It is a song without words.It has gestures…in a thousand and one ways those gestures show what this universe is made of. Look at the roses, look at the lotuses, look at the birds on the wing. Look at the stars and the trees and the mountains. These are all gestures of silence.It is the dance of silence, this whole existence. It takes unique forms, it melts from one form into another form, but silence is its fundamental constituent.These words you listen to, they are not saying anything. Just gestures of silence, alive.You have asked a beautiful question: “What is this universe made of besides this silence which I don’t know…?” How can you know the silence? You can be the silence, but you can never know it. For knowing, a distinction, a distance is needed. You have to be the knower and the silence has to be the known.You are also made of silence.It is just that you have not looked deep enough into your own being. Then it is not a question of knowing, it is a question of being.And you are saying, “…the silence which I don’t know and with which the sages are overflowing.” You are also overflowing. Only you are intrigued with all kinds of stupid things, so you remain unaware of your overflowing silence. Sages drop all nonessential things and then only the silence remains – and the overflow of it.The whole world is flooded with silence.Now even the scientists are turning into mystics because they are saying that stars disappear into black holes, symmetrical to our death. We also don’t know the dark tunnel of death. But scientists have also observed that not only do old stars simply disappear, new stars are continuously being born. And stars are not small things. The idea has entered into the scientific world that everything arises out of nothing and finally collapses back into the nothing to rest. Perhaps it may arise again…It looks illogical – how, from nothing, can the whole existence with such variety come out? But it is not a question of logic. What can I do? It is the way things are.And to make it logical we have made things unnecessarily idiotic. We could not conceive how this world, this universe, can come out of nothingness. We created a fictitious God to console our hearts and our logic: “God created the world.” That gives a little satisfaction to mediocre minds.Those who are a little more intelligent will find the question remains the same: From where does god come? Finally you have to accept the fact that out of nothingness, God comes. Why bring in poor God unnecessarily? Then he gets so many hits – for centuries he has been hammered by all sides.There is no problem. From nothing, everything comes.For example, I am speaking to you and I am fully aware from where these words are coming: they are coming from my nothingness. I don’t find any other place from where they are coming.Nothingness is not nothing.Nothingness is all. And to recognize nothingness as all, “as an experience,” is the only way to find your unity with the universe. In life, in death, there is no fear.You have been here many times and then rested. Rest is needed, one gets tired. Every day you work and in the night you rest, hoping that in the morning you will wake up again.I know a man who does not go to sleep and keeps the whole house awake, knocks, and asks people, “Are you asleep?” Now if they answer, their sleep is disturbed. If they don’t answer, he will shake them: “What happened, are you asleep?”I was a guest in that family and everybody said, “Somehow, this man is driving us crazy. Neither he sleeps nor he allows anybody else to have a restful night.”I said, “What is his logic?”They said, “He used to be a professor of logic, and you cannot argue with him because he says ‘What is the guarantee that if I go to sleep I will wake up? I will not go to sleep.’ And he quotes ancient Upanishads which say that death is like sleep.”I talked to the man. I said, “Death is certainly like sleep. And sleep is such a restful period; after every day you need a small period of rest. After your whole life, you need a longer period of sleep.“You have been here – where else can you be? This is the only universe there is. So when you are rested, you can wake up again, fresh, rejuvenated. Don’t be worried about death. Death is a tremendous relaxation into the universe, into its nothingness.”Only a meditator can understand. As his meditation becomes deeper, he comes to explore the whole world of nothingness within himself. But it is a nothingness to be rejoiced in – so restful, so peaceful, so cool. So alive, so overflowing….You will have to enter into your nothingness. That is the only real temple.Gautam Buddha, in his tremendous compassion, said to his disciples, “If you meet me on the way, while you are going deeper into yourself, cut my head immediately! I should not become a barrier. Your nothingness should remain absolutely yours; it cannot be shared, cannot be divided.”You have to go in absolute aloneness. Just the very idea of being totally nothing brings a shower of flowers. Just being alone, utterly alone, brings such a fresh breeze, such fragrance. But the experience is a million times more than you can conceive of with the mind.If this world needs anything, it is an experience of nothingness. Not an experience of a God, not an experience of a Jesus Christ, not an experience of Gautam Buddha. It needs only one experience: of a purity, uncontaminated, unpolluted even by the presence of anybody else. A pure presence, of your own being.To me, that is the liberation. To me, that is the ultimate flowering of your being. Your eyes will show it, your hands will indicate it, your dance may become the part of the overflow. You will be a transformed human being.And at this juncture of time we need millions of transformed beings who can fill the whole world with joy, with roses of consciousness. With the light of awareness, with music of the soul. Because only that can prevent the idiotic politicians from destroying this world.Perhaps you may have not noted: destruction also gives a certain power. Just as creation gives a tremendous well-being, a dignity…those who cannot be creative have all become destructive – in the name of politics, in the name of religion, in the name of education.I want my sannyasins to stand against the whole ugly past of humanity. Only then can we see a new sunrise, a new world overflowing with love. Otherwise, we have come to the point where the greatest criminals of the world are joined together to destroy it. They may destroy it in the great names of democracy, equality, communism, socialism, but these are just names. Behind is the reality that these uncreative people are taking revenge against those who have created. They could not be a Mozart, they could not be a Wagner, they could not be a Michelangelo. At least they can be an Adolf Hitler. They can be in some way destructive because they could not convert their energies into creativity.Only a man of inner silences becomes a creator. And we need more and more creative people in the world. Their very creativity, their very silence, their very love, their very peace will be the only way to protect this beautiful planet.Yes, this existence consists only of silence and laughter.One day, Jesus wakes up in a bad mood. He is feeling depressed and lethargic. In fact, a typical Monday-morning feeling. He wanders around heaven looking for someone to cheer him up and finally arrives at the Pearly Gates where Saint Peter is interviewing the new arrivals.Suddenly he sees an old man with a long white beard whose face looks familiar. He goes up to him. “Excuse me sir,” says Jesus, “but your face seems familiar. I am sure we have met. What did you do on earth?”The old man smiles. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “I am a carpenter and lived a full and happy life until my son left home and became world famous. I never saw him again.”Jesus looks at him with astonishment and says with delight, “Dad!”The old man opens his eyes wide and rushes forward with outstretched arms, crying, “Pinocchio!”Little Ernie accompanies his parents to a nudist beach for the first time. After looking around for a few minutes, Ernie asks his father why some men have big ones and some men have small ones. Rather than go into a long explanation, his father replies, “The men that have big ones are smart and the men that have small ones are stupid.”Accepting this explanation, Ernie goes off to explore the beach. Time passes and he finally comes across his father again, “Have you seen your mother, son?” asks his dad.“Yes,” says Ernie, “she is behind the bushes talking to some stupid guy who is getting smarter by the minute.”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 25 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,For years now, I have been sitting by your side. Knowingly and unknowingly, an inner mountain has been climbed, effortlessly for the most part. Just today I looked down and it frightened me how far off the ground I am. A fear that I could fall grips me. The road is getting smaller and smaller, and I feel the danger. Would you speak to me about this?David, the path back home is certainly a razor’s edge. As you come closer and closer to yourself, the path goes on becoming narrower and narrower. At the very end of this path you are going to find your pure aloneness.The crowd has never found any truth. On the contrary, whenever anybody has found the truth, the crowd has rewarded him with crucifixion. To seek truth is the most dangerous, but very exciting, challenging, experiment.An ancient Tibetan proverb says: “One hundred seekers start; ninety-nine are lost somewhere on the way, go astray. Only one – that too, very rarely – reaches the goal of his search.” With this proverb is attached a small story….Deep in the mountains there is a monastery, far away from Lhasa. The chief monk is getting old and he wants a master from Lhasa to replace him. He sends a messenger, a young man, to the main monastery in Lhasa to ask them, “Our master is getting very old and he wants a man to replace him.” After long, long difficulties of mountainous paths the young man finally reaches to the main monastery.An audience is given to him. And the master says to him, “I can understand. I will send one hundred people with you.”The young man said, “But I have asked only for one.” And the master said, “Have you forgotten the old proverb? A hundred should go; rarely, one reaches.”The proverb was certainly known to the young man, but he could not trust that a hundred people could go and only one would reach. But he could not argue either, with the chief of all the monasteries of Tibet. One hundred monks followed the young man.They had not gone very far when they were stopped by a few soldiers with naked swords, who said, “Our small kingdom has lost its master. We need a master urgently. The pay is good, the palace to live in, and you will be the only religious man in the whole kingdom. And we are simply conveying to you the orders from the emperor. Refusal can be dangerous – you can see the naked swords.”Many of those hundred monks started thinking, “This is a good place – why unnecessarily go deep into the mountains? It is close to Lhasa, the kingdom is rich, the monastery is rich, all facilities are available, and you will be the high priest of the kingdom…” So not only one, many wanted to go.The young man said, “Have you forgotten?”They said, “We have not forgotten. You forget it – all! We are going to stay.”The soldiers said, “We need only one, but the monastery is big. If many of you want to come, you can be part of the monastery and the emperor will be immensely happy.”Half of the crowd disappeared. The young man could not believe….Just a few miles further they were again prevented, this time by a crowd. They needed four priests because the richest man’s daughter was being married, and the reward was going to be great.“…And it is only a question of a few days, and then you can go on wherever you are going.” Immediately, more than four were ready, but the crowd said, “We don’t want more than four.”The other monks tried to ask them, “What are you doing? We have been sent for a certain purpose, because of a certain message.”They said, “We are not going astray. It is only a question of a few days. Soon we will finish the marriage and we will come a little faster and join you. Your journey is long. The path is tedious. And we cannot miss this opportunity of earning, getting rewards, from the richest man.” Four persons again disappeared.In this way it went on, and the young man started feeling that “Perhaps I am the only one who is going to make it back!”As they were passing a river, a very beautiful young woman with tears in her eyes said, “You are all compassionate people. My father is a famous hunter – I live with my father, my mother is dead. He was supposed to come back this morning and it is evening and he is not back. And I am immensely afraid in this lonely part of the Himalayas. Won’t you be kind enough, at least one, to be with me for the night? And in the morning you can go as soon as my father comes home.”Immediately a young man…in fact many were ready, but a young man said, “I am coming. This is the essential teaching of Gautam Buddha – compassion!”And this goes on…. It is a long story, how people went on disappearing. Finally only two monks and the young man remained. They were passing the last village and soon they would be arriving at the monastery. It was already shining in the morning sun on the mountains.In that village there was an atheist who challenged those monks: “If you have any guts, first accept my challenge for a debate. I don’t believe in Gautam Buddha and I don’t believe in his teachings, and I am ready to fight on each and every point.”The young man said to the remaining two fellows, “Don’t get involved in this. Our monastery is there, you can see it – so beautiful in the eternal snows of the Himalayas.”But one of them said, “I cannot move an inch. My master Gautam Buddha has been challenged. I am going to remain here. Either I will convert this man to Buddhism or I will be converted to his disciplehood, however long it takes.” So he was left in that village.Only one monk and the young man reached the monastery. The young man said, “I have passed through an immense experience. I had never thought that proverbs are so accurately true.”The old master said, “I knew he would send at least one hundred people because I had asked for one.”The young man said, “But you never mentioned it to me.”The old man said, “There was no need to mention it. This is how things go on happening in this world. We are fortunate that at least one has arrived. There is no certainty; there are so many by-paths, so many allurements, and once you have gone astray it is not easy to come back to the right path.”The crowd consists of people who have all gone astray. Once in a while a courageous person comes out of the crowd and starts searching a path of his own. It needs daring, it needs courage, it needs intelligence. It needs trust in yourself, and also a deep understanding that you will be condemned by the crowd.The crowd never likes people to be individuals. Individuals irritate the crowd very much. The crowd wants you just to be a part of the crowd, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. The moment you declare that “I am myself; neither a Hindu nor a Christian nor a Buddhist, and I am going to search on my own the truth of my being,” all the crowds around you will become antagonistic.There is a deep psychology behind it. Your standing aloof and alone and moving in the direction of the unknown – without any companion, without any guide – irritates the mind of the crowd, because you are showing them that they are cowards clinging to each other like sheep, not moving like lions.But the truth is not for the sheep. The sheep is not courageous enough to allow truth to reveal its mysteries and its glories to the mind of a sheep. The glories are so immense, so boundless, the mysteries are so infinite, that only the heart of the lion can rejoice, can dance, can sing.Yes, there are moments when even the heart of the lion trembles, feels fear, because the path is so alone. And it goes on becoming narrower. As you are reaching higher and the path is becoming narrower, naturally, to look by the side…your whole being goes into a trembling. Just a single wrong step and you will be finished. On both sides are such depths….But strangely enough, although the path is of the razor’s edge, nobody has fallen from it. Everybody has felt the fear, but existence supports those who are in search of truth. Its support is unconditional.Existence does not support those who are nothing but living lies. They may have great power, but their own power will destroy them. Many civilizations have existed on the earth and they destroyed themselves by their own power. We are not the first civilization in the world. Atlantis drowned – perhaps the people of Atlantis had reached a far higher civilization than we have.In India we have the story of Mahabharata, the great Indian war that happened five thousand years ago. In minute detail, the story describes weapons which can only be nuclear. The civilization had certainly reached to the same point where we are. But power in the hands of ignorant, retarded crowds is self-destructive.Crowds upon crowds have come and disappeared, but not a single individual seeker has ever fallen from those heights where, David, you are feeling – “What will happen?” I have been watching you. This is perhaps your first question to me….For all these years you have been silently with me. That is the only right way to be with a master – not to ask, and the answer will be given to you. Wait, and you will be showered with all the blessings possible. Don’t be in a hurry; otherwise you will miss the whole point.Patience is the only prayer by the side of a master. Utterly relaxed, in deep love, in great gratitude, something goes on growing in you without any effort. Something goes on maturing, something goes on becoming more and more crystallized, without any effort on your part. You are just a watcher of the miracle that is happening to you.David, your question is not just out of intellectual curiosity. You have been long enough with me; there is no point to remain silent so long and now suddenly become curious. Your question is coming from your existential experience. And only these questions are authentic.You are asking, “For years now, I have been sitting by your side.” In fact, that is the very meaning of the ancient word upanishad – sitting by the side of the master. Nothing else is expected, just sitting by the side. The master is radiating and if you are ready to receive silently, seasons will change, days will come and go, and slowly, slowly you will find you are no more the same person who had come.And as your insight deepens, you start becoming aware that each and every moment you are changing, becoming something new, fresh, just born, and the joy of this freshness is immense.I have been watching you, sitting by my side. In fact, if you are capable of just going on sitting, nothing else is needed. All the meditations will happen on their own, all the flowers of love and silence will blossom on their own, and once you have learned the secret, then there is nothing else to do in the world.You are saying, “Knowingly and unknowingly, an inner mountain has been climbed, effortlessly for the most part. Just today I looked down and it frightened me, how far off the ground I am. A fear that I could fall grips me. The road is getting smaller and smaller and I feel the danger.” There is no need to feel the danger, because it is unprecedented: nobody has ever fallen from the path that leads to truth.Nobody has ever fallen from his own being. However big the mountain of being may be, you cannot fall. That is simply not in the nature of things. I have never heard that any seeker, any searcher, any honest inquirer has ever gone astray. Existence protects.It is good you have asked it. Relax, because it is an absolute guarantee that existence supports you. The higher you reach, the more and more you become a beloved of this whole universe.This is my vision of a sannyasin. He has to become a beloved of this whole universe. And when you become a beloved of the whole universe, fear disappears – just as if it was nothing but darkness, and the light of love has come in and the darkness has disappeared.Everything is going exactly right with you. Just remain in a let-go. Don’t make any effort even to keep yourself on the path. Don’t be worried that you may fall and at least you have to be alert not to fall. That will be unnecessary and will be preventing your growth, your evolution.You have come far away, certainly, from the earth. And it is natural to look and see the depths that are on both the sides of the path. I am not saying that fear is unnatural. It is natural, because you are not aware of a far higher law, that existence protects those who are in search of truth. Slowly slowly, you will see that you cannot fall; the universe will not allow it.The universe is not unintelligent. You are not living in a cosmos which has no intelligence. It is pure intelligence that the existence is made of. Call it love, call it silence, call it nothingness, but in everything remember, the tremendous intelligence of existence is always there. And once you have learned the art of trusting, you are beyond all fear – you will learn it, because there is no going back.And when I am saying that it is absolutely guaranteed; I am saying it from my own experience. I have passed through the same fears. And as I became aware of a certain protection that surrounds me, I relaxed. Then I could move on this razor’s edge, this narrowest path possible, with closed eyes. In fact, most of the people who have reached, have reached with closed eyes! At the final stage the trust becomes so deep, who cares to look here and there? The eyes become closed on their own.It is the fear that keeps them open. You may take a wrong step. But when trust becomes total you drop all cautiousness; you simply relax. Whatever existence decides to be your destiny, you are absolutely willing to relax in it. This is the only experience that has transformed people from ordinary, mundane mortals into immortal beings, has transformed them into luminous lights.The search for truth is the only search that makes you authentically human. Otherwise there is no difference between you and the animals – and the crowd remains at the level of the animals.Never belong to a crowd; never belong to a nation; never belong to a religion; never belong to a race. Belong to the whole existence. Why limit yourself to small things? When the whole is available, only stupid people will cling to small things.Be oceanic.Only then will you have the taste of what true life is. And a great gratitude arises, David, on its own accord. Not toward anyone in particular, but just toward this “whole”…all these stars, and the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the people and the birds…all that is. You simply feel a tremendous gratitude.And when you open your eyes with gratitude, the same world becomes so psychedelically beautiful, so colorful – you could never have believed that trees are so green; they have never been, and these are the same trees. That the winds passing through the trees are creating such subtle music – they have always been creating, but you were deaf. That sunsets and sunrises and the tremendous beauty they bring…you had been missing because you were blind.Your trust in the total opens all your sensitivities to their extreme. This whole existence becomes a sheer dance, a sheer celebration.Little Ernie comes home early from school.“What are you doing home?” asks his mother.“I put a stick of dynamite under the teacher’s desk,” replies little Ernie.“You march right back to school” says his mother, “and apologize!”“Mom,” says Ernie, “What school?”David, what on earth are you talking about? It is just a shadow, a dream, a memory. And you cannot fall into a memory, you cannot fall into a shadow, you cannot fall into a dream. Forget all about falling and the fear, because this is the time: either you will become very much afraid and stuck… Back you cannot go, and forward you may not dare. That’s why I am emphasizing the fact. Go ahead; there is nothing to be feared at all.If a master cannot teach his disciples fearlessness, then that master is simply fake. I teach you in every possible way to be fearless, daring, courageous – risking, taking every challenge of life, because this is the whole science of how to create a steel spine in you – which will be needed!First learn to drop small fears; then slowly slowly bigger fears; then finally, your whole energy which was involved in all kinds of fears, worries, tensions, anxieties, is released. The energy that is released is so much that it makes you dance, that it makes you laugh, that it makes you sing. Suddenly a deep feeling that you have arrived – arrived to the place which you have never left. It is just that you have gone astray into your mind, far away, traveling all over the world. You simply needed a good hit.Just today, I loved the news from Germany…. A young man punched his girlfriend in the nose, and the girl reported it to the police. They were produced before the magistrate. The magistrate must have been a wise man, which is very rare. He said, “Young man, you can slap her a little here and there, but don’t punch her exactly in the nose.” And with this advice he released them. Must have been a man of great understanding. A little slapping here and there is perfectly okay; otherwise life loses all juice. But punching in the nose, that is not for boyfriends – that is left for the masters!A little pygmy living in the jungle in Africa gets a sore ass every time it rains. He goes to the witch doctor who offers him a cure which costs six chickens.The pygmy catches the six chickens and receives an ointment from the witch doctor.The next time it rains the ointment does not work, so the pygmy returns to the witch doctor. This time the witch doctor says that he will need a dozen chickens to make the cure.With much effort the pygmy catches a dozen chickens and he is given some medicine by the witch doctor.When it rains again the pygmy takes the medicine, but he still has a sore ass. So he goes to the missionaries. They cure him for nothing, and the witch doctor becomes very embarrassed.The pygmy offers to tell the witch doctor how he was cured, but says it will cost him eighteen chickens.The witch doctor catches the eighteen chickens and hands them over. “Okay,” he says, “How did the missionaries stop you from getting a sore ass each time it rains?”“The method is very simple,” says the pygmy. “They cut the tops off my rubber boots.”David, take life very nonseriously. You are not going to fall; there is nowhere to fall to.Pope the Polack is on a pilgrimage when his plane crashes in the Sahara. Only the pope and a nun survive. They are lucky to catch a camel and start to ride it toward the nearest town, a hundred miles away. But on the second day the camel drops dead.As they wait for death, the pope sighs, “The only thing I regret,” he says, “is that I have never seen a naked woman in my life.”“All is pure to a pure man,” says the nun, and takes off her clothes.The pope is amazed and blesses the nun for showing him. Then the nun confesses her desire to see a man’s body before she dies.Pope the Polack takes off his clothes.The nun gazes at his prick. “What is that?” she asks.“That,” says Pope the Polack, “is the giver of life.”“The giver of life!” exclaims the nun, jumping up and down. “Well then, stick it in the camel and let’s go home!”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 26 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Often, when I look at the sunset, sadness arises from deep within. It feels as if the sun is my home – the place I will return to when “the work” is done. But now I have fallen in love with “the work,” this earth, this existence, these people. I do feel a deep longing to be free but I wouldn't want to go home alone.Osho, will “the work” ever be done? Will I ever be able to go home in peace?It is one of the deep-rooted habits of the mind always to divide things. The moment you divide things you are in trouble – and mind wants you to be always in trouble; otherwise it has no function.The greatest trouble the mind can create is the longing for home. I call it the greatest trouble because you have never left home.And mind projects homes. They may be the moon, the sun, or some faraway quasar – these are new, contemporary substitutes for a faraway God. Mind is so tricky that if you drop the old division, it immediately replaces it with a new, more refined, more contemporary-looking, more intelligent division.In the past people were wanting to go to heaven, to paradise, to God, and to find peace. As you are, I don’t think even if you meet God, you will find peace. On the contrary, the meeting with God will create so many problems, so many inquiries, so much anger and rage against God – because he created you without your permission; he created the world full of misery and you had to live in it. He created all kinds of desires in you which do not seem to be fulfilled; every desire goes on asking for more and more and more, and there is no end to it. Do you think meeting with God will be a peaceful meeting? It is going to be the greatest fighting encounter!It is good that God does not exist. He cannot exist, because of you – so many people with so many problems and poor God, alone with a crackpot son and a Holy Ghost. A strange company.I remember one of the ancient stories that once God used to live on M.G. Road. But people tortured him so much – and in no other language can you torture somebody better than in Marathi. Even if two people are in a loving conversation, it seems they are fighting.Marathi is unique in that way. It has no music in it. It seems to have come out of anger, violence, war. It has not come out of people loving each other. Each language has its own stamp, from where it has arisen.And people would not bother whether it was day or night, they were continuously surrounding the house of God on M.G. Road. There are so many complaints to be made – to whom to make the complaints? Everything seems to be wrong in some way or other. Somebody is too tall, somebody is a pygmy, somebody has accumulated all the riches and somebody is a beggar. Somebody is so beautiful and somebody else is just on the other extreme; so ugly that people use his photograph for frightening children.Your passport photographs are also used for the same purpose.God said to his company, “This is intolerable. You have to suggest some place for me to move away to.”Jesus said, “There is no problem. We can go to the Everest, nobody is going to come there.”God said, “You are still too young to understand and to see the future. I can see that it is not safe for many more days. Soon there will be people coming and we will have to move again. Find some place from where we cannot be forced to move.”The Holy Ghost suggested, “Then the moon is very good.”But God said, “You don’t understand the problem. These mad people are going to reach to the Everest, to the moon, to Mars – for no purpose! But if they find me anywhere they are going to kill me, because naturally they think I am responsible for everything.”And then finally a man from the crowd, an old sage, came forward and whispered something in God’s ear and God said, “That is the right place!”He had said to God, “Don’t go anywhere; just enter into man’s own being. There he will never go; that is the only place he avoids. You can be at peace.”You think that by finding home you will be at peace. Your very formulation of the question is based on a division, an assumption that you are not already at home. And peace is an art that you have to learn not on some faraway sun – those are meaningless hopes – but right here, now.When a great rabbi was dying, his wife continued to nag him as usual to the very end. Finally she said, “At least pray to God. Make peace with God.”The rabbi said, “I have never been in a quarrel with him. There has never been any conflict between me and him, so the question of peace does not arise.”It is not some faraway goal that is going to give you peace. That is simply a postponement. You will be the same wherever you are.The first man who landed on the moon was asked after his return, “You must have felt very different.”He said, “I am sorry to say to you, I felt just the same.”Changing places is not going to help. But changing your understanding is certainly going to transform you.You are asking me, “Often when I look at the sunset, sadness arises from deep within.” That sadness is not something negative. It arises in all those people who have a deep sensitivity…such beauty and they are stunned. Beauty can be a great shock. But it happens only to very poetic, artistic, sensitive, vulnerable people.It is a misunderstanding on your part, Ravindra, that a sadness arises from deep within. It is not sadness, it is simply a deep silence. Your whole being as if comes to a stop when you see a beautiful sunset or a sunrise. Time stops, mind stops – and those are the things you are accustomed to, and this silence of the heart, this new space of which you are not aware, in the beginning always looks like sadness. It needs a little more acquaintance with it and you will be surprised: it is not sadness, it is silence.You can experiment: just sit silently and somebody is going to ask you, “Why are you looking so sad?” Silence is not a value accepted by the society.Since my childhood, I have been sitting silently. By and by the members of my family became accustomed to it, but in the beginning they used to say, “Why are you looking so sad? Why don’t you go out and play?” And when I said, “I have gone in and I am playing” they simply thought that something was wrong with my mind. People go out to play and this fellow goes in to play!Just look at the silence that surrounds a calm and cool lake, the silent waters. In the beginning it will look like the lake is sad, because you are accustomed to noise. If there is no noise, you will feel at a loss – what has happened?I have heard a story, I don’t know whether it is true or not. It has to be true.Long ago, when humanity was not such a big crowd of five billion people, they decided: let us see what happens if one particular day everybody laughs loudly, dances and jumps for no reason at all. The whole world at a certain moment decided it was worth experimenting to see what happens.And what happened was very shocking, because everybody thought, “When there will be so much noise and laughter and dancing and singing, it is better to remain silent and watch and enjoy the whole thing.” But everybody thought the same way. Mind functions the same way. For those five minutes that were chosen for rejoicing, shouting, jumping – whatever you wanted to do to express your joy – the whole world fell completely silent. They could not believe…what has gone wrong?Nothing has gone wrong; it is the same mind. Everybody thought, “Let us watch it. It is going to be great entertainment. If you become a participant you will not be able to enjoy all kinds of things that will be happening all around.” But what came to their mind was that because everything stopped – there was such silence, as there has never been. But everybody said, “It looked so sad.” Nobody could look deeper, into the phenomenon of silence.You say, “I feel sad whenever I see the sun setting.” You feel silent. You will have to learn a new language.Spirituality is a new language. You will have to change the meanings of words, the nuances of words. Give them new flavors and new fragrance, because they have been used in the marketplace. They are perfectly good in the marketplace but when you are entering into the beauty of existence, you cannot carry the same language.Next time it happens, Ravindra, just see the sunset and feel what you have been calling sadness more deeply – and there is going to be a transformation. The same sadness will become your silence.If a man cannot be silent facing beauty, he is not aware of the beauty. At least you are halfway: a little aware of the beauty, but not aware of the impact of the beauty that is created in your heart.And, silence and sadness have something similar but they are not the same thing. Sadness is something dead and stale. Silence is something alive, a song without words, a music without instruments. And what has been understood by you as sadness will become a great spiritual ecstasy for you.This whole universe is a temple, and the whole existence is trying to reach you in so many ways – through the sunrays, through the trees, through the birds – these are all messengers. These people who have pretended to be prophets, messengers, saviors, are just lunatic.There are messengers all around you. When in the early morning, the birds start their song and the flowers open their petals and the dewdrop shines like any great pearl on the lotus leaf; when so many colors are spread all over the horizon in welcoming the new day – these are all messengers of existence. If you can be sensitive to these you will not feel sad, you will feel immensely grateful, understanding, fulfilled.You will feel at home, you will feel at peace.I have not gone to the sun and I don’t know what it means not to be in peace. Peace is not something that has to be achieved, it is something that you are carrying always but never giving it an opportunity to blossom. It is a rose within your heart. It is a fragrance of your being. It is a sense of immense freedom and joy and celebration.Peace is not a very good word because it is associated with war, and peace seems to be a little sick, weak. No, I will not agree for peace. Unless your inner being has a tremendous dance of joy, which has nothing to do with war or peace…then you will be able to understand the difference between the words, between peace and silence. Peace is something dead. Silence is throbbing with a heartbeat in harmony with existence.A woman journalist asked me in America – I was addressing a world press conference and she was the first one to ask a question. She asked, “Can’t you live in coexistence with America?”I said, “No.”The woman may not have thought that anybody would say no. She was so stunned that she left the microphone. Later on she met me again and I told her, “You did not listen to my whole answer, why I said ‘no.’ You must have misunderstood, because I could see it on your face, but you moved away and another questioner came.”She said, “Can ‘no’ have many meanings?”I said, “Every word can have many meanings, many implications. What did you understand?”She said, “I understood simply that you cannot accept coexistence.”I said, “You misunderstood me completely. I was saying that coexistence is still war. Coexistence means we will tolerate each other. Coexistence means, ‘What else to do? – we have to live together.’ All husbands and wives are living in coexistence. All nations are living in coexistence. All religions are living in coexistence. But this coexistence is not a joyful, celebrating experience. I was going to say to you, I want one existence, not coexistence. Why divide?”She said, “My god, I reported your answer on the television and I have done an injustice to you. Because that ‘no’ is resounding all over America, and naturally with the same meaning.”Words are delicate people, and as you become deeper, you start giving new meanings to words. By saying no to coexistence I was saying that the whole idea of coexistence is ugly. It means we cannot be one – that we will remain enemies. We will not fight, but the antagonism is absolutely implied in the word ‘coexistence’. And this is the situation with the whole language.Don’t call it sadness and you will see the change:It is silence.That is natural when you come across beauty.And then you say, “It feels as if the sun is my home.” You will be simply burned there! It will be your grave, it cannot be your home. The sun is our life source, but we have to be at a certain distance. The sun- rays reach us in eight minutes’ time, with the speed of light – it is a vast distance. One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second the light travels, multiplied times sixty – that means one minute – and then multiplied by eight. That will be the distance the sunrays travel to reach us. This much distance is absolutely necessary, neither less nor more. If the sun comes closer we will be burned, and if the sun goes farther away, again we will be dead because it will be too cold – unbearable.It is a strange coincidence, why only on the earth life exists: because it is at the right distance from the sun. On no other planet does life exist. Some are closer, some are farther away. This beautiful earth is immensely fortunate to be at exactly the right distance.The sun is not your home. Your home is within you. And you are not to search for it anywhere.You are your home.Your question goes on, “It feels as if the sun is my home, the place I will return to when the work is done.” What kind of work? You are having crazy ideas. First, the sun is your home. Have you heard? Scientists are trying to reach Mars, they are trying to reach other planets, but no scientist has even mentioned that anybody is trying to reach the sun.…You see?[From one of the trees surrounding the hall, a bird has burst suddenly into a loud insistent song. Many people laugh.]The bird has understood before you!And the idea of “the work” has been imposed on you for centuries, that you are here for a certain “work” to do. Naturally, people wanted you not to be just lazy and enjoy. They wanted “work” because your work is going to create wealth, your work is going to create Alexanders, your work is going to create wars. Everything depends on you. So every culture, without exception, has been from the very beginning imposing the idea on the child that “you have a certain work, a certain purpose to fulfill in this life.”It appealed to people, although it was absolutely absurd. What work are trees doing, and what work are birds doing? And what work are the sun and the moon and the stars doing? Except man, nobody is so insane to think that you have a certain great work to complete. This is how they have created the achieving mind.And for thousands of years you agreed with the idea because it was very ego-fulfilling. If you are not here to do any special work, then you are accidental. You may be here, you may not be here, it doesn’t matter. That hurts the ego. The ego wants you to be indispensable to existence, that without your work, existence will not be complete.The same teaching was given to me by my parents, by my teachers, that “you have to do some work in your life; otherwise your life is just the life of a vagabond, a bum.” I said, “Perhaps that is the work I am here for, to be a vagabond! Anyway, a few people are needed to be vagabonds…”The teacher who was telling me about the work said, “It is very difficult to discuss with you.” And I said to him, “This is a very psychological trap to enslave people into some work by giving nourishment to their ego, to say that by fulfilling this work you will have fulfilled your destiny.”I said to the teacher, “I don’t have any destiny, because I cannot conceive that existence has any destiny. What destiny could existence have? When the work of existence is complete, that will mean an absolute death, because nothing more is there to be done. Everything has been done, so drop the curtain.” I said, “I cannot see any purpose in the flowers, any purpose in the trees, any purpose in the oceans, any purpose in the stars…”Existence is not a work, it is a celebration – a sheer dance of energy which will go on and on forever in different forms, but cannot disappear. The energy is eternal.And I said to the teacher, “Never again mention work to me. Celebration is okay, but work? It is destroying the whole beauty of life. And I am in tune with existence, not in tune with you. You can go on doing your work. What work are you doing? Just being a geography teacher. I cannot conceive why existence needs a geography teacher. The whole geography is of the existence; what is the need of a teacher?”It is a very wrong conditioning that has created a workaholic society, which condemns people who are not participating. Yes, there are needs: you need food, you need clothes, you need some shelter. Naturally, you will have to do something to create these small things. But this is not the destiny of existence that you created a house, that you produced a few children, that you are fighting with your wife. I cannot see that against the vast panorama of existence, your small stupidities are fulfilling any destiny.I want it to be emphatically understood by my people: we don’t have any work here. We have to join in the celebration of existence. Those small needs are only survival measures. Don’t brag about how big a bank balance you have; existence has no need of it. Don’t brag about how great a politician you are, a prime minister or a president; existence simply knows nothing about you. Existence is more in tune with these small birds who for no reason start singing, out of sheer energy.I want to destroy the achieving mind.That is your disease.I want you to relax and enjoy.Just do a few things which are needful, or manage somebody else to do them for you. It all depends on your intelligence.I have never done anything, but I have a strange insight into people who will do things for me. And they do! And my needs are fulfilled and their doing gives them immense joy. It is not easy to be chosen by me, I am a very fussy person. I simply make you happy by your doing something for me. And I don’t think…If I could manage it for more than half a century, a few years more I will manage. In fact, I don’t do anything as far as management is concerned; that too is done by others. I am simply enjoying.I am not a messenger to tell you that you have to do this and you have to do that. I don’t have any discipline for you except freedom. I don’t have any commandments; they have all destroyed the dignity of man. I want to give you the dignity of the trees and the dignity of the birds and the dignity of the oceans and the dignity of the Himalayan peaks; the dignity of the stars. But they are all in celebration – dancing, rejoicing, overflowing with energy. Nobody is working except human beings.I want to transform even your small work that you do. Make it more aesthetic, make it more creative. Make it a great joy, because it is your life. It is going to give you food, it is going to give you clothes; so whatever you do, it is not work, it is simply to remain as long as possible in this body and celebrate existence.I have loved only one American in my life, and that man is Walt Whitman. And the reason I loved him is one of his small poems. The title of the poem explains everything. The title of the poem is “I Celebrate Myself”. Only when you can say, “I celebrate myself” – then your work is transformed into celebration and your life becomes a non-achieving, non-ambitious journey of beauty.And you say, “But now I have fallen in love with the work.” That is the only good thing that has happened to you. The moment you love the work, it becomes creative. It takes on a totally different color, different beauty. You say, “…this earth, this existence, these people. I do feel a deep longing to be free, but I would not want to go home alone.”The one good thing you have is that you have fallen in love – now spread your love. These people, these trees, these birds should also become part of the space that you call love. And then you will not ask, “I want to be free.” You are free.Love is the only alchemy that brings freedom. It is hate, it is anger, it is jealousy that keeps you in bondage.Just a pure love – unconditional, because what condition can you put on the birds? What condition can you put on the trees? Unconditional love, and you are free. Free from all jealousy, free from all anger, because there is no enemy here. All are friends and all are lovers and all are part of one cosmic whole.But this kind of confusion happens in the mind, because mind is carrying very contradictory, inconsistent, irrelevant information. Your mind has been completely destroyed, because the society does not need you to have a mind. The society needs you to be a worker, a slave, and a slave is not supposed to have a mind of his own.They have used a very cunning way to destroy your mind, so that you can remain satisfied that you have your mind and in fact, you don’t have it. They have put all kinds of contradictory things in it.One has to attain to freedom, and nobody has told you that love is freedom. Nobody has told you that celebration is freedom. Nobody has told you that to be alone and contented, so utterly satisfied that you can say “I celebrate myself,” is freedom.But you are even worried about going home alone. So who are you going to take with you? At least as far as I can see, nobody except someone who wants to commit suicide is going to go with you to the home you have chosen – the sun!You don’t understand that the path that brings you to yourself…from where you have never gone away, just your mind has been projecting faraway goals. But you have remained in your home. The only thing that can bring you back, can withdraw your projections, is the joy of being alone. You don’t know the purity of aloneness. You must be living in a great mess, Ravindra, because aloneness is your home. And aloneness is your freedom – freedom from the other, freedom from the need of the other, freedom from the dependence on others.Aloneness is your freedom and aloneness is your home.But your mess is really deep. You ask, “Will the work ever be done? Will I ever be able to go home in peace?” Linguistically, your sentences seem to make sense. But existentially they don’t make any sense at all.First, there is no work; hence the question of when the work will be done does not arise. Otherwise, it would have been a very tedious, torturous world, because the world goes on and on – the work is never finished. Every spring flowers come; every fall trees drop their leaves; every morning the sun rises; every night the sky is full of stars. And it is not that it is happening only now, it has been happening for millions of years. In fact from eternity, because there is no possibility of a beginning. And it will continue till eternity again, because there is no end conceivable.If you become too much attached to the work, you will be eternally in bondage. Enjoy the work, love the work, transform it and make it a part of your celebration. It is never going to end, so you need not be worried about when it is going to end. You will be gone; we all will be gone, and we will come back in another time, in another spring – rested, rejuvenated, fresh.Perhaps we will meet here again – in this impossible world, everything is possible. Perhaps we have met in this place before, too. The same players go on playing different games. But once you drop the idea of work, then a load, a burden disappears and you don’t have to go to any home. This celebrating existence, this celebrating consciousness is your home.It has always been your home.Your question is a mess but it is good, because many people are carrying the same kind of messes. It will help you and it will help them, too: make life a very simple thing, utterly innocent.Do you think this silence needs anything more to be added to it? Or is not this gesture complete? Each moment has to be lived in beauty, in joy; has to be made a festival of lights.Now, some really serious things….A farmer munching on a cookie is watching a big rooster chasing a hen around the barn, and gaining on her at every lap.The farmer throws a piece of cookie in front of the racing pair.The rooster comes skidding to a stop and gobbles up the piece of cookie.“My god,” says the farmer, “I hope I never get that hungry.”The elections come and Ronald Reagan is out of a job. He is sitting with Nancy Reagan in the Oval Office for the last time, working out some economy measures for his retirement.“You had better learn to cook, Nancy,” says Reagan, “so we can fire the cook.”Nancy thinks it over for a few moments. “Okay,” she says, “but you had better learn to screw so we can fire the chauffeur.”Little Ernie is playing with his train set in the living room, while his mother is cooking dinner.He lets the train go around the track ten times, then stops it and says, “All you fuckers who wanna get in, get in. All you fuckers who wanna get out, get out!”He lets the train go around ten more times and then stops it and says the same thing.At this, his mother comes storming into the living room and tells Ernie to go and stand in the corner for using such filthy language.Half an hour later, his mother tells him he can go and play with his train again. Little Ernie sends the train around the track ten times, stops it and says, “All you fuckers that wanna get in, get in! All you fuckers who wanna get out, get out! Anybody got a complaint about the delay, go and see the bitch in the kitchen!”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 28 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Your silence goes so deep into my heart that it makes my love unconditional.Osho, is this what “satsang” is?There are two ways to look at life. One is the way of the schizophrenic. That has been followed by the crowds around the world down the centuries. It divides things. It is very uneasy without dividing them. And because for thousands of years the teaching has penetrated into every mind it seems to be the only way.It looks neat and clean divided, but existence does not follow it. It has its own undivided melting, merging into each other without making any demarcations.I am against the first because it has destroyed so much that the crime is incalculable.Just the other day one underground sannyasin has been sent by the court in Germany to an insane asylum. And all that she has done was that she was sticking posters around the city saying that Christianity is the greatest crime against humanity. She was caught and brought to the court and the judge said, “It is criminal to hurt people’s feelings.”The young woman must have been of immense courage. She said, “If truth hurts people’s feelings what are you going to choose? People’s feelings or the truth? Whatever I have written in the posters, I can prove it. And unless you disprove it you have no right to send me to jail.”It is a truth that Christianity has committed immense crimes, and goes on committing them. And Christianity is not alone in it. Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Jainism, Buddhism – even these soft religions, Jainism and Buddhism – go on committing crimes.Instead of sending her to jail the judge ordered that she should be put in a mental asylum. To speak the truth is the greatest crime. In fact the judge should have been put into the mental asylum. He has no grounds to refute her, and he cannot say that truth has to be repressed because it hurts some stupid people who are clinging to lies.But this goes on happening around the world. Not a single protest has been made against the treatment of the young woman; neither has anybody protested against the judge. It has been taken for granted…we have taken for granted so many things which are not so.The old way, the wrong way, the ugly and the insane way, divides love from silence, divides silence from ecstasy, divides ecstasy from self-realization and so on, so forth. But they are not divisions. It is a simple flow of energy moving into different spaces.You are asking, “Your silence goes so deep into my heart that it makes my love unconditional.”To any logician, to any follower of the first path it will look absurd. What has silence to do with unconditional love? They seem to be worlds apart.But, Satyam Svarup, you gathered courage to say something which goes against your training of logic. It was possible because it is not an intellectual question, it is your existential experience. And logic cannot overrule existential experiences.Man is a miniature cosmos, everything intertwined. If your love deepens, your silence will deepen; your blissfulness will deepen, your innocence will deepen, your sensitivity, your aesthetic potentiality will come to flowering.Just as your hands are not separate from your eyes, neither are your feet separate from your head; you are an organic unity – the same is the situation in the inner world. Your love, your meditation, your silence, your blissfulness – they are simply waves in the same ocean of consciousness. So don’t be disturbed by the mind, which is pretending to be the master. Listen to the heart and you will never be on a wrong track. And the more you listen to the heart, the more and more your life will go beyond intellect, beyond logic, beyond dialectics, beyond all kinds of discriminations.It is beautiful that you have brought it into a question: “As your silence goes so deep into my heart, there it makes my love unconditional.”Start from anywhere. You are a perfect circle, and so deeply interconnected, with everything in your life. You can start by being more meditative, which is the simplest because it does not involve other human beings. The others are a little complex; it is better to let them come on their own.My own understanding is, don’t start with love, because your understanding of love is not the authentic love. It is simply biological infatuation, and if you start with that you have gone astray. Start with meditation because meditation is the only thing that biology has not given to you. It has a tremendous force of its own. That’s why the physiologist or the biologist will account for everything but will never mention the word meditation.Meditation is the only bridge between you and the beyond. Start with meditation – and that’s what is happening to you, effortlessly. Sitting with me, listening to me, a silence enters into your heart and suddenly you feel springs of love unaddressed, radiating in all directions. It is not love to someone, it is simply being loving.But if it comes from meditation, from silence, it will have purity, because it is not coming from biology. It is not coming from your past, it is not coming from all your conditionings; it is coming from the spontaneous experience of silence. And suddenly you see a great aroma of love around you.You have known love, but it was always conditional. Anything conditional is not worth a penny, because the conditional will disappear. Once the condition is fulfilled there is no purpose in it.Two small boys were talking seriously. One said, “It is strange, everybody else has a girlfriend and I cannot get one.”The other said, “You are fortunate, because to get one is simple but to get out of the love affair is a very messy thing. You enjoy your aloneness as long as you can. I am suffering from these girlfriends!”Any love which has some conscious or unconscious conditions is bound to bring frustration, because those conditions cannot be fulfilled. The very nature of conditions is such.Every girl hates her mother; she may not be conscious of it at all. But the thing becomes more complicated because she hates the mother and she imitates her too, because there is no other woman whom she can imitate and learn from. So she learns all those ugly ways that she hates! Every young girl loves the father, just as the boy loves the mother. It is very natural, because the first experience of the other polarity for the girl is the father, and for the boy is the mother. That is their first experience of the other sex, and naturally there is a tremendous attraction.But there is also a big, wide barrier. The boy hates the father, just as the girl hates the mother. The reason is the same: the boy hates the father because he is possessing his love-object – the mother. And the girl is jealous because the mother is possessing the father whom she would have liked to possess. These things go into the unconscious realms of your being, and they remain with you for your whole life unless you become enlightened. This makes your love strangely conditional, which cannot be fulfilled.Every man unknowingly is expecting his wife to be his mother; that is the image of the woman that he is carrying. Now no other woman can fulfill that image, and anyway the girl has not married him to become his mother! And things become more and more complicated because the girl is carrying the image of her father; she wants her husband exactly to be like her father, and certainly no man marries a woman to become her father.And the complexities go on becoming more and more difficult: the husband wants the wife to be like the mother, but she hates the mother. The girl wants the husband to fulfill the condition of being the father, but the poor husband in the first place has no idea what is expected of him and in the second place the husband also hates the father. Now things become so complex and complicated….The family has been, as long as we can remember back into the past, the basic unit of the society – a very insane unit, and it creates the whole society. Each generation transfers its cancer to another generation.When I say love has to be unconditional it means you are not expecting from the other anything. You are not expecting the other to be someone else. You are simply loving to the other, as he or she is. And your unconditional love will make you unattached to individuals; it will be just an aroma around you. You will be a loving person. You will love the trees, you will love the sunset, you will love a woman, you will love all that this universe provides you.Right now, the conditional love is like an imprisonment. Two persons who don’t like each other are holding each other in imprisonment. It is a strange thing. If you don’t like the other, say good-bye. But you cannot say good-bye because you are afraid he may enjoy himself somewhere else. It does not fit with your jealousy, he has to be happy with you. A husband does not like his wife to be laughing, to be happy with another man. Neither does the wife like such a situation.So it is a very strange situation in which we have placed humanity. And unless a great awareness happens that this is our fundamental misery, you cannot be freed from this hell that you have made of the earth. Lovers – the so-called lovers, I mean – are more like detectives to each other than lovers. Jealously watching what the other is doing…every letter is opened, every pocket is searched.One night, a woman heard…in sleep her husband was again and again saying, “Kamala, darling.” The woman was listening to exactly what he was saying. In the morning she asked, the first thing, “Who is this ‘Kamala darling’?”The man said, “It is nothing, it is just the name of a female horse. I have been thinking to bet on that horse – you know the racing season is coming.”And then, just when they were talking about this, the phone rang. The husband ran toward the phone; the wife said, “Stop, I will take it.” And then she handed over the phone to the husband: “That female horse ‘Kamala darling’ wants to talk to you.”Even in sleep you are not free to say things. And people say there is freedom of speech! If there were a small window which God had managed to make into every head, the wife would have been looking through the window into your dreams. “What are you seeing? Who is this woman?”I have heard, two young men were going to Alaska, far away from humanity, for some research work. In the last village, they purchased everything that they would need for at least three months. When their purchase was complete, the owner of the shop said, “I don’t want to interfere, but I am more experienced and I have been giving things to all kinds of research workers who go deep into Alaska where you will not meet another human being…”They said, “What do you mean?”He said, “I have a suggestion: I have a plastic woman, really great, glamorous…”They both said, “This is nonsense. Plastic woman – what are we going to do with a plastic woman?”He said, “Just keep it in case you need. There will be no woman available for thousands of miles.”One of them relaxed and he said, “I will purchase it.”The other said, “Are you mad?”The first said, “I am not mad, but without a woman for three months, I may get mad. I am going to purchase the woman; just show me.”The shop owner pumped the air into the woman…and it came out so beautiful because it was manufactured, everything perfect. The first man said, “You have been a great wise man to advise us.” He purchased the woman and he said to his friend on the way, “Remember, I don’t like anybody to befool around my wife.”The man said, “Have you already gone mad? It is a plastic woman, it is not your wife.”He said, “Whatever it is, for these three months in Alaska, watch out. Because I am a very angry man. If I see you with my woman, there is only one way that I know and that is to shoot you.”The man said, “What kind of nonsense are you talking? A plastic thing and you will shoot me – your best friend! And why I should get interested in your plastic woman?”He said, “I have just made you alert about it. Don’t ask me later on why I did not say it to you.”After two months, the man who had purchased the woman came back to the same village and thanked the shop owner, saying, “You gave me something that was immensely needed in that lonely place.”The owner asked, “But what happened to your friend?”He said, “Don’t ask me about that bastard. I shot him.”The owner asked, “For what?”He said, “I caught him making love to my woman! And that idiot did the last thing as I came in and was going to shoot him – he cut the nipples of my woman with his teeth, so she immediately flew out of the window. I have lost the woman, I have lost the friend. I have come to ask if you have got another pair.”This whole society is boiling with jealousy. Nobody says it, everybody hides it. But the more you hide it, the more it goes on like a cancerous growth, expanding in your interior being. Just look how many things you are jealous of: somebody has a beautiful house and somebody has a beautiful physique, and somebody has a beautiful strong body. Somebody is an intellectual giant and somebody has the most wealth that one could ever think of. So on, so forth, there are people all around who will make you jealous.Instead of your life being in an oceanic love, it is suffering in a gutter of dirty jealousy. But unless you start looking inward and finding the roots, you will not be able to transform it.You are blessed, Svarup, that just without any effort my silence reaches to your heart. It will purify you, it will destroy all that is poisonous in you – jealousy, anger, greed, attachment, possessiveness. It will make you just a beautiful flower of love.What is happening has been called in the East satsang, being with a man who has attained the truth. Yes, this is satsang – where, without any effort on your part, just the grace of your master starts alchemical changes…so silently that you become aware only when the work is done.And there are a few things…for example if you have known unconditional love, you cannot undo it. It is so vast and it is so beautiful that what you used to think was love looks like just an ugly nightmare compared to it. You would not like to go back to it; your whole being will resist going back to it.My speaking to you is not especially to give you any philosophy or any dogma, or any creed or any theology or any religion. My talking to you is a device so that you can experience my presence, my silence. In an unaware moment perhaps you can come closer to my heart without any fear.This is a device for meditativeness.I am not interested in any kinds of doctrines; they have tortured humanity long enough. I am interested in a loving humanity, in a humanity fragrant with silence, rejoicing this immense gift of life and existence.The madam watches anxiously as Gloria, her best girl, is about to be wheeled into the operating room for a heart transplant. She grasps the surgeon by his sleeve and asks, “What are her chances for recovery, Doc?”“Ah, pretty good, I would say,” replies the doctor. “After all, she has not rejected an organ in twenty years.”Mendel Kravitz, the wealthy Jewish businessman, has a very bad case of hemorrhoids. He goes to all the most famous doctors for a cure, but no one can help him.One day he is glancing at a religious magazine when he notices an article explaining how Pope the Polack has a special holy cure for hemorrhoids. He goes to see the pope, who for a fee of ten thousand dollars gives him a series of massages, using special holy oil.After the third session, Mendel asks the pope if he could buy some of the holy oil to take back to New York so that his wife Ruthie can complete the treatment.Pope the Polack agrees, and the next day Mendel is sprawled on his bed at home while Ruthie massages his hemorrhoids. Mendel asks Ruthie exactly how she is giving the massage. “Well,” says Ruthie, “my left hand is on your shoulder and with my right hand, I am massaging your ass.”“That’s funny,” says Mendel, “when the pope did it, he put both of his hands on my shoulders.”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 29 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I am a twenty-four-year-old German guy and after doing a primal group I know pretty well that I don't want to accept any other father or mother than me.Now I like your teaching, your destroying of my old conditioning very much but why should I change my name, be a sannyasin and accept a master who says that there is no need for any authority?Peter Heidegger, the question you have asked is immensely interesting. Even if you had not said that you are a German guy, the question would have revealed it – the question is authentically German! I am going to analyze it, because that is the only way a German can understand.You have done only one Primal group and you have taken conclusions for your whole life. Do you see the stupidity of it? Do you see the impatience of coming to conclusions from a small Primal group – which is just a cathartic group, it is not meditation. It is not even the beginning of meditation. It is only preparing the ground, taking out the weeds and the grass roots before seeds can be sown.Just this small group and you jump to conclusions, far-reaching, without being aware of what you are asking. You don’t know even the meaning of the words you are using.You say, “After doing a Primal group I know pretty well that I don’t want to accept any other father or mother than me.” Do you see the implication of it? Primal therapy, and other therapies also, want you to be freed from your childhood fixations. You have been brought up by a man and a woman; naturally, you have become fixated on father, on mother, and these fixations affect your whole life, your whole lifestyle. And because your father is not going to live forever, you find yourself in a great trouble: without the father what will you do? Without the mother what will you do? You have become so dependent in your psychology.It is out of this dependence that “God the Father” was created, that there are “Mother Goddesses.” These have not come out of the blue; they are projections of your psychology. You need them. They are tremendous consolations: your father may die, may abandon you, but the great father in the sky is going to protect you forever.Even Jesus, a man who has created the biggest gang of criminals in the world, was tremendously father-fixated. All his prayers, hands raised toward the sky, are simply foolish, because in the sky there is nobody to answer your prayers. And he was so fixated that he denied his father Joseph; he insulted his mother Mary. A small incident will explain it to you….He is preaching in his usual way in the marketplace, where you can always find a few bums who have nothing to do, a few urchins, a small crowd. And then somebody shouted from the crowd, “Jesus, your mother is waiting outside the crowd. She has not seen you for many, many days. She wants to see you.”And the way Jesus treated his mother is so ugly that just this incident would have been enough to condemn this man forever. He said, “Tell that woman that my father is above the clouds in the sky. Here on the earth, there is nobody who is my mother and there is nobody who is my father.”A poor woman…but from where does this insult come? A deep fixation upon an eternal father, that “I am the only begotten son of God,” gives him this stupid idea to insult a poor woman who has just come to see her son. She had not seen him for many days. But he did not allow her into the crowd, and he did not go out of the crowd to meet her. He just shouted these words; that was the whole conversation. And Mary, with tears, went back home.The implications of these fixations have many dimensions. People call their language the “mother tongue,” their country the “motherland.” Except Germany – Germany is rare in that it calls its country the “fatherland.” That shows a more male chauvinistic idea.But why do people call their languages their mother tongues? I have heard one man explaining to me that the reason why the language is called mother tongue is because the child never hears the father; it is always the mother who speaks. The moment the father enters in the house he is silent; then the whole conversation is a monologue. Perhaps this may be the reason.But deep down, we want to be surrounded by “mother earth” as a protection, as our nourishment. We are so much consoled by the idea that the sky is our father and the earth is our mother, and we are perfectly protected between the two.All therapies will destroy these fixations, because these fixations are the roots of other stupid ideologies that you go on clinging to: the father race, the mother race, your superiority.I have heard about two generals, one German, one English, talking to each other after the second world war about what has happened. The German was saying, “We had all the power in the world, more than any country ever had. We went on winning continuously for five years. Then suddenly, everything collapsed. What went wrong? What made you victorious?”The English general laughed. He said, “You don’t understand. It is not just power that determines everything, it is God’s blessing. Before every attack, our armies went into prayer. Without prayer, we never attacked; that is the reason for our victory.”The German said, “But we also did the same; we also prayed before every movement of the army, so this cannot be the cause.”The English general insisted: “This is the cause. In what language were you praying?”The German said, “Obviously, we were praying in German.” And the English general said, “Who has ever heard that God understands German?”These kinds of stupid ideas are all over the world. In India, people think that the Sanskrit language is the only language God understands. That’s why he has written the Vedas in Sanskrit, because that is the only language he can write. But the same kind of idea Moses gave to the Jews: “You are the chosen people of God, and your scripture is the holy book. It is written by God himself.” Certainly he understands only one language, Hebrew. And you can go on asking around the world: everybody has this idea.There is no God, and there is nobody to understand what you are talking about. But it certainly gives a consolation – in depression, in suffering, in misery, just opening your heart and praying to God certainly gives peace. It is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of, it is nothing valuable. But man has lived on dreams, on hopes, on imagination: if God has not heard today, tomorrow he will hear.For the first time in the world all these therapies have come with the idea that man’s psychological troubles are rooted in his fixation on the mother, on the father. This fixation has to be cut completely; with it will disappear your gods, your mother goddesses. With this will disappear many fictions, prayers, many hopes, many dreams. You will be cleaner, more unburdened, more clear, more perceptive.But you have come to a wrong conclusion. You say, “I have done the Primal group. I know pretty well that I don’t want to accept any other father.” The Primal group was not saying to you that you have to accept any other father. That’s what religions have been doing – instead of a Hindu god accept a Christian god. That is changing your father, your fixation.I was staying in faraway central India, with a small aboriginal tribe. One of my professor friends used to go; he was an anthropologist and he was studying the aboriginals, their civilization, their mannerisms. And he told me, “The place is so beautiful in the deep forest, so virgin.” He showed me a few photographs of a cave which goes miles underground, and a small river flows in the cave. He had been through the whole cave with torches, taking photographs. I became interested and I went.The first night we were resting, and after the night, in the morning, we were going to explore that tremendously beautiful cave. But in the night, something happened that I want to tell you.A missionary had come into the village, and the whole village gathered in the clearing in the middle of their small huts, just a little ground for meetings. They all gathered. They were very much interested in what this missionary was going to say.The missionary said to them, “You have been in misery, in suffering, because you have not yet found the right god.”One of the old men of the tribe asked, “How to find the right god?”He said, “I will show you the way.” But he continued to look at me, although I was sitting behind the crowd. Without disturbing anything, I wanted to see what he was trying to do. And he was afraid, because he could see me and my friend, and the car behind.But still he went on; he brought from his suitcase two statues. One was of Rama, who is being worshipped by the aboriginals of central India as god, and one was of Jesus Christ. And he had a bucket full of water and he said, “You can see for yourself how to find the right god. You can see your god, Rama, and my god, Jesus Christ. Now I will drop them into the bucket and you will see: whoever drowns is wrong, whoever floats is right.”They were painted exactly alike, but the statue of Rama was made of brass and the statue of Jesus was made of very soft wood, very lightweight wood. Naturally, Jesus was victorious…and the whole crowd of the aboriginals looked at each other. They said, “Now, there is no way. We have to change. We have been worshipping a fellow who cannot save himself. How can he save us?”At that moment I thought, “Now it is too much.” I went into the crowd and I told the missionary, “Before anything else happens I want to ask a few questions to the crowd.”He said, “I have no objection.”I asked the crowd, “Have you ever, in the whole history of your race, heard of anything like a water test?”They said, “We have never heard; we have heard only about the fire test.” The missionary became afraid….I said, “Make a bonfire here and then we will see who is the right god.”And they jumped and they enjoyed the idea, that “In the first place that idiot is using a wrong method. ‘Water test’! Who has ever heard of it? A fire test is a well-known thing.”The fire was built and I told the people, “Don’t let this missionary escape; he will try.” So four or five young men surrounded the missionary and I said, “This is your duty, because after the test about the gods we will test the missionary!”The gods were tested and of course Jesus burned immediately. Rama came out without any problem. I asked the crowd, “Now what do you want? Should we test this missionary also?”They said, “That’s the right thing to do, because he was trying to deceive us.” And the missionary was almost in tears, nervous, trembling and he said, “You are an educated man – don’t kill me! I have nothing to do with Jesus Christ or anybody, I am just a missionary; I just get a salary for it.”I told the people, “Let the poor fellow go…”Who is telling you to change the father or mother? All the religions have been doing that, arguing with each other – “Our god is better, superior, more powerful than your god.” That’s the whole idea of conversion.There have been only two religions, Judaism and Hinduism, which are non-converting religions. But not for the right reasons – they don’t convert anybody because anybody who is not born a Jew is an inferior being; anybody who is not born a Hindu cannot be converted to Hinduism because by conversion you cannot purify him. He will have to go through a whole process of disciplining himself so that in the next life he is born as a Hindu; conversion is not possible right now. It is a long process of transformation.But these are the oldest religions of the world, Judaism and Hinduism, and they never came in conflict because they were in separate parts of the world. New religions, out of necessity, had to depend on conversion. Otherwise from where are you going to get Christians, if you don’t convert? From where are you going to get new converts other than from older religions? That makes the Christian the most fanatic, most fundamentalist, most fascist, because he has to be very aggressive in his attempt to convert people to Christianity. And they have succeeded; almost half of humanity is Christian.From where have these Christians come? They have come from older religions which don’t convert. But the whole game is the politics of numbers. The more people you have under your wing, the more powerful you are. There is no other priest in the world except the Catholic pope who is also a sovereign king of an independent country, the Vatican. Obviously he has the greatest number of people around the world; as Catholics they are his power.These people have been trying to change you, but the new therapies are not trying to change your father fixation into a new fixation. Therapies are trying to help you drop the whole idea of father and mother. Be an individual, without any bondage, free, authentic and sincere.But instead of that you are saying, “I don’t want to accept any other father or mother than me.” So you are going to be your own father? You are going to be your own mother? You are going to be in a tremendous confusion! I cannot figure out how you will manage your life. Inside you there will be a conflict; your father and mother will go on fighting. You will become a nervous wreck.You gained great insight out of your primal therapy! At least the father was far away in the sky. Now it is within you; the danger has come even closer. And not only the father – mother is also there!Just be a little saner.And then you say, “I like your teaching.” Have you ever thought what is my teaching? The question of liking or not liking does not arise – there is no teaching at all! Neither is there a teaching nor is there a teacher. I am not preaching a certain doctrine to you, a certain system of beliefs, a philosophy or theology. I am not a teacher and I don’t have any teaching, because I don’t have any belief: no God, no heaven, no hell. Just this universe, which is not a belief – which is your experience, my experience, everybody’s experience.So don’t get this wrong idea that you like my teaching. No such thing exists.And then you go on being more and more stupid: “…your destroying my old conditioning, very much.” You like my destroying your old conditioning very much – and still you are a German guy! Your being a German is simply a conditioning. If you have understood me you cannot be a part of any nation and you cannot be a part of any religion and you cannot be a part of any kind of doctrinaire philosophical system. You can be only a silent human being, in tune with the universe.And you go on saying great things: “…but why should I change my name?” Why not? It will help you to forget that you are a German; that’s why. The changing of the name simply means you are dropping the whole old personality that was indicated by the old name, that you are beginning afresh with a new name. It is symbolic. You were not born with a name. The name was given by your father, by your mother, by your people. Now you have dropped all conditionings, why not drop the name those conditionings gave to you?You can choose your name yourself; anything will do. It is not necessary for a name to mean something, it is only symbolic so that you can be recognized in the crowd and called. You can make up your name yourself, but change you must! Your insistence on not changing shows your inner idea: “On the surface, play the game that I have dropped all conditionings.” And you are not even ready to drop a bogus name.I have no interest in changing your name. It is just out of compassion that I am saying, “Start a new life with a new symbol, so that you can be discontinuous with your past.”And then, “…why should I change my name, be a sannyasin…” Do you understand the meaning of sannyasin? It simply means a seeker of truth.You don’t want to be a seeker of truth?Then what the hell are you doing here?And further, “…why should I change my name, be a sannyasin and accept a master who says that there is no need for any authority?”Two things: first, the master accepts the disciple, not the other way around. So you need not be worried about that. The disciple has to wait for that blissful moment when he can be accepted. Who has given you this idea that it is in your hands to accept a master or not?I will tell you a small story about Junnaid, a Sufi mystic who used to tell his disciples that “I had such a beautiful master that there is no way for me to explain to you his beauty, his grace. But I will tell a few stories that happened between me and my master.”And he never named his master; that was disrespectful. So nobody knows who Junnaid’s master was, because Junnaid never mentioned his name. He always called him simply “my master.”He was asked again and again: “Please tell his name.” He said, “How can I say his name? That will be against gratefulness, against respect, against my love. Don’t ask his name. Just the word ‘master’ is enough.”“I lived with my master,” he used to say, “for twelve years. As I entered into the palace where he used to live he simply gestured with his hand, indicating to me, ‘Sit down.’ And for three years afterward he did not even look toward me. Every day I would come in the morning, sit down by the side. And other disciples would come – their questions, their problems, their difficulties on the path, their experiences, realizations. And by the evening I would leave.“After three years, for the first time he looked at me. And just that look went like an arrow into my heart. That very moment I knew I had been accepted. It took three years of waiting, but I was determined: even if it takes my whole life to wait, I am going to wait. Because I have seen every day more and more grace, more and more of the master’s beauty, more and more the feel of his presence. I had already forgotten how many days had passed. When he looked at me then I remembered: three years I had been waiting.“And then for three years again he never looked at me. After six years of waiting, he smiled at me. And in his smile I knew I had been embraced, he had taken me into his heart. The first time he had looked I knew he had reached my heart; after six years I knew he had taken me into his own heart. And not a single word!“Three more years passed and he hugged me, kissed my forehead and told me, ‘Junnaid, now you are ready. You can go.’“Not a single word of teaching, but initiation happened just by a look, and a deeper mystery opened just by a smile. A hug from the master became the certificate, and he has sent me into the world to teach. He has not said a single word to me about what to teach. So whatever he used to do, I am doing.”This was Junnaid’s whole life, and he transformed hundreds of people. And all that he knew was: Sit down – first, a gesture. Then after three years of waiting it becomes a growing intensity; waiting becomes almost your whole life. And then, suddenly he looks at you and your whole life is filled with a new light. You are bathed, you are purified. You have passed through the test; you have been accepted.And Junnaid continued to do the same, because he said, “This is all that I have learned from my master,” and he created great people. The greatest of them was al-Hillaj Mansoor, of the same category as Gautam Buddha or Chuang Tzu or Basho or Bodhidharma.But he has nothing to say. He has something to convey – words are not necessary.The seeker of truth has to show his credentials, his ability to wait, his capacity to be patient, because the journey is long and the path is very narrow. A master accepts a disciple only when he can see the sincerity of the heart, the risk, the danger of going into aloneness…when the master is convinced that the person is capable of all these, he is accepted as a disciple.You don’t have to be worried: it is not so easy to be accepted by a master. And if you don’t want to be a sannyasin…perhaps you thought that sannyasins are also a kind of religion; perhaps this is also a new movement, enrolling people. It is not. If you are searching truth, whether you know it or not you are a sannyasin. If you are ready to drop all your conditioning, you are a sannyasin. If you meditate and raise your consciousness to its highest potential, you are a sannyasin. It does not matter whether you know the meaning of the word ‘sannyasin’ or not.The ancient meaning of the word was, one who leaves the world in search of truth. My own meaning is, one who lives in the world and yet goes on searching for truth. Because where can you go? Everywhere is the world.I cannot understand where those people were going, leaving the world. To the Himalayas? It is also part of the world, part of our geography. Where are those people going to find a place outside the world?There is nothing outside the world. Everything is inside the world, and there is no way to get out of it. The only way is to go into yourself, and you are out of it. If the world is not inside you – no desire, no longing, no will to power – if all this nonsense has disappeared from your inner world and it is utterly pure emptiness, you are out of the world. That is the only place which is not in the world.But as far as your body is concerned it will be in the world. I have always wondered where those people used to go. Wherever they go, they will find some kind of world.An old master was dying, and he called his successor: “My last message to you is, never, never allow a cat in your house.” And the old fellow died.The successor said, “My god, what has it to do with the search for truth? And now I am going to be on guard continuously that no cat enters into the house? What kind of thing has he left me with and died? Now I cannot even ask, ‘What do you mean?’”But an old man who was there said, “Don’t be worried, I know the whole story. I will tell you what he means. I have known him for many, many years…”When he had become a sannyasin, he left the world and went out into the forest. But you need food, you need milk, you need some clothing, you need some kind of roof. But he had left everything, according to the ancient formula; he had brought with himself only two Indian-type underwear. I emphasize the word Indian-type because that kind does not exist anywhere else in the whole world. It is just a single strip of cloth, long enough so you can wrap it around yourself. You are becoming acquainted in the West with mini-underwear, which show much and hide less – that has been done by the Indian sannyasins for centuries. It is nothing new.So, two of these underwear he took, and left. But there was trouble. He managed to make a small hut with bamboos and grass, but those two underwear were creating trouble because rats would come and eat the underwear. He was in great difficulty. Again and again he had to go to the village to ask for new underwear.Finally, the village got tired. They said, “You have left the world. If you had said that you would come again and again for the underwear, we would have stopped you: Don’t go. What is the point? You had everything, now you are a torture.”He said, “What can I do? There are so many rats.” The people suggested, “Then do one thing. We will give you a cat.”He said, “What will the cat do?”People suggested, “The cat will kill the rats and will protect your underwear.” It was perfectly logical. So he took a cat with him. But now a new problem: the cat needs milk, the cat needs food. She certainly finished all the rats, but now he has to go to the town to ask for some milk for the cat.The people said, “You are a constant nuisance. We were thinking that we had got rid of you. We have given you the cat, and now you have started coming for milk. Rather than giving you milk every day, we will give you a cow. You take a cow as a contribution from the whole village. But don’t torture us any more. This cow will help in many ways. It will give enough milk for the cat and it will give enough milk for you, too. So you need not come for your food either.”He said, “The idea is good,” and took the cow. New problems…. Every solution brings new problems.So those who are really men of understanding never solve anything. Look at me. I have never solved anything. I don’t have any problem. Just…I simply saw the thing clearly, that the moment you have a solution, a problem comes.Now the cow needs grass. From where to get so much grass every day? Finally, he had to go to the village again. He said, “You give me solutions and they create new problems! Now I go on searching through the whole forest for the grass. I have gone into sannyas to meditate, but since I have been in sannyas – rats, cat, cow, grass…I was never in so much business when I was in the world. Now show me a way…”They said, “Don’t be worried, every problem has a solution. There is a widow in the village. She is very poor. And she, we hope, will be willing to go with you and live with you. She can take care of the cow, and we will come and clear some ground so you can grow grass. You can also grow some wheat. And sometimes you may be sick, sometimes you may be not feeling well…that woman will take care of you, too.”He said, “My god, it seems the whole thing is…that’s what I had escaped in the very beginning! A house, a woman, a cow…I had all these things. Everything is coming again from the back door.”But there was no other alternative, so he took the widow. And for many, many days he had been involved in such complicated problems that he had not thought about women. But now he saw the widow – she was really beautiful. Deep down, dreams started arising – “This is great. Together alone in the forest…”And what had to happen, happened. Then children, then searching for a school….The old man explained to the young successor, “That’s why your master finally told you to never, never allow a cat in the house. Because it was the cat that destroyed his whole life.”But where will you go? I don’t think there is any place anywhere, where you will not need essential things. And those essential things will bring you back again and again. Instead of becoming a sannyasin, you will become a beggar. Instead of becoming a creator, you will become just a burden on the society.That has happened in the East, to the extent that in Thailand, the proportion has grown so much that out of every four men, one is a Buddhist bhikku who has renounced the world. Thailand is a poor country. It cannot manage so many people who do nothing except ask always for clothes, for food, for milk, for medicine. Finally, just a few years ago, the parliament of Thailand passed a law that unless somebody takes the permission of the government, he cannot renounce the world. This is the strangest law you could have in any country. But in any other country the situation will be the same. There is a limit – how long can you tolerate these people who do nothing, and are ready to ask for everything?The old sannyasin, the old concept of a sannyasin, is basically wrong. I don’t teach you to leave the world, I teach you to live in the world but don’t let the world live in you. Be a lotus leaf in the water – but the water cannot touch it. That’s the only possibility, if we want the whole world to taste something of meditation; otherwise…the old sannyas cannot survive. And it is meaningless, because it makes you dependent on people. You were independent, you had your own time; you worked for a few hours and then you had your own time. But these poor people who have left the world, their whole time is wasted in asking for small things, being rejected, being insulted, being told, “Go away, go somewhere else.” These people were in search of dignity, and what they have found is utter indignity.And the second thing: you don’t understand – perhaps millions of people in the world don’t understand – the difference between authority and authoritarianism. They both originate from the same root; in dictionaries they have the same meaning. But in experience, they are not only different but diametrically opposite. An Adolf Hitler is authoritarian, but he is not an authority. Authoritarian means he has power to dominate. He has power to order you, to command you.Authority simply means that whatever you are saying is your own experience. You are not dependent on any other source. You are not repeating the holy Bible or the holy Gita or the holy Koran. You are saying what you have experienced within your own self. This gives you a deep authority.But it not the same authority as a commander has over the army, or the politician has over the country. It is not power over others, it is simply an experience arising, with absolute clarity, with no hesitation, without any doubts. It is your own experience. You don’t depend on any scriptures. So these two things are totally different.Jesus is authoritarian because his authority is derived from the God whom he claims is his father. The source of authority is the father. Moses is authoritarian; so is Mohammed, so is Krishna, so is Rama, because they all derive their authority from outer sources. If those outer sources are proved to be fictitious – as they are – then the whole authority of Jesus and Mohammed and Krishna falls, collapses. If their God is proved to be non-existent, then they don’t have any authority.But my authority cannot collapse, because it is not dependent on anyone. Even my death cannot destroy it – it is my own experience. Only authority makes the master. And only with a man of his own experience can you learn something. You can imbibe his spirit. You can be overwhelmed by his love, by his presence. If you are receptive, you can be completely transformed.And that’s the meaning of the word disciple. It comes from the same root as “discipline.” A disciple is one who is ready to learn, who is ready to discipline himself into receptivity, into alertness, into awareness, into patience.Peter Heidegger, be here; let the atmosphere enter in you a little deeper. Do a few more groups, do meditations. Sit here, just for the joy of sitting. Questions you can ask later on. Right now, your questions will be absurd.Become well acquainted with this caravan of seekers; imbibe their spirit, merge and melt, and perhaps you may be able to find an authentic question that helps you in your search for yourself. But this question is too early.There are a few more strange questions, but you will have to wait for them until tomorrow. Right now is the time to have a little fun.Paddy and Maureen go fishing together in a boat. “Do you mind if I fish off the right side of the boat?” asks Maureen. Paddy agrees and starts fishing from the left side. He catches nothing all day, but Maureen keeps pulling up fish, one after the other.The next week, they go fishing again, and this time, Maureen asks to fish from the left side of the boat. Paddy fishes from the right side and catches nothing, but again Maureen almost fills the boat with the fish she catches from the left side. At the end of the day, Paddy is really puzzled.“Maureen,” he asks, “how do you know which side of the boat the fish are going to be on?”“Well,” replies Maureen, “when I wake up in the morning I have a look at your prick. If it is hanging on the left side, I fish on the left side of the boat. And if it is on the right side, then I fish on the right side of the boat.”“That’s amazing,” says Paddy, “and what if my prick is right in the middle?”“Well, Paddy,” says Maureen mischievously, “on a day like that, who cares about fishing?”

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Om Mani Padme Hum 01-30Category: THE MANTRA SERIES

Om Mani Padme Hum 30 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,What is your vision of a World Academy of Sciences for Creativity?Amrito, the world has come so close to a point of crisis that the so-called thinkers of the world simply avoid talking about the coming suicide. It is not far away; by the end of the century, if we do not do anything…This has been the habit of all good people of the world – not to do anything, while the criminals and the evil continue to do all their crimes. This habit has to be broken at least this once.You have raised a question which has tremendous importance and I would like to go deeper into detail about it.Science is a new phenomenon compared to religion. Religion has dominated the world in some form or other as far back as we can see. Science has a history of only three hundred years. This background has to be understood; only then can the problem be seen in the right perspective.These three hundred years, science has had to fight inch by inch against the deeply rooted religions, which were vast empires of power, vested interest. On the smallest things science was in difficulty: if it went against religions, then science was so young that it was not possible for it to fight.I am reminded of Galileo, himself a Christian, not an atheist. But because he discovered that it is not the sun that goes around the earth, but just the contrary, it is the earth that goes around the sun – and this statement is against the Bible – Galileo was condemned. In his old age, sick, almost dying, he was forced to the court of the Christian pope.The pope said, “Do you think you know more than God? God has written the Bible and he says that the sun goes around the earth. You are making a statement which is dangerous to our whole structure.”Galileo asked, “What is the danger?”The pope said, “The danger is obvious. If God can commit a mistake about his own creation, then what guarantee is there…should he be taken for granted as right about other things? Your statement creates doubt. You have to cancel that statement; otherwise death will be the only penalty.”Galileo was certainly a man of great humor. He said, “There is no problem, I can change the statement – and I am not in a state to fight against the idea that God has written the Bible. But remember, even if I change my statement, neither is the sun going to listen to me, nor the earth. The earth will still go around the sun.”On such small matters science was continuously struggling against religion. That created a rift for which religions are solely responsible. But the rift had its own repercussions. Seeing the situation, science started moving more and more toward politics.These have been the two powers holding humanity in their hands: religion and politics. If religion is against you, then the only way is to have some protection from politics. But again you will have to make some compromise. The compromise is that politics will provide labs, instruments, facilities – but its interest is in creating destructive weapons, which have resulted finally in nuclear weapons. Now the whole world is loaded.Right now there are only five nuclear nations, but by the end of this century there will be twenty-five nations with nuclear weapons. And nuclear weapons mean we have decided for death, we have decided to destroy this planet and ourselves.At a late age Albert Einstein understood that it had been a tremendous mistake to take shelter in the powerful hands of politics, just to avoid religion. It was not in any way helpful in creating a better humanity, a better planet, which science is absolutely capable of.I have my vision, and I want my people to be aware of the vision. This ashram is not only for the old and the retired who don’t want to do anything but need shelter and food. That has been the situation with ashrams in the East. According to Hindu tradition, a man should become a sannyasin after the age of seventy-five. That means perhaps after his death, because seventy is the average age for death. But if seventy-five-year-old people gather together, it is just a home for the old, rejected, useless, somehow tolerated.I want to change the whole idea of an ashram. My sannyasin is not to wait for the age of seventy-five. The real sannyasin is a revolutionary, and youth is the authentic time to enter into this inquiry.All the ashrams of this country, all the monasteries of the world are against this ashram for the simple reason that you are going against the traditional idea. Young men and women of intelligence are not just going to sit and do transcendental meditation; they have much more energy to be creative.I want this ashram slowly to develop into a World Academy of Sciences for Creativity. This will be perhaps the greatest synthesis ever. Your search for religious truth in no way hinders your search for the objective reality, because both areas are absolutely separate; they don’t overlap.You can be a scientist and a meditator. In fact, the more you go deeper into meditation, the more clarity, the more intelligence, the more genius you will find flowering in you which can create a totally new science.The old science was created as a reaction against religion. The new science I’m talking about is not a reaction against anything, but an overflowing energy, intelligence, creativity. Politics corrupted science because its own interest was only war. Religions could not accept science because they were all superstitious and science was going to demolish all their gods and all their superstitions.Science has passed these three hundred years in a very difficult situation, fighting on the one hand with religion and on the other hand, unconsciously becoming a slave to the politicians.I want this place to grow and I am making arrangements for a world academy of sciences and arts totally devoted to life-affirmative goals.The science that can create Hiroshima and Nagasaki and destroy thousands of people, birds, trees – without any reason; just because the politicians wanted to see whether atomic energy works or not – the same science can create more food, more life, better health, more intelligence in all fields of life. But it should be taken out of the hands of politicians and it should not bother about religions.Scientists bothered about religions in the past because they themselves were conditioned by the same religions. Galileo could not say that the Bible was not written by God, it is just a fiction; he himself believed that it was written by God.Just a few days ago Dr. Masashi Murakoshi from Japan was here. He has been working for twenty years in Hiroshima, experimenting. As the radiation of the atomic explosion becomes less and less, he has come upon a far more important discovery than Albert Einstein himself did. He went to Hiroshima and wondered at the fact that atomic energy, radiation, is destructive only at a certain quantity. At a lesser quantity it is very creative, very productive, immensely helpful.He himself, when he had gone to Hiroshima, was forty-five years old. Now he is sixty-five years old, but looking at him you would not say he is sixty-five; he still looks as if he is forty-five. His colleagues are dead and those who remain cannot believe the miracle that has happened to him.Radiation in small quantities is life-affirmative. It is the higher dose that destroys.I have been in contact with scientists, Nobel Prize winners, who have been fighting for my rights in other countries. In Italy eighty-four of the most eminent people have just signed a protest against the government. Among those eighty-four there are at least six Nobel Prize winners. The same is the situation in Germany and in Holland.These Nobel Prize winners, eminent scientists, artists of different dimensions, will constitute the academy, and they will make efforts to change science’s whole trend of being destructive.Our sannyasins – and there are many who are scientists, artists, physicians – will help the academy. We will arrange scholarships, and people from all over the world can come and study a new way of science, a new way of art that affirms life, that creates more love in humanity and that prepares for the ultimate revolution.That ultimate revolution is a single world government – because while the world does not have one government, you cannot stop wars. Each nation has to have its own military, its own defenses, its own weapons, and there is competition as to who has more destructive power. But once there is one world government there is no need of any armies, air forces or navies; all these can be transformed into services dedicated to life, to the whole of humanity.And the World Academy of Sciences will be the first step, because if we can take scientists from all over the world slowly out of the grip of the politicians, all the power of the politicians will be finished. They are not powerful; the scientist is the power behind them. And the scientist is in a difficulty, because there is no institute in the world which will give the scientist enough of the materials, instruments, machines that he needs to work with.The days are long gone when Galileo could make a small lab in his own house, and scientists could work independently without any support from outside. Now, science is so complex and has grown so many branches – and each branch has become a science in itself – that unless he is supported by a government or a very powerful institution which has money, which has intelligence, which has dedicated students, the scientist cannot work.It seems existence is arranging for the money that we will need to create the academy. Another very important man in Japan, who holds many foundations for humanitarian services, is also coming to see whether it is possible to bring money from those many foundations to create this world institute. And it will have support from all over the world, from all the scientists without exception, because now everybody is seeing that they are serving death, not life.We can have the greatest library for scientific research and we can have sannyasins working, studying. The synthesis will be that everybody who is working in the institute will also be meditating, because unless meditation goes deep in you, your love sources remain dormant. Your blissfulness, your joy remain unblossomed.Man is not for science, science is for man.But science can be of tremendous help if all the scientists of the world who are creating destructive power are removed. They want to move, but they have no place to move to. We have to create a place for them. They are all feeling guilty….Albert Einstein died feeling utterly guilty because he had helped to create atomic bombs and surrendered those bombs to President Roosevelt of America. Once those bombs were in the hands of the politicians, Albert Einstein went on writing letters saying, “These should not be used; they should be reserved as a last resort.” But nobody bothered about those letters – who cares? – and the bombs were used without rhyme or reason.Japan was coming to the point of accepting surrender, because Germany had already surrendered, and without Germany’s help Japan would not be able to continue. It is a small land, beautiful, brave; but this world has moved from braveness, from courage, to war which is mechanical. Even a weak man can drop bombs; there is no need for him to be a giant, a wrestler. There are even airplanes which can be directed by remote control, without any pilots, and they can drop the bomb and come back home.War has gone beyond any conception of braveness, courage. Japan is a courageous country, but it was going to fall any moment and every general – even the American generals told President Truman, “It is absolutely inhuman to drop atom bombs now when the country is already ready to surrender.”But President Truman insisted, “This is the last chance, don’t miss. Before they surrender, drop the bombs. We have to see what atomic energy can do so that we can go on creating more and bigger and better bombs.” The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just toys compared to the nuclear weapons that we have now.Scientists are in a difficulty. They cannot work individually; they have to work under a government. The government’s interest is war, and no religion is going to support them because their findings go on destroying religious superstitions.There is an immense vacuum which I want to fill by creating a world academy absolutely devoted to life, love, laughter – absolutely devoted to creating a better humanity, a better and more pure, healthy atmosphere, to restoring the disturbed ecology.I have called these two people, and Dr. Murakoshi has already been here. He has already created a few things which radiate atomic energy, but in such minute doses that they help; they remove diseases, they give more well-being.He has made for me, especially for my bathtub, a small radiator disk: just ten minutes and the whole bathtub becomes full of radiation. Just to check whether it works or not, I have used the bath; it certainly works.He has made a few belts filled with radiating material, and sannyasins are using them and are finding immense energy that they have never had before. He is going to come with more gadgets that he has invented.He loves me so much that he informed me that it will be better if I move the ashram to Japan, because there he has contacts with the emperor, with other scientists. And he is ready to found the academy and provide the money that will be needed – and it is going to be an enormous amount of money.But I have informed him that Japan is running out of land. It is the most crowded country in the world; they have even made artificial islands in the ocean, and they have floated a few to create industries on them.Secondly, Japan is very costly. Its currency is now the most valuable in the world. It will prevent my poor sannyasins from going there…and to be there for months will be too costly.I have called him and I am certain I will convince him that this is the right place. The whole of Koregaon Park is for sale! – and we are finding sources of money to purchase the whole of Koregaon Park. Then all the gadgets can be used by every sannyasin. Mechanisms can be managed to purify water, to purify air – because Pune is utterly polluted. But one thing is good about India: things are cheaper, and people can come from every country, be here for three or four months, and then in eight months back in their country they can earn enough and come back. There is no need for them to work here.Here is their temple of meditation. And I want all the dimensions – the best musicians to teach you music, the best artists to teach you painting, the best poets to teach you the experience of poetry and the expression of it.I am an incurable dreamer.But I can say to you that whatever I have dreamed in my life, I have managed it, without doing anything. Just a proposal to existence….For four months a sannyasin remains here. He will learn much about natural cultivation, how to live in tune with nature, not against it; how to make your life free from all bondages that the past has imposed on you.This is a strange fact that perhaps you may not be aware of: science has grown so many branches that one branch does not know anything about the other branches, and they go on researching and doing great work against each other. The most important thing for the academy will be to create pure science, just the way I am making every effort to create pure religiousness.Man can have inside him a pure religiousness – that means love, that means silence, that means meditation – and also a sense of pure science, so that no branches of science go on doing work unnecessarily which is destructive to other parts.The second great thing the academy has to do… Up to now science has developed accidentally. There has been no sense of direction; people just went on discovering anything without any idea for what. Moving accidentally, still they have created much, but it is in the service of destruction. Pure science will give the sense of direction and a unity of all the sciences, so that science works as a whole, not as different branches.Right now the situation is hilarious. My ear was infected. I mentioned to Dr. Jog, a very prominent specialist, “You are just treating the ear without bothering about the whole body. The ear is not something separate; perhaps the reason may be somewhere else.”For a moment he remained silent, and then he said, “I cannot say anything more. I know only about the ear and I will treat the ear. You are right, logically, that perhaps the ear is the weakest point and the disease, which is somewhere else, has found the weakest point to express itself.” And that’s what acupuncture knows.It will be good to remind you how acupuncture came into existence. A man had been suffering his whole life from migraine; no treatment helped him. One day, just by accident, he was shot by an arrow in his knee. He was passing through the forest and some hunter misjudged; he thought it was some animal, because it was getting dark. But the miracle was that as the arrow hit the knee the migraine disappeared forever. That was the origin of acupuncture.So if you say to the acupuncturist, “My head is suffering very badly with continuous headache, migraine,” he will not touch your head at all. He will work on some other point with just a small needle. They have found seven hundred points in the body – and they have been as successful as anybody else.The body is a whole organism; the disease comes from the weakest point. Man has to be taken as a whole. This is going to be one of the foundations of pure science, to look at man as a whole, to look at nature as a whole, to look at the whole cosmos as one organic unity, and work out ways how this organic unity can function in harmony in the different layers.We have the source from where the money can be brought here; just we have to work out the process. This whole Koregaon Park is going to be turned into the World Academy of Creative Science and Art. It will be also a research body, and it will also have its nursing homes, hospitals. Without such a thing happening, this century is going to see us finished.Dr. Masashi Murakoshi was concerned that if I leave the body, then who is going to materialize the dream? They can work, but the whole dream… He wants a written promise from me, and I have given it.This is twice that I have given a written guarantee that I will not leave the body – first to Nostradamus, that I will not leave the body before 2001, and now again the same guarantee is being asked. I am giving it.That does not mean that after 2001 I will leave! That simply gives him the guarantee so that he can bring all the scientists and the sources and the foundations and the money. Without me, I can understand, it will be impossible to create such a vast project.But it is an absolute necessity, seeing the crisis that is coming every moment closer – and people are even avoiding talking about it, afraid because they don’t have any answer, or forgetting all about it, believing that some miracle will happen.No miracle ever happens unless you make it happen.I want this ashram to be the first synthesis between religiousness and a scientific approach to life. This will fulfill my dream that the inner and the outer of man are not separate.And it is absolutely possible – there is no difficulty in it. I have found the right sources, so you can rejoice in the fact that soon this place is going to become the world capital of science and religion. And once governments see their scientists disappearing, the world government will become a possibility.We need three things:First, a world government. The world government will be only a functional government, because there will be nobody to fight with, no need of armies, no need of any arms.Secondly, one humanity with no discriminations. The most dangerous consequence of discriminations has been that man has not been able to use a very scientific method – which he is using with the animals, with the trees – with himself. I mean crossbreeding.Nobody should fall in love just in the neighborhood because it is nearby. Fall in love, fall out of love, there is no problem; but find your girlfriend or boyfriend as far away as possible – some Martian…Only then can we create a better, stronger, more intelligent human being.Genetics is going to be the most important part of the world academy. We have not looked at all at how we go on producing children – just accidental. How many geniuses we are missing every day is impossible to imagine. In a single lovemaking the man releases millions of sperm; only one of them – that too not always, only once in a while – will reach the mother’s egg. Once one sperm has reached, the mother’s egg closes. What happens to those millions of people standing in the queue? Their life span is only a few hours.And my understanding is that the best, the most intelligent, will not rush into this race with all kinds of idiots and nasty people; they will stand by the side. But the criminals, the wrestlers, the politicians will do everything to reach to the mother’s egg.It is such a great competition, a marathon race in which certainly the best will not participate. It is just accidental that once in a while a Michelangelo, or a Socrates or a Rabindranath Tagore somehow managed to reach. My feeling is, somehow they get carried by the crowd, just pushed, and they cannot get out; they reach by chance.It is a long journey for the sperm. According to sperm size, the tunnel they have to pass through before they reach the mother’s egg is almost two miles long. We could have missed lazy people like Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu – and how many we have missed there is no way to know.Genetics is going to be the most important science in the future. All our old habits have to be changed; they are absolutely out of date. You can go to the medical center and donate your sperm, and now we have ways to find the potentiality of the sperm in minute detail – how long he will live, whether he will be healthy, strong, intelligent or retarded. We can simply avoid nasty people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan. We can choose the best.Just the small understanding is needed that the best sperm can be injected whenever society decides that we need a few children, we need a few scientists, a few poets, a few flute players, a few mystics – on order. For the first time we will be out of the prison of biology, which is accidental, blind.There are so many things that the world academy has to do. The first thing is to spread around the world the idea that misery is unnatural, that sadness is sickness, that the lust for power needs psychiatric treatment, that a man who goes on gathering money is mad.And once we make the whole of humanity aware of the dangers of our past ways of life and where the whole past is leading us – to a global suicide – it will not be difficult to convince the intelligent, the young, to drop the past and to welcome the future.Amrito, the world academy, devoted in every sphere to creativity, is going to happen. I don’t like to prophesy, but once in a while…This is my prophecy: the world is not going to be finished by idiot politicians. All over the world, that’s all they are doing – preparing the funeral pyre for the whole of humanity. We are going to stop it. And if they insist, we will tell them, “Jump into the funeral pyre yourself!”Once we can get rid of the priests and the politicians, the whole earth will become so full of peace, silence, love…so many flowers and so many rainbows. We have been in the wrong hands; the world academy has to create an atmosphere so that these wrong hands are no longer powerful.We have destroyed so many trees that the oxygen layer on the earth has fallen low. That is affecting everybody’s health, because without oxygen you cannot live. We have created industries, and the smoke from those industries has such chemicals that it has made holes in a certain layer around the earth, the ozone. It is oxygen, but just a little “thicker” oxygen, which was preventing any destructive rays from the sun from reaching the earth. But our industries have created holes in the ozone layer and now destructive rays are entering.We have done the same stupidity by sending rockets to the moon; those rockets have also made holes. But perhaps it has all happened unconsciously. Nobody was aware what the effects were going to be.The world academy is a conscious effort to do everything perfectly aware of what the consequences will be. Small experiments can be done which will give us the idea of the consequences. Right now there are thousands of inventions of scientists which have been purchased by the vested interests and are lying down in their basements; they have never been brought into the market for the people to use.Because we are behaving so insanely, any invention is bound to change many things. Perhaps many industries will be closed because a better product, more life-affirmative, is available. Now those industrialists will try to purchase the rights and keep those scientific discoveries hidden from humanity.Even Dr. Masashi Murakoshi was approached by the greatest nuclear manufacturer of America who said, “We want to purchase all your discoveries and all the things that you have made. Whatever the price, say it and you will be given.”But Masashi is a man of tremendous courage; he refused. He said, “That means all my life’s effort will be lying somewhere down in your basements.” He is not ready to sell his patents; he wants to give the patents to the academy so that millions of dollars can simply come here just from his small inventions.The second man I mentioned is one of the most respectable men in Japan and has many foundations in his hands, with millions of dollars for any humanitarian purpose. I cannot think what more humanitarian purpose there can be than creating an academy of sciences and arts totally devoted to life and to enhancing life.This is going to happen. When I am saying this is going to happen, I am not saying it; I am simply a vehicle for existence. I know perfectly well that when it comes from my absolute nothingness it is a message from existence itself.It is going to happen.Nobody can prevent it.And this is the only hope for the new man and the new humanity.There are so many funny and strange questions which will have to wait – but a little laughter in the end will be good. It is the most healthy thing in the world. Just listen to it very silently; otherwise you will miss the point.The little Toyota car comes to a sudden stop.“Have you run out of petrol?” asks the girl sarcastically.“No, of course not,” replies the young man.“Then why have we stopped?” she says.“Well,” he says, “you have probably noticed that we are parked in a quiet place in the forest miles from anywhere so I thought you might like a discussion about the hereafter.”“That’s something new,” replies the girl. “What do you mean?”“Simple,” says the man. “If you are not here after what I am here after, you will be here after I have gone.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I am always intrigued by Eastern scriptures that begin with Om, Shantih Shantih Shantih and end with Om, Shantih Shantih Shantih.Would you please talk about this?The East has approached reality in an almost diametrically opposite way to the West. First, the simple meaning of the word should be understood, and then all the implications. All Eastern scriptures begin with Om, Shantih Shantih Shantih and they also end with the same.Om is the symbol of the universal heartbeat; it is not a word. And as you come closer and closer to the universal heartbeat, the by-product is a deepening silence. Shantih means silence and it is always repeated three times because by the time you reach to the fourth, you are no more – just the silence has remained. You have disappeared as an entity separate from the universe.The West has not been able to begin even a single scripture with this intention. It is understandable. They never went into the deeper communion between your heart and the bigger heart of the universe. They have taken a wrong route, that of fighting, that of conquering, that of being victorious. They have chosen to be extroverts.Their world is true, but they don’t know anything about themselves.The outside is true and the inside has not been explored.The Bible says, “In the beginning was the word.” Now this can be said only by somebody who is absolutely ignorant, because the word means a sound with a meaning. These sounds made by the words are just sounds; you cannot call them words. The moment you say, “In the beginning was the word,” unknowingly you have accepted that there is someone who gives meaning to it, but then the word is not in the beginning.In the beginning is one who gives meaning to the word. And The Bible says, “God was with the word.” Anyone who wrote it must have felt uneasy that the world should begin only with a word. Immediately, he needed someone to give meaning to it; hence the second statement that God was with the word.If you look into things very impartially, deeply, you will be amazed how much they can reveal. Then he must have become aware to ask, “Who is first? God or the word?”The third sentence then tries to make a compromise. It says, “God and the word were one.” Nobody in the whole Eastern search will agree with it. The East has not experienced the beginning because naturally you cannot see the beginning: you are already there, the beginning has happened. In your being you have preceded the beginning, so there is no possibility of any witness of the beginning. But there is a possibility to be a witness of the end.The Eastern meditators found as they entered into their inner being, they are first surrounded with a tremendously beautiful and musical sound. It is not the sound of any music being played, it is simply the heartbeat of the universe. And once they come in tune with the heartbeat of the universe, silence descends. They would like to dance and declare to the world about silence, but they can only say three times, “silence, silence, silence” – and they are melting and merging.Rather than their declaration of silence becoming louder, it is becoming more and more like a whisper and finally, they are not – but they have witnessed the end. Now, it is a logical conclusion that the end and the beginning cannot be different.The seed grows into a tree, blossoms, brings fruits and again seeds. In existence everything moves in a circle, the earth, the moon, the sun, the faraway millions of stars…all move in a circle that meets at a point.The end and the beginning are the same.That’s why the Eastern scriptures begin with the declaration, Om – the sound of the soundless, the very music of the heart of the universe. And as they go deeper, silence becomes the only reality. They want to declare silence to the world, but nobody has been able to go beyond the third because each time they say silence, it becomes more of a whisper.I am reminded…I had one doctor friend who was perhaps the most famous doctor in those parts. I told him, “I would like to experience something for which there is no reason. You can help me. I want to go slowly and deeply into the unconscious.”He said, “This is against medical practice. You don’t have any reason, and I cannot use something without reason and make you unconscious.”But I persuaded him. I said, “Find any reason, and I am not going to tell anybody. Although, I have told it to the whole world.”He put me on his table, sent all the servants and nurses away because he was doing something against the medical code. While he was covering my head so that I could not breathe anything else, he said to me, “Do one thing. While you are going into the unconscious, go on saying one, two, three, four, five…as long as you can.”Strangely, I could not go beyond three. I tried hard. I was aware of the fact that I had only come up to three, and the four would not come. Later on I told him, “This was my reason to be put into the unconscious state. I wanted to see why every scripture stops at three.”I asked him to tell me how I was saying one, two, three. He said, “One was clear, two was not so clear, three was almost a whisper, and beyond that you never uttered anything.”This was my way through a scientific experiment to see why all the scriptures stop with three. They begin with the same and they end with the same.The beginning we cannot know: we are already here; the beginning has happened. But the end we can know – the disappearance into absolute silence. But if we know the end, we can conclude with absolute certainty that this is how the beginning must have started: from silence, not from words.Silence is the beginning and silence is the end, and if you are a meditator, silence is the middle.Silence is the whole fabric of existence.This is not a hypothesis, nor is it a philosophical idea. It is the experience of thousands of mystics who have entered into their own being. First they have heard Om, and as the Om becomes overwhelming, silence follows. We are made of sound and silence.Sound is our mind; silence is our being.Sound is our trouble; silence is our liberation.It has been discovered by some unknown explorer of the inner, it has been followed by thousands of people – but you are not to repeat it. That’s where the masses have got lost. They think that by repeating Om, shantih shantih shantih they are doing some spiritual meditative act. In each temple in the East you will find a metal disc, and everybody who enters into the temple hits the disc with a steel rod. The whole temple becomes full of sound and then slowly, slowly the sound also disappears.In Tibet, they have even made a very special thing, a small pot of metal with a rod – with great calculation it has been made. When I first saw it, I could not believe that it was possible, but the thing was in front of me.One of my friends in Patna was a great collector of all kinds of things. He was continually telling me whenever I was in Patna, “Come to my museum.” Even the prime minister and the president and everybody had visited. He was a very rich man and had gathered things from other lands – strange things. But when he said to me that he had recently received a metal pot which repeated Om, shantih shantih shantih, I could not resist….Patna is a strange city. It is not spread in all directions, it has only one main street running by the Ganges – because the Ganges is so beautiful everybody wants to be around it. So Patna is a very long city, perhaps twenty miles. And he used to live thirteen miles away from my place – but I went to see the pot. It was really a great experience.The pot is made of many metals, and you move the rod in the pot round and round for a certain number of times…then you stop. And suddenly, the sound comes from the pot, Om, shantih shantih shantih. These things may be beautiful, creative, but they are not in any way religious. Every Hindu temple is resounding with the sound, everybody is praying, but they have misunderstood the whole thing. It is not your repeating Om that is going to lead you to the reality; it is your becoming utterly quiet, and from your very being arises the sound Om.You are just a witness, you are not a doer.And as the sound settles, you feel silence, silence, silence…. Then everything disappears, there remains only a universal reality of which you are just a part. Just as a dewdrop disappears in the ocean, you disappear in the ocean of existence.The East has found this to be the only spiritual experience, not God, not your holy scriptures, not your prophets; they are all creating fictions. Not even your prayers because they are nothing but your desires. The only thing that is really significant is to be quiet, centered, grounded, in the very life source, in your very being. This sutra of Om, shantih shantih shantih is heard when you are at your very center. It is not by your repeating it that you will reach to it. It is not exactly the same either. We have invented it…approximately, just to communicate what has happened: something similar, but far deeper; something similar, but far more delicate; something similar, but not the same.The mystics’ writings start exactly the way the universe has started, and they end exactly as the universe finally goes to rest. There is a statement relevant to this sutra by Gautam Buddha. It is very significant. He says that it is absolutely foolish to think the way all the theologians of the world think about the beginning – how the world began.I can see the significance of a statement that you can never come to a conclusion about how the world began – because you were not there. How can you be before the world began? – you are part of the world. So all that you say about the beginning is just imagination, hypothesis, guesswork.Buddha says that the mystic is not interested in how the world began, his interest is in how it ends, because in that very ending you will find the beginning too. But without finding the ending, you can only guess and argue and fight about the beginning – and it is all futile. The philosopher’s work is absolute nonsense. The mystic is very earthbound, very pragmatic, very realistic. Buddha says, “First find how it ends” – and it is to be found within you.You cannot wait for the whole world to end. That way it never ends. It is always there – beginningless, endless. But within you how did the world begin? And within you how does the world end?Those who remain clinging to the world are the materialists. Others start looking inside and try to find how everything ends, and still you are – but just a pure consciousness, just a pure awareness.The flower disappears.Only fragrance remains.I agree with Gautam Buddha that if you have found the fragrance within you, you know the whole secret of existence, because every individual is a miniature universe. What is happening on a vast scale in the universe is happening on a very small scale within you.If you have tasted a simple dewdrop, you have tasted all the rivers and all the oceans and all possibilities of water anywhere. And you are the dewdrop…. Rather than running here and there, just taste yourself.The East has approached reality in a very different way. And certainly because it has reached in a different way, it has produced a different kind of enlightened people.The West has produced popes – and the worst is a Polack pope. And now, the Nobel Prize committee is nominating him for a Nobel Prize! A Polack and a Nobel Prize…? In this way, the Polack is not given respect; in this way, the Nobel Prize loses all nobility, all grace.And what experience has the Pope? What is his authority? He represents Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ himself does not seem to be enlightened. Because an enlightened person does not bother about saying, “God is my father…I am the only begotten son of God….” Who cares? We have seen thousands of enlightened people in the East. None of them has claimed that he is the only begotten son of God. That would be laughed at for centuries: “That man has gone mad!”So in the first place he represents Jesus Christ – who seems to be a lunatic. Either his nuts and bolts are loose, or too tight. He does not show the grace of a Gautam Buddha. Neither does he show the dance of a Meera nor the grace of a Mahavira.What he goes on talking about he has gathered from the society – because he is uneducated. And popes, hundreds of popes in these two thousand years have represented him. It is a hierarchy: the pope, Jesus, God…you cannot go unless you follow the proper channel! And I have always wondered that even the intelligent people in the West never think what is the contribution of these popes? A man who is a representative of God must show something, some sensitivity, some grace, some blissfulness; some fragrance should surround him. But the pope is elected!It is so hilarious that people elect somebody as enlightened. Enlightenment is not an election campaign. Many candidates can stand up and say, “I am enlightened.”Enlightenment is an inner opening of the rose. Those who are in search of the truth of their being, will immediately be pulled towards the man of enlightenment.It is not dependent on anybody’s election or nomination. It does not represent even God or anybody. It simply declares its own heart and invites and welcomes anybody – any wayfarer who wants to share this juice, this music of the eternal Om, one who is in search of finding a living silence and a dancing silence.This sutra contains the whole – the beginning and the end. But it starts from the end and reaches to the beginning. The statement of Gautam Buddha was: “Ignorance has no beginning and enlightenment has no end, and both make a circle.” You know you have been utterly ignorant of yourself because now you are so alert, so full of joy, so much is dancing in your every cell, every fiber. This is an experience; it is not a hypothesis, and it has never been argued.There have been Hindu mystics, there have been Buddhist mystics, there have been Jaina mystics…but as far as this sutra is concerned they have never quarreled about it, they have never argued. This is simply accepted because it is the experience, it is not theoretical guesswork. It is not philosophy. It is philosia, it is darshan.They have seen it within, in their own being and there is no way not to agree with others who have also seen it. But by repeating it one is simply being stupid.One has to come to an inner space where it explodes on its own and you are just a witness. Then it transforms your being, gives it beauty and grace, gives it sincerity and truth.Osho,The words resistance and surrender, extremely popular in the old Pune days, are no longer being used to punish, judge and reject. The Oregon experience helped. Now the ashram is less fear-orientated.But in private life, how to distinguish between resistance and healthy rebellion, between surrender and resignation? The pitfalls of my habitual unconscious stubbornness make me suspicious of my imperceptible false yes and no.Osho, is there any simple test? Is it authentic when it just feels good?When you feel something authentic then you can stand against the whole world. But the authenticity should not be another name of your ego. Nobody else can make it clear, you know it.When it is ego, you know perfectly well that your desire is to be somebody special. And when it is an authentic truth, you also know that it has nothing to do with your personality, with your ego. You are not going to gain anything out of it except a tremendous joy.Let joy be the criterion.As far as I am concerned, neither your yes means anything to me nor your no means anything to me. You are so asleep that in your sleep whether you say yes or you say no, does not matter. Whatever you say, I am going to pour a bucket of cold water on your head.Your yes and no are not important.Your awakening is important.And out of your awakening whatever happens is right. The moment you are alert, awake, conscious, your revolt and your surrender are not two different things.It is the unconscious mind which either wants to surrender to avoid unnecessary trouble of revolting – cheap surrender – or it wants to revolt because it does not want to lose its ego. Those are by-products. My insistence is not on by-products.My insistence is on a single thing….I call it witnessing.Be aware, and if your awareness leads you to surrender, it is perfectly beautiful. And if your awareness leads you to revolt, that’s how it should be. It will be difficult for you to understand that surrender is the greatest revolt. Revolt against the ego, revolt against your conditioning. But it should not be imposed on you that you surrender.Here, nobody is interested in your surrender. What will we do with your surrender? I don’t see any use of it. And nobody is interested in your revolt. The only difference will be if you really want to revolt go to M.G. Road. What the hell are you doing here? This is a gathering of people who are searching for the real life, who are trying to awaken themselves. Neither revolt nor surrender is of any importance.The only important thing is to become absolutely alert and aware, and then whatever you do is right. All the religions have labeled things: this is right, this is wrong; this is good, this is bad; this is virtue, this is sin…things are fixed.My whole approach is that things are constantly changing, nothing is fixed. So I cannot say to you that this thing particularly is right, and that thing particularly is wrong. In a different context, things will be different. So it is better to give you an awareness which will decide spontaneously, moment to moment, what is right and what is wrong.You should not be dependent on scriptures dead and old, and you should not be dependent on saints – either dead or alive! You should be simply free in your awareness and let your own awareness respond to reality as it comes – and reality is continuously changing.Sometimes surrender may be perfectly right: if you meet a buddha how are you going to revolt? He will enjoy all your jogging and jumping, but what revolt…and it is not his problem, it is your problem. By your revolt are you creating more peace, more silence for yourself, or more anxiety, more anguish, more tension, more trouble?But if you meet Ronald Reagan, then surrender is not the thing. One should have a certain dignity, a certain self-respect. Surrendering to criminals – they may be powerful – cannot be said to be right because it is surrender. Surrender is good only to a source of humbleness, light, freedom; a surrender which will make you more free than you have ever been; a surrender which will not cut your wings and destroy your joy of flying across the sky. A surrender to the man who is alert, aware and has a deep respect is beautiful.I have told you many times a small anecdote….Gautam Buddha in his past life heard about another man who had become enlightened. He was not much interested, but curious to see what kind of phenomenon enlightenment was and what it did to the man. He set off, and as he came close to the man something started melting in his heart; something that was hard and arrogant was disappearing.And as he came very close, he witnessed himself touching the feet of the man. He was not touching, he had not even the idea of touching the feet of the man, but he saw that he was touching the feet. The man had such a beauty and such a grace that it was such a joy even to touch his feet.But the most miraculous thing happened as he stood up: the man also touched Gautam Buddha’s feet. Gautam Buddha said, “What are you doing? You are enlightened. I can feel the peace that surrounds you. I can feel the light and the fragrance that you have become. It is absolutely right for me to touch your feet and surrender myself, but what are you doing? I am an ignorant man, very stubborn, very egoistic and you are touching my feet.”The enlightened man said to Gautam Buddha, “Today you are asleep; tomorrow you will be awake. Today you are not enlightened, but enlightenment is your very nature. I don’t care about your arrogance and your ego and stubbornness; they are not your self-nature. I am touching your feet to remind you that you are not what you are thinking, and also to remind you that when in your next life you become enlightened, be respectful of those who are still groping in the dark.”Now to touch the feet of such a man is a beauty, is a grace, is a blissfulness.Germany seems to be my land. I own it because for two years continually in the German parliament, they have been discussing me. In two German courts our sannyasins have won cases. Their parliament calls Christianity a religion and my movement a cult, and in Germany, the word cult is condemnatory. Two courts have given their verdicts against the parliament, and the parliament is still continuing to call my people a cult.Just the other day I received news from one of my sannyasins who is also a member of the parliament that they are very stubborn and they go on changing…. First they said, “You are not a religion because you don’t believe in the fiction of God.” I am going to reply to the parliament, “Then that means you should not call Buddhism a religion because it does not have any God…or Jainism a religion.” Now they have changed the argument because I have been jailed in America and blackmailed to accept that I have committed two crimes.Sometimes I look at this world – it is so hilarious. The government attorney has placed thirty-four crimes that they say I have committed and they ask my attorneys to negotiate and not to go for a trial. And the negotiation was: “If you accept any two crimes, then Osho can be released from the jail. If you don’t accept then you are putting his life in danger because the case could go on for twenty years, thirty years…”This is sheer blackmail. My attorneys were at a loss what to do, because I have not committed those crimes. But to save me they accepted the two crimes, such petty crimes that generally in America the punishment would be twenty-five dollars or fifty dollars at the most. And that’s what my attorneys were thinking: get finished with fifty dollars.But when those two crimes were accepted, the punishment was four hundred thousand dollars, nearabout six million rupees. And now, there was no way for my attorneys to do anything; they had accepted and the judge had given the judgment.So now in the German parliament, they have changed their whole idea. Now they say they will not allow me to enter Germany because I am a criminal, a criminal convicted of the maximum punishment. Four hundred thousand dollars is the maximum line; nobody has been punished that much. You can murder – still you will not get that much punishment. You can rape…All that I had done, that they had accepted, was so tiny, so meaningless.First, they said that I had the intention of staying in America and I had deceived the immigration department. For “the intention,” the simple way is not to give me residence. Secondly, they said that I had arranged a marriage for the purpose of getting residence. That is sheer stupidity. If I had wanted to be a resident, rather than persuading others to get married, I myself should have married – as many American women as they required.But because I have been punished and deported, in the German parliament they are using the argument that my followers are a cult and I am a criminal. I have to inform my attorney there that if I am a criminal, what about Jesus Christ whose punishment was certainly more than mine…? Deport him. Make a law that Jesus Christ cannot enter into Germany – because after resurrection…nobody knows where he has gone. And secondly, those who follow Jesus Christ should not call their religion a religion. Call it a cult; it is very simple.The parliamentary secretary said that ‘cult’ is not derogatory. I am informing my attorney: “Ask that if ‘cult’ is not derogatory, then why make any distinction? Christianity is a cult just as any group of people is a cult.” But strange people and criminal minds….You are saying to me that before, the ashram was fear-oriented. You should not have been in the ashram. The whole world is outside the ashram. If you wanted to be in the ashram that shows more about you than about the ashram. You wanted to be in some place where you are dominated.Always remember, problems are yours.It is your problem.If the ashram is fear-orientated, then can you name any religion which is not fear-oriented? Then what is the purpose of hell?In fact, this is the only place where nobody cares about hell. In fact, if I am going to hell, all my people are ready to go, dancing and singing. Nobody is fear-oriented here. We are not afraid to deny God. People are always afraid, “Who knows, perhaps he may be there and after death, how will you face him?” I am preparing my people so that God will be afraid of them. Just do the Dynamic Meditation the moment you see God.I used to live in a place near a Mohammedan cemetery. The caretaker called me saying, “You are going to create a riot in the city.”I said, “What happened? I have not said anything against anybody.”He said, “That is not the question. A deputation of Mohammedans has come to me and they say, ‘The people who are around Osho…early each morning they start Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! That disturbs the people who are lying in their graves. So many of them have come out – and we are afraid of ghosts. If this man is allowed…the whole city will be full of ghosts. Nobody can rest – Hoo!…’“ So he said, “You tell your people to do some silent meditation; they are disturbing ghosts.”I said, “It is strange, for the first time I have come to know that ghosts are afraid of Hoo!”The caretaker said, “Personally, my opinion is that anybody will be afraid if so many people come just shouting Hoo! Hoo! It hurts deep…”So, my people are not fear-oriented.Now you think that the ashram is less fear-oriented? The ashram is the same. It is the same river: water flows; people come and go. It is the same caravan: somebody joins, somebody departs; somebody takes his own route, somebody comes from some other route.It is your mind.Mind is always fear-oriented.All the societies have tried to make your mind fear-oriented because that is a simple strategy to rule over you – and man is so fear-oriented. He does not show it; he hides it inside. But on a dark night, alone, he starts running. There is nobody, and when he starts running, his own steps make sound and he looks back to see if somebody is following.You can create fear in any person for any absurd reason…In my village there was a grocer. I always loved to find people’s actions and reactions. So whenever I passed – and I had to pass at least four times as it was exactly between my house and the school – I would just keep one of my eyes closed.At first the grocer said, “Strange, why should he do it?” But when I did it again, he called to me, “What is the matter?”I said, “I don’t know. The moment I see you, my whole being…I feel to do it. And it is not only me, many others are feeling…”He said, “My God!”And it spread – one thousand students passing through the grocer’s with one eye closed. Now, it was nothing to do…absolutely irrelevant, but he became so afraid that he would hide whenever it was the time for going to school and coming from the school. He would hide inside; he would close the shop. But I was not going to be satisfied so soon….We would knock on his doors shouting, “What has happened? I am a customer.”Hearing that a customer was knocking, he would open a window and he would see me. He reported to the police, “This boy is torturing me; I cannot sleep. One thousand people are passing four times a day, and the whole neighborhood is laughing. They are all telling me, ‘Don’t be worried, they are doing no harm to you. It is their eyes; if they want to pass with one eye closed…’“He said, “But it creates great fear.”I was called to the police station. I went with one eye closed. They said, “What is the matter? Why do you keep one of your eyes closed?”I said, “I am a very spontaneous person. If I feel to do…it is my eye. Seeing you, I felt the same.”The police officer said, “Just stop it here. I will never interfere in your affairs, but don’t start telling all the school, because those idiots will start passing in front of the police station with one eye closed. That will damage our power and people will laugh.” And he said, “It is not gentlemanly, it is not nice to harass people.”I said, “I will stop.”I stopped – but the neighbors got it! They started. Anybody who came to his shop would come with an eye closed.He called me one day. He said, “You are very nice, because you have stopped. But you have spread the disease so much that now it is uncontrollable. Last night my wife faced me with one eye closed. It creates very much fear.”I said, “But why should you fear? It has nothing to do…they are not closing your eye. If you want I can tell people that they should start putting one eye – your eye – closed.”He said, “Don’t do that; that is too much. They will kill me.”You say that now the ashram is less fear-oriented…. You have become more mature. Always think about your own psychology. The world remains the same; only you change. And you are asking, “But in private life, how to distinguish between resistance and healthy rebellion?” If you can distinguish between healthy rebellion and unhealthy rebellion, if you are that intelligent, I think you will be able to see whether you are resisting or you are in rebellion. You need to sharpen your intelligence a little.Resistance is not always bad. If you are facing a fascist regime, resist. But here, there is no fascist regime, no hierarchy. Nobody is torturing you, no gas chambers – even Jews are not killed. You are perfectly safe.Just something for your fear to disappear…Lord and Lady Bating, the English aristocrats, hire a new butler called James. He has not had much experience. So on the first day, he goes up to their room and says, “Frederick and Cynthia, dinner is served.”Lord Bating comes out and says sternly, “No, James. You must not call us by our first names. You must call us Lord and Lady Bating.”James is embarrassed. “Please forgive me,” he says, “Lord and Lady Bating, dinner is served.”James then goes along to their daughter’s room and says, “Caroline, dinner is served.”She comes to the door and says angrily, “I am to be called Mistress Bating and don’t forget it.”James excuses himself and then goes to the son’s room. Before speaking, he thinks for a moment and then calls out, “Are you in there Master Bating?”“Okay, okay,” calls the son nervously. “You caught me, but please don’t tell my parents.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I see your enlightenment as a speaking medium between existence and all sannyasins – based on love as the only true way to go.Osho, I've heard you say that you are beyond enlightenment. What, theoretically speaking, is the difference between enlightenment and beyond enlightenment?Life is a continuous change. It knows no stop – not even a semicolon. Enlightenment is not to get stuck somewhere. Nobody has talked about beyond enlightenment, because what is the point? People are not even enlightened. But I’m certain my people are going to be enlightened, and I have to make them aware not to get stuck.Even enlightenment has to be transcended.Even transcendence has to be transcended.One has just to go on and on.Existence is infinite, in multidimensions – and there is no end anywhere. You can never say I have come. You are always coming closer and closer and closer, but you never come, because once you have come what will you do? Then the only way is to go back home.One has to go beyond enlightenment; otherwise you will find yourself in a very difficult situation – stuck in a waiting room of a railway station. No train goes back, all trains go ahead, and all that is left behind you have experienced. You are tired of it; you don’t want to go back. Even if you want to go back nature prohibits it.Can a young man again become a child? Can a child again be in the womb of the mother? There is no possibility of going back. The young man will become middle aged; the middle aged will become old. There is an open future, but there is no reverse gear in your life-style. Simply nothing can be done about it.I have heard…When Henry Ford died he met God, and God asked him, “Are you satisfied with my creation?”He said, “No, if I had created life, I would have corrected many mistakes. For example, when I created the car there was no reverse gear: you have gone two blocks ahead of your house – you cannot come back. Now you have to go around the whole town to come home!”The reverse gear was Henry Ford’s invention; you can go back. And he said to God, “In life you have missed many things, but especially a reverse gear.”An old man wants to become young but cannot. If God had placed a reverse gear, you could have just moved back into your youth again – you have to go on.When I say one has to go beyond enlightenment, I am saying that enlightenment is not the end. It is the beginning of a new existence, a new universe, a new world. It is difficult even to conceive what enlightenment is; naturally it is more difficult to conceive the beyond, but “theoretically speaking” it can be understood.While all the others are hanging around, Silvester Sperm is exercising doing push-ups, swimming laps and lifting weights. One of the other sperms asks him: “Silvester, how come you spend so much time exercising?”“Well,” replies Silvester very seriously, “when the time comes, I want to be the one.”“Ah, really,” says the sperm. “Well, your chances are about one in a million.”Just then the time comes and all the sperms start swimming. Silvester is way out in front when all of a sudden he turns around and starts swimming back. “What is the matter?” cries another sperm.“Get back,” cries Silvester, “it’s a blow job!”But you cannot…! That was theoretically speaking. Practically speaking, forget all about the beyond. First become enlightened.It is pointless to think about things which are so far away. Take care of first things first: be enlightened. But you are theoretically interested in the beyond…what are you going to gain? Enlightenment is enough for the time being.Once you are enlightened you will not need anybody else to say to you to go beyond. You will go – you will have to go. There is nothing static. Nobody can stay young and nobody can remain just enlightened.I am the first person to talk about the beyond. All the mystics of the world have stopped at enlightenment for the simple reason that they were not talking theoretically. They were practically concerned that you become unidentified with your body, with your mind; that you become a pure consciousness without jealousy, without anger, without fear; that you become a love, a flower of eternity, which brings fragrance and blessings not only to you, but even to those who are fast asleep.Perhaps the noise of the falling flowers of blessing may wake up somebody, just to see what is happening. Perhaps the fragrance may wake up someone. Perhaps the light may penetrate into somebody’s darkness.Become enlightened, not theoretically but really, existentially, and the beyond will come on its own. I have talked about it because I want you to be aware of every possibility that is going to happen on the path.One day Gautam Buddha is passing through the forest. It is fall time and dry leaves are thick on the ground….Finding him alone, Ananda, his chief disciple, asks, “This question has been arising in me: have you said to us everything that you know of?”Buddha bent down, took a fistful of dry leaves, showed those dry leaves to Ananda and said, “I have said only this much. What I have not said is as much as all the dry leaves in this forest.”But I don’t want to be so miserly. I want to say to you everything that happens on the path in its minute detail. It is time. Twenty-five centuries have passed since Gautam Buddha. Now man’s consciousness is far more mature. It will not be satisfied with a fistful of dry leaves. I offer you the whole garden; hence I talk about many things which you may think are too far away, are perhaps not going to happen to you. But I say unto you, if you listen rightly everything that I am saying is going to happen. Because it has happened to me, there is no reason why it should not happen to you.People are very strange. They want great theories, philosophies, but they don’t want a great life. They want to be convinced about great philosophical conceptions, but they don’t want their hearts to become an open flower dancing in the wind, in the sun, in the rain. Whatever they hear they go on accumulating in their memory. First, they never hear the whole thing. Secondly, they hear something else that has not been said at all. Thirdly, they interpret it according to their own prejudice. Fourthly, they simply go on accumulating it. Just becoming a great encyclopedia is not going to help.Paddy wins some money at the horse races and treats himself to a meal at a fancy restaurant. While his dinner is being served, he notices that the spoons are made of real silver. So he eats quickly, and putting one of the spoons into his pocket, he gets up to leave. Just as he reaches the door, the waiter rushes after him and calls, “Excuse me sir, what about the bill?”Paddy turns around and shouts, “What spoon?”His whole mind is concerned about the spoon that he has stolen. Seeing the servant running he knows that he is coming for the spoon. He does not hear the word bill, he hears the word spoon. And we can understand; it is natural. You are so filled with stolen spoons, that when a bill is offered, you immediately react: what spoon?Osho,In my groups, especially the ones without structure, I discover in me a state of alertness, watchfulness about the group and myself, an aliveness and silence that I only experienced after doing a lot of meditations.Is this “impersonal space” of the group leader comparable to meditation as I feel it or am I fooling myself because I do not need to look at my own problems while I'm leading a group? Do I love group-leading so much because it gives me the opportunity of meditation or am I just an addict of “group energy”?Osho, can you please comment?Do you want my comment theoretical or practical? Let us start from theoretical. Theoretically you are a great group-leader; theoretically in the groups great meditative states arise in you. But you know and I know and everybody else knows that practically the situation is different.Everybody wants to be a leader, everybody wants to dominate, to direct, to guide, it does not matter whether he knows what he is advising people. What matters is that his advice makes him feel good – that he is a wise man. It makes him feel good that so many people are looking up towards him to be guided. And naturally, you have understood the point that when you become involved with the problems of other people you forget your own problems.Forgetting your own problems creates a certain peace. When you are left alone meditating, it is very difficult, because how to forget your problems…? When you close your eyes they are all standing there in a queue.One of the Indian Mohammedan emperors was imprisoned by his son because the old man was not dying but was going on and on…. And the son was already old. He had waited too long to become the emperor.Finally, he decided, “This old guy may live longer than me.” He imprisoned his own father. It was easy because they were in the same palace, and all the armies were under the son – he was the commander in chief. The old man was imprisoned in his own palace.The next day he sent a message to his son: “I have ruled enough. There was no need to imprison me. You should have simply asked me and I would have given you the empire. Now, it does not mean anything to me. I wish you well. Live long and let the empire prosper, but make a little arrangement for me. I want thirty children so that I can teach them the holy Koran.”His son, who had now declared himself the emperor, said to the court, “Do you see the psychology? The old man cannot drop the idea of being the guide, the leader, the wise man. Even if it is only of thirty urchins brought from the streets, it does not matter, but he is the leader and the teacher. Those thirty children will become the substitute for the whole empire.”Sigmund Freud and his company were not born yet but the son was saying something immensely significant as far as psychology is concerned.If you cannot meditate alone, your meditation in the group is false.If you cannot be silent alone, then your silence in silencing others is not authentic.I am reminded of a famous story….A dog had become enlightened. Now nobody can prevent…anybody can become enlightened. There is no law that prevents people; it is not a crime to become enlightened. And the dog was very articulate, he went around the capital telling every dog, “Your only problem is that you unnecessarily go on barking. This disease of barking has been preventing your enlightenment. Look at me: I never bark.”From the morning till late in the night he made a round to every dog until they accepted that he was enlightened, and there was no doubt about it. They felt ashamed, but what to do? – a dog is a dog! Whenever a dog sees somebody in uniform, he cannot resist barking. Dogs are very much against uniforms – postmen, policemen, sannyasins…The dog, just as he sees the uniform, is immediately against the person. He seems to be a great freedom lover; this uniform represents slavery. There must be some philosophy in the minds of the dogs, because they take so much trouble – they get tired from barking.Because they could not stop barking, they had to accept the non-barking dog as the enlightened one. He is almost the Gautam Buddha of the dogs, his achievement is great: “We are all proud that you are born amongst us; we will worship you. We will remember you, we will teach our children about the golden days when you were alive. But forgive us, we try hard. The more we try hard not to bark, the barking comes more forcibly.”One full moon night…and dogs are also against the moon; nobody knows why. In fact, in all the languages there are words for mad people. In English lunatic is synonymous with mad people, a mad person. But in its root meaning lunatic means moonstruck; luna means the moon.In Hindi the same is the situation: the madman is said to be chandmara, killed by the moon. The moon drives people mad; it drives even the ocean mad.Poets get affected, painters get affected. Most of the people who commit suicide do it on a full moon night; more people go insane on a full moon night.So if dogs bark the whole night, nobody can condemn them – they have something of the poet, something of the madman, some aesthetic sense, some feeling of the ocean. But they cannot tolerate the full moon, and because we don’t understand their language, we call it barking. Who knows, they may be reciting poetries praising the moon…perhaps their barking is their way of prayer….One full moon night all the dogs decided that there is a limit to being condemned continuously: “That enlightened dog is too much. You bark, and suddenly he comes. He goes on hiding here and there, watching dogs. This full moon night make a commitment: we may die but we will not bark. And we will not open our eyes so we don’t see the moon.”There was such silence as there had never been. The Gautam Buddha went around the town – he did not even meet a dog. All the dogs had disappeared…what happened? – and on a full moon night; this was the greatest time of his preaching. But the dogs had disappeared into dark corners behind houses, hiding. They were afraid that if they saw the moon, then commitment or no commitment, they could not resist. They knew…! They were aware of their weakness and their frailty, so it was better they were lying down quiet in darkness, behind houses. But Gautam Buddha was very much concerned, “What has happened…? Has every dog died?”Then the moon started rising higher. And for the first time – because Gautam Buddha was always concerned with teaching the other dogs, he had no time to see to the sky – he saw the moon. The whole sky fell down. There was such barking – from every corner dogs came out.That day he realized that because of his continuous teaching there was no time to bark. And you cannot do both the things together: barking and talking. He was badly ashamed…fallen from the heights. All the dogs surrounded him and asked, “What happened?”The story is very significant. If alone you cannot be silent, then while leading a group your silence is just an avoidance of your inner noise.You are focused on other people’s problems, so you yourself become hidden behind. Silence is authentic only when you are alone and no thought arises in you. And in fact, this should be a teaching to you. Be more and more meditative, because this is the only criterion.If you have attained silence, you have the right to tell others to be silent. If you have solved your problems, then you are capable of helping those who cannot figure out how to get out of the mess they have made their lives.I have heard about a man who had come to a master asking to be a disciple….And as masters are very colorful people, unpredictable, the master looked at the disciple and said, “Listen, to be a disciple is very difficult. You will have to meditate, you will have to drop your ego; you will have to do this and that…a long process of discipline.”The man said, “I never thought that to be a disciple is so difficult.”The master said, “I cannot help it; that is the way. From eternity disciples have followed the path. I have only indicated a few spotlights.”The man thought for a moment, looked at the master who was relaxing in his chair comfortably. The disciple said, “Then what about if I become a master? If to be a disciple is so difficult, let me become a master.”The master said, “To be a master is very easy.”The man was very happy. He said, “That’s what I was thinking. Things should be easy.”But the master said, “You will have to manage a few disciples, and that is very difficult. They are stubborn, very angry, always ready to fight. Sometimes it can prove dangerous.”He said, “But you were saying that to be a master is very easy…?”He said, “To be a master is very easy. Just look at me, I am at ease. But first one has to either lead disciples or to become a disciple.”The man said, “Both seem to be difficult. What is your suggestion?”The master said, “My suggestion is rather than getting troubled by so many people, it is better just to be a disciple because you will have your own troubles and not be burdened by other people’s troubles.”Just as I was coming here, Kaveesha came to see me. She is a very understanding woman and has a clarity of seeing through problems and helps many people. Many people depend on her because I am not available, personally available, to anybody. You know I am lazy. I became a master because it is the easiest job. I have never been a disciple – I don’t have any problems.So when somebody has problems, I direct them to go to Kaveesha, to go to somebody else, because I have never suffered from any problem and I have never solved any problems. If they were there I left them there unsolved – they died. How long can they live if you don’t pay attention to them?Kaveesha has a small group of people around her; Avirbhava belongs to her group. You hear her scream every day. She is a beautiful woman. She screams just to announce that I have come. When she is not there even I miss her – and she is not an ordinary woman. Just yesterday she gave Kaveesha all her money with the checkbook – that is three and a half million dollars – and said, “You take it.”Kaveesha is poor. She thought that this was a good chance in a lifetime to have so much money. But she was not aware that Avirbhava is tricky! She accepted the checkbook, then Avirbhava explained to her, “These are the problems attached to the checkbook – you take them too. I am completely free!” So many problems…In America sales have gone down…Avirbhava has coal mines – and nobody is purchasing coal mines. Nothing in cash…all in problems – three and a half million dollars! So Kaveesha became afraid, saying, “I’m perfectly happy as I am. Now this Avirbhava is making me fall into a hell of problems.”And Avirbhava was very happy, “For the first time I’m feeling free – free of problems, free of money, unburdened.”Kaveesha could not reject the offer because that would be insulting; she could not accept the offer because that would be destructive. So she told Avirbhava, “Wait, first I have to see my master.”Just before I came here she came to me and she said, “This Avirbhava has created a trouble. First she said to me, ‘I’m giving you three and a half million dollars. You take it. I’m burdened, I want to be free of money. Our beloved Osho has been telling me again and again to be free – I have decided.’“And later on she came back and said, ‘But listen, these are the problems attached: there is no cash.’“Kaveesha came to me to ask what to do. I said, “You do one thing. Rejecting is not nice; accepting is dangerous because you have never taken such problems as are attached to those three and a half million dollars. You just go to Avirbhava and say, “I have offered the money and the problems to my master. And he said to me, ‘I appoint Avirbhava as my agent to take care.’“In a simple way nobody is harmed. Avirbhava remains with her coal mines and three and a half million dollars. But now she is no longer the owner. Whenever those coal mines are transferred into dollars, I am the owner. So they come to the commune; there is no problem.You need a clarity.Just something beautiful to make this silence a living, a dancing silence….Grandma Saperstein and Grandpa Rabinowitz are sitting on the veranda of the old folks home rocking back and forth in their rocking chairs. Grandpa Rabinowitz rocks forward in his chair and says to Grandma, “Fuck you!”Grandma Saperstein rocks forward in her chair and says to Grandpa, “I fuck you too!”Grandpa becomes very much excited and shouts, “Fuck you!” swinging more forward again.Grandma remains graceful but leans forward and says, “I fuck you again.”This goes on. Finally Grandpa says, “You know something, Grandma, this sex thing ain’t all it is cracked up to be.”It is just oral…theoretical.Zabriski is hired to wash the windows of an eighteen-story building.When he arrives at the job, he finds Paddy and Sean there to help him. The three of them climb the scaffolding to the top of the building and start to work. But after an hour passes, suddenly Zabriski climbs over the scaffolding and jumps eighteen stories to the street below.The police arrive, and one of the officers asks Paddy and Sean what happened.“I don’t know,” says Sean.“Well,” says Paddy, “maybe it was because of his deformity.”“What do you mean?” asks the cop.“Well,” says Paddy, “he kept on saying that he couldn’t work with two assholes.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Since you are coming out again and showering us every day with so much love, my sexual feelings towards my boyfriend have disappeared again. It looks like your coming out seems to be related to my sex dropping.Osho, I love it!But please go on coming out so that I can have a stronger taste of enlightenment. Last time it must have been so subtle that I missed it completely. So please give me a chance – I am very slow in these things.Nandan, love has many layers: the biological, the social, the spiritual. They need not be in conflict but I can understand your problem. For centuries man has been told that either you love the world or you love the beyond, you can’t have both together.This has been one of the most stupid teachings that has destroyed man’s possibility of blissfulness. This world and the beyond are not two; the beyond has roots in this world. Your love to your boyfriend and your love to me are not competitive. On the contrary, the more you love me, the more you will be able to love your boyfriend. Love is a deepening inside, a cleansing and a flowering. Your boyfriend may be just a small rosebush but that does not mean that that rosebush cannot be a part of a great garden.There is no necessity to divide them. If you love your boyfriend, you will love the garden. The boyfriend is perhaps your kindergarten where you learn how to love, but love should not be limited, it should spread. It should spread finally to the whole universe. Even your love to me should not be a bondage. Because of this fact Gautam Buddha used to say to his disciples, “If on the path of meditation going inwards you meet me, kill me immediately.”I should not be a hindrance. I am here to help you, not to hinder you. And I will be happy that your love becomes so big that it contains the song of the birds and the trees in silence enjoying the sun.Your love should be your sky.But we have been brought up in such wrong ways that love has become another name of jealousy. It has become another name of competition, another name of domination. But that condition has to be erased; it can be erased. That’s the whole work of meditation: to erase all conditions so that you are as vast as the whole.When I first came across the statement of P.D. Ouspensky…He was one of the greatest mathematicians of this age and he wrote one of the most beautiful books ever written. The name of the book is Tertium Organum. And in the very beginning he declares that the first book was written by Aristotle; it’s name was Organum. ‘Organum’ means the principle of knowledge.The second book was written by Bacon, Novum Organum. On the same lines he goes far beyond Aristotle. ‘Novum organum’ means the new principle of knowledge. With absolute humbleness and humility said Ouspensky, “I am going to call my book Tertium Organum, the third canon of thought, the third principle of knowledge.”Up to that point it was okay. Certainly he has much more to offer now than Bacon. But he goes on, saying, “I want to make a statement that the third canon of thought existed even before the first canon of thought of Aristotle. It was just not discovered.”All these three books are concerned with mathematics. In Tertium Organum is the statement: “What I am going to write is not mathematics but super-mathematics.” In mathematics the part can never be equal to the whole – it is obvious. But in super-mathematics, Ouspensky says, “The part can be as big as the whole.”The part can become the whole. When a dewdrop disappears into the ocean, slipping from the lotus leaf, do you think it remains still a dewdrop? Or do you think it is smaller than the ocean?The moment it slips into the ocean, it becomes the ocean. Then the part and the whole are one.Love is the art of being one with the whole.On the path you will find many lovers. Don’t make them hindrances and don’t think of them as obstacles. That’s what has been taught to you by all religions of the world, that if you love things of the world your spiritual growth is retarded. You will never go to the beyond, you will never open your wings to the whole sky – just like an eagle flying across the sun. You will be caught somewhere.Your boyfriend is simply a first taste, a small taste of love. He is not a hindrance. If you love me and the love towards your boyfriend disappears, then that love was not true. And you cannot be certain about your love for me, because there are greater realities. If you come across them, your love towards me will disappear. No, you are thinking in a very wrong way.My love should make your love with your boyfriend more pure, more meditative, more musical, more authentic. I should not be a competitor, I should be a nourishment to your love. You have to learn this new language which the society has prevented. There have been reasons why the societies around the world have been preventing it: jealousies of all kinds, competitions of all kinds, fear of all kinds…that if you even love a newspaper, your wife will take it away and throw it out, “While I am here, how dare you…!” And it is true that you were hiding yourself behind the newspaper so as not to see the woman. You were keeping that newspaper upside down, you were not reading it. It was just to keep a coexistence with your wife to whom you say, “I love you.”The American philosopher Dale Carnegie, who is the most stupid philosopher I have come across, suggests in a book how to influence people and win friends – but you know in America everything is superficial, a hypocrisy. He is teaching a hypocrisy; he says: “At least three times a day, you should say to your wife, ‘I love you darling.’“ It does not matter whether you love or not. It is a question of coexistence; otherwise she is going to create trouble. Bring roses and ice cream and Coca Cola just as symbols of your love.But in America data has been collected showing that everything has a life of only three years: marriages last only three years – that is the average; jobs last only three years; people change cities every three years…Every fashion goes out of existence within three years. Strange! The number three seems to be a very Christian number: God, the holy ghost and the son. America seems to be really Christian – follows the ideology. But this is the average. In the name of love, so many other things go on.I have heard…In a marriage registrar’s office, a couple were signing the forms. The woman signed and then the man signed. And the woman said, “That’s enough. I want a divorce.” Even the magistrate could not believe – nothing had happened: “Why do you want a divorce?”The woman said, “You can see my signature and he has written his signature in such big words…it is going to be a conflict of the egos. It is better to stop it from the very beginning. Why unnecessarily torture? He is not even polite enough to sign just the way I have signed. He has written as if he is teaching school children on a blackboard…such big words. What is the need? He is filling the whole form with his signature. This is the declaration that this is going to be our relationship: ‘You are going to be a nonentity.’ I don’t want to be a nonentity.”In the name of love, people can pretend or can even believe that they love. But it is biology, it is hormones. Just give an injection of different hormones and the love will disappear and you will hate each other. This is not love, this is physiology, biology, chemistry. Have you ever observed married people moving together, happy? The honeymoon lasts only one week or at the most two weeks. And every story says, “After the honeymoon they lived in happiness forever.” Nobody describes what happened after the honeymoon. The honeymoon is a fiction created by your biology – a romance. You are not the master of it.Once those hormones are satisfied – you have known the woman, the woman has known you, and you are acquainted with each other’s geography perfectly – then the question arises how to get rid of…And every society helps you to get married and prevents you from divorce. There is a significant psychology behind it: if divorce is as easy as marriage, then there will be a turmoil, chaos. People will go on honeymoon and then will go directly to the magistrate for a divorce. They are finished; they cannot tolerate each other’s presence – this is not love.So first you have to understand clearly what love should mean. I have been watching married couples. They look so sad when they are together. And if you see a man with a woman, happy, it is certain the woman is somebody else’s woman. Happiness is impossible because twenty-four hours together becomes a torture.The same conflict, “Why are you late? Where have you been?” And every husband on his way home is trying to figure out the questions – where he has been…what he has been doing….It is not only that the husband is trying to figure it out, his wife knows that all that he is going to say is nothing but lies. Even if he tells the truth, the wife is not going to believe it. Nor does the man believe…. Husbands and wives become detectives, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes – what is going on…?A woman was a hypochondriac. Every day, she was picking up some new disease from television advertisements about medicines. She enjoyed it because it is a very dominating position: you are sick, you are ill – the husband cannot be hard on you, he has to be sympathetic. He has to say, “Darling, I will take you to the doctor.”But the doctors were saying that she did not have the disease. “What am I going to treat?” So she would force the husband to go to another doctor for another opinion….But fortunately, she died. She left a will saying, “On my grave nothing else should be written except: Now you know – or do you still think I was a hypochondriac?”One loves only if one finds a communion of the spirit. It is not against biology or anything. Those are strategies of nature to continue the species. If one loves as a communion of spirit, the indication, the absolute certainty will be that there will not be any jealousy. Because if the wife finds herself happy with someone one day, and you love her, then you should be happy because she is happy.Love wants everybody whom it loves to be happy. If there is a communion of spirit, there will be no secretiveness. The wife can say, “Look at that man, how beautiful he is,” and the husband will not be offended. He will appreciate his wife’s aesthetic sense. That’s what she is saying; she is not saying anything else.In nature, no animal is happy while making love. Ordinarily, we don’t come across other animals, only the stray dogs…but have you seen their faces? They are so sad while they are making love, and people make them even more sad. People start hitting them with stones. Strange people…you want to love and you don’t want anybody else to love. The dogs are not doing any harm to anybody, and a crowd follows them and they are dragging each other in agony.That’s why in the animal world there are only seasons when animals make love. For the remaining year they forget about love completely; that one season was enough. It takes at least nine months to forget what happened.But man is more stupid. He hates it – every night thinking, “This is the end! Let tomorrow come…” And by the evening he starts thinking again, “Why not take another chance? What is the harm? Then I can stop…”It never stops, and the strangest thing is, your love, your lovemaking is not making your life more joyful, more musical, more poetic, more dancing. On the contrary, it is making it dry, desertlike. You somehow carry…It is a problem rather than a joy. Yes, in the beginning it seems to be a great blessing, but only in the beginning. The more intelligent you are, the sooner you will be finished with the idea of blessing.If your love is just of this lower, the lowest kind of biology, then certainly when you love me your love with your boyfriend will disappear. Before the higher can be, the lower has to disappear. This should give you an indication that you have to raise your love higher so that it does not disappear but is more nourished.My love is not only showering on you, it is showering on your boyfriend too. You both should dance, you both should feel nourished; new flowers should blossom for both of you.I am not anti-life as other religions are. I am absolutely for life, and life in its essence means love.I don’t even want your love to be confined to me – there are higher realms. I am only a door. If I can take you to higher realms of love where love is no longer a dialogue between two persons, but transformed into a lovingness, you don’t need a lover. You are love and wherever you move, you are surrounded with the aura of love. You will shower your love on the trees, not with effort; you will radiate love even if there is no one, in emptiness.The ultimate love is lovingness – where the other is no longer addressed; where everyone, the whole of existence becomes your beloved. The master is only the door to the infinity, to the eternity, to the freedom from duality.The most important French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, has insisted again and again that the other is hell – and in a way, he is right. To be with the other, it is very difficult not to create misery for yourself and for the other.Nobody is made for you. You have your likings; the other has his own likings. You are not one; the rhythm of your heart is not one. You live together, you have to live together because you are not capable of living alone. To you, aloneness appears as loneliness, despair – as if you are deserted, abandoned.You don’t know that aloneness is not loneliness. Aloneness is the highest peak of consciousness. And when love is alone, unaddressed, or addressed in all directions, then it becomes a paradise.But we have to learn step by step, we have to fall and we have to rise. If your love for your boyfriend deepens only when I am not coming out, I will not come out. Because I will not commit that kind of sin – destroying poor Nandan’s love. When I come out she becomes enlightened – and enlightened women don’t have boyfriends. It is an idiotic idea. Why? Enlightened women should have enlightened boyfriends, so rather than deserting the poor boy…help him to be enlightened so I can also come out. Because if I don’t come out…you see all these people…they will kill you, you and your boyfriend – both.So, change your strategy. I am not against your love, I am absolutely for it. Love deeply, love without jealousy, love blissfully and help each other to be more meditative. Because what else can we do and what can we share? Man is born naked without anything. Love should be the beginning of sharing something – not all that rubbish that Dale Carnegie is suggesting.The only sharing is of silence, joy, celebration. Slowly, slowly your hearts start melting and merging into each other. Your love becomes a spiritual phenomenon. And your love helps you to come closer to the master, because the master is not separating you, but joining you.It is an ugly fact, that even people like Gautam Buddha or Mahavira insisted on renouncing your wives, your husbands, your children. Nobody even talks about how many people – millions must be the number in twenty-five centuries – have been deserted, and for wrong reasons people have become sannyasins. It was the easiest divorce and very respectable: you don’t have to go to the registrar’s office, and you don’t have to be condemned by the society.On the contrary, if you renounce your wife and your children in the name of religion…. Are you aware of the implications? Millions of women will suffer poverty, will become prostitutes. Millions of children will become beggars, thieves, criminals. Who is responsible for all this? Your great so-called leaders.A few years back I read the life story of a Jaina monk….He was very much respected, and the respect came because he was not born a Jaina, he was born as a Hindu goldsmith. Whenever people convert to other religions, in the new religion they are respected greatly because they are giving you the confidence that your religion is higher, greater, truer than their religion. They are becoming a certain argument in favor of your philosophy.There were other Jaina monks but this man had more respect than anybody else. I was looking at his biography. He renounced his wife and twenty-six years later, the wife died, poor, doing small things in people’s houses – cleaning, washing their dishes, their clothes. The conditioning is such that she was still happy that her husband had become a great saint.The day the saint received the message that his wife had died, his statement remained with me; I cannot forget it because I cannot forgive it. He said, “My last anxiety is finished.” After twenty-six years…he left the woman in utter poverty…. What was his anxiety? It is easy to renounce a woman, but it is not easy to renounce sex. So although he had renounced – because so much honor and so much respect – deep down the sex must have been fooling him. His statement: “My last anxiety…” means that for twenty-six years he had been carrying the anxiety, he had not really renounced. But this has been happening all over the world.I want to transform the quality of your love.I don’t want you to renounce anything.Renunciation is for the retarded; transformation is for those who are intelligent.I cannot have millions of people around me for the simple reason that millions of intelligent people don’t exist. All kinds of retarded people…After the first world war, for the first time psychological tests were devised to calculate the mental age of a man. Up to that point it was never thought that there are two ages: the age of the body and the age of the mind. And it was such a shock to discover that the average state of the mind is very retarded; its average age is fourteen years. The man may be seventy – that is his physical age – but his mind, his psychology is only fourteen years of age.My effort is to bring your mind equal to the age of your body. In fact, it is possible if a man can be seventy and his mind can be only fourteen, that the vice versa is possible.Somebody asked Emerson, “What is your age?”He said, “Three hundred and sixty years.” Emerson was a man of truth and the man could not believe that he could tell such a lie.Three hundred and sixty…? He pretended that he had not heard. He said, “I am a little deaf. Please repeat. What is your age?”Emerson said, “You have heard it, but I will repeat, three hundred and sixty.”The man said, “I cannot accept this. You don’t look more than sixty.”Emerson said, “Yes, that’s true. That is the age of my body. I am talking about my age, the age of my psychology, and that is at least six times more than my physical age.”First, I have to cleanse all the garbage that the old generations have poured in your mind. Your intelligence has to be cleansed, your love has to be cleansed. You have to be given maturity, a centering, an individuality and then there are not two worlds as all the religions say.I emphatically deny that there are two worlds. The other world is simply a fiction, a consolation for the retarded, for the poor, for the miserable to give them a hope, to give them opium so they can somehow manage to drag themselves to their graves.This is the only world. It does not mean that with your death comes the end. It simply means that with your death, you move into a higher quality of life. It all depends on you. If in this life, you can manage to get rid of jealousies, to get rid of biological and physiological attractions…if in this life you can get in tune, in love; if this life can become a celebration, your innermost consciousness will continue celebrating on higher levels. But there are not two worlds, it is one world, one eternity.The people who divided it into two were very cunning because that gave them the scope: “If you are poor here, don’t be worried. Just pray to God and in the next life you will be in paradise with all the pleasures that you are being denied here.” That paradise of all the religions is just a consolation for the poor, for the suffering, for the miserable. It does not give you growth, it does not give you more consciousness. On the contrary, it simply gives you a hope which is not going to be fulfilled.Nobody has written from the other world. At least they could have sent a Christmas card saying, “We are happy here.” No evidence for it exists, no proof and no argument. It is the greatest fiction – the God, the paradise and all the joys of paradise.Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor” – and everybody knows who is blessed. If the poor are blessed then we should destroy all the riches that exist on the earth. Make everybody a beggar, make everybody blessed – because only the blessed ones, the poor, will enter into the kingdom of God! And their different religions for different climates, different geographies, different problems have managed to give, promised to give…You will find beautiful women there; here you have to renounce a poor woman, and there you will find beautiful women who never age. They always remain young, fixed…sixteen years of age. They can only be made of plastic; they cannot be real.Those women have been offered to millions of saints who have entered paradise. You can’t find a prostitute on the earth comparable to the prostitutes that are offered in paradise. And you can see a strange thing: beautiful women are provided because all religions are man-made. Beautiful boys are not provided – who cares about women?Yes, only one religion provides beautiful boys – for homosexuality; that is also for men, not for women. Rivers of wine…Here, wine is condemned and in paradise you swim in wine, you drink, you drown. Whatever you want to do, you can do. And such utterly nonsensical ideas have been prevalent for centuries all over the world.I have heard…Swami Muktananda died; in fact, he was never alive, but theoretically he died. One of his chief disciples could not manage to be separated from the master. He committed suicide and rushed as fast as he could into paradise. Just under a beautiful tree with thousands of flowers, poor Muktananda was lying down and on top of him was lying an American actress, Marilyn Monroe.The disciple said, “My God, this is not right.” And Muktananda was always saying to be celibate…what is happening? Then he realized that the values had changed: this was paradise. He fell into the feet of the couple who were making love and he said, “Forgive me. For a moment, a doubt has arisen because I forgot that values have changed. This is not the earth; this is paradise. You are well rewarded: the woman is really beautiful.”Before Muktananda could speak, the woman said, “You idiot, you don’t understand a thing. This old guy is not rewarded, I have been punished. They could not find a more ugly punishment for me.”There is no other world, but consciousness is eternal. Existence has always been here and will always be here. It is up to you – absolutely up to you – to make the best of this great opportunity.Purify your love and it becomes prayer.Purify your intelligence and it becomes your wisdom.Purify yourself completely and you become one with the whole. And to be one with the whole is the ultimate benediction, the blissfulness, the experience for which thousands of people have been searching down the ages on wrong paths.This world has to be loved, this world has to be respected, this world has to be your temple, your mosque, your church. This world has to be your gratefulness, your gratitude.Nandan, enlightenment is not something of another world. Enlightenment happens now and here. And enlightenment is nothing but a purity of everything that you are. It is not renunciation, it is rejoicing.I am changing the very definition of sannyas. Up to now sannyas has been defined as renouncing the world. That has been a calamity. Millions of people have renounced the world who could have created a better world, more beautiful. I change the definition of sannyas. I say it is not renouncing, it is rejoicing.Rejoice in your love, rejoice in your songs.Rejoice in your music, rejoice in your dance.Rejoice in these beautiful trees –these innocent sounds of the birds.Rejoice in the night full of stars.We have the most perfect world and there is no other world – but we have to get in tune with it. We have to become one with it.Enlightenment is not something special, it is simply a purified consciousness in which thousands of flowers of love and intelligence and truth and peace and silence grow on their own accord.Nandan, you created a very serious silence – the trees don’t like it. They wait for your laughter; it is their nourishment. When you laugh the birds understand perfectly the language of laughter. They don’t understand Arabic or Sanskrit or Hebrew, but they understand laughter.A few things for the trees and for the birds….Paddy is explaining to Seamus what happened when he went into the new Zorba the Buddha self-service restaurant.“I got myself a cup of coffee,” he says, “and set it on the table. Then I went back for a piece of pie, but when I came back with the pie, the coffee was gone. So I set down the pie and went back for another cup of coffee…the pie was gone. So I wrote a card. It read: ‘I put my finger in the coffee.’ Then I stuck the card alongside the cup. I went for another piece of pie, but when I came back the coffee cup was empty and someone had written on the card, ‘I drank your coffee but I could not find your finger.’“Herschel Goldberg goes up to his father, Hymie, and says, “Dad, I want to marry Suzy.”“Don’t marry her, my son,” says Hymie. “When I was a young man, I was pretty wild and to put it bluntly, she is your half-sister.”Sometime later, Herschel comes up to Hymie and says, “Dad, I am in love with Mildred and I want to marry her.”“You can’t,” says Hymie, “she is your half-sister.”“How about Mabel?” asks Herschel, a few weeks later.“Sorry,” says Hymie, “she is your half-sister too.”Herschel is really determined to get married, so he goes to his mother and complains.“Dad says I can’t marry Suzy, Mildred or Mabel because they are all my half-sisters. What can I…?”“Don’t worry,” says Becky, “you marry any of them you like – he is not your father!”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,When I first sat in front of you, I heard you say to me, “Bring light into the unconscious.”Eight years have since passed and I feel more silent and loving than ever before and yet sense that there is much more.Does the light which enters the unconscious come through efforts and determination, or is it an existential gift, requiring patience, openness and receptivity?Could you speak on what it means to bring light into the unconscious?Every step on the path reminds one of the utter poverty of language. I may have said to you, Bring light into your unconscious, because in that moment you would not have understood what you can understand now.You can only prepare the ground.Light comes on its own accord.And that is happening in all these eight years by your becoming more silent and more loving. But you feel a lingering sense that there is something more – there is much more. Now I can say to you: Relax in your silence so it can become deeper. And relax in your love so it is no longer a solid thing but becomes more liquid, more flowing in all directions.In short, learn the art of let-go. The light will come not according to your expectations or by any effort. Every effort will be a great hindrance and every expectation will create distance between you and the light.In fact, forget all about light…. Just listen to the sound of rain, the sound of wind and enjoy it with such intensity that in every enjoyment you disappear. Slowly, slowly one day you will find you are not. That is the greatest moment in a man’s life, because the moment you find you are not, light enters in you. It waits until you vacate your innermost being. You are too full of yourself; there is no space for the great light to descend in you.In a certain sense you have to die to be reborn, you have to be no more to be authentically yourself. This is logically very contradictory language, but I am not responsible for it. The whole responsibility is on the poverty of language. It has not been made to express the richer and higher experiences of consciousness. The descending of light is the ultimate, then the lingering sense that there is more will disappear.That does not mean that there is not much more – there is – but what you have received is too much even to believe in it. You don’t deserve it, you are not worthy of it and it is so vast that it is inconceivable that there can be much more beyond it. But there is no need to be worried about it. Just as the light has come it comes as a ray entering into your unconscious darkness, and soon it becomes thousands of suns, light exploding all over in all dimensions. Because of this fact the experience has been called enlightenment.You are on the right path. Eight years ago if I had said these things to you, you would not have understood. I had to prepare you before I could say things which are unsayable. And there are so many things to be conveyed to you, but they will have to wait until you are prepared. When you are prepared just give me a hint, “I am ready.”Then I can forget logic, language. Then I can talk directly about the essential experience – whether it is grammatical or not, who cares? One thing is certain, it is existential.So from now onwards remember, stop bringing light into the unconscious – please! From now onwards wait for the light to come. Wait with a throbbing heart, with a welcome, doors open – because who knows when the light comes; there is no pre-information. It comes so suddenly, you have to be awake all the time, waiting by the side of the gate, keeping it open – because the host can come any moment.It is really the relationship between the guest and the host. You have to disappear and just become a waiting, utterly pure and silent, not waiting for something, simply waiting. The moment you can simply wait without demanding anything from existence and without desiring…Because behind every desire and behind every expectation and demand there is a complaint, “Why am I still in darkness? Why have you not come yet?” You may not say it clearly, but deep down you know…. Your heart cannot be grateful in such a situation.Forget all about light, because it does not come by your remembering it, so what is the point of remembering? It comes by your deep relaxation, silence, peace, love, meditativeness and utter let-go. And one day you will suddenly find your whole being full of light, transformed from mortality into immortality, transformed from misery into blissfulness, into a blissfulness that knows no end.Osho,You always say that one becomes a sannyasin because one is seeking for truth. When you say that I always feel very guilty, because I know I didn't become a sannyasin for that reason. I became a sannyasin because I wanted to be happy, I wanted to get rid of anguish and to live all the joy my heart can contain.Please tell me something about it.You are guilty! – because what you call happiness is nothing but a by-product of the experience of truth. You may be seeking happiness, you may be seeking the ultimate, you may be seeking yourself…it doesn’t matter, you are seeking the same thing. You are seeking to get rid of your ignorance, your misery, your anguish, but that happens only when you come face to face with the truth of your being.You are guilty of misunderstanding. Now, no longer feel guilty. The energy that you are putting into feeling guilty, put it into searching for happiness, and you will find that your search for happiness is another name for what I have called the truth.“Quick,” yells little Ernie as he rushes into the drugstore, “my Dad is hanging upside down by his pants leg in a barbed wire fence!”“What do you need?” asked the druggist. “Help or first aid supplies?”“Nothing like that,” says Ernie breathlessly, “I want another roll of film for my camera!”Just misunderstanding is not guilt….Two old black ladies are about to get their picture taken. As the photographer pulls the black cloth over his head and starts to adjust the lens, one lady asks the other, “What is he doing?”She answers, “He is going to focus!”The other lady looks at her friend in shock and says, “Both of us?”Osho,Sex is disappearing, immense creativity is opening up, love is happening. It feels like a cool breeze inside, unexcited and very alone. Then the mind comes in and says, “Your heart is not open,” and tries to doubt this space of coolness.Could you please talk about this?Turiya, again a German…! It seems I am going to make the whole of Germany enlightened! Knowing perfectly well what happened about Nandan, still you say, “Sex is disappearing, immense creativity is opening up, love is happening.” My God! “It feels like a cool breeze inside, unexcited and very alone. Then the mind comes and says, ‘Your heart is not open,’ and tries to doubt this space of coolness. Could you please talk about this?”How many times have I to remind you that this kind of enlightenment will happen many times.Sex will disappear – and will appear again.The heart will open – and will close again.It is the natural process.Your mind is not creating a doubt. Your mind is simply reminding you not to get caught into great words, cool breeze…unexcited and very alone….Wake up and become unenlightened again!Enlightenment needs many times of waking up from the dreams. Because you are all listening continuously about enlightenment, and everybody is talking about it, naturally you start thinking it is happening to everybody. It has happened to Nandan – and Turiya is a princess! What kind of enlightenment happens to a commoner and the royal blood is still unenlightened? Jump up…you have to be ahead of all…!But then the cool breeze brings with it the boyfriend, unexpectedly. You were not hoping that he would come so soon! And then everything becomes hot. Mind reminds you – it will remind you again. But you say, “Wait, this boyfriend is going to go back again in three weeks.” It is only a question of three weeks then you can become enlightened again: “Just for three weeks don’t be miserly. Open your heart, let love flow.”And these boyfriends are such – and particularly in this temple, if one boyfriend disappears, another appears. We don’t make much fuss about asking, “Who are you? What is your name?” When love knocks on the door you open it and receive the guest. Even if he is not German, it will do – at least for the time being until the German returns! And everybody has a spare boyfriend; it is intelligent always to have some spare parts. In this technological age you cannot simply depend without having spares.So if the real does not appear the spare comes – and this will happen many times until you are really fed up. Then sex does not disappear; then you simply transcend it. It remains where it is. How can it disappear?Everything remains the same. You are just more mature, more centered, more happy for no reason at all. For the first time your happiness is independent. It does not depend on anybody. For the first time aloneness has a beauty, a tremendous beauty, the beauty which only roses know or the stars.That day will also come, Turiya, but before it comes these kinds of things will happen many times. Just be a watcher; enjoy these too. It is perfectly good to feel once in a while that sex has disappeared, one feels so clean, as if you have just taken a cool shower. It is beautiful to feel a creativity arising in you; nothing is wrong in it. The trouble is that these are only your dreams, not your realizations. So when they surround you they look as if they are real, but when they disappear leaving you in a dark ditch, you understand that your mind has destroyed everything, doubted. If the mind had not doubted, everything was going so good.Mind is not disturbing and mind cannot disturb anything real, and mind cannot doubt anything real. Mind doubts only the unreal, the belief, the imagination, the dream – and it is good, it is helpful, it is healthy that the mind by doubting prevents you from falling into the trap of the unreal.Don’t be in a hurry; otherwise you will start clinging to any dream. Be relaxed. Life itself prepares the ground. Its experiences itself bring the maturity and the moment in which you are transformed. Then there is no mind to doubt, then there is no question about it. The real has never been questioned.Do you think when Gautam Buddha became enlightened his mind said, “Just think over it; it may be just a dream.” Not for a split second can truth be doubted once you should encounter it.Your doubt is perfectly healthy and your experience is perfectly normal. But one day the real will arrive, because you are searching, seeking, honestly and sincerely with your totality. That day you will not find mind anywhere.But right now it is too early. Listen to the mind; try to understand. You are not yet ripe. Your meditation is not yet deep enough, but it is deepening. So be happy that you are on the right track.For sixty years Ruthy Finkelstein has lived with her tight-fisted husband Moishe. One fine day Moishe dies and Ruthy has him cremated.She takes the ashes home with her in a plastic urn. She walks around her home carrying the urn and talking to the dead Moishe. “Moishe,” she says, “look at the fridge! All those years you would not give me money for housekeeping. Now look, it is full of champagne and caviar. And Moishe, look at my closet. All the time we were married you never allowed me more than one new dress every two years. Now look, it is full of silk dresses and fur coats and the jewelry box is full of diamonds. And Moishe, all those years you would not let me have anything to do with the business. Well, today I took over as chairman.”Finally, in the bedroom she opens the little plastic urn and shakes his ashes onto the windowsill. “And Moishe,” she says, “you remember that blow job you always nagged me for? Well, here it is…pfft!”Don’t take things seriously; life is so hilarious. There is no urgency to be enlightened. It is unfortunate that I became enlightened too early! But now nothing can be done about it – once enlightened, enlightened forever.Let life and its different dimensions be experienced by you. As you experience life, slowly, slowly you become aware of its emptiness. Slowly, slowly you become aware that this is not your authentic being. In this slow process of experiencing, one day you come home. Then it is not a dream, not an imagination. And the most significant criterion to remember is that you will not find mind in your authentic enlightenment. The question of doubt does not arise, not even for a moment. You simply know what is the case.I know the trouble of being enlightened. That’s why I make you alert. Don’t be in a hurry; otherwise you will blame me. I don’t want to take the blame. Nobody can say to me, “I am grateful to you that you helped me to become enlightened.” I help you to learn and love and live as totally as possible. Out of this, enlightenment is bound to happen some day – but there is no hurry for it. It is your birthright, so you cannot avoid it long enough. Sooner or later – and most probably sooner than later – it is going to happen.But I am telling you, I don’t want to take any credit for it because then you will see that this whole life is utterly futile, meaningless, no action is of any worth – and then you will search.That’s why I keep myself locked in my room. I don’t want people rushing to me saying, “Now it is your fault. You talked about enlightenment and I have become enlightened. Now what do you suppose I should do?”There is nothing to be done, you have become enlightened, close the door and lock yourself inside! Or if you are really angry, try to make others enlightened: Look what life has done to you…. Do it to others!No one can persuade little Ernie’s great-aunt Esmeralda that she does not possess extraordinary, supernatural powers. Little Ernie believes her when she tells him about one of her visions: “Keep a close eye on your father tomorrow,” she says. “I feel it in my bones that he is going to pop off before nightfall.”Little Ernie never lets his dad out of his sight the next day. They go to the office together in the morning and then to the park in the afternoon. Nothing unusual happens all day, but when they get home in the evening little Ernie’s mother greets them at the front door.“A terrible thing happened here this morning,” she sobs, “the milkman dropped dead on the kitchen floor!”Turiya, you cannot find a more hilarious life than this. After enlightenment there is nothing – to tell you the truth. So manage to do everything before enlightenment strikes! I will try my best to make you enlightened; you try your best not to become enlightened! Don’t get caught into my words.Just look at Nandan, she became enlightened and became unenlightened quickly – and now she will not become enlightened again so soon!Most probably by the time I answer the question – it takes two or three days – Turiya may have already dropped the idea of enlightenment, “What is the hurry, why not enjoy a few more days of the juicy life?” I can see her sitting just there behind Devageet – and she is enjoying. That means that the dream of enlightenment is finished!

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I feel so full inside that it overflows, and at the same time, so empty that it scares me. It seems a contradiction. Would you like to say something about it?Life is not made of contradictions. It is made of complementaries. Only in the mind, do things appear to be opposite. Only in the mind, you cannot conceive how they both can be one. That’s why Euclidean geometry says that parallel lines never meet, but in fact, it has been discovered that parallel lines also meet.This whole existence is a meeting of many dimensions. That is its beauty, its variety, its unending procession of celebration. If you think about emptiness, you cannot think that fullness and emptiness can be the same. But if you experience you will be amazed that what mind has been always proposing, and what philosophers have always been supporting, is absolutely absurd.All philosophies are absurd.Only experience is truth, not theoretical considerations about experience. We teach people’s minds contradictions: emptiness and fullness are absolutely contradictive. But when you come to a point of deep meditation, you are suddenly surprised and scared too, scared because of your conditioning – it is not supposed that emptiness and fullness should be one. But existence never bothers what your philosophers say, it goes on its own way.When you are utterly empty, you are also utterly full, overflowing. In fact, emptiness itself becomes a tremendous fullness. Looked at from one side, you can call it empty; for example, if you remove all the furniture and all the junk from your house which people go on collecting…All are great collectors. If you remove the whole junk, the room, the house is empty of the junk, but in itself, it is for the first time full of itself. All that furniture and all those things were destroying its fullness.The meditator is bound to come to the point when he has thrown all junk from the mind, and suddenly he sees that emptiness is there. And also there is a fullness of which logically there is no explanation – but it is not a logical process at all.Your experience is tremendously meaningful. It shows that you have touched a deep point where opposites meet and mingle, when enemies become friends, when life and death are one; when emptiness and fullness are not two separate things, but only two separate names given by the mind.Mind is so small, it cannot conceive such a vast phenomenon that life and death are one, that emptiness and fullness are one. It can conceive emptiness is emptiness and fullness is fullness. Those are the discriminations of the mind.Meditation opens the doors of a vast world, existential not theoretical, where suddenly you are shocked for the first time that emptiness and fullness are one, life and death are one, that men and women are one. But it is not a question to be or not to be. Both are one: different names of the same reality.So don’t start thinking about it as if it is a contradiction. That is the mind interfering into your meditation. You have to be very alert – mind is cunning. It tries in every way because it is very well trained by all the educational systems and by all the societies. The more a man’s mind is trained in being logical, the more he is accepted as a great intellectual. In fact, he has gone far away from existence with a very rare possibility of returning.I make a difference between intellect and intelligence: intellect divides things into opposites; intelligence penetrates into opposites and creates bridges. Intellect makes walls; intelligence makes bridges. Meditation is the highest form of intelligence because it is the highest form of consciousness. You will come to such points more and more. This is just the beginning. Just say to the mind, “This is none of your business.”Mind has to understand that you are no longer in its power and in its grip. Once the mind understands it – that you have moved into a totally different world of existence – not of mere thoughts which are soap bubbles – it starts interfering less and less. The day mind stops interfering, and even great contradictions like life and death are accepted totally as one without any doubt, you have arrived home.This is a great experience on the path of meditation, but mind will try in every way to create doubt. Listen to existence and never to the mind, because the mind is a creation of the society. You have been trained by the society for years, so it has become very ingrained, but it has destroyed your purity, your clarity. Meditation is simply reclaiming your simplicity, your silence, your perceptivity – where all contradictions dissolve into each other, not as enemies but as friends.I have heard…A small child saw his father and mother making love – the window was just a little open. He could not believe that the father was torturing the mother. He rushed to his elder brother and he said, “What are you doing here? We have to do something, otherwise that brute, our father, he is going to kill our mother; he is sitting on her chest.”The elder brother said, “Be quiet. They are not fighting. It is a kind of exercise.”What else to say to the little brother…?He said, “Exercise? You don’t understand the grave situation. I am going to my uncle.”And the uncle said, “Come on. It is not exercise, it is just fooling around.”He said, “It is very strange. Everybody is giving different answers and nobody is doing anything. And that poor woman, my mother is suffering under the weight of the heavyweight champion my father? Do something!”The uncle said, “Don’t be worried; they are making love.”Mind is a very small thing compared to the vast existence. It cannot understand that contradictions are in deep love with each other – not only in love, they are in fact one. This experience of oneness will give you such blissfulness, such peace, such tensionlessness that you have never experienced before. With these same eyes, you will start looking into the world with a totally different outlook.Meditation simply changes your vision, your way of seeing, your way of understanding.This whole existence is a love affair. Nobody is doing any exercise, and nobody is fighting. It is a tremendous balance between the opposites seen by the mind, but it doesn’t see the balance – that there is something more than the apparent oppositions.When one hundred girls are born, there are always one hundred and fifteen boys born at the same time. It seems to be something of a non-mathematical thing, fifteen boys more, but existence knows more than you know. These fifteen boys will have disappeared by the time they are sexually mature. In fact, within the first two years, those fifteen boys will start disappearing, dying. Nature has to create those fifteen more, so that by the time of marriage, there is at least a similarity, an equality of numbers between men and women.Nature has its own wisdom.It is very strange…just at the beginning of this century, in poor countries like India, nine out of ten children would die before they were two years of age; only one would survive. But even at that time, nature was keeping a balance: more boys and less girls would be born. An equilibrium, a balance has to be maintained. With medical developments the situation has changed; just the opposite is happening today. Out of ten babies born, only one dies, nine live.It is very mysterious how nature comes to know that the situation has changed, and you have to produce according to a new way. But the balance is kept; it has been kept since eternity. Perhaps they are both coming from the same source: two branches of one reality – but man has certainly disturbed the balance.There are countries and religions which allow that a man can marry four women. Now, if a man marries four women, what about the three other men who will remain unnecessarily celibate? – forcibly. But it happened in countries where men were continuously warring with each other, killing each other. They would rape the women of the enemy but they would not kill them; they would kill the men. So naturally, there were few men and four times more women.Out of such stupid situations, arbitrary moralities are created. Now those communities have spread all over the world. The situation is not the same but they insist that it is their religious right to marry four women. But if you marry four women, then you are certainly creating corruption in the society. Those three men will start falling in love with other people’s wives – they have to. For those three men, prostitutes will have to be created; otherwise, what is going to happen to their life energy? All kinds of perversions…but these perversions are man-made.If they listen to the wisdom of nature, there is nothing perverted. Everything is very simple, very silently merging, melting with each other.There is no conflict in existence.I say unto you, there is no God and there is no Devil. The Devil was created by the people who created God because they could not think how God can exist without the polar opposite.Everything exists with the polar opposite.Even Friedrich Nietzsche missed the point when he said, “God is dead” – he forgot about the Devil. The Devil continues to live because nobody has declared his death. I declare that both were two sides of the same fiction. When God died there was no need for the Devil.When there is no other world, a heaven, there is no need for any hell. These are man-made polarities. Seeing that existence always lives with polarities, opposites, contradictions, man feels a little hesitant to accept that there is only heaven…. Then what about the sinners?But the reality is the saint and the sinner are not opposites; deep down they depend on each other.If there are no sinners, all saints will disappear. If there are no saints, there will be no sinners. They are not contradictions; they are just part of a beautiful polarity and balance.In a small school, the teacher asks – for almost one hour she has been teaching – how not to sin, because those who sin will be thrown into hellfire for eternity. And if by mistake you have committed something which is sin, then pray. God is compassionate. He will forgive you and you will enter paradise with all its pleasures. Then she asked the class….A small boy raised his hand.She asks, “What is the way to reach paradise?”The little boy said, “Sin.”She said, “My God, for one whole hour I have been insisting that if you sin you will fall into hell.”He said, “I understand. But unless you sin, you will not be forgiven either. How will you enter paradise? God will ask what sins you have committed. He is compassionate, he will forgive, but first you have to commit.”Sometimes children can see things in a very different perspective. The boy is right. God will be absolutely useless if nobody is sinning. What will he do with his compassion? – out of a job, unemployed…not even the possibility of a retirement pension…!When we create fiction, we have to create the anti-fiction. Christians talk about the coming of the Antichrist. In the first place, Christ was an uneducated, poor fellow, a little whimsical: riding on his donkey, preaching to a few idiots – who are always available. And in his whole life, he could only find twelve followers. But Christians had to create the idea of Antichrist. Then only, Jesus becomes a real Christ, a real savior: he will save you from the Antichrist.Two thousand years have passed. Nobody has encountered any Antichrist. Many have been condemned by Christianity as Antichrist, but just by your condemnation you are fulfilling your desire to make Christ a reality.I was amazed to receive a letter from the president of the Nazi party who believes that Adolf Hitler is the reincarnation of an Old Testament prophet, Elijah. He wrote to me saying, “You have been speaking again and again against Adolf Hitler. Perhaps you don’t know that he is a very religious person; he is the reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. Please stop speaking against him.”I told my secretary to write to him and say, “I will continue whatever I want to do. Nobody can dictate to me but I can see that you are utterly stupid: Elijah in the Old Testament was a Jew, and a Jew and Adolf Hitler…Can you imagine how many Jews he killed? – six million. A great reincarnation of Elijah the Jewish prophet killing Jews.” Seeing the point, he has not replied to me that it’s true.But you can find idiots who even think that Adolf Hitler is a religious man. And there is nothing in his life to make him religious. You have to go back to the rotten Old Testament to find a figure that nobody remembers, Elijah – and he becomes the incarnation. If he had been the incarnation of Elijah then he would have killed all the Germans and not the Jews.And what was his reason for killing the Jews? – that the Jews are the cause of all misery and suffering in the world. A strange cause, because here almost half of you are Jews, and I don’t think any Jew is creating suffering or misery for anybody. I have found them the nicest people.I am reminded…A rabbi was on his morning walk and he came across Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler said to him, “Rabbi, do you agree with me or not?”The rabbi said, “I agree absolutely with you. The world is miserable, in suffering because people are using bicycles. Just destroy all bicycles and you will see the whole world becoming a paradise.”It is the same…it is arising again. Anando brought me news from Japan. In Japan there are not many Jews, but two very important books have appeared – and are being sold on a great scale – which say that the world is going towards destruction because of a Jewish conspiracy.It is strange…. And man can be convinced by any stupid idea.One old Jew was dying and his wife said to him, “Pray to God your last prayer.”He said, “Yes, I am praying. I was praying silently, but now I will pray openly so that you can all hear: ‘God, you have chosen the Jews as your people. Now it is time you chose somebody else; we have suffered enough.’“And it is true that Moses is in some way responsible for giving this idea to the Jews that they are the chosen people of God. It gave them an idea of superiority. That hurts everybody, particularly those who have similar kinds of ideas. Hindus think they are the chosen people of God. God gave the Hindus his first book, the Rig Veda – and Hitler felt very inferior: “If Jews are the chosen people of God…then who are the Germans?”Somehow, some way had to be found – and Hitler found it. He had sent his people to India and to Tibet to find out some way so that he could declare. He found out that Jainism in India is the oldest religion in the whole world; its symbol is the swastika. That symbol was chosen by Adolf Hitler and he claimed that it was given to the Germans first, as an indication that they are the chosen people.He started calling Germans “Aryans.” Hindus and Jainas had been calling themselves Aryans. Nobody had heard before that Germans were Aryans. But Aryans are the oldest race, perhaps Germans also are a branch of the Aryans. Becoming Aryans and having the symbol of the swastika, he declared his superiority over the Jews – and because he had the power, he killed six million Jews.Only forty years have passed, and there are idiots who are writing books that there is an international Jewish conspiracy. Jews are not spread all over the world; they don’t have power – they are in trouble in Israel. But rather than looking at reality, people always find excuses: it is a Jewish conspiracy; Jews have to be completely eradicated from the world, then the world will be happy!There is no logic in it. The same logic as bicycles…destroy all the bicycles and suddenly you will see the world becoming richer, stronger, healthier. Those books are bestsellers – and in Japan, where there are very few Jews. It is dangerous, and when I received the letter from the president – I had never thought that there still existed a Nazi party, that there are still people who believe in Adolf Hitler as a religious leader….Six million is the number of the Jews he killed. The total number of people killed because of him in the Second World War was fifty-two million. These criminals…and then I inquired from my friends about the party and what is their program? Their program is that they are waiting for the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler.Rather than collecting your energies and your intelligence to make you a beautiful and graceful being, people go on destroying their very energy which could have been a great transformation and enlightenment to them. So don’t for a single moment allow the mind to interfere with your meditation.Meditation is very delicate – and in the beginning very fragile. Mind is almost ten million years old; it is very strong, very stubborn. You have to protect your meditation and you have to be alert that the mind does not go on planting seeds destructive to your meditation.That’s the function of the communion of the seekers. Alone, perhaps you will find yourself very weak against the mind, but when there are so many people meditating and creating an ocean of meditative energy, you also feel the strength and you can put the mind aside. It may be ten million years old, it does not matter. It has no correspondence with reality.Bernie Bernstein returns to his business in New York after a holiday in Miami where he enjoyed the company of a gorgeous blonde called Suzy.Bernie has been back in his office for a few days, when Fagin Finkelstein the lawyer, pays him a visit.“I am here,” begins Fagin, “on behalf of my client, Suzy Lamour.”He then opens his briefcase and pulls out a stack of glossy photographs of Bernie and Suzy in all the various positions of their lovemaking.“Well, Mr. Bernstein,” smiles young Fagin, “what do you think of that?”Bernie looks from one photograph to the next in horror and then in amazement.Eventually he reaches a decision.“Okay,” he says, pointing at two of the photos, “I’ll take two of this and two of this.”Mind finds some way, howsoever stupid, to get out of the reality. But the reality does not change; in fact, you should learn to get out of the mind and the reality changes tremendously. It changes because you can see it now as it is. It is not according to any theology and not according to any religion and not according to any philosophy.Existence is so vast and philosophers are so small that their efforts are going to be found stupid. They may find some small fragments of reality and make out of those fragments great systems. But existence needs not a system created by your mind, but an experience by your very being.The being is not very far away – just a little distance. Only one station on the way, from the mind to the heart and from the heart to the being – and you have arrived. It is not a long journey, and you don’t need any vehicle. You can simply slip inwards. The mind will try to persuade you not to do such a dangerous thing because “I am always here to help you; without me, you will be helpless.” Tell the mind: “Shut up! You have helped me enough and I don’t need your help any more. For the first time I want to experience helplessness.”You have arrived at the heart which is still the same as it was when you were born, innocent. It still wonders, it still feels the mysterious, it still loves. It is still a music of the depths of your being. But don’t get stuck there. You can be a poet, a painter, a dancer which is far more beautiful than being a mathematician or a physicist. Don’t get stuck there, just one step more: enjoy an overnight stay, drink the beauty of the heart, thank the heart and enter into your being. And the heart never prevents, but helps, shows you the way.And once you are at your being, the whole universe of reality opens up. You cannot find a single contradiction, you cannot find anything against anything else. Everything is supportive to each other; the whole existence is a cosmic, organic whole.And the moment you realize, “I am also one with this tremendous unity,” the ecstasy that arises remains with you for eternity. But a little effort is needed to get out of the mind, because you are also convinced that your mind is a great help, is a great defense. It is nothing but an imprisonment – and a very small prison.You are almost like a bird in a cage. Certainly the cage protects, but it has taken away your whole sky. It protects – but it has destroyed your joy and your dance in the sky, in the sun, to far away…. Against the whole sky, this defense of a small cage – it may be of gold – but it cuts your wings, it kills you. You are not the same bird flying in the sky in freedom as encaged in a golden cage, just a showpiece.The moment your freedom dies, you have died too. The moment your wings are cut, you are only nominally alive.Osho,Is there some spiritual passion of the heart that needs to drop away as has the driving force of body passions?There is essentially such longing to reach my fellow travelers. When it does not happen – the nearer the friend is to my heart, the more I fall off center into an anguish that feels like something dying in my hands or something left unborn.Seeing paradise lost, the dream of growing and soaring up together with another – is that my soul's agony to go astray?All passion is of the body – there is no passion of the heart. Yes, there is compassion of the heart and there is a tremendous difference between the two.Passion is lust and ugly; compassion is love, beautiful, spiritual. But people go on living in fallacies, they go on thinking their body lust is their love. Mind knows nothing of love, because it does not appear in the curriculum of any university. It is not part of mathematics or physics or chemistry or geography.Love simply does not exist for the mind.Love exists in the heart.But you never reach to the heart, you remain in the body, dominated by the mind. The body has only lust; it is nothing spiritual, it is very earthly. It is simply a biological strategy to continue the species, to create children.The people of the head need to descend from the mind into the heart because all our social systems and educational programs are based on a very cunning device: they avoid the heart. Don’t bring the heart because there is no place in any subject, there is no department in any university where love is being taught. On the contrary, every effort is made so that your whole energy moves into the head and remains closed there. It never blossoms like a flower.Everybody has a heart, and certainly a right education will be divided into three parts: Education for the body – because the body has a mystery of its own. Education for the mind – because the mind has its own great strength as far as inquiry about objects is concerned. And education for the heart, for love – which is completely denied.If you ask a physician or a doctor where the heart is, he will say, “There is no heart, there is only a pumping station for blood, for purifying blood; it has nothing to do with love and music and poetry.”And the physicians are not deceiving you, they are themselves deceived. The heart which the mystics have been talking about is not the pumping station. The heart is part of the body, but just behind the pumping station…an invisible force. All forces are invisible. Nobody has seen electricity. Have you seen electricity? Perhaps you will think you have seen it. You have seen only the expression of electricity.It happened…The man who worked the most on the subject of electricity was Thomas Alva Edison. He had gone for a holiday to a small village on the sea coast. They had a small school there, and just by coincidence he saw something was happening and inquired. They said, “The students have made things. It is their annual festival. And people are coming and going to see the things that the students have made.”So having no other work, he walked into the school. The school children had made an electric train, a small train: push the button and the train makes a circuit.Edison just jokingly asked the student who was showing it, “What is the force that makes the train move?”The boy said, “Electricity.”Edison said, “Have you seen electricity?”He said, “I have not seen it, but perhaps my teacher – he is a graduate of science – he may have seen it.”So he called his teacher. The teacher said, “Seen electricity? I have not seen electricity. I have seen only the effects of electricity: it can become light, it can drive engines…. It can do many mechanical things, but what is it? Perhaps our principal who is a postgraduate in science may have seen it.”The principal was called. And the principal said, “Forgive me, nobody has ever asked. Energies cannot be seen. You can see only their effects.”Edison laughed. He said, “Don’t be worried. Don’t look so worried. My name is Thomas Alva Edison.”They said, “You are Edison? You have created so many electrical devices and you are asking this question?”He said, “I am asking because I myself have not seen what electricity is.”Love is not part of your body system. Love is a hidden source in the body of pure energy which can make anybody rejoice, can quench the thirst. And unless your energy called the heart, blossoms, you are not perfectly alive, you are just a robot.Mind is a computer. Just the other day I received the news that for fifteen years in Japan they have been keeping the head of a monkey without the body, wired with all kinds of nourishment that the brain needs. And because they have been successful, now they are going to try on human beings. Just your head is enough; then mechanical lungs and mechanical wiring, blood that is needed for your brain – reaching through the wires, being purified by the mechanical lungs and you will be perfectly alive.And the strangest thing is that you will feel love, you will feel emotions, you will be angry if somebody insults you. You will talk, you will answer questions which have been taught to you before this calamity, this scientific calamity happened to you.This whole body has to be understood as a robot. Behind it is another body referred to in the esoteric schools as the astral body. The heart is part of the astral body. That’s why love is such a nourishment. That’s why love makes you so alive. That’s why love gives your legs a dance – and if you allow it to fill your robot, for the first time you will feel what life is. And behind the astral body is your real being, your immortal body.You are asking if you have some spiritual passion of the heart that needs to drop away….Don’t jump ahead of yourself.All that you have to do is to drop out of your mind – and that does not mean that you have to cut your head off. That simply means the energy that you are continuously giving to the mind, you need to change its route and divert it towards the astral, the heart.The heart has no passion, but it has tremendous compassion. I am using the word compassion because love has been contaminated. People have used the word love almost synonymously with lust. Just say to someone, “I love you,” and there will be no problem. But if you say, “I lust for you,” there is going to be trouble. Then be prepared for the police station – “This man is dangerous.”In fact, when you say, “I love you,” that’s what you are saying. But a little homework is needed before you reach the bedroom, before lust can be accepted – it must not be announced! The very word seems to be somehow animalistic. Animals have lust – and you are human beings. But the reality is that all the introductions, and the parties, and meeting on the beach, and the gardens, and the presents…ultimately lead you to the animal.Without all this introduction, if you are a very direct man, you will go to jail – “Why bother about this ice cream? Just let us do the thing.” No, that is not human. Humanity has to be a little sophisticated: first hold the hand, first talk about beautiful things, poetry and music…All the time you are thinking of something else, but you have to create this camouflage. To be straightforward would mean going into jail.The heart has been completely ignored; society does not need it. It is the need of the individual and society does not need even individuals, it needs only personalities. It needs bogus people, obedient, always ready to follow the order, always ready to be enslaved.A man of heart is a man in revolt – revolt against anything that is ugly, revolt against anything that is simply mechanical. Society does not want individuals because they will create trouble. So from very childhood, it starts destroying individuality, and the best way to destroy the individuality is to let them pass around the heart, not through the heart. All our educational systems are managed in such a way so that you can move without ever being aware that you have a heart.I am using the word compassion because love has become mechanical. Everybody is “loving” – it has lost its depth.A woman said to her husband when the hero in the movie kissed the heroine very lovingly, very romantically…She said to the husband, “Look, you never do that to me.”The man said, “That is only a film, it is not reality. And moreover, who knows whether that man is married to somebody else or that woman is married to somebody else. About these actors nobody is certain – and anyway, it is all acting. Do you want me to act?”The woman said, “I know the woman personally. She is married to the hero in actual life.”The man said, “My God, then the hero is really an actor. To be so loving and so romantic to your own wife…I cannot do it. It is too difficult…”The moment you remember that it is your own wife and what are you doing…it looks as if you are doing something nasty.The movies, the films, television, the poets and literature have all reduced and contaminated the word love – polluted it and destroyed its beauty. That’s why I am saying the heart has compassion. Compassion is the purest love which gives and asks nothing in return. You don’t have to renounce it. You have to go deeper into it. You have to become it. Because by becoming it, you will come closer to your being.Mendel Kravitz opens a new business and wants an international staff. So he hires Klaus, a German, Paddy, the Irishman, and Wu, a Japanese.“Klaus,” says Mendel, “I’m putting you in charge of production. I want you to make things efficient around here. And Paddy, you will be in charge of personnel. Make sure the morale stays good. And Wu,” he says to the Japanese, “I am putting you in charge of supplies.”A couple of weeks later, Mendel is touring the business and finds Klaus and Paddy together.“Everything is going smoothly?”“Ja!” says Klaus. “Production is up double.”“Everyone’s getting on great,” says Paddy. “People are all liking each other.”“How is Wu doing in supplies?” asks Mendel.But neither of them have seen Wu since the first day. Mendel starts to get worried and looks all through the factory.As he is walking between some large stacks of boxes, suddenly Wu leaps out and shouts, “Suplise!”It has been a good morning…. You listened silently to things which are very essential to your spiritual growth, and you laughed heartily. More than that is not needed – a good laughter and a deep silence together are enough to transform you.You are on the right path, unless you get stuck somewhere. The path is simple and easy and all that it needs is a let-go – either in silence or in laughter, either in music or in dance.Remember the most spiritual words in existence are let-go.

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Many of your sannyasins, some of whom have been with you for many years, have left you to follow the teachings of channels or psychic clairvoyants.I have visited some of these people, partly out of curiosity and partly through the recommendation of friends, and have found nothing that comes even close to the love and benediction in being with you.Osho, what is the attraction to these dead masters or so-called entities when you are here, a living enlightened master?The question you have raised has many layers and a simple answer won’t be justified. But I would like to go into it as deeply as possible, because it is something of much concern to each of you.I am not in any way a bondage. I do not create a program in you, a belief system. I don’t ask you to surrender; in fact, I don’t ask anything from you. All I want is to help you to be yourself. This is one of the reasons a few are bound to leave me, because they are in search of someone who can take their responsibility. But they are not aware that the moment you lose your responsibility you also lose your freedom. The moment you surrender to anyone, dead or alive, you destroy yourself – you commit a suicide as far as your individuality is concerned.But there are people who will feel much relief, relief in being free of responsibilities. Somebody has taken the burden on himself; he is your savior. Now it is easier for you just to believe in him. There is nothing easier in the world than belief, because you don’t have to do anything at all.With me there is no possibility of any belief. I will destroy all your beliefs so that you can be a freedom, a bird on the wing in the open sky. But very few are the people who are in search of freedom. Those who are not in search of freedom are bound to leave me; it is natural. And I don’t prevent anyone, because even to interfere is against my approach and my respect for individual dignity.Secondly, there are many who are not interested in understanding existence, their own being, but are very much interested like small children in puzzles, esoteric ideologies, occult phenomena. Just because something is irrational, illogical does not mean that it is truth, does not mean that it is going to give you your innermost being and its treasure. There are thousands of esoteric schools, theologies, theosophies and they are very interesting in a way – but they are interesting because you are retarded! They look very magical and there are people who exploit your retardedness.The founder of the Theosophical movement, Madame Blavatsky, was found guilty of strange kinds of things; you cannot call them crimes, you can simply call them fraud. She had a servant named Damodar. While she was traveling by train she would be in first class and Damodar would be in third class. Suddenly Damodar would fall flat on the floor of the compartment, unconscious, foaming.Naturally, the train was stopped, people gathered and then Madame Blavatsky would come and do some abracadabra. Damodar would immediately open his eyes and everybody would see “what a tremendously spiritual powerful woman…” And nobody knew that he was her servant and that was his only job. Finally in a court case Damodar was forced to admit that he had played a part in many kinds of frauds.Beautiful letters still exist, that were written by Blavatsky herself. She made a special ceiling…Her followers would sit in Adyar, Madras, with closed eyes in the dark night – no light because divine masters don’t want to be seen. Damodar was hiding and would slip a letter from the ceiling. A light would be brought in…the letter was coming from Master K.H.Those are beautiful letters; they are collected and published. There was no need…the letters themselves are significant, but this way they became very mystical.Now the followers were not just reading letters written by human hands, but by a great master who is the guide of all those who are in search of the ultimate truth.I have been in the place in Adyar from where those letters have been dropped, and strange is the gullibility of human beings…. The writing is clearly human, the paper is material, the ink is material, and looked at closely, anybody could have figured that it is the writing of Blavatsky herself and nobody else. But when you want to believe you become blind. When you want to believe you don’t listen to any rationality, your own reason…it feels good to believe.Blavatsky created one of the greatest esoteric schools in the world, the Theosophical movement. And the reasons people believed in that movement were all neither rational nor mystical, nor based on spiritual experience. In a certain way they were cunning, fraudulent, but very sufficing, very satisfying, very gratifying.Just today one of my secretaries, Anando, informed me that a nice French gentleman is here. Nothing is wrong with the person, he just believes that he can heal spiritually – and there are thousands of “spiritual healers” in the world. If they are really true there should be no need of any hospitals. Naturally, because he does not understand much English – he is French – all the French sannyasins immediately gathered around him and he talked about me.These are the ways people are tricked. First he said, “Your master has the biggest spiritual aura that I have seen in my lifetime.” Naturally you feel very gratified: your master has the biggest aura. He has to have, because he is your master, he is no ordinary master!And he must have heard – it is all over the world in every newspaper, in every language – that I have been poisoned in America, and the poison has affected my body badly. So he said, “Your master’s aura is the biggest, but on his left hand, just on the top of the left hand there is a black hole.”Now there he missed! The problem is with my right hand, not with my left hand! And the poison cannot create black holes. But just this mistake reveals what he was trying to do….Everybody knows that I walk like a drunkard. Now nothing can be done about it; I have been walking that way my whole life. I am a man who is utterly drunk.So he said, “His aura is great, but the energy of the aura is not flowing into his legs. I can heal him and I have come here to heal him.”Naturally my people would think that this is good if somebody has come from France, from far away to heal me. But I receive dozens of letters from this corner or that corner of the world that their desire is to heal me.Why this desire…? They don’t want to learn something here; they don’t want to heal themselves here. The simple arithmetic is that if I allow anybody to heal me then all of you will naturally think that the greatest healer has come. These people are not necessarily cunning, are not necessarily deceptive, they may authentically believe that they are capable of healing.Just a few days ago Doctor Shyam Singha came from London. He was once my disciple, but because he was doing things which are absolutely against humanity, sincerity, truth – he was exploiting people in my name – I had to expel him from the sannyas movement. He was moving around the world, telling sannyasins that he can do this, he can do that and all that he can do is to manage to take as much money from people as possible. He was exploiting on every excuse in the name of healing, in the name of opening your chakras, in the name of raising your kundalini, in the name of cleansing your past life and its evil effects…!When so many people reported that he was exploiting simple people I had to debar him and announce in the papers that he does not belong to the sannyas movement. And I had to inform him that he cannot enter into the campus. He has been here two times, but was turned away from the gate; he was not allowed in. He must have seen this as a great opportunity – that I have been poisoned.Nobody knows who has made him a doctor! He does not have any qualifications for it – but there are many doctors in the world and they go on healing people, homeopathically, naturopathically, spiritually…Many are the names but the business is the same.So he wrote a letter asking if he can come and heal me; if I would simply send my signature on my letterhead so that nobody prevents him at the gate and he is allowed in the campus.I am not sick, and I don’t need any healing. The poison was given to me two years ago. Because it has not been able to kill me, the man who was responsible for prosecuting me has been fired from his job as Attorney General of Oregon in America. He has been fired because he could neither manage thirty to forty years of jail punishment for me, nor a good dose of poison to kill me, nor to put a bomb in my room and destroy me.One of my attorneys was here just a few days ago. He said, “That poor government attorney tried hard; he did his best.” But I have not committed any crime – all is fiction. He had a list of thirty-four crimes that I was supposed to have committed. It would have needed at least one thousand years of jail.“That long,” I said, “I would not be able to live! You should consider the fact: one thousand years of jail? It is hilarious; just think of something practical. The whole list is an absolute lie.”They could not give me the poison in such a dose that I would have died in the jail. It became clear from the statement of the United States Attorney, Charles Turner, that they did not want to make me a martyr. They were afraid that if I were to die then again another Christianity will be born; then again another religion, another fanatic fundamentalist group of people will gather in sympathy with me.The court ordered that I leave the court, that I go to the airport immediately. My airplane was waiting; I had to leave immediately. Perhaps they were afraid that if I died before leaving then the sympathy of the whole world would be with me, and against Ronald Reagan and his company. Out of fear they could not give the whole dose; otherwise one dies within twelve hours.That’s what the experts from England have informed me, who have presumed that the poison given to me was thallium. It kills within twelve hours, but if given in small doses it takes time. It may kill within six months, but now even that time has passed.The poison is out of my system.Existence cannot be so cruel! And there is no black hole on the left hand…. So please, next time when you talk, remember: my right hand has some pain, but that too is not something that needs spiritual healing. It is a physical thing and it needs physical healing; no spiritual healing is needed. And as far as the spirit is concerned, it is never sick; it is intrinsically healthy and whole. It is the body which is bound to become sick and some day old and some day it dies.But there have been spiritualists of all kinds who don’t understand that there is an immense difference between spirituality and physical existence.I have heard about a young man whose father was a member of a Christian Science group.In England there has been a very influential group and in America also: Christian Science. The young man was asked, “What is the problem, your father has not been seen for three weeks?” They were meeting every Sunday.The young man said, “It is difficult; he is very sick.”The old man said, “Nonsense, sickness is only a belief, imagination! And he is an old member of our group. We don’t believe in sickness, just remind him, ‘You are not sick!’“He said, “I will remind him.”After two weeks they met again. The old man said, “What happened, he has not come?”The young man said, “What can I do? Now he believes he is dead.”The body has to become sick, the body has to become dead also. One should think of experiencing the spiritual, the eternal, the immortal. One should not waste time on such stupid ideologies, which have been prevalent all over the world.There are people, simple people, who immediately think that miracles can happen. And the greatest problem is that if you are very trusting something can happen. Seventy percent of sicknesses are illusory; they are only because you believe you are sick. That’s why seventy percent of people are helped by any kind of medical approach other than allopathy – even simple sugar pills work, the scientific name of which is homeopathy.I used to live next to a Bengali fellow….He was a great homeopath, but he himself used to go to the hospital when he was sick.I asked him, “What is the matter? You are such a great homeopath, you have treated so many people.” And it is true, he had treated…He said, “I have treated, but I cannot treat myself; I know they are sugar pills. Somebody who does not know and believes in me, may be helped.”And it has been found that seventy percent of people are helped by any kind of medical approach, except a very few stubborn people who are determined not to be healed whatever happens. They torture doctors, they torture allopaths, they torture homeopaths, they torture spiritual healers, they torture everybody. They are very inventive; they go on finding new diseases, even diseases for which the doctors don’t know the name.Because of this homeopath doctor – I used to sit in his dispensary…A woman used to come almost every day, and the moment the woman would come, he would say, “My God, this woman is not going to die. She has no disease, she is perfectly healthy, but she goes on reading medical periodicals and finds out new diseases. Even I don’t know,” he said. “When she tells me that this kind of disease is happening to her, then I know. But it makes no difference, because I have only one medicine whatever the disease.”There was a doctor who was tired of a young man, because every day he was standing there. He was poor, he could not pay, and the doctor had tried in every way to convince him, “You are perfectly healthy.”But every day something new. One day it is stomachache, one day it is a headache…. He told me, “What should I do? It seems cruel because he is poor, an orphan, uneducated, unemployed…”I said, “Do one thing: send him to me and just tell him, ‘He is a very difficult person; he knows, but he does not want to waste his time, so he is very secretive – but he has the power…if he touches water, the water can heal anything – but he will not touch it. But you remember, remain insistent. Sit in front of his door.’“He came nearabout nine o’clock in the evening and he said, “I am suffering badly from stomachache.”I said, “I am not a doctor and if you are suffering, suffer. Why should you bother me? When I have stomachache have I ever gone to you and tortured you?”He said, “No, you have never come.”I said, “That makes it simple; just go home.”He said, “It is strange, I have been told by Doctor Barat, the famous doctor, that you have a power, a spiritual power. If you can give me a glass of water and touch the water I will be healed.”I said, “I cannot do that.”He said, “Why can’t you do that? It is not much I am asking. I can bring my own water, I can bring my own glass; you simply touch…!”I said, “I cannot touch at all! Why should I lose my spiritual power?”He said, “Now, you have accepted that you have spiritual power.”He ran home and brought a big bottle full of water.I said, “I am not going to do it because a stomachache is not something immortal, it will disappear sometime. It will teach you patience, suffering, acceptability and it will give you great qualities. I cannot disturb your life.”He said, “You seem to be a very hard person. You cannot just touch my bottle?”I said, “I cannot touch it.”Twelve o’clock in the night…I used to live with my aunt; she was listening from her room. Finally, she came out and said, “You are also almost insane! If he wants to be touched, just touch the water and get rid of him. Wasting time for three hours. I have been listening – there is a limit!”I said, “Nobody can convince me, you simply go and sleep!”She said, “I cannot sleep because this man is sitting there.”And the man said, “This is a good opportunity.” He touched the feet of my aunt and said, “Just help me, he seems to have no heart at all…three hours and I am suffering so much from stomachache.”I said, “Listen, I can touch, but you have to promise me not to tell anybody, because I don’t want a queue the whole day, I have to do something else too.”He said, “I promise, absolutely promise: in the name of God I will never tell anybody.”I touched his bottle. He immediately drank the whole bottle and he said, “My God, I have never felt so high, not only is the stomach completely cured, other small diseases, they are gone and I feel so much power.”I said, “Remember the promise.”He said, “Just one thing, my mother is very sick.”I said, “You have started.”He said, “No, I will not tell anybody, I will just fill the same bottle.”I said, “That you can do, but don’t bring anybody here and don’t bring your bottle again! Once I have touched, that’s all!”And you will be surprised to know that he became a healer instead of being a crackpot hypochondriac. He would fill the same bottle with new water. But because I had touched the bottle, even though the water went on changing, he was curing everybody. People started coming to his home from faraway villages, and he enjoyed it very much. He came to thank me.I said, “You should not come here.”He said, “No, I have not come to ask anything, but just to tell you that the bottle is working.”I said, “You cure as many people as possible.”After many years I passed from that village again. By that time he had become a very famous healer.Doctor Barat, a very famous doctor, said to me, “What have you done? Because I used to have migraine once in a while and I had to ask that stupid boy, ‘Will you give me some water from your bottle?’ And it is a miracle – the migraine disappeared.”I said, “It is spiritual healing, but never tell anybody about it.”He said, “But I had never thought that you really have that power. I was just joking and just wanted to get rid of that fellow. And now whenever I have any trouble, instead of my own medicines, I send my car to find that boy. He comes in the car with the bottle – just a cup of water and it works!”I said, “It has to work…spiritual power.”The question is if you trust, then anything…Only thirty percent of diseases cannot be cured by your trust. They are really diseases; they need right diagnosis and right treatment.I don’t want any kind of stupidity here. I have heard of a few people who have already started feeling great well-being, experiencing “spaces that they have never known.” My librarian, Kavisho – because she is French she has almost become the leader of other sick people.I warn you: just forget all about this “great space”; don’t corrupt my simple people. And you don’t think that you are a cunning person; you believe that you have spiritual powers, but you don’t even know what meditation is. You have not encountered your own being. So you are simply wasting your time in spiritually curing people.First find yourself.That’s exactly what Socrates said, “Healer, first heal thyself.”First know thyself.Unless you know yourself all is fiction – your sickness, your health, both are meaningless because the reality is the grave. Perhaps somebody will die from disease and somebody will die with spiritual healing. It makes no difference. The only difference that makes a difference is that when death comes, in your innermost being you are absolutely alert and aware of your immortality. That is the only real healing: real being.These are just childish games, and because people want something great to happen to them, anybody can convince them: “Look, great things have started happening.”Great things happen, but not through anybody else.You have to follow the path absolutely alone.The people who may have come and left must have found that I am not a man in any way to nourish your stupidity. I am not the man to help you believe in great things: in God…I am not the man to make you believe that your heaven is certain. On the contrary, I start destroying your beliefs and people become afraid and escape. Those who have left will repent, because they will have fallen into somebody’s hands who will satisfy and gratify whatever the desire, but that is all imagination.An authentic experience that makes you free from mind and from body – I am interested only in that experience, not in anything else; anything else does not matter.Police Officer O’Leary is cruising around in his patrol car one night. He is on the lookout for trouble. He sees two little old ladies in the front seat of a Chevrolet convertible, parked in a used car lot. The car lot is closed so O’Leary drives up alongside the Chevy and asks, “Are you two ladies trying to steal this car?”“Certainly not,” says one of the ladies, “we purchased the car this afternoon.”“Well,” says the cop, “why don’t you start it up and drive out of here?”“We don’t drive,” replies the other little old lady. “And besides, we are waiting. We were told that if we bought a car here we would get screwed.”People are just waiting in used car lots.This is not that kind of place…!Arriving home from school one day Herschel Goldberg asked his father, Hymie, if he can take their dog Petunia for a walk.“No,” says Hymie, “you can’t because she is in heat.”“What? What does ‘in heat’ mean?” asks Herschel.“Don’t be worried about what it is,” replies Hymie. “Anyway I have just thought of a way to fix the situation.”So Hymie goes into the garage and gets a rag, pours some gasoline over it and then wipes Petunia’s tail with it.“Okay,” says Hymie, “now you can take her for a walk.”Herschel is delighted and disappears down the street. But an hour later he returns without Petunia.“What happened?” asks Hymie. “Where is Petunia?”“Well,” replies Herschel, “everything was fine for a while. She was playing with me and my friend Irving when all of a sudden she ran out of gas. So now Irving’s dog is pushing her home.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I am leaving the ashram soon to go back to a small Eskimo community, where I currently work and live. I have this longing inside to share with the Inuits – Eskimos call themselves “Inuits” – the glimpses I have of your vision. My mind says, “Who am I to pretend that I can be of any help to them?” I am afraid of falling into the same trap the Christian missionaries have fallen into with them.Osho, is this just another mind trip to be aware of and let go?It is one of the crimes against humanity to be a missionary. A missionary is a hypocrite. I don’t want you to be a missionary; I want you to be a mission – and there is a great difference between the two.The missionary is simply trying to convert the mind of the other person into a certain doctrine, religion. But a man who is simply sharing his heart and his being with no desire to convert is not a missionary, he is a mission. He is a living flame which can put the whole community in which you live afire. And particularly simple people like the Eskimos don’t need to be converted, they need to be loved. They need more light to be brought into their lives, more understanding. And strangely, when you go to the simple people like Eskimos, you are not only sharing yourself, you are also learning much from them – much that humanity has forgotten.The ancient people who are still ancient, who have not entered the contemporary world, have much to give you. But the missionary is not there to learn anything, only to teach. Learning is insulting to him; he is a man of knowledge. He knows more than the Eskimos – but there are dimensions which the poor and simple and the primitive people know, of which you have become completely unaware. There are communities in the world still….One community deep in the Himalayan part of Burma has never known any war in its whole history. It is impossible for them to fight, but they are primitive; they are not civilized people. If Sigmund Freud had gone to that small community he would have been shocked to know that nobody dreams. Because nobody is repressed, there is nothing to dream.First you have to repress things which are important and natural; you have to be against the natural and the instinctive, then only can you create dreams. That which has not been lived in your waking hours you will have to live in your sleeping time. But if you are living totally, without repressing anything, then certainly you will not have any dreams. Your sleep will be a tremendous silence.Missionaries have reached there too. They could not believe that those people don’t dream: “Perhaps they are lying or perhaps their dreams are so deep that they forget completely when they wake up in the morning.” But deep research has shown – and there are very simple methods to know whether a person is dreaming or not – that those people have not dreamed.Once in a while somebody has dreamed. They have a strange ritual. When somebody dreams he goes to his elders and tells them his dream. Sigmund Freud and Adler and Jung should forget that they are the founders of psychoanalysis. These people have practiced psychoanalysis for thousands of years not knowing that it is psychoanalysis – and it is not done by one person, but by all the elders of the commune.The person relates his dream – the elders discuss the meaning of the dream. They are simple people; their dreams are simple. If somebody has dreamed that he has beaten a young man of the community in his dream, the elders decide, “You should go to the young man with sweets and flowers to ask his forgiveness, because you have beaten him in the dream.”You will laugh at the whole thing, because what happened in the dream has nothing to do with the young man. But those people are right. They may look illogical, but they are certainly right: you beat somebody in your dream only because you are carrying some unexpressed anger. And whether that anger becomes action in reality or in dream does not matter; for your anger you have to ask forgiveness.And for thousands of years they have been doing this kind of psychoanalysis and it has helped the commune tremendously. When you go to someone to ask for forgiveness with flowers, with sweets – they are poor people – and the man says, “There is no need, because it was only a dream. You have not beaten me…”But the other man will say, “It does not matter whether I have beaten you or not, but the desire to beat you must have been in me and it is enough for me to come to you for forgiveness.”Naturally these people have never fought. Our world needs continuous war because people are so full of anger and rage – and they cannot find any way to express it.It has been observed that in wartime people look very happy…strange. People are being killed, thousands of people are being massacred, but there is certainly a very alive breeze. People look less dusty, less dead. If it were possible, even from their graves they would get up and ask for the morning newspaper – so much excitement…! Otherwise, life becomes dull.Those people in Burma have lived without fighting, but that does not mean there is no excitement. There is excitement of a totally different quality: they dance, they love; their dances are beautiful. In full moon nights the whole commune gathers together and dances almost the whole night. Their songs have become more and more refined by each generation. Their music has become more and more spiritual. There is excitement but that excitement is of love, of poetry, of sculpture, of dance, of music; it is not of war.Certainly the people who feel excitement in war are not civilized. These people may be uneducated and they may not know the geography of the world and the history of the world, but in every sense they are far more civilized than the so-called civilized people.When you go to the Eskimos – I don’t know what kind of work you are doing there – I hope that you are not doing some kind of missionary work, because that is a crime. Those people are simple and they are living their life beautifully. Don’t unnecessarily drag them into Christianity, into the Catholic church…. Don’t force things on them: celibacy and life-negative attitudes; they will destroy them.Just today there was a news item from America. A survey has been made by psychoanalysts, and it has been found that two-thirds of patients like to talk to computers about their problems, their dreams. Only one-third of the people want to talk to human beings – the machine is preferred to man. It was shocking, but it reveals a truth, that it is very difficult to find a man who is non-judgmental. The machine is at least non-judgmental. Whatsoever you say it will listen, it will record; it will not condemn you even by its gesture. But to talk to a man about anything, it is impossible not to come across his prejudices.Everybody has a judgment, and when people have judgments they lose their innocence. Everybody, in the name of education and civilization has lost his childhood. Those Eskimos are still living in man’s past ages, in mankind’s childhood. If you can learn something from their innocence, learn. And if you can share something from your meditation and from your love, share.Don’t take your Bibles to them; take your guitars. Don’t take your principles and theologies; take your dances. And don’t only be a teacher, but also be a learner. Don’t think yourself superior to those poor primitive people.If you can do this much – not to feel superior, then you can only learn something from them. And there is so much to learn from every direction if you are available – particularly from very primitive people because they are still uncorrupted by the priests, by the politicians. They are as simple as animals, as birds.You are going into a beautiful situation, but remember not to become a missionary.Share me but don’t convert.Transpire but don’t convert.Let them become acquainted with the laughter that is happening here, with the silence, with the meditation. But remember that it is not a religion and we are not here to destroy somebody’s dignity and to make him part of a cult. You will have to be very aware, because old habits die hard.Our education, our society, our civilization…everything has penetrated deep in our minds knowingly or unknowingly. Whenever you come across somebody innocent, childlike, you immediately jump and try to convert him in the name of giving him maturity – and there are thousands of beautiful names. But in fact what you are trying to do is destroy the person, his individuality, and impose your own personality on him. It is an ego trip. So unless you are alert and aware of your own mind, it is very difficult not to be a missionary.Ronald Reagan is visiting India and is met at the airport by Rajiv Gandhi. As they are driving away in Rajiv’s limousine, Reagan notices a lot of people shitting by the side of the road. He is disgusted and asks Rajiv if this is common practice in India. Rajiv is very embarrassed and replies that he is trying to educate the people to use a proper toilet, but it will take time for the program to be one hundred percent effective.On a return visit, Reagan and Gandhi are driving through Washington to the White House when Rajiv notices a man shitting in the street. He points this out with some satisfaction to Reagan. The president is furious and orders his secret service agents to arrest the man. A few minutes later the agent returns.“Well,” snaps Ronald Reagan, “did you arrest him?”“No, sir,” replies the agent, “we could not.”“Why the hell not?” bellows Reagan.“Well,” says the agent, “it was the Indian ambassador.”Osho,Is the master coming to the disciple or is it the other way around? I would like to be more open to you, to open my heart to you more, to feel you more, but no effort from my side seems to work out. So I console myself that it's you who will enter me somewhere, suddenly. Is this an illusion?It is always the master who comes, but it is not necessarily so that he will find the disciple’s heart open. Most often it is closed. So your question is really not a question but two sides of the same coin.The master comes but the disciple has to be ready to receive, the disciple has to be open. If you are hoping that whether you are open or not the master will come suddenly, somehow, you are hoping in vain. Even if he comes he will have to return. You will not give way; you will shut your door and lock it from inside.People are very much afraid of opening their hearts. The fear has reasons rooted in our upbringing, because whenever we have opened our hearts, we have been punished or we have been exploited or we have been deceived. Naturally, we have learned to be on the defensive, to keep the heart closed so nobody can deceive us, nobody can come close to us. It is a defense measure. And in a society where everybody is competitive, it is natural to defend yourself, otherwise you will be exploited. Somebody is going to step on you and go beyond you, use you, misuse you in all possible ways.There is a place in India – one of the biggest junctions. I was waiting in my compartment: the train would leave in one hour; it was waiting for some other trains to come….A man, a beggar, came to me. Seeing me alone he said, “My father has died. I need some help.” I gave him one rupee and I told him, “If somebody else dies, you can come back. At least for one hour I am here.”He looked at me very much surprised, but he could not resist either. After ten minutes he came: “You were right. My mother died.”I said, “I knew. I knew somebody else would die. In these sixty minutes, almost your whole family is going to die!”He said, “Why are you saying it like that?”I said, “I had nothing to do…What is going to happen is going to happen; I am going to lose at least ten rupees” – I gave him another rupee.He looked again and again at me thinking, “What kind of man is this…?”I said, “Listen. Rather than coming again and again, you take all these ten rupees. Let them all be dead!”He said, “It is not right to say that.”I said, “But you will have to come.”He said, “That’s true. I cannot resist. But you are a strange man. My whole life I have been a beggar. Not my whole life, but as long as I remember, for generations I have been a beggar. My father was a beggar, my grandfather was a great beggar – it is just hereditary – but we have never met such a man; you are unbelievable!“In the first place, people don’t give anything. They simply say, ‘Go away! Ask somebody else. We have nothing to do with your father. If he has died, he has died. Why should we be bothered?’ And you are killing my whole family, and you are giving me the rupee in advance!”I said, “You go and look at your family. If somebody is still alive, come back, because all are going to die. Sometimes a few people die – one time, two times, three times…People are unbelievable; for example, by the time you are back here your father may have become alive again.”He said, “Are you mad? My father alive? He is dead.”I said, “He will become alive. All will become alive. You just go home.”He said, “If you say, I will go and see.”I said, “You see and come back, because they will die any moment – if not today then tomorrow – and I will not be here.”After a few minutes he came with those ten rupees and he said, “You take these back.”I said, “Why? Have they all become alive?”He said, “Don’t humiliate me! They have always been alive. Nobody has died. As far as begging is concerned, every day I have to say that somebody has died. But for the first time the whole family has died – and in advance! No, I cannot deceive you. You are a very simple person.”I said, “I am not a simple person. I am just enjoying. Ten rupees are not much of a problem…to kill your whole family. If you have some relatives….”He said, “You want to kill my relatives too?”I said, “Anybody! Relatives, neighbors – I will give you in advance if they are not dead. Just go and have a look.”He said, “You are mad and I cannot cheat a mad person. I am not that bad. I cheat cunning people but not a man like you. You are too ready to be cheated.”I said, “If you want I can come with you to count how many have died, because you may not be able to count that many. How many can you count? How well are you educated?”He said, “That is true: I can’t count much.”I said, “I can come with you. This train cannot leave without me. The driver is my friend; I will tell him, ‘Wait. Let me first go to this man’s house and see how many people have died and how many are going to die.’ And in fact, in this world, whoever is born is going to die, so why not take the advance?”He sat on the floor in the compartment with tears. He said, “I have never returned money to anybody; ten rupees I am returning. And you are ready to come with me to count whether they are dead or alive! And you are ready to give an advance for those who are alive because they will die…!”I said, “One thing is certain; don’t take ten if you are feeling hurt. Take at least one – for you!”He said, “But I am alive.”I said, “You are alive; everybody is alive – but you will die! And at that time it will be difficult for me to find out who you are, where you live, why you lived and why you have died – too many troublesome problems. You just take one rupee and leave me.”He said, “No, I cannot take anything from you. The train is full of people. I will manage from all those cheats. They are cheating others so there is no problem in cheating them. But to cheat you, it hurts, although I am a beggar. Even though I am a beggar, I have a certain sense of humanity.”I said, “It is up to you, but for one hour I am here. If somebody really dies you can come without any fear. These ten rupees are yours, deposited with me. With interest I will return them – but within one hour. After that I will be gone. But I often come on this route, and I am easily recognizable.”He said, “That’s right, because neither can I forget you, nor can I forgive you!”I said, “Why can you not forgive me?”He said, “You tricked me. You have taken your ten rupees back!”This whole world is full of people…I have a friend….He was a professor, but he never liked any kind of service because he could never manage to wake up early to get ready to reach to the class in time – and every day it was a problem. The principal would call and the vice-chancellor would call, and finally he resigned.He said, “This is all nonsense. I can manage without it.”I said, “How are you going to manage?” – he used to live with me.He said, “First, I will live with you!”I said, “This is great! And when you become bored, tired, because I don’t want to give more money to you?”He said, “I will move. I have many friends all over the country.” And it is true. He had many friends. He had qualities to create friends: he was a very good chess player, a very good conversationalist, very good in many games, very handsome. Falling in love, falling out of love was very easy for him.I said, “But how long?”He said, “How long? I don’t think I am going to live more than seventy years. For seventy years this whole world is available!”Fifteen years after he left me, he met me in New Delhi. I said, “How are things going?”He said, “Perfectly well.”He was continually borrowing money. And I said to him, “It is strange that you go on borrowing money. What about returning it?”And he said, “Everybody knows that I never return it and there are other people from whom I borrow. I never borrow from the same person again. I use that money to create the atmosphere to borrow more money from somebody else!”Just before I went to America, he came to see me. He was perfectly happy. He said, “In this world where everybody is deceiving everybody else, not to deceive is to be stupid. Just don’t deceive the same person again, because that is not right. When there are other new pastures available, why go on harassing one person? I never harass, that’s why people give me money because they know: once they have given me money they are free from harassment!”In this world it is natural to be closefisted and closed-hearted, continuously afraid that somebody is going to cheat you. All kinds of frauds are all around, but one thing has to be understood: if you can trust – even in this world where deceit is the law – your trust will open the doors of the mysteries of existence.Just a few days ago I talked about the French healer who has come here. Now he is a sannyasin – certainly a man of great understanding. I had criticized all kinds of channeling, healing…as frauds. They are parasites, but this is true about only ninety-nine percent. There is one percent which is certainly capable of all these things that I condemned – but it is very difficult to find that one percent.The day I said this, poor Kaveesha’s channeling had to stop, because people said, “My God, we have been cheated! This Avirbhava as high priestess and Kaveesha, the channel…these people were cheating us!”They were not cheating you.They are simple people, very simple.You know Avirbhava; every day she screams – not that I am going to hit her or anything. I do nothing to her; I just make the gesture – that’s enough. Rather than giving me trouble, she herself shrieks! She knows that if she is not going to shriek I am going to do something! But she is simple…. Kaveesha is innocent. They were not representing anybody; they are simply in tune with me.When you were asking your questions to Kaveesha she was simply reflecting me, not some dead master. And whenever she found that nothing was coming through, she was simple enough to accept that nothing was coming, no answer was coming – or she would ask me the next day, “Somebody asked this question. I waited for your answer, but nothing came so this is their question…”But people are idiots! Just one day before I criticized the healer, they were crowding the class and were feeling so happy with Kaveesha. And because I criticized, they started criticizing – just parrotlike, without ever trying to make distinctions. But the man whom I had criticized did not take it badly as a personal criticism. He understood it perfectly that for ninety-nine percent of the people who are doing it, what I am saying is true.I am not against healing, but if I appreciate healing then those ninety-nine percent of the people are also appreciated. So my difficulty is in not sacrificing you to the ninety-nine cheats and frauds, because the one percent will understand perfectly that he has not been criticized, because he has not been cheating. And rather than being against me or going against me, he remained – and he wants to remain here.Even after my criticism he became a sannyasin. That shows the authenticity of a person. He may have a healing power which very rarely healers have. It is nothing unnatural, but something unique. A person’s aura, the energy that surrounds his body – if it can surround you, it can heal you without the healer making any effort. I am going to make arrangements for him to have his healing department.Don’t desert poor Kaveesha – she is a rare woman! It is almost impossible for her to cheat you or to deceive you – there is no reason. She knows how to love, and love can heal you. And love can answer your questions, because love in a certain way, joins the person with the universal sources of energy. And if you are with a master, certainly you are immediately in tune with the master. It is possible to have your heart dance in tune with the master.When I am speaking I am nowhere. I am simply allowing existence to speak. And those who love me, if their love becomes so overwhelming that all defense systems are broken, then what I am saying will be said by them too.Every sannyasin finally has to become a master. Never before has it been tried. Masters have been very afraid of disciples who can become masters. Those were not real masters. A real master finally transforms all his disciples into masters.The day you all will be in tune with existence in the same way I am in tune, that will be my day of rejoicing.Use Kaveesha’s energy – it is not anything to do with all kinds of frauds who go on moving around the world. No fraud can stay here! Just a single criticism and he will be lost. And this new sannyasin – use his healing energy.This commune should be aware and alert and loving and open, then you can see with clarity whether the other is real or false. Just by intellect you cannot decide it; only intuition, only your heart can feel the authentic, the real and the false.The master comes – somewhere, suddenly, sure – but you have to be ready, otherwise his coming will be useless.This is the world in which you live….Herbie, the Texan cowboy, is visiting New York for the first time and decides to go to a high-class whorehouse. He pays the fee and is confronted by two doors: one marked Blonde, the other Brunette. He chooses the Blonde, goes through the door and finds two more doors. One says, Big Tits; the other, Little Tits. He chooses Big Tits, goes through and finds two more doors. One says, Fancy Fuck; the other says, Real Screw. He chooses Real Screw, goes through the door and finds himself back on 42nd Street.Mendel Kravitz, the wealthy American businessman, sends his daughter, Kathy, to Europe to get some culture and maybe meet a rich husband. A few months later she writes and asks her father to send her a book on etiquette. She must be meeting all the right people, says Mendel to himself. After a few more months she asks Mendel for another book on etiquette.There is no doubt, thinks Mendel, she is meeting royalty – perhaps Prince Edward. Then two years later, Kathy comes home. Mendel Kravitz meets her at the airport and he is shocked when she arrives carrying a small baby.“Whose baby?” he asks.“Mine,” replies Kathy.“And the father?” asks Mendel.Kathy shakes her head, “I don’t know, Papa,” she sobs.“What?” cries Mendel. “Two books on etiquette I send you and you don’t even know to ask, ‘With whom have I the pleasure?’”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,In a recent discourse you gave your total support to genetic engineering. I am very much in trouble. For me such engineering is against nature. Who should be in charge of creating that superman? Often a so-called genius was later regarded as the devil. And people like Hitler, Stalin or Reagan are only possible because of all the others supporting them.Genetic engineering also is against my freedom of self-development.Could you please explain to me this science which bothers me?Genetic engineering is going to be opposed by almost everybody. But before I say anything on genetic engineering I would like to remind you that every development, every evolutionary step in mankind’s life has been opposed in the beginning as being against nature.Do you think man should go back to nature? Just see the implications of it: you will be hanging on the trees, jumping from one tree to another. Even if it had been proposed to the monkeys that by genetic engineering a better kind of monkey could be produced, they would have been offended. It would be against nature.There is a long history of great names who have been against nature, but these are the people who have created all the facilities and all the comforts and the intelligence that you have. And they were vehemently opposed at every nook and corner.In Russia now they have many fruits which are “against nature.” They are a crossbreed, just as by crossbreeding animals, far better animals can be produced than their mothers and fathers. In Russia they have been trying to crossbreed many fruits, trees and animals, and they have been immensely successful.In fact, without your knowing it, you are enjoying so much that is against nature. Your railway trains, your airplanes, your clothes, your medicines, your health, longer life than your predecessors can all be called against nature. Even a simple fountain pen is against nature; nature has not produced it.One of the most significant thinkers of the West was Leo Tolstoy. He was so much against the very idea that anything should be produced which is not natural, that to Mahatma Gandhi he became a guru. Mahatma Gandhi accepted three masters. On the top of his list was Leo Tolstoy. He was one of the richest men of the world of that time, but lived like a beggar, as if to be a beggar is natural and to have riches is against nature.Why is to be a beggar to be natural? In fact just the contrary should be the case, because we don’t see beggars in animals. Have you ever met any buffalo begging? They are absolutely natural people. They don’t use cars and trains – unless you force them. Then too they try in every way to resist.Mahatma Gandhi’s second master was an American philosopher, Emerson, who also “went back to nature.” His third master was an Indian, Shrimad Rajchandra. But they were all his masters because they were in agreement on one point: going back. But where do you draw the line? How far back is natural? All these philosophers of “back to nature” have not been able to give a clear-cut answer, except Mahatma Gandhi. His “back to nature” means when the spinning wheel was invented – but that is not nature. The spinning wheel is as technological as any technology, it is just primitive.When a man can produce a thousand times more with a small machine, why should he bother with a spinning wheel? It takes eight hours per day to spin if you want enough clothes for the year for one person. So everybody is spinning and everybody will go bananas because you cannot eat, you cannot do anything else – there is no time! You have to sleep too, but just your clothes will take your whole time! But even clothes are not natural. Nobody pointed out to Mahatma Gandhi that even clothes are unnatural, because no animal uses clothes except for a few dogs in England – and that too against their will. It is absolutely unnatural to force them to wear clothes. Ladies take them for walks, and you know dogs – every tree creates a tremendous urge in them, which is natural…nobody has planted it in their minds…. Perhaps they are watering the tree just to help it grow faster. But the lady is embarrassed.So the first part of your question has to be understood: every new thing is opposed. For example, in India birth control is opposed by all the religious leaders for the simple reason that it is not natural.I was very friendly with a shankaracharya – who is almost similar to the pope in Hinduism – and he was very much against progress, science, technology. I heard that he had a heart attack so I went to see him in the hospital. And I asked him, “What about your philosophy?”He said, “This is not the time.”I said, “This is the time! What is this cardiogram? – something produced by nature…grown by the trees? What are all these instruments that the doctors are using and the medicines that are being given to you? This is the time for it to be decided whether you are a man of your word or just enjoy talking. When it comes to yourself then you forget all about it.” What is wrong with birth control? The Indian religious leaders have many arguments.One very famous Hindu leader, Karpatri…Just by chance we were traveling in the same compartment and we started discussing birth control. He said, “Don’t mention that name, it is absolutely against nature. Just look, Rabindranath was the thirteenth child of his parents. If they had used birth control there would not have been any Rabindranath.”I said, “Agreed, that means every father and mother should produce at least thirteen children in search of a Rabindranath?”In India there are people who have twelve children, thirteen children, fourteen children…but the Rabindranath does not appear.…”So can you give me a guarantee?”He said, “Why should I give any guarantee for anything in which I’m not involved? It is unnatural to prevent children whom God is sending…”I said, “Who told you that God is sending them? God has been practicing birth control from eternity. He has given birth to only one child, Jesus Christ. If you have learned something from God, learn birth control. He could have produced millions of children – but he is a wise man, it seems. And that too he managed without getting married, via an agent, the Holy Ghost. So the blame goes to the Holy Ghost; God is completely out of it. But the Holy Ghost seems to have learned birth control, because in two thousand years since Jesus Christ he has not tried again.”He said, “You always bring strange arguments. I am not a Christian and I don’t know the Bible or the Christian God.”I asked him, “Then tell me about the Hindu gods. How many children has Shiva produced – two…? That’s what the Indian government has been saying, ‘Don’t produce more than two!’ Brahma has not produced any – being wiser!”He said, “I have never thought about it.”And I said, “You don’t understand anything of the whole process of the birth of a child. One million people die, then one child is born – and that too once in a while. Every time you make love you don’t create children, otherwise every woman would be carrying so many pregnancies together. Once she is pregnant then you cannot do anything to make her more pregnant; the door is closed. People come and knock – and not a small crowd. In each love affair, loving a woman, millions of male sperms rush to knock on the doors. But if the doors are closed, their life span is only a few hours. So much violence is happening.”You will be surprised that Mahavira, who was teaching nonviolence – his concern about celibacy was not the concern as it is of other religions. His concern was that in each love act you kill millions of people without even knowing it! Just think of a man, normal…it seems in his whole life he can kill four hundred million people. All Adolf Hitlers and others don’t matter; even normal people are killing!So birth control will not make much difference. In one million, if one more is added, it will not make much difference.I told him a story….A very famous noble emperor, Akbar, was bringing swans from the Himalayas. It must be the highest point where a lake exists of the purest water, Mansarovar. And strangely, in Mansarovar live the biggest swans and the whitest swans. They come to India when it becomes too cold. For nine months it is frozen: you can drive on it without any fear; it is solid rock. For only three months it melts. So for three months those swans go back to Mansarovar. Akbar had seen those swans – and they were so beautiful.He said, “Make a beautiful marble lake in my garden. Make every arrangement so that those swans don’t have to go to Mansarovar again.”The lake was made and it was the season when the swans would be coming soon. He said, “It is not an ordinary lake. It is a royal reception, so inform the whole capital: Tomorrow morning fill the whole lake with milk. Bring as much as you can, at least one bucket per person.”Birbal, his friend and adviser, laughed.He said, “Why are you laughing?”He said, “In the morning you will see why I’m laughing. I know what is going to happen!”And in the morning it really happened…. Everybody thought, “Early, in the darkness before the sun rises, just one bucket of water in the millions of buckets of milk will be lost. Who will be able to figure it out? And anyway, I cannot be caught because it is very difficult to see the difference between water and milk when they have mixed with each other…”But human minds think in the same way…. Everybody had the same idea, why waste one bucket of milk?A few were so cunning they even went without water, just buckets, so that everybody would know they were going, and in the dark they would pour nothing, just come back home.When the sun was rising, the king and Birbal came to see, because it must be a scene: a lake of pure milk. There was no lake of pure milk; it was just water. Moreover it was not completely filled because many cheated – in fact everybody cheated.Birbal said, “Now you know why I laughed…! When you were saying that, the same idea arose in my mind that in the millions of people of the capital…it is going to happen that the lake would be of water. If it is pure water, thank God!”I told Karpatri, “The God in which you believe, I cannot believe simply for the reason that if he was a little saner, only one sperm, a good sperm, a Rabindranath Tagore, would have been the right thing.”What is the need for so many idiots, the crowd, Adolf Hitler and Ronald Reagan…? These are all God-created; these are not natural. What is natural? And when man creates something, why do you call it unnatural?Man is nothing but an extension of life energy. If you say a flower is natural, then the invention of a man is the flower of his genius.There is no question of being unnatural about genetics. The fear I can understand. But every new thing creates fear, and once you become accustomed, you completely forget that there was a day when it was a new thing. Do you know that when electricity was invented nobody was ready to have an electric lamp? Who knows, it may burst and put the whole house on fire. Now you are not afraid.You will be surprised to know that even at the beginning of this century there was a case in an American court against a man who wanted to make a bathroom attached to his sleeping room. It was a new idea, unnatural! The bathroom and the latrines have to be in the backyard, far away…and Indians are even more natural!In my childhood I used to insist, “Make a bathroom in the house.” And everybody tried to convince me that it is healthy and natural to go out by the side of the river, in the open air, under the open sky, the sun shining…”Why do you insist on an attached bathroom? Are you mad? And the river is flowing…”But it is the same river where all over people are defecating, washing themselves, buffaloes are swimming, washermen are washing their clothes…All kinds of things go on happening by the side of an Indian river. It is a scene worth seeing. And then people take the same water to drink! It is natural, it has always been so, it is not an invention.Remember, genetics creates the same fear – who will control it? You are not afraid of medicine, of who will control it. You trust the doctor – a doctor you don’t know at all – that he will not kill you, that he will not cheat you, that he will not keep you sick as long as possible.Your question is: Who is going to control it?My idea is simple: there should be a world academy of scientists with different departments. Genetics will be the most important department, and scientists should be trusted. There is no other way. Either trust a blind force of biology or at least trust a human being who is a little conscious and understands his responsibility.You don’t ask when you produce children…. Who are you trusting? Who is sending all these children? It is a blind biological force, certainly natural, but the scientist is also natural. And whatever he produces is of a far higher value, because it is coming from a consciousness.I want to make meditation an absolute for all students, whatever the subject they may be studying, so their awareness becomes more and more clean and clear. And out of that clarity we can create a beautiful world. Those scientists, if they are also meditators, will not create atomic bombs to destroy. They may use atomic energy to move trains so they don’t pollute the air. They may use that atomic energy in the factories so they don’t pollute air. Rather than killing man, the same atomic energy can be a tremendous help to save man and his future.It has been raised again and again that if genetics falls into the hands of men like Ronald Reagan, and he decides what kinds of people should be produced, then there is certainly danger. But if Ronald Reagan decides that Charles Darwin and his theories should not be taught in the universities, you don’t see the danger. If President Truman decides to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you don’t see that politicians should not exist at all, they are dangerous.You have to understand the whole implication of my proposition. Meditation should be the central subject for every branch of knowledge, and particularly branches like genetics which are very important, which are going to produce new generations, new men. A new world should be in the hands of very clear, silent, loving people. So don’t just think of genetics, also consider that we can add meditation side by side as an essential part of education; otherwise I can understand your difficulty.Any intelligent person will think that if genetics is in the hands of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, what will be the fate of the world? They will create slaves, idiots. But anyway ninety-nine percent of idiots are already created – just that one percent of freaks prove to be geniuses. And because they are so rare, politicians grab them. They cannot even go to receive a Nobel Prize – just the fear that if they go out of Russia they may never return again. There are many Russian scientists still in Siberia. Their only crime is that they won the Nobel Prize.So I can see…but that is happening anyway: all the arms are in the hands of these people. And now, nuclear weapons are in their hands and you are not worried, and you are not taking any action on your part; they can destroy the whole world without any difficulty. So what more can they do? But genetics can be freed, in fact the whole of science can be freed from their hands.All of education should be one worldwide system. There should be only two languages: one, the national language, your mother tongue, and one, English, the international language. It is accidental that English has become the international language although it is not spoken by more people than other languages. For example, Chinese is spoken by more people than English, but it is confined to China. It cannot become an international language although it is spoken by more people. Spanish is spoken by more people than English, but Spanish cannot become an international language.It is not a question of more or less, it is a question of having found by coincidence that English has become a worldwide understood language. Teach English as an international language to every child, and his mother tongue, because howsoever you learn the language which is not your mother tongue, something is missing. In your mother tongue there is something poetic, more loving, more juicy. The variety should not be killed.The international language will remain as a technical language for intercommunication for the whole world. All the armies should be surrendered to the UN, a world government, a real world government. Up to now two bogus world governments have been in existence. One was the League of Nations – but without any armies it was impotent. And the same is the situation of the UN; it is a little better but not much.The UN or any name you can give to it, a world government, can function only if national governments surrender their armies, their arms. Those who don’t surrender their arms and armies should be boycotted by the world government. They cannot stand against the world government; they will have to surrender – it is better to surrender gracefully. They will have their government, they will have their internal guards, a national force which can manage internal affairs, but they will not have nuclear plants and millions of people engaged in the unnecessary exercise of killing man. Man dies automatically…I can’t understand…. Do something that does not happen automatically. Man dies sooner or later, so what is the hurry? If he lives a few days more, let him live!These millions of people who are in the armies are a sheer wastage; they are not doing anything. Their use only comes into force when there is war; in peace they are of no use.A world government with all the armies will slowly start dissolving armies, making them into peaceful citizens, useful, creative, because at least up to now, there is no other known world with which any war can happen. A war of the planets is a faraway possibility. Perhaps after millions of years there may be a possibility of a war between two planets. Right now we don’t even know that anybody else exists in the whole existence – most probably we are alone.A world government, a world language, a world education system – and you will create all the barriers which will keep science and its discoveries from being misused.Nations can remain as provinces, so they can enjoy a little politics, but it will be just like you see kings and queens on playing cards: formal. They don’t have actual force; they can’t do anything. In their own country they can control telephones, railways and whatever is necessary for the country. The world government can be an umbrella that takes over all the responsibility of defending them. There is no need because there is nobody else who is going to attack you, and there is no need of piling up arms, new arms.The whole scientific energy can move into sciences like genetics. According to me, genetics can be the most important part that science can play because it can create a new kind of human being, healthier; their very program is of no sickness. It can make human life long enough, as long as they want. It can drop not only diseases but old age too.The possibilities are so tremendous that we should put our fear aside, and we should take cautious steps that genetics is not being used against humanity, but for humanity.Anyway if you don’t do anything, then what you are afraid of is going to happen. Genetics cannot be prevented from developing; every government which has enough power is interested in it, so your fear, your paranoia will not help. If cautious efforts are made, and if there are worldwide protests and movements for sciences like genetics not to be put in the hands of nations but into a world community of the scientists themselves, there is much less possibility of any danger.And always remember, it is going to happen. These “back to nature” people have always been talking; even they themselves don’t go back to nature.Mahatma Gandhi was against railway trains. Now railway trains are such good people – they have never done any harm to anybody! He was against the telephone, he was against the radio, he was against anything that can make you comfortable…!I stayed just a few hours in his ashram – he was dead, fortunately. His son was in charge of the ashram. It was not an ashram but a slum. I told him, “This is a slum. This is not an ashram.”When nighttime came he told me, “There are many mosquitoes, and because we believe in nonviolence we cannot kill them with Flit spray or anything else.”I said, “My God, that means I am going to be eaten by your mosquitoes – then I am not going to stay!” I asked them, “How do you manage?”He said, “Mahatma Gandhi found a very natural thing.”That “natural thing” was kerosene oil. Kerosene oil is not a natural thing. It has been discovered; it was not there always. There were times when there was nothing else except wood for the fire. And there were times when there was even no fire; you cannot even believe that fire is an invention, it is not nature.Mahatma Gandhi forced those poor twenty or thirty people who were in the ashram – mostly widows, because in India…This is the only ashram where you will neither find a widow nor a widower. Once in a while one becomes a widow; that is another thing. Niskriya is sitting behind…Once in a while he becomes a widower. And when a German becomes a widower he stays one for at least a few days – but it does not last long!…So a few widows, a few old people who had nothing to do, whose families didn’t want them – they are of no use – and Gandhi taught them to put kerosene oil on their faces, on their hands, on everything that is uncovered.I told Ramdas, his son, “Just think about it: these mosquitoes are more intelligent than you. They don’t come close to the kerosene that somebody has spoiled their food with. How can you sleep with the smell of the kerosene all over the place?”He said, “I know it looks stupid, but it is part of going back to nature. We cannot use mosquito nets, that is a far too advanced technology” – mosquito nets! – “and we cannot use mosquito nets because of what will happen to the poor mosquitoes. So we have found a middle course. If they are daring enough they will rush in and eat their food; if they are cowards – it is up to them, we are not responsible. We have every freedom to paint our faces with anything we want.”Mosquitoes cannot bring a protest march to say that this is not good, this is going against nature. It is going against nature, because no animal paints itself with kerosene oil to avoid mosquitoes.Where are you going to draw the line? And what is the need? New challenges should be accepted with all their dangers. Intelligence requires that we should take the challenge and that we make defense measures against the dangers and the risks – otherwise nothing can happen.Back to nature…?No! I say, forward to supernature.It is also natural.Nothing unnatural can happen.Whatever happens is natural.The question is only of whether you are going back or going forward.Go forward!We can create millions of new fruits, new vegetables. Just that old cabbage…and one goes on eating, one never bothers about whether something should be done about this cabbage. Just those old fruits that Adam ate…apples. In all these years you have not been able to make something better. So orthodox is the mind, so afraid of the new. And particularly when it comes to man he becomes very much shaky.That’s what is making you afraid; otherwise there is no problem.We should take the risk, making every arrangement that nothing goes wrong – and even if it goes wrong, so what? Anyway everything is wrong. One thing more added…Just now I was talking about Niskriya and here he is with his question; some problem has arisen: “Osho, the other morning I heard you say that the man of the heart rebels against social conditions. To me flirting is one of these conditionings” – he does not want to flirt!Then what will you do with your life? Just eating cabbage? Once in a while search for the cauliflower! It is not flirting; it is just intelligence. I have never thought, even in my imagination, that when I am talking about dropping old conditions, flirting is also part of them. This is how people hear what they want to hear.He is saying, “I don’t want to behave diplomatically when approaching a woman.” Then it is better not to approach a woman, because diplomacy is nothing but the art of approaching a woman. The woman will try to escape. Make a thousand and one excuses, but be strong – and never go backwards!But Niskriya is saying, “Even if I decided to flirt – and I tried it – I could not because it is not me!” Niskriya, you cannot do it because it is you! Just seeing you any girl will start running.I have heard, people are asking in the boutique, “Can we have a picture of Niskriya?” – just to make the children afraid.Niskriya, you do whatever you want to do with your camera, flirt, talk, and mostly that’s what you are doing! You don’t need a woman. A woman will be a great disturbance. Niskriya is so totally devoted to his art…a twenty-four-hours-a-day cameraman! He has no time for a woman. But just seeing others…This flirting is like an allergy.He says, “But how can I fulfill my lust – which I always enjoy very much as a natural part of myself – without buying ice cream and telling sweet lies?”It is a difficult question, Niskriya. I will have to talk to some women who look like witches. They may be ready to flirt without ice cream. There are a few. Because you are continuously looking through the camera, you don’t know who is around. Once in a while just look around. The moment you see a woman who looks like a witch, that is the woman! There is no need to be diplomatic; there is no need for any ice cream. Just go to her and tell her, “I want to take a photograph of you.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,As far as my experience reaches, compassion between man and woman seems to be a rare thing. The other morning I heard you say that the mind creates walls and intelligence creates bridges.Osho, can you say something about the way from passion to compassion? Also, for two months now I have given my very best in relating to Niskriya. Have you got a little joke for us?Your question is almost as ancient as man. It is certainly a very rare phenomenon that passion between man and woman turns into compassion. It turns only into hatred, because in the first place it was not passion. In the very first place you had given a wrong name to something which was not love; hence when that experience which you have called love, passion disappears – what is left is not compassion, is not friendliness, is not gratitude, but sheer hatred.The psychologists have started talking about marriage as an intimate hatred. You are together because you fulfill certain biological needs of each other, but otherwise, you are as far away from each other as two stars can be.If love is authentic, if it is not just lust but a spiritual harmony, then certainly this passion is going to bring compassion in your life. And the transformation of passion into compassion is the whole evolution of man into a Gautam Buddha. But you are right; it rarely happens. It could not even happen in the case of Gautam Buddha himself.Gautam Buddha renounced the world, his kingdom, his palace, his wife whom he thought he had loved so much. After twelve years he came back. Enlightened, he realized that he had not been human to his old father, to his loving wife, and to the one-day-old child. So as he became enlightened the first thing was to go back to his old kingdom and ask forgiveness.There is a beautiful story…The moment he initiated his cousin-brother, Ananda, into sannyas – Ananda was older than Gautam Buddha – Ananda said to him, “After initiation I am no more. Your word is my life, your order is my way. Before initiation I am still your elder brother, hence I want three conditions to be promised now because later on I cannot ask anything from you, you will be the master.”Gautam Buddha said, “What are those three things? I don’t have anything to give – just this begging bowl.”Ananda said, “I am not asking about things. I am asking about something else. The first condition is that you shall never send me anywhere away from you to spread the word, the message. Second, I will be with you the whole day, and even in the night I will sleep in the same room where you will be sleeping. And the third thing, if I ask any question or if I bring someone who wants to ask any question to you, you will not refuse, you will have to answer.”Gautam Buddha said, “There is no problem in it. It is okay. You get initiated.”He had not realized that this was going to create many problems. But the worst problem happened when he came back after twelve years to his home. Ananda was with him just like a shadow.Gautam Buddha said, “I know you have the right to be present with me wherever I go, but you can understand, you have that much intelligence: the woman I loved twelve years ago and left without even telling her that I was going away – obviously she must be very angry. She is from another royal family. In front of you, she will not show her anger; that would be against manners, etiquette. I would like to unburden her of all her anger, rage. But it is up to you. I am asking you if you can remain a little behind – just outside the door of the palace. Let me see my wife…”There was a moment of silence but Ananda understood the situation and allowed Gautam Buddha. And he was right, the wife was very angry….She said, “My anger is not that you renounced the world. If you wanted to renounce it, I would never have prevented you. My anger is that you did not trust me. You did not say a single word and in the middle of the night you escaped. That has been hurting me. Just as you belong to a warrior race, I am also the daughter of a great warrior. We send our husbands to war with prayers, with garlands, touching their feet, not allowing even a tear to come in the eyes because that may prevent them, may be destructive to their lifestyle and their life pattern.“If you had said to me that you wanted to renounce the world in search of truth, I would have been dignified. You disrespected me. You damaged my dignity. My anger is not that you left; my anger is that you did not tell me why.”Buddha himself had never thought about it, that the cause of anger would be of not saying to his wife…And the wife said, “If you had loved me enough you would have trusted me. I would have sent you with prayers in my heart that you should succeed and be victorious in your search, but you did not allow me the chance.”Gautam Buddha said, “You are right. I have come to ask your forgiveness. Forgive me! What I used to think was love was not love. Now I know what love is. But I wanted to wait until you have unburdened the rage you must have accumulated in all those twelve years, day and night, in your loneliness.”The wife looked at Gautam Buddha with tears in her eyes because she could see that this was not the same man who had left her. He looked the same, but everything had changed: such silence, such presence, such eyes and so much compassion.She said, “Before I ask to be initiated also – if I cannot be your wife at least let me be your disciple – your son has been waiting for twelve years and I have been telling him, ‘Wait. Some day he will come back.’ And you have come, but you have come so transformed – so luminous is your being.”And the son was standing just by her side. She pulled the son in front of Gautam Buddha and said, “Ask your father for your heritage. He has given birth to you – what else has he to fulfill…his responsibilities towards you?”The son asked him and Gautam Buddha said, “I have your heritage.” And he gave him his begging bowl and initiated him into sannyas. He said, “There is nothing which is more valuable. I was waiting for this moment, when I would be really capable of loving you. But my love is now so far away from the love that people talk about that I cannot even use the word. I use the word compassion. I take you both into my compassion. I have nothing else to give, but I am giving you my very heart and my very experience.”What we call love is not love. And the test comes only when love starts disappearing; then you suddenly see it was not love. You were simply full of lust – a physical, biological attraction. You were not a master of your love, you were only a slave, driven by blind forces of biology. Certainly such kinds of passion cannot become compassion.If you want your love to grow into compassion then first let it be love! You cannot hope.You sow the seeds of marigolds and hope for roses. Your flowers will show what was hidden in the seeds.You are saying to me that for two months you have been very interested in relating to Niskriya: Have you got a little joke for us?You are a joke unto yourself – why torture poor Niskriya? I have heard that the whole day many women have tortured him. He is a man of a very different quality; he is doing Vipassana. And he had to appoint a secretary to write down the name of all those women and tell them, “When I have time I will see. Right now I am doing Vipassana.”And the teacher of Vipassana, Pradeepa, has informed me that his Vipassana is strange. He goes on looking into the camera, but his attention is very clear…!You can torture anybody else – he will be tortured because he has asked for it. And I have told him that there are many witches, but he does not want even to waste time or ice cream. I have given him a simple technique: just take a photograph…or there is even no need to waste the film; just make an effort as if you are taking the photograph and tell the witch, “You are very photogenic” – and that will do! And you don’t have to go very far! Just by your side a witch is sitting.(And there, a little to Niskriya’s right, is the most irresistible creature. Dressed in flowing black, with a mass of black curls falling over her radiant face, she turns to Niskriya gazing intently from under her long lashes and begins to caress him.)And this is the joke for you….Hymie Goldberg has a row with his wife, Becky, and goes out drinking. Late that night he stumbles into the local all-night deli and hunches over a bowl of noodle soup. Hymie notices a Chinaman sitting at the next table, and still being in a bad mood, he picks up his bowl of noodles and dumps it over the Chinaman’s head.“This is for Pearl Harbor,” says Hymie.“But I am Chinese, not Japanese,” says the man.“Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese – what’s in a name?” says Hymie.As Hymie goes to pay his bill, the Chinaman suddenly hits him over the head with a salami sausage. “That,” says the Chinaman bowing, “is for sinking the Titanic.”“But,” shouts Hymie, “the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg.”“So,” says the Chinaman. “Iceberg, Goldberg, Greenberg – what’s in a name?”Komala, you can torture anybody – what is in a name? For two months continuously you have been harassing a silent man, who has no time at all. From one morning till another morning he is concerned only with photography.When my other photographers have a session they ask me to “somehow avoid Niskriya.”I say, “Why?”They say, “If Niskriya comes he does not bother about anybody else. He jumps from this corner to that corner. He does not care that other photographers are also present. He stands in front of somebody who is photographing, he crawls on the floor…!”When he started crawling one day, I also wondered what he was doing – he was finding the right angle. He does not bother anything about what people will say. He is such a devoted photographer, you could say he is a born photographer.For his whole life he has been doing that. He came here tired of photography, and finally, he saw such a great opportunity. He forgot all about…brought all his equipment, his whole studio! He had come here to meditate – but where is the time?Now these kinds of people – scientists, mathematicians, artists, painters – these people are not interested in anything else. Their whole interest is in their art. It is possible that once in a while, casually – they may have run out of film or the camera is broken…and then they may think of a woman – but more than that you can’t expect.There is no need to wait two months. Here things happen so fast that people don’t even ask each other, “What is your name?” because what is the point? Tomorrow you will have to ask somebody else, “What is your name?” Just do the thing and be on your way. Niskriya has to be saved, but it will be very difficult now.One witch has even written, “It will be good to open a witches’ coven, so anybody who cannot find a woman can come to the witches’ coven.” I like the idea! It will be an interesting place. In India it has never existed; only England has known witches’ covens. They still exist there…again they are arising, spreading….So I am already looking for a place, and perhaps people like Niskriya can go – just to take photographs! But don’t torture him.And just now I have told you that a witch is sitting by his side. She will follow him; she is not going to leave him – camera or no camera. You can have a good look!(By this time the glamorous creature’s long delicate hands are weaving and dancing all around Niskriya in tantalizing delight.)Osho,Ten years ago I came to your feet and found that unknowingly I was already there. Have I ever been somewhere else in my life or in any life? Isn't it that this thirst of ours has created your smile to show us how existence smiles?Osho, I don't know what the question is or if I have any more questions for they are quenched day after day by your love and my gratitude. But then why did I say to myself, jump now? And yet, I look back once more to my passion and to its old songs and dreams.Osho, can you really promise me that passion is always transformed into compassion?My god! Sarjano…Has everybody gone mad? You are also in the same trouble…!But your passion is different. It has nothing to do with ordinary, blind natural forces. Your passion is what has brought you to me, which even makes you feel that perhaps you have always been here, or even in other lives too.You are asking, Isn’t it that this thirst of ours has created your smile to show us how existence smiles?Osho, I don’t know what the question is…There is no need to know what the question is. Just know the answer….This silence is the answer.This love is the answer.This feeling of a thirst being quenched is the answer. Who cares about the question?The whole of humanity can be divided into two categories: the majority has questions, and the minority has answers. It is very rare to find a person who has both – I have never come across any person, living or dead. By the time a person reaches to the answer, questions disappear. Questions are just like darkness: when you reach to the light, they disappear – not that they are solved, they simply dissolve.In this quenching of the thirst, day after day, certainly a love and a gratitude arises which says to you,…jump now. But the old, the past, is heavy. To drop it, even though it is meaningless, needs a lion’s heart, because you have identified yourself for long, too long, with things which you are not. And now suddenly, you have to drop all those identities of many lives.It is not only difficult for you, it is difficult for everybody. But howsoever difficult it may be, it is not impossible. If it has not been impossible for me, why should it be impossible for you? If hundreds of mystics around the world have been able to drop the whole past and have never looked back, you are also capable of the same courage – you have just not tried it.But you go on looking back. You say, And yet I look back once more…How many times have you looked back, and how many more times are you going to look, again and again, “just once more”?The past that has been is no longer there, and that which is, is herenow. You need to jump without hesitation. A slight hesitation, a split second’s hesitation and you have missed it.But you say, And yet I look back once more to my passion and to its old songs and dreams.Osho, can you really promise me that passion is always transformed into compassion?I have described clearly: if your love is hiding lust, it cannot be transformed into compassion; there is no way. But if you have really loved, without even your becoming aware, one day you will find your love has become more and more lovingness, your passion has become more and more compassion. Just the right seed is needed and the roses are going to blossom. But learn to forget and forgive the past.The present has greater dreams and greater mysteries to open their doors for you; you will not be a loser. The past is gone already; you cannot do anything about it. And if you have dreamed in the past, and if you have sung and danced in the past, what prevents you from singing and dancing in the present? If those songs of the past, and the dances and the love affairs of the past are preventing it, then they are not your friends. They are your enemies; they are unnecessary luggage. Drop them without thinking even for a single moment to drop or not to drop. Just drop them – the present is the only reality.If you can make the present your only reality too, you will have greater dreams and greater dances and greater passions – and greater love. And then, certainly, a man who lives in the present is capable of moving from love to compassion, from passion to compassion, without difficulty and without effort.In fact, it is not right to say that he is capable, the right thing will be to say that it happens on its own accord. You just be in the present. It is such a fire that it burns all that is rubbish in you. And it is such an opening that you cannot exhaust the songs and the dances. And once you know real diamonds, you will forget automatically those old stones that you used to think were diamonds.To cling to the past is dangerous because it does not allow you to be in the present, and all that existence has is in the present. The past is only memory and the future is only imagination.The present is the only reality.All that I mean by meditation is to be in the present – no past, no future. Just let this moment be all, and you have come in contact with the heart of the universe. Great will be the blessings, and unknown treasures will be open to you. And things which are unsayable will be heard by you, will be lived by you.Now, something religious…One day while on holiday in Italy, Hymie Goldberg finds himself traveling in a train compartment with Pope the Polack, Mother Teresa and a beautiful young orphan girl. Suddenly the train enters a tunnel and the compartment is plunged into darkness. Then everyone hears the sound of a kiss, followed by a slap across the face. When the train leaves the tunnel, everyone looks at each other in stony silence.Mother Teresa thinks to herself, “One of these filthy guys kissed my orphan, but she, being a good girl, slapped him.”The girl thinks to herself, “One of these guys tried to kiss me, but in the dark kissed Mother Teresa instead, and she of course slapped him.”Pope the Polack thinks, “That Jewish jerk kissed the girl and she slapped me instead – the bitch!”And Hymie thinks to himself, “I hope there is another tunnel soon so I can kiss my hand and slap that Polack idiot again!”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,More and more I see how my energy is either going very high or very low, how sometimes I get very excited, come down again and then feel embarrassed about what happened during this state of excitement.Do you have a knack to give me for how to watch when the excitement comes, not to get carried away and not to get identified with depression, and how to find my grounding and balance?Latifa, mind is almost like the ocean, waves upon waves. Some waves are higher, and between two waves there is a depression. There are two ways to get out of this continuous up and down process.The easiest is that when you are ecstatic that is the moment to be aware. In depression, in agony, awareness becomes more difficult. When you are flowing with joy, blissfulness, that is the moment to be aware, but people do exactly the opposite. When they are happy who cares about awareness? And when they are in anguish, then certainly they start thinking it is time to be aware and get out of anguish. But nobody has ever been able to get out from anguish directly.First, one has to get out from ecstasy. If you can be aware of your joyful moments in the first place, the depression, the downs will not come. The door to get out is from ecstasy. So this is the simplest way:Be happy and be aware.Rejoice and be aware.Love and be aware.Don’t put awareness aside saying, “This is a kind of disturbance; I am in such a great ecstasy.” Awareness becomes like a disturbance; it is not. It may appear like this in the beginning, but soon you will see it will take your ecstasy to higher peaks. Ultimately awareness and ecstasy become one. Then those downs, depressive moments, agonies disappear.The second way which is unnecessarily followed by a few people is difficult, but your being German, perhaps the second may be right for you. Try to become aware when you are suffering – and it is not only you, many people around the world throughout history have tried that. If there was no suffering, they created suffering just to be aware of it. They would fast, and that created a suffering; they would live naked in the cold winters without clothes, and that created suffering. Man is very inventive – he will torture himself in many ways.Once in a while, a person has become aware from that experience also; it is unnecessarily inhuman, but almost all the religions have been preaching that. Whatever is difficult is appealing to the human mind, and whatever is obvious and simple, you tend to forget it.But here, you are not in Germany. And even in Germany, you are not going to be German. Once you are with me, you have to drop all these diseases of being German, of being Indian, of being Chinese…Just be human and it is enough.I teach you the easy. I am not in favor of any kind of unnecessary torture. If it is inevitable that is another thing, but we have even been trying to make inevitable suffering into a transformation.To me the easiest door is whatever you find joyful. Dance, sing…and while dancing and singing, be aware.Don’t be lost and don’t be identified.The old habit of the mind is to be identified with anything. Whatever is happening the mind gets immediately identified. The mind does not function like a mirror, it functions like a film. Whatever comes in front of it becomes imprinted on it. The mirror remains empty. People come and go, ups and downs…the mirror does not lose itself in any identity.Here, I teach you celebration, rejoicing, because I know that is the door closest to your ultimate awakening. A man full of joy is close to existence. Greater is his joy, less is the distance between him and the heart of the universe.In your agony you are alone; far away is the heart of the universe. Your agony has created the distance. So when you are in agony – it is human and once in a while it happens – remain alert. And if you have been able to remain alert when the dance was descending on you and flowers were showering on you, it won’t be difficult at all to be aware when something has gone wrong. You can be a watcher – standing aside, unidentified.This is the way of the mirror. And this is the way of those who have known human nature more deeply than your so-called religions and psychoanalysts, your so-called wise people. But it is up to you. If you enjoy self-torture, then choose moments of misery for the practice of awareness. But if you are understanding and intelligent, you will choose the easiest and the closest way.Anyway, whatever you choose the result is the same: awareness will make you free from identification. You can try both; a few people get lost when they are happy. Perhaps for them it is difficult to be aware when they are happy. The mind says, “What is the need of awareness? In such a blissful, happy moment don’t bring religion in. You are young, and you are healthy, and you are in love, what is the need for the church at this moment?” Yes, when you have become old, one foot in the grave then you remember God – but it is too late; then you pray to God – but it is too late.Just the other day, Anando showed me a picture of a very famous Christian missionary, an old man of thirty years’ standing. He had been giving television sermons, and millions of people were listening to him every Sunday. Now he has been caught coming out from a prostitute’s house. He did the right thing: he appeared on the television, tears in his eyes…. I looked at the picture, and I could not believe that at this age he is weeping. Millions of viewers felt sympathy for the old man, and he is saying, “I will ask God to forgive me, and you to forgive me. I have been going to prostitutes all these years. Now for three months I will not speak as a penance.” But most probably during these three months he will visit prostitutes. What else will he do? God is always available. Today, or three months afterwards, you can ask forgiveness.But with me there is no God. Nobody can forgive you and there is no point of any prayer. You have to change. You have to understand the mechanism of transformation and it is very simple.In an early morning walk when the birds are joyous and the trees are glowing in the sun and you are feeling a peace, become alert. Whatever is happening should not happen in an unconscious state; just be conscious. That does not mean that you have to be verbally repeating inside yourself, “Look, birds are singing. Look how the trees are happy. Look, what peace prevailing…” Then you have destroyed everything.You are not to verbalize.You have to experience.And whenever you find the moment which is worth rejoicing, in that moment, be alert. Slowly, slowly your alertness will become part of you. And the work of alertness is to destroy identifications.Once in a while you will be down – dark clouds, life seems to be meaningless…for any reason. Your alertness gained, strengthened, crystallized in moments of joy, will come to your help. You will remain far away and you will know deep down: “All this is happening but not to me, only around – and it goes on changing. My awareness remains just like a mirror, only reflecting but not identifying.”But old habits die with difficulty, with great effort; we have been taught them from the very beginning. If there have been other lives before, we are carrying conditions, calculated by scientists to be at least ten million years old. And the most dangerous conditioning as far as awakening is concerned, enlightenment is concerned, is identification.Within a split second, you get identified, you forget that this too will pass. Just wait a minute…the old boyfriend has left? Feel blissful, “What a great opportunity.” That’s what I have been teaching: let the old go because the new is coming. It will take a little time. In that space, it is up to you to be miserable or to be awaiting with alertness.But every day, it goes on. In the morning, your mood is bad and you know that this mood has been bad many times before; it does not remain, so why bother? Let it be bad. Why be concerned? Why give any attention to it because every attention is nourishment?Just watch, let that old mood get shocked….“What is the matter? Latifa has been always welcoming…something has changed. She is sitting silently, not even bothering that there is an old bad mood.”But you don’t remember your own life and its pattern. These ups and downs are not happening to you, they are only happening in the mind – and you are not the mind. You can stand aside and watch the whole game. Choose any way but drop the old habit of again and again falling into the same trap. One time you can be forgiven because you were moving in an unknown territory, but the second time if you fall into the same trap, and the third time, and the thousandth time…! Then it seems that you have decided to fall into the trap whatever happens. It is not the trap, it is your decision – or perhaps you are not at all conscious and just stumbling in your darkness like a somnambulist. Even they do better.But this old habit has to be changed. And there is not a question of any effort to change it. Don’t decide, “I will change.” A simple understanding, a simple clarity of the whole situation and the old changes. But even grown-up people behave like small children without maturity, without really proving that they are grown up. All that seems to be is that they are growing old, not growing up.Little Ernie’s parents are horrified. Their four-year-old son is just learning to talk fluently, which is charming, but he uses the word fucking in almost every sentence – which is very impolite. They try every strategy to get him to stop, but nothing seems to work so they try bribery.They tell Ernie that he can go to Janet’s birthday party if he stops swearing. His father has asked Janet’s mom to send Ernie home at once if she hears the filthy, disgusting word.On Saturday at two-thirty Ernie sets off, but at three o’clock he is back again in tears.“I told you not to use that disgusting word,” his father cried.“I did not use the fucking word,” shouts Ernie. “The fucking party is not till next fucking Saturday.”If we look at our own behavior, you will not find much difference. The same thing goes on and on. Let understanding prevail – a simple understanding. Just be aware of this silence. Don’t use words inside; don’t judge.Let whatever is happening simply be reflected. And this has to be the method used to get unidentified with our ups and downs, and bring a balance to our life.Osho,It is said that all situations and people we run into are like a mirror to us. Do I attract them both unconsciously as well as accidentally? When somebody is aggressive towards me, how can I distinguish between whether it is me or him who causes it?Life is very interdependent. It is very difficult to decide who is responsible for what. In truth, we are all responsible for whatever happens; we contribute in some way to it. If somebody becomes aggressive towards you, rather than thinking in the ordinary way that he is aggressive, start thinking from the standpoint, “What is in me that is making him aggressive? – he is not aggressive to everybody.” He is not aggressive to the trees; he is aggressive towards you. There must be something you are doing, some way you are behaving that creates aggression in him.You may not be doing it to him. That’s what I mean, it is so interwoven. Perhaps you remind him of his father who used to beat him, and he was so small that he could not do anything. And when he sees you, he is not aggressive at you, you are simply symbolic. He is aggressive at his father who is no longer in the world.So rather than reacting to his aggression, which will make things worse, try to understand. Ask him, “Why are you aggressive to me? Is something wrong in me that hurts you? Have I done something to you? – because I am not aware of doing anything to you. There must be some other reason for your aggression.”That should be the way of the man of wisdom. And if you ask that person, perhaps tears may come to his eyes and he will start asking your forgiveness, “You have not done anything, you just remind me of my father. When I was small, I was beaten so much that I used to think that when I became big and strong, I would show this man…. By the time I was big and strong he was dead. So something has remained incomplete in me. The moment I see you, that sleeping aggression comes to me. Forgive me, you have not hurt me. It is not your problem, it is my problem.”If people start behaving in this way, we will soon create a totally different kind of life. You fall in love with a woman – have you ever asked why you have fallen in love with a certain woman when there are so many women around? You never ask. Perhaps she reminds you of your mother? Perhaps the way she walks reminds you of your mother, and you loved your mother so much that the same love is revived again.Before becoming a fool and falling in love, make a little analysis of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Perhaps that will save great misery in the world. Unconsciously, without understanding your inner sleeping desires, your tendencies, you fall in love with a woman, but you don’t know – you will not be able to love her, because she is not your mother. And as you come closer, you will see, “My God, she is not my mother.” And naturally, that woman has not married a son; she has married a husband. She cannot behave the way your mother may have behaved.She may be expecting you to behave like her father whom she loved. And some trait in you – and those traits may be very small, very simple: perhaps your mustache is exactly the same – and that’s enough, it triggers the memory of the father who is no more. She has fallen in love with you, but not with you. If before acting people try to understand that whatever they are doing must have a reason within themselves, and that the other is not obliged to fulfill it…The woman may have the same hairdo; that does not mean she is the same kind of person. And if you love the hairdo you can purchase one from a shop which deals in wigs, made just exactly according to your mother – worship it, love it. That will be more sane because that wig will not hurt you, will not demand things which your mother has never demanded. But a new woman, where the only similarity is the hairdo, is not going to fulfill your desires. You are searching for a mother.Now, psychologists are very much concerned that most problems are because we are brought up by parents. So the girl starts loving the father and the boy starts loving the mother – which they will never find. For their whole lives they will miss the women they are seeking or the men they are searching for.Your question is significant. It reminds me of George Gurdjieff. He was only nine years old when his father died. And his father must have been a man of great wisdom. They were poor people. He called Gurdjieff close to him and told him, “I am sorry I am not leaving any heritage for you. I am leaving you alone in this vast world of competition, violence, greed. I want to tell you one thing; my whole life’s experience is contained in it. Perhaps you may not understand now, but keep remembering it; one day you will understand.”And the advice was very simple. The advice was that if anybody is angry at you, don’t react immediately, don’t start fighting. Listen silently to what he is saying. Be very calm and cool. And when he is finished, tell him, “Please give me twenty-four hours to think over what you have said and then I will come with my reply.”A strange advice but of tremendous psychological implications. Gurdjieff said in his old age that this simple advice changed his whole life because, “Sometimes I would find that his anger had nothing to do with me. I didn’t even have to reply to it; it was not addressed to me. Perhaps he was angry and it was just a coincidence that I happened to be close by – or I would find that what he was saying was right, I had done something wrong…” Then he would go and ask for forgiveness saying, “You were right.”Gurdjieff says that it shocked people. They said “What kind of boy is this? Even if you hit him, he says, ‘After twenty-four hours, I will come to give you the answer. And if I don’t come that means I don’t have any answer for it. That means it is not a question addressed to me.’“I have told you a strange anecdote….In a world psychology conference a very famous psychoanalyst is delivering his thesis, his findings. And just in the front row, an old psychoanalyst, famous in his own way, is sitting beside a beautiful young woman who is new but has produced papers of tremendous insight into human behavior. She has been conferred honorary D.Litt’s from many universities – but she is so young and so beautiful.She was attracting his attention, distracting him, but more than that…! That old fellow was playing with that young woman’s breasts. That is too much, and just in front…How can you read your thesis?The psychoanalyst becomes angry. He says things which are not relevant. Even the conference thinks, “What has gone wrong? He has always been a very consistent thinker, but he is looking very disturbed.” And his disturbance is about this old man: “This idiot is playing with the breasts of the beautiful woman.” And certainly a deep desire is there that he would have liked to be in his place.All this combination of things – and his whole paper was disturbed. He even forgot what he had come to say. He could not complete the paper. In the middle of his thesis, he left the podium and went directly to the lady and said, “You don’t object to this old idiot who is playing with your breasts?”She said, “It is his problem. He is doing no harm to me. He is very soft, very nice. Why should I bother about his problem?”It looks strange, but it is true; the problem is of the old man. And the young lady is certainly wiser than both the fellows. “Why should you be disturbed?” she asked. “You are not playing with my breasts; he is playing – it is his problem. I am not disturbed. There is no harm. In fact, he is being very respectful to a beautiful woman, but why are you disturbed? Certainly, deep down, you are thinking, ‘If I had been by the side of the woman…’“Where can you find such a woman with such understanding…that you play with her breasts – and she does not know you and she allows you because she understands…? That poor fellow must have suffered in his early life. Perhaps he was not breast fed.All the painters and poets and novelists go on continuously painting breasts. Strange, because the breast is simply a mechanism for the child to be nourished; it is not for old men! Women all over the world who have become a little liberated are against breast feeding because it distorts their breasts. It distorts the roundness of the breast because the child goes on pulling it downwards – and the child has to do it; he is milking the mother – and the breast becomes long.Existentially, a long breast is very necessary for the survival of the child. If the breast is really round, the child cannot survive because he has such a small face. If he starts milking, his nose will close, he will not be able to breathe; either he can milk or he can breathe. In either case he is going to die. So naturally, he goes on pulling it longer – and no woman wants long breasts; certainly, they don’t look aesthetically beautiful. So there are many devices to keep at least the appearance of a round breast: bras…And even if a few women have to lose their breast in cancer surgery, they will replace it with a rubber breast which is far more perfect, looks really beautiful – but it has to be under the clothes.A man entered into a circus manager’s office and said, “I have something to offer.”The manager said, “I am tortured by so many people. What have you to offer?”He said, “I have a very beautiful woman.”The manager said, “Can she dance?”He said, “Dance? You just see her act and you will forget all about dancing.”The manager said, “Okay. Tonight, bring your woman.”The woman had such long breasts, so heavy that she crawled on the stage and then tried to stand up.The manager said, “But where is the dance?”He said, “This is far more difficult than any dance. And you can see that everybody is laughing. Nobody has laughed at any dance.”And then the woman went down again. She could not carry that much weight even just to stand.There are women who are trying to make their breasts bigger with injections or smaller with injections. But this concern with breasts is as ancient as you can conceive: old statues, but the same concern…So you may be interested in a woman whose breasts look rounded, but they may just look rounded and behind the clothes is rubber, not real breasts. So it is perfectly good on the sea beach to talk romance and poetry and have film dialogues. But just on the first night of the honeymoon, everything is going to be a disaster. When you get hold of the breasts, they will both come off in your hands. And the woman can go to sleep telling you, “You can play with them.”Problems are there, but problems come from within you and then they are projected on other people. The same is happening to other people. They have problems, they have repressed desires, they have incomplete experiences. And if by chance it happens that you fit with something in their psychological poverty, either they can fall in love with you or they can be angry or they can hate you.There are people who say, “I hate certain persons – just to see them. They have not done anything; I have not even talked to them but just to see them is enough for me to hate.” It cannot be enough to hate but perhaps your experience of the past, of a certain man has damaged the image inside you, and that image fits completely with this man. Naturally, hate arises, love arises, anger arises.But the man of understanding always looks inwards to find what the cause is: Why am I doing it? And if it is not harmful to the other, and if the other is also willing, that means the other also is expecting some experience of the same kind. Then things go perfectly well; otherwise, every moment problems arise. And you can create actual situations in which you can see how problems arise.For twenty-four hours, watch your judgments about people – are they good or are they bad? Your responses to people, just watch from where they are coming. Are they coming from them or are they coming from within you? This whole world with all its misery and suffering is within you. This whole world can be a world of bliss and benediction if your inner being changes.This is my definition of a religious person: he has changed his inner being, cleaned his inner being so he becomes just a pure mirror, reflects but does not react. He feels compassionate, even for those who are full of anger, feels compassionate for those who are sad, miserable, destroying their life by drinking alcohol or using other drugs. All that he feels is compassion. And out of that compassion comes a response: if he can help, he helps.You cannot create a reaction in the man of wisdom; he never reacts. This is the difference between these two words – they look similar – reaction and response. Reaction is blind and unconscious and it blames the other. Response is conscious and clear and sees things as they are. If he is to blame, he accepts the blame; there is no need to fight. And if he is blameless, then too there is no need to fight: it is your mind; I have nothing to do with it.I must have received thousands of letters from around the world. A few people say they love me – and they have not even seen me; they have not even read me. From where is their love coming? Perhaps their whole lives they wanted to be in revolt, and hearing about me they see their desire fulfilled – somebody is in revolt. But it has nothing to do with me. It is their own desire, their own projection.There are thousands of others who go on condemning me for strange reasons. Just a few days ago, a man wrote an article in which he said, “If Osho had not been controversial, he would have been accepted as the greatest intellectual of the last part of this century.”I asked Anando to write a letter to him and to inquire, “Can you tell us of any great man, just a single name will do, who was great and not controversial?” He has not answered. Then we published the letter – but he is hiding; there is no answer. Every great man, Gautam Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu…were to their contemporaries the most controversial people. Only people who are making shoes, who are cleaning the streets are not controversial.The moment you say something original, it hurts many people because their prejudice comes into a clash with the original idea. They can’t see that they are angry not because of me, they are angry because they are prejudiced. If they were people of silence, they would have balanced thoughts about both: “Who knows, perhaps the original idea is right? It has to be given a chance.” And certainly it needs to be respected, because I am not imposing my ideas on you, I am simply expressing. But everywhere there seem to be thousands of locks on every mouth. It is all nonsense talk which says, “freedom of thought.”There is neither freedom of thought nor freedom of expression. And these people who have been condemned as controversial are the cause of the whole evolution. The noncontroversial, the mediocre, the retarded…they have not contributed anything. They have destroyed much but they have never contributed anything.So whenever something happens, remember, first look within yourself. Perhaps what is being said is right, and if it is not right then it is none of your concern, it is somebody else’s problem who is projecting it on you.Just to break your silence because sometimes it becomes too heavy…Paddy and Sean go hunting together in the Oregon mountains. After a while, Sean stops to take a piss, and a rattlesnake bites him on the prick. He calls out to Paddy and tells him to go to the nearest village and ask what to do.Paddy runs off and after half an hour runs breathlessly into the doctor’s office and asks for advice.The doctor says, “Take a sharp knife and make an opening in the wound and suck out the poison.”Paddy rushes back and as he approaches, Sean calls out, “Paddy, hey, Paddy, what did he say?”“I am sorry,” replies Paddy, “but he says you are going to die.”Little Ernie asks his dad, “Dad, is it true that God exists everywhere?”“That’s right, son,” replies his father, still reading his newspaper.“Is he in the garage?” asks Ernie.“Yes, son,” replies his father, “he is in the garage.”“Is he out in the garden?” asks Ernie.“Yes, he is, son,” replies his father.“Is he under mummy’s dress?” asks Ernie.“Yes, he is everywhere,” snaps his father getting a little irritated.So little Ernie looks in the garage but he can’t find God. He looks out in the garden but he can’t find God there either.So he goes into the kitchen and crawls under his mother’s dress.“Ernie,” she cries, “what are you doing?”“Quiet, mum,” says Ernie triumphantly, “I have just caught God by his beard.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 11 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I read a poem of Rumi the other day which went: “Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move.”Around the same time I awoke from a dream in tears and all I remembered was looking at myself in a mirror, face to face, and my eyes were full of fear.Sometimes in meditation I touch a blank horizontal space with no reference point for who I am and this same fear is there.Can you help me to understand and make friends with this fear?The words of Mevlana Rumi are immensely significant. There have been very few people who have moved and transformed as many hearts as Jalaluddin Rumi.In the world of the Sufis, Mevlana Rumi is the emperor. His words have to be understood not as mere words, but sources of deep silences, echoes of inner and the innermost songs. He is the greatest dancer the world has known. Twelve hundred years have passed since he was alive.His dance is a special kind of dance. It is a kind of whirling, just the way small children whirl; standing on one spot they go on round and round. And perhaps everywhere in the world small children do that and their elders stop them saying, “You will become dizzy, you will fall, you will hurt yourself,” and, “What is the point of doing it?”Jalaluddin Rumi made a meditation of whirling. The meditator goes on whirling for hours – as long as the body allows him; he does not stop on his own. When whirling a moment comes that he sees himself utterly still and silent, a center of the cyclone. Around the center the body is moving, but there is a space which remains unmoved; that is his being.Rumi himself whirled for thirty-six hours continuously and fell, because the body could not whirl anymore. But when he opened his eyes he was another man. Hundreds of people had gathered to see. Many thought he was mad: “What is the point of whirling?”…Nobody can say this is a prayer; nobody can say this is great dance; nobody can say in any way that this has something to do with religion, spirituality….But after thirty-six hours when they saw Rumi so luminous, so radiant, so new, so fresh – reborn, in a new consciousness, they could not believe their eyes. Hundreds wept in repentance, because they had thought that he was mad. In fact he was sane and they were mad.And down these twelve centuries the stream has continued to be alive. There are very few movements of spiritual growth which have lived so long continuously. There are still hundreds of dervishes. ‘Dervish’ is the Sufi word for sannyas. You cannot believe it unless you experience, that just by whirling you can know yourself. No austerity is needed, no self-torture is needed, but just an experience of your innermost being and you are transported into another plane of existence from the mortal to the immortal. The darkness disappears and there is just eternal light.His words have to be understood very carefully because he has not spoken much – just a few small poems. His statement, “Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move” – it is so beautiful.Don’t move the way fear makes you move.Move the way love makes you move.Move the way joy makes you move – not out of fear, because all so-called religions are based on fear. Their God is nothing but fear, and their heaven and hell are nothing but projections of fear and greed.Rumi’s statement is very revolutionary: Do not move because of fear.All the religions say to people, “Fear God!”Mahatma Gandhi used to say, “I do not fear anybody but God.” When I heard this I said this is the most stupid statement anybody can make. You can fear everybody, but don’t fear God because God can only be approached through love. God is not a person but the universal heartbeat. If you can sing with love and dance with love…an ordinary activity like whirling out of love…. Joy and celebration are enough to reach to the innermost sanctum of being and existence.You all have been living out of fear.Your relationships are out of fear. Fear is so overwhelming – like a dark cloud covering your life – that you say things which you don’t want to say, but fear makes you say them. You do things which you do not want to do, but fear makes you do them. A little intelligence is enough to see….Millions of people are worshipping stones carved by themselves. They have made their Gods and then they worship them. It must be out of great fear, because where can you find God? The easier way is to carve a God in beautiful marble and worship. And nobody thinks that this is sheer stupidity, because everybody else is doing it in different ways – somebody in the temple and somebody in the mosque and somebody in the synagogue; it does not make any difference. The essential thing is the same, that what you are doing is out of fear – your prayers are full of fear.Rumi is making a revolutionary, an extraordinary statement: “Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.” Then what is the way to move within? Why not move playfully? Why not make your religion a playfulness? Why be so serious? Why not move laughingly? – just like small children running joyously after butterflies for no special reason. Just the joy of the colors and the beauty of the flowers and the butterflies is enough – and they are so immensely happy.In every twenty-four hours find a few moments which are fearless, which means in those moments you are not asking for anything. You are not asking for any reward and you are not worried about any punishment; you are simply enjoying the whirling, the going inwards.In fact, just in the beginning it may look a little difficult. As you move a little inwards you become automatically joyful, playful, prayerful. A gratitude arises in you that you have never known before and a space opens up which is infinite, your inner sky. Your inner sky is not less rich than the outer sky: it has its own stars and its own moon and its own planets and its own immensity; it has exactly as vast a universe as you can see outside. You are just standing in between two universes: one is outside you; one is inside you. The outside universe consists of things, and the inside universe consists of consciousness, of bliss, of joy.Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move, because fear cannot enter inwards. Why can fear not enter inwards? Fear cannot be alone, and inwards you have to be alone. Fear needs a crowd, fear needs companionship, friends, even foes may do.But to be alone, to go inwards, you cannot take anybody with you; you have to be more and more alone. Not only can you not take anyone, you cannot take anything either. Your wealth, your power, your prestige – you cannot take anything. Inside you cannot take even your clothes! You will have to go nude and alone; hence fear cannot move inwards, fear moves outwards.Fear moves towards money, fear moves towards power, fear moves towards God; fear moves in all directions except inwards. To go inwards the first requirement is fearlessness.You are wondering how to make friends with the fear. One has not to make friends with darkness, death or fear. One has to get rid of them. One has to simply say good-bye forever. It is your attachment; friendship will make it even more deep.Don’t think that by becoming friendly with fear you will become ready to go inwards. Even the friendly fear will prevent it; in fact, it will prevent it more so. It will prevent you in a friendly way, it will advise you, “Don’t do such a thing. There is nothing inwards. You will fall into a nothingness and returning from that nothingness is impossible. Beware of falling into your inwardness. Cling to things.”Fear has to be understood.You don’t have to make friends – and it disappears.What are you afraid of? When you were born you were born naked. You did not bring any bank balance either – but you were not afraid. You come into the world utterly nude, but entering like an emperor. Even an emperor cannot enter into the world the way a child enters. The same is true of entering inwards. It is a second childbirth; you again become a child – the same innocence and the same nudity and the same non-possessiveness. What do you have to be afraid of?In life you cannot be afraid of birth. It has happened, now nothing can be done about it. You cannot be afraid of life – it is already happening. You cannot be afraid of death – whatever you do it is going to happen. So what is the fear?I have always been asked even by very learned people, “Do you never get concerned what will happen after death?” And I have always wondered, that these people are learned. And I have asked them, “One day I was not born – and there was no worry. I have never for a single moment thought that when I was not born what kind of trouble, what kind of anxiety, what kind of anguish I had to face. I was simply not! So the same will be the case: when you die, you die.”Confucius was asked by his most significant disciple, Mencius, “What will happen after death?”Confucius said, “Don’t waste time. When you are in your grave, lie down and think over it, but why bother now?”So many people in their graves are thinking! You will think that there seems to be no problem. In every cemetery – and there are millions of cemeteries – people are simply lying. They don’t even get up to inquire, “What has happened, what is the news today?” They don’t even change sides. They are so relaxed.And when people die, others close their eyes out of fear: “The poor people will go on seeing in the grave.” It makes you afraid that thousands of people in their graves are looking – “Close their eyes.”I had one distant aunt who was unique because she slept with one eye open. She had to, because that one eye was false. But whenever she used to come to our family I would frighten people. Whenever she would go to sleep I would take them and say, “Look, this is what happens: even when she is alive one eye is open. In death you try to close people’s eyes, but don’t believe it…they will open their eyes and they will look all around, ‘What is happening?’“Fear of what will happen when you die is unnecessary. Whatever will happen will happen – and anyway you cannot do anything beforehand. You don’t know so there is no question of doing some homework, getting ready for the kind of questions you will be asked or what kind of people you will meet, learning their manners, their language…We don’t know anything; there is no need to worry. Don’t waste time.But it is fear, fear that something is going to happen. After death – and you will be so alone; even if you call from your grave nobody is going to listen. People close the grave completely just out of fear. If you leave some window open and dead people start looking from there, they would make anybody afraid!Just now I have heard that there is a new phenomenon in America called The Couch Potato Movement….It was created for people who sit at home all day and watch TV. It was started in nineteen eighty-two, but has recently become a great phenomenon: the home-video revolution. The Couch Potato Movement has published two books: The Official Couch Potato Handbook and The Couch Potato Guide To Life. It also has a newsletter The Tuber’s Voice with a circulation of eight thousand.Mr. Armstrong, the founder of the movement is spreading the Couch Potato gospel: “We feel that watching TV is an indigenous American form of meditation.” He says, “We call it Transcendental Vegetation.”Out of fear people can do anything. They can even become a member of The Couch Potato Movement. Just sitting for seven and a half hours per day just like a potato on the sofa, and growing fatter and fatter and fatter…. Once in a while they get up to go to the fridge; otherwise, they are doing so much Transcendental Vegetation. It has never been done on such a vast scale.Why should people watch television the whole day? One has to look into the psychology. These people simply don’t want to know anything about themselves. These people are trying to avoid themselves by watching television. Television is a substitute; otherwise, having so much time you will have to look inwards – and that is a fear. Inwards?…but the fridge is outwards. Inwards?…but the boyfriend is outwards. Inwards you will not find anything. You cannot go shopping…You will just get drowned in nothingness.This being drowned in nothingness creates fear. But the problem is that this fear is only because you don’t know the beauty and the bliss and the joy of drowning in nothingness, because you don’t know the ecstasy that opens up as you fall inwards. It needs a little taste.I don’t want you to believe, I want you to experiment.If thousands of mystics have experienced something inside, at least hypothetically, you can also have a look. Perhaps there may be something that you are missing.There is no question of fear, just a little intelligence is needed – not friendliness with fear but an intelligence: the adventurer’s heart, the courage of those who go into the unknown. They are the blessed ones, because they find the meaning and the significance of life. Others only vegetate; only they live.A Frenchman, a Jew and a Polack are each sentenced to thirty years in prison. Each man is given one request that will be honored by the jail warden.“A woman,” asks the Frenchman.“A telephone,” says the Jew.“A cigarette,” says the Polack.Thirty years later the Frenchman walks out with the woman and ten kids.The Jew strolls out carrying a ten thousand dollar commission he has made during the time.The Polack walks out and says, “Has anyone got a match?”Just don’t be a Polack! Thirty years of holding the cigarette, waiting: “When the door opens I will ask has anyone got a match…”The first thing: a little intelligence, a little sense of humor, a little loving heart and you don’t need much to enter into your own being. Serious people go on standing outside with long English faces.I have heard that an Englishman got out of a train. His wife was waiting outside with the car to take him home. She asked, “What happened? You are looking very pale.”He said, “Don’t ask. Such a long journey and I had to sit against the way the train was going, and it always makes me sick. If I sit facing the same line as the train is going then it is good; otherwise I become very sick.”The woman said, “You could have told anybody, ‘This is my problem, please can you change seats?’“He said, “I also have thought about it, but in the front seat there was nobody. Whom to ask? And without asking…”Father Murphy wants to raise money for his church and he has heard that there is a fortune to be made in horse racing. However, he does not have enough money to buy a horse, so he decides to buy a donkey instead and enters him in a race. To his surprise the donkey comes third. The headline on the sports page reads: “Priest’s Ass Shows.”Father Murphy enters it in another race and this time it wins. The headline reads: “Priest’s Ass Out Front.”The bishop is so upset by this kind of publicity that he orders Father Murphy not to race his donkey again. The headline reads: “Bishop Scratches Priest’s Ass.”This is too much for the bishop. So he orders Father Murphy to get rid of the donkey. He gives it to Sister Theresa. And the headline reads: “Nun Has Best Ass in Town.”The bishop faints. He then informs Sister Theresa that she must dispose of the donkey. She sells it to Paddy for ten dollars.The next day the bishop is found dead on the dining room table with a newspaper clutched in his hand. The headline reads: “Nun Sells Her Ass for Ten Bucks.”Just a little sense of humor, a little laughter, a childlike innocence – and what have you got to lose? What is the fear? We don’t have anything. We have come without anything, we will go without anything. Before it happens, just a little adventure inwards to see who is this fellow hiding behind the clothes, inside the skeleton; who is this fellow who is born, becomes young, falls in love and one day dies and nobody knows where he goes….Just a little curiosity to inquire into one’s own being. It is very natural; there is no question of fear.Sisters Agnes, Theresa and Margaret go out for a walk from the convent. They enter the local liquor store and order a bottle of bourbon whiskey.“Sisters,” says the owner, looking concerned, “you should not be drinking hard liquor.”“It is not for us,” explains Sister Agnes, “This is for Mother Superior’s constipation.”He sells them the whiskey and the nuns leave. Later as he closes the store and walks down the street, the owner finds the nuns sitting under a tree, gulping in turns from the bottle.“Sisters, I’m shocked,” he says. “You told me that booze was for Mother Superior’s constipation.”“It is,” says Sister Theresa. “When she hears about this she will shit herself.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 12 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Why is it that through the ages, filthy corrupters, rapists of this beautiful planet, people who betray their own mother for power and wealth, are given the right to regale themselves in such an ostentatious manner so as to live freely, so to say, in their presidential palaces or princely retreats – not one but many – and a man of your light, height and far deeper understanding in every way is permitted only to breathe this stinking, polluted air which does not at all contribute to your physical health?Osho, forgive me if I am being jealous, but it is disgusting and appalling to see the abnormality of it. In the past days I have seen their faces and heard their voices and it is sickening. Is this our fault? Is this a situation deliberately created by this silent intelligence to separate the cream from the curd?If it be my decision, you are the one to be in every possible network media around the globe talking about Mendel or Horowitz, showing to the world the glory of existence that lives in your presence, because to you the blessings and love were given in their highest form and abundance and not raped and forced to abide with their manipulators, like the son-of-a-bitch Reagan and his kind have been doing for so long.Forgive me Osho, if I am mistaken or serious about it, but in the past two weeks what I have seen in the world has made me sad and now I know less than I ever did.Your question is so long that by the time I hear the end I have forgotten the beginning! Somehow because I have tried to remember the beginning, the middle is missing. You are certainly a great writer, but have compassion on me.Question exactly, telegraphically; otherwise it becomes difficult to answer your question in its totality…but I will give a try.The first part seems to be why the corrupted people are in power and in the palaces. I have quoted Lord Acton many times who said, “Power corrupts.” But he does not have the deeper understanding that corruption leads to power also. You have to be corrupted enough to be in power. Our minds are continuously forced to reach somewhere, to eminence, to become a president or to become a prime minister; only then have you fulfilled the meaning of your life.This continuous teaching from parents, from teachers, from everybody pushes you towards all that gives power: money, position, prestige. And it is true that when you have power, by that time you are so corrupted…That has been your ladder to reach, and now you have immense power in your hands and nobody to prevent you…. What are you going to do with the power – more corruption or perhaps bigger goals ahead?The past has been dominated because by will to power we have not been taught love, we have not been taught noncompetitiveness, we have not been taught humbleness, simplicity, just to be oneself. We have been dragged by great forces on every side to faraway powerful positions.Corruption leads to power.And in return power gives you more capacity to corrupt.The past as a whole is ugly and criminal. Just because there has been a Gautam Buddha, or a Lao Tzu, or a Kabir does not matter. The past is so vast that these people can be counted out. The mainstream of humanity has been moving on wrong paths, and you are always in a crowd and the crowd loves to worship powerful people, to praise powerful people. The crowd is very willing to be enslaved by power, because power takes away its responsibility without it understanding that this also takes its freedom – but one wonders what you are going to do with your freedom.For example, all the constitutions of the world talk about freedom of expression – but do you have something to express? So what is the point? For ninety-nine percent of people it is meaningless; they don’t have anything to express. And who cares about the one percent? He will be crushed. In fact the person who should have been praised and loved will be crushed.The psychological background has to be remembered: mankind has never praised anybody who was contemporary, expressive, creative, had something to say. The crowd has been against these people because in a certain sense their presence becomes an insult. Their very presence humiliates you.There is an Arabic proverb that camels don’t like to go to the mountains. They love the desert. In the desert they are mountains. Being close to a mountain it is very humiliating to realize that you are nothing – not even a particle of dust by the side of the Everest. It is better to avoid. They have chosen the desert where they are great people.It has to be remembered that even your so-called powerful people don’t want to come in contact with a man of authentic power, a power that arises within and is not borrowed from others, begged from others. There are a few people certainly, whose sources of power are intrinsic. Even presidents and kings and queens look like nothing but beggars in front of them, because their power depends on others. A power that depends on others is not much of a power, but it is easier to attain.People choose easier ways and people choose to imitate, and people want – are taught and conditioned to want – to become somebody special. And that specialness can come: either you are a president or you are the richest man in the world.This whole system of teaching people has been basically wrong. Nobody should be condemned for it; they are all victims. But the time is ripe and there is intelligence enough to see the point, and to change the whole programming.A child should be respected, not for his obedience, but for his intelligence. And if his intelligence makes him a rebel, that is perfectly in tune with existence. A child should not be given concepts, beliefs, baptisms, because you don’t have any right to force your own burden, your own unconscious conditionings on a pure consciousness. A child should not be Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan…If you really love your child, you will protect him from being contaminated by any belief system. You will protect him from all that corrupts and from all that takes him away from himself, from all that destroys his individuality and makes him a hypocrite – but who loves so much?People think it is love, that if you are born a Christian, your children should be Christians. It is not love. It may be anything else, but certainly not love. Love will leave the child to grow according to his own intrinsic capacities.Give him the sky; give him the opportunity.Give him the freedom.Give him the nourishment.Give him the courage to be himself.That is still a dream and a hope. Perhaps one day it will happen, because doubts about humanity’s past have started arising from many sources. We have lived unnecessarily under a very dark night, when the whole sun and the flowers and the trees were our birthright.So the first thing: you should not be angry because anger is not understanding. You should be very understanding – whatever has happened, has happened. You should be a scientific, impartial, objective observer, so that you can know why it happened, and find ways that it is not repeated again.And the second part of your question continues,…and a man of your light, height and far deeper understanding in every way is permitted only to breathe this stinking, polluted air, which does not at all contribute to your physical health. This too is part of the whole programming of the mind of the past.For almost two years the Indian government has been denying that they are preventing sannyasins to reach to me. But just the other day in San Francisco, the Indian consul in a press interview said clearly: “Osho is a criminal and not only a personal criminal, but a corporate criminal, and he should not be allowed anywhere. In India we have to accept him, but we are making every effort that people from all over the world who are interested in him and love him, should not reach to him.”This is the first time that they have at least accepted that they have been preventing sannyasins from coming to India. They have sent many sannyasins back from Indian airports to their homes. Sannyasins had to learn to tell lies that they are not sannyasins, “Who is Osho? Have we to go to him? We have come to see the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal…We have never heard…!”And I knew this was going to happen. That’s why I told you to drop the outer symbols of sannyas completely. Still, they interrogate for hours, even when a person is saying, “I have not come for Osho. I don’t know him and why should I go to Pune? What is there?” But politicians are suspicious people. They were interrogating in such a way that somehow they could get the idea that the man was going to Pune.Being unsuccessful in this they started asking, “Have you come to India to learn meditation?” Now meditation has become synonymous with me. Innocent sannyasins were not aware that “meditation” – and they are finished! They have to go back from the airport – they cannot enter the country.We have reported this to the government, and the government denied it saying, “We are not doing anything. Why should we prevent people?”And this man from San Francisco…I remember him, because he came to see me. After twelve days, when the trial was over and I was released from the jail, he asked me, “Rajiv is very much concerned about your health and well-being. In what way can we be of help to you?”I said, “You have come a little late – and perhaps consideredly. I am out of jail, now what can you do? You can force me into jail again – that is the only help that is left.”He said, “We have been watching.”I said, “Watching won’t help. For what were you watching? A man is arrested without any warrant. He is not given a reason why he is being arrested; no evidence is given…” Just a list of names was shown to us, and of the six people who were arrested not a single name of those six people was on the list. And he was made aware that we are not the people…”You should arrest these people; you have the list. You are arresting the wrong people. You don’t have arrest warrants” – and the Indian ambassador was watching…!One of my secretaries was sitting in Washington continuously for twelve days, insisting to the Indian ambassador, “This is absolutely ugly that you are silent – it is a conspiracy. If an individual citizen of your country is arrested without any reason, who has not committed any crime…What is your purpose here? You should interfere.”And he went on promising, “I will. I am in constant contact with Rajiv Gandhi. I am in contact with the American government and you need not worry.” And they did not do a thing!And this same man now says, “We are trying to keep Osho in such a situation that he cannot move out of India” – obviously. Twenty-one countries have passed laws that I cannot enter those countries; four other countries are going to pass…I have not even asked to enter their country. In India the strategy is that I cannot go anywhere even in India, because then the Indian government has its own ugly ways of doing things.I first wanted to be in the Himalayas rather than in this polluted place. I remained there for one month. They immediately deported all the foreigners who were with me and informed me that I could not purchase land because I don’t live in that state. Unless I am a resident of a particular state, I cannot purchase land. And they provoked their followers to protest that I should not be allowed to live there, because if I live there people will start coming and everybody’s morality will be in danger, religion will be in danger…their golden past will be in danger.Just one day ago, a friend from Delhi informed me that I should leave India, because the Indian government is thinking of arresting me. Their reason for arresting me is that I have paid four hundred thousand dollars as a fine and from where did I get that money? I myself don’t know! I sincerely have no idea who the sannyasins were, from all over the world, who gave that money.I left India and went to Nepal, because the king of Nepal was very much interested in me, in my books; the prime minister of Nepal was interested. The prime minister came to see me but he said, “It will be very difficult. Although it will be against our wishes, we cannot allow you to remain in Nepal because we are a small country and we are in constant danger from India to be taken over. They have done this in Sikkim; they can do it in Nepal, and we don’t have armies or anything. We cannot even give a good fight. So the king wants to inform you: We love you, we love your teachings, but we are unable to risk the whole country.”I decided that it was time that I should go on a world tour to see which country has the courage to accept a man who has nothing but ideas which can create a better humanity and a better world.In a few countries which you would think are powerful countries, like England, I was not even allowed to stay in the airport lounge overnight. And I asked the airport officer, “My pilot has done his twelve hours and he cannot do more, otherwise it will be against the laws. We have to stop and we need to refuel.”The officer said, “I can understand, but orders from the ministry of home affairs are that you should not be allowed to stay at all, even in the lounge” – from where you cannot enter England; it is an international airport.I said, “Then do you want me to sit here the whole night?”He said, “The only alternative that has been offered from the top is that if you want to sleep, you can sleep in the jail, and in the morning you can leave.”Going around the world was a tremendously great experience, seeing that all these corrupted and powerful people will not allow anybody who can be a danger to their power, who can expose their ugliness.The Attorney General of America in a press interview made the statement: “Osho should be only in Pune. And we will try in every way to make sure that nobody reaches there. First, nobody will be given a visa if he is going to Pune. Secondly, Indian immigration will make sure at the Indian airports that nobody enters.” He exactly said, “This is our way of silencing him.”I said, “This is good. This is my teaching: to silence people.” But I don’t go to so much trouble for silent opportunities. I also create a world where people can be silent, but my meaning of silence and his meaning of silence are different.Immediately the reporter asked, “Do you mean you are going to assassinate him?”He said, “No. Our purpose is served: the commune is destroyed. We could have jailed him for his whole life, but that would have made him a martyr and the people who love him would have loved him more. And the things that he is saying will create a greater movement. So we don’t want to do that. That’s why we allowed him to go. Now we will try to create all the barriers…Our ways of silencing him are very sophisticated.”But they don’t know: my ways are far more sophisticated!As far as pollution is concerned, the whole world is becoming polluted. And unless those industries, railway trains, airplanes, rockets…are run through different methods so that they don’t pollute the air, there is no way…In fact, this small campus you are sitting in is the most unpolluted situation. You will not find this silence in New Delhi or in Washington.But their fear of me continues…. It has been two years since they destroyed the commune. First they had not allowed us to sell it, so that it became of less and less value. And people must have started stealing things from the commune – because how long can we keep protecting a commune of one hundred and twenty-six square miles? First we had sixteen people. Then we reduced it to eight – it was unnecessarily expensive. Then we reduced to four; now we have reduced to one.One person is guarding a commune spread over one hundred and twenty-six square miles. And there is proof that burglars are taking things away. Just in front of the Mandir in the commune we had our symbol of birds. Somebody – this you can see is utterly stupid – somebody has made holes by shooting bullets into the birds. Those birds are just painted, but such is…These people would have liked to kill all of you…they would not dare! Now they are shooting painted birds which were our symbols.Just the other day one man has been caught as a murderer and he confessed in the court that he was offered the opportunity, at whatever cost, to bomb the house where I lived in the commune. He went there, but seeing that it was too well guarded he did not dare. But his statement shows that people were trying to kill me, and now they are trying in a psychological way. They are preventing any news media from reaching here: the Indian government does not give them permission.We received letters from many television stations saying, “We want to come and see what has started again, what is going on in the ashram, but the Indian government says, ‘You can come, cover the whole of India, but you cannot go to Pune. Only with that contract can you come to India.’“Camels are very much afraid of the mountains. It hurts…it hurts their egos….But you should not be angry. You should try to understand, because this has been the whole history of mankind. If we want to bring a new world, a deep understanding of the old will be helpful. Don’t repeat the same things.Ambition should not be taught. Things are very subtle. You may not find them if you simply look at the ultimate consequences.My father was right: whenever I came home after taking an examination and coming first, he would say, “That simply proves your class consists of idiots, otherwise how could you come first?”I said, “You are a strange person: people teach their children to try hard and come first. I don’t try at all and come first – and this is the reception you are giving to me?”If you want to change the face of humanity then very small things, in detail, should be changed. Children should not be taught to be competitive. There should be no examinations; nobody should pass and nobody should fail. The change should be radical.If somebody fails, in the records of that person it should never be shown. The salary of the teacher should be cut. What has he been doing for two years? “You wasted two years on a course that can be taught in two months – and still a few people have failed. The responsibility is yours.” He should be demoted, his salary cut, and those six children who have “failed” should never know. They will pass to another class without any distinction as to who is first and who is second. The teacher in the following class should just be made aware to pay more attention to these six people, so that they can also be brought up to an equivalent level.It looks like a strange idea, but without this you cannot destroy competitiveness. All children should come out of schools and universities feeling equal. No inferiority complex, and politics will disappear, the desire for power will disappear.The whole educational system should make it absolutely compulsory that everybody meditates. It is a long time – twenty years of education. In twenty years if you cannot teach people Vipassana, being silent and looking inwards, then there is no hope. And people who come out of universities humble, silent, peaceful, will create the same kind of society. It will have a flavor of its own, a fragrance of its own.And certainly this kind of society will choose people out of their silence and clarity, out of their peace, intelligence – not corrupted ones; their world will be gone. It will choose people who are wiser and who can make society a garden rather than a graveyard. The past has been continuously making society a graveyard. Everybody can blossom given the right opportunity.You will mostly have to look deeper into the educational system, because that is where competition starts.When I refused my gold medal for being first in the whole university, the vice-chancellor said, “Why are you doing it? People hanker after it!”I said, “You can give it to anybody who is hankering for it but I am perfectly okay as I am, I don’t want it. I am not in any way feeling inferior, that I have to prove by a gold medal that I am a superior man who has topped the whole university.”When I encountered the education minister of those days, I told him, “There is a place vacant in the university and I am ready to fill it.”He said, “Strange. You should first apply.”I said, “What is the need when I am present? You respect papers more than persons?”He said, “No, it is just a formality. You can just write down…This is the paper; write out the application.”I wrote out the application, but then he said, “What about your character certificate?”I said, “I have not come across a man for whom I could give a character certificate. Do you want me to ask people who don’t have any character for a character certificate? Could you write a character certificate?”He became so puzzled that he said, “Forget it. Just take this letter and join the university. Remember, this kind of behavior is not right. You are suspecting my character.”I said, “You were suspecting my character. You started the whole thing. I have not asked about your character certificate: everybody knows!” He was the most corrupt man – and he knew it, and everybody knew, so he said that it was better to get rid of me.He was in such a hurry, he forgot that the appointment letter should reach through a proper channel. He simply gave it to me, just to get rid of me as quickly as possible. And when I reached to the college where I was appointed, the principal looked at me. He said, “You have been appointed just today, this morning – and by the evening you are here and I have not received any information about it…? This is very strange. It has never happened.”I said, “Phone the education minister. If he had told me that it had to go through the proper channels and it would take three days to reach and not to go before that, I would not have come. If you don’t phone, I am going to phone him.”He said, “No, don’t. I will phone him. You go in the other room.”I said, “No. When there is a problem concerning me, I have to be here.”He phoned the minister and the minister said, “I forgot completely. The man is so strange. Beware of him!” And I was there.And I said, “Listen…have you heard…?”He said, “I have heard.”I said, “I am a dangerous man and the education minister thinks you have to be careful about me.”He was so shocked by the whole thing; I had disrupted the routine. He gave me more periods than are supposed to be given to a teacher in the university.I said, “These are too many, and if you give me too many I will conduct them according to my own routine and you will have to face the consequences.”He said, “Let us cut them down. How many do you want?”I said, “I don’t want any! I love teaching. I will teach. And I will give you the list of which periods, which classes, I am going to teach.”He said, “Okay, but don’t tell anybody.”This whole structure is in a deep need to be completely overturned. But look at small details: one is the educational system; another is the religious system that every family is trying to enforce.Let your children blossom according to their own intrinsic potentiality. It doesn’t matter whether they become presidents or they become just flute players. The question is that whatever they become, they should be blissful.I have heard about a great surgeon who was retiring….A party was arranged to say good-bye to him. He had served the institution and he was most loved. It was going to be difficult to find a substitute, he was such a perfect surgeon. The party was going on, people were drinking and dancing and eating. Suddenly a friend of the surgeon looked around – the surgeon was not there.So he went out to see; he was sitting under a tree. The friend was a famous advocate. The friend said, “What are you doing? They are all celebrating and you are sitting here in such sadness.”The surgeon said, “It is because of you. Remember, twenty-five years ago I came to you to inquire – because you had been my friend and the topmost legal expert – what the consequences would be if I killed my wife. And you said twenty-five years in jail.”The advocate said, “What has that to do with today?”He said, “Today, twenty-five years are complete. Today I would have been free. But you prevented me from attaining freedom. You did not act like a friend but like an enemy. Today I would have come out of the jail. You forced me to live my whole life with a woman who was nothing but torture.”The advocate said, “You should think about your art, your surgery, your skill, your fame. If you were in jail you would not have been a famous surgeon.”He said, “I don’t care about being famous. What has fame given to me? Just those few idiots who are drinking and talking all kinds of nonsense and thinking they are celebrating my retirement? What has fame given to me? I wanted freedom!”If you think about yourself, you will also see if whatever you have become is your inner voice that has been leading you, or outer forces which have been distracting you. They may make you successful but they will not make you blissful, and success is meaningless.What has happened in the past has happened. We are in a good position because we can analyze all the causes that led humanity into misery, into poverty, into wars, and we can change.Revolution can be our religion.In fact, there is no other religion.But everybody has to be very aware and alert about himself, because he is the society, he is making the society, creating the society. You cannot save yourself from the responsibilities.An old Indian from Calcutta is waiting at the bus stop with his family of twelve children ahead of him and a blind man behind him. It is late at night and they are waiting for the last bus. Eventually the bus comes and when all the children are aboard, the conductor says it is full, and the old Indian and the blind man have to walk home.After walking for some time with the blind man tapping the ground loudly with his stick, the Indian says, “You know, if you had a little bit of rubber on the end of your stick, all that noise could have been avoided.”“I know,” snaps the blind man, “and if you had a little bit of rubber on the end of your prick, we could have got on the bus!”Just wait, because Niskriya is coming in….As a forward to his question: he found the witch and he spent the whole night with her, drinking and all – and now he is finished. Just one night! He cannot be finished in one night, however great the witch may be.Now he has moved to metaphysical questions! He is asking,Osho,The other day you suggested very charmingly to me, to be only with witches. Does that mean I am a devil?Niskriya, it shows great intelligence. At last you understand who you are. That is the function of the witch. She has helped you to self-realization!But the question can be taken from some other angle…. Perhaps you don’t know that the word witch is not condemnatory. It is Christianity which made it condemnatory; otherwise it was equivalent to wise man.All over Europe there were witches. They were consulted, their advice followed. With the spread of Christianity, people became very arrogant about witches because they were giving an alternative wisdom to people and Christianity wants to monopolize wisdom. And particularly women cannot be wise; only men can be wise. The trend even goes back to Jesus Christ: all his apostles were men, although the old scriptures mention three women.His mother obviously loved him, and one very beautiful prostitute, Mary Magdalene – her whole life was transformed just by listening to Jesus. A third woman, Martha who was the sister of Magdalene, had just come out of curiosity to know who had changed her sister and her lifestyle – she has almost become a saint. But none of these three was chosen to be part of the apostles.They loved more, they were more courageous, more cultured…And those twelve apostles were uneducated, uncultured, farmers, fishermen, woodcutters – people like that. And the final test came when Jesus was crucified: all twelve men disappeared out of fear that if somebody recognized that they are followers of Jesus – because they have been hanging around him all the time – then the same will happen to them as has happened to Jesus. And they have seen that there seems to be no sign of resurrection, no miracle.They were hoping that angels will come, sitting on white clouds, playing on their harps, “Hallelujah!” – and the whole scene will change. But not even a white cloud came – no harp was heard. They looked all around: the whole sky was as silent as ever. But these three women did not leave Jesus. They were sitting underneath the cross. They were the first to take Jesus off the cross. Still, no respect for them.All religions of the world are male-oriented and are somehow afraid of women. The greatest fear is that the women can distract their attention from God. And in fact, there is no God, just their idea that any beautiful woman will be able to distract…They are right!Gautam Buddha said to his disciples, “Never look at a woman. Avoid! Never touch a woman. Never speak to women.” And for twenty years continuously he resisted the idea of initiating women into sannyas. And when finally he had to, he was very disrespectful. He said, “My religion was going to last for five thousand years; now it will last only five hundred years. These women will destroy everything.” Soon there will be boyfriends and girlfriends…and who cares about Gautam Buddha?The fear of the attraction of women, the natural attraction, has made all the religions antagonistic.Christianity did the worst. It burned thousands of living women who were known as wise women. Witch is the old name for wise woman. It has no condemnation in it, but because witches were killed and burned and ugly kinds of confessions were made – because they were forced to make them….Just before I went to America, my back was troubling me – it is still troubling me, but now a kind of companionship has arisen. When I came in contact with Christianity, I could not believe that thousands of women confessed. I was always suspicious that it is not possible that those women would confess to be in a love affair with the Devil. But when I was reading I came across a note…which I have experienced here, because of my back. There is a similar device, a traction machine, so that they can pull your legs and your hands to bring your back into line….I had never realized that the traction machine was used first by Christian churches in Europe for confessions. Women were continually being put on traction machines, and I know by my own experience that on traction you can force anybody to confess anything! Just a little more of a pull and you become afraid that the hand is going to go out or the leg will be gone…! It is better to tell – who cares in that moment about anything? And they are asking you to confess that you are a witch.And on the traction machine – that is the only invention Christianity has given to the world – those poor women accepted that they were witches. The implications were that they were in a love affair with the Devil, that they really did make love. And to make love to the Devil, certainly, they cannot be tolerated by the Christians; otherwise there is no problem. The Devil is not making love to your popes. And I am certain, on a traction machine, even the pope will say, “Yes. I am a homosexual and the Devil makes love to me!”I have suffered that traction machine. Because of that suffering I finally said, “I am getting better; now take the machine away.” The traction machine cures people. They stop complaining, because when you complain you go to Dr. Hardikar’s traction machine. It is better to suffer a bad back than Dr. Hardikar and his colleagues who do a perfect job of pulling you apart!But the word witch, Niskriya, is not bad; it is not condemnatory. It is just the feminine of wise man, but people have forgotten it completely.And devil also is a misunderstood word. It comes from a Sanskrit root. Hebrew has no root for it, nor has the Greek language nor any other language. Only Sanskrit has the root of devil and that is divine. Divine, deva, devil – they all come from the same root, div, and div means light. Hence another name for the sun in Sanskrit is divakar. Another name for day in Sanskrit is divas, and day also comes from divas. Neither is witch condemnatory, nor devil; devil means divine.So don’t be worried, Niskriya. You did well. Everybody enjoyed so much that you could not recognize who the witch was. You were looking again and again out of the corner of your eye to see who the witch really was. It was only late in the night, when you woke up from all that had gone by, that you looked at the witch and said, “My God! This is not a witch; this is a sannyasin!” But you got finished with your fear that nobody flirts with you, and whether we should stop flirting completely.Flirting has nothing to do with religion. It is natural, human. It is not a conditioning of the past; it is just intelligence that one wants to taste all kinds of things. You are not a devil, and now you know the witch was not a witch either. But the night you will remember forever – not only you, everyone who has seen it!I have heard from the witch herself that Niskriya was looking again and again at the film, asking why I was waving my hand. “What is the significance, the meaning?” And finally he decided it means flirt! This is a great conclusion, very philosophical!And whenever you want, just tell me. My function here is just to make you as blissful as possible. And I have a list of those who are ready to become witches, whenever Niskriya wants a queue. And the witch also liked Niskriya and said that he is a very meditative man….Just something serious now…Hymie Goldberg has a tough day at the office and phones Becky to tell her he will be coming home late. Then he goes out to a Chinese restaurant and orders a Big Deal big meal. As plate after plate comes, Hymie notices that the Chinese waiter is always smiling and looking happy. “What is there to be so happy about?” moans Hymie.“Ah,” says the waiter, “I am just thinking about my sex life.”“And what is so special about your sex life?” asks Hymie.“Well,” says the waiter, “I take my time with sex. I put it in, I say ‘Excuse me,’ I take it out and go to the kitchen for a glass of rice wine…”“And that is it?” asks Hymie, amazed.“No, no,” replies the Chinaman. “I just take my time. I put it in. I say, ‘Excuse me.’ I take it out and go for some refreshment. I go back. I put it in. I have a wonderful time.”Later when Hymie gets home he decides to give the waiter’s idea a try. He starts making love to Becky. He puts it in, “Excuse me,” says Hymie, taking it out, “I am going to get a glass of seltzer.” Two minutes later he trots back, puts it in and takes it out again. “Excuse me, honey,” says Hymie. “I am going to get some blintzes.” Just then Becky sits up in bed.“You know, Hymie,” she says, “you fuck just like a Chinaman.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 13 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,We poor modern Greeks don't know what the true religion of our ancestors was. So-called scholars have no answer as they are confused by the rich mythology of poets. However, at Delphi, only three admonitions were engraved on the original temple: Be, Know yourself, Keep the measure.Would you, Osho, reveal how these three mysterious precepts – including meditation, self-awareness, et cetera, but no god – could constitute the whole religion acceptable to men like Socrates, Heraclitus and Diogenes?Greece lost its golden age not because of mythological scholarship or poetic imagination; it lost its golden age the day it decided to poison Socrates. It killed its own highest expression of spirit.In the death of Socrates starts the decline of a tremendously beautiful and great civilization which has given to the world people like Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Plotinus and many more. The whole Western civilization owes its origins to the Greek genius.To understand why it has become poor – not only outwardly but inwardly too – you will have to understand that when a civilization kills a man like Socrates, Socrates is not killed, that very civilization is killed.Socrates’ death has to be understood because without understanding it, Greece and its intelligence cannot come back to the heights it has already known.Democracy was born in Greece but unfortunately we have not been able, up to now, to tolerate or forgive the giants amongst us. Their very presence becomes a deep wound in our being. Rather than becoming a challenge, a great invitation for a pilgrimage to the heights of consciousness, it becomes a wound. And it is very difficult to live with that wound. Something has to be done, and the easiest way is to destroy the man who makes you feel small.The height of Socrates or Diogenes simply makes the ordinary man so inferior. But there are two ways to face this situation; one has never been used. The unused way is that the presence of Socrates or Pythagoras should become a deep certainty that “what can happen to another man can also happen to me. In their heights are my heights, hidden inside. In their freedom are the seeds of my freedom. In their sky, the stars have become clear – just a little effort is needed and my dark night can also be full of stars.” Their presence should become a guarantee of human potential, of human growth, of possibilities which ordinarily look too far away.But if Socrates can touch those stars, in his hands our hands are also hidden, because no two human beings are essentially different. All differences are non-essential; the intrinsic man is one and the same. But this path has not been chosen – because it was difficult, because it would have to be proved by traveling to the same heights on the same lonely path, to attain to the same light and the same consciousness.Man chooses the easier. He does not bother whether the easier is truer or not. The easier is to remove the man like Socrates. His removal will take away the wound that his presence creates. Then you can be happy in your ordinariness, then you can rejoice in your retardedness, then there is no one who can hurt your ego.Socrates was not killed because he had committed any crime. His only crime can be that he attained what is hidden in you. He made reality what is only potential in you; he transformed the seed into a glorious flower, dancing in the wind and the sun. You cannot, the masses cannot forgive such a man. It hurts our ego very deeply.And the masses are powerful as a crowd. Men like Socrates are alone; they are a majority of one. The crowd could not prove anything against Socrates. Still, he was poisoned and killed. Even in his death he was great, and the people who killed him, even in their life proved to be very ugly, mean and small. But it creates a situation in which no other man will try to become a Socrates, because if to be Socrates means to be poisoned by the crowd, then why bother? Keep quiet. Don’t annoy and irritate the ordinary and the mundane.Once this settles in the mind of people, great people start disappearing. Slowly, slowly a country like Greece, which has brought humanity many flowers, became poor on both counts. The outer poverty is not so important, because it can be destroyed easily, but the inner poverty is very difficult. It is not easy to create Socrates or Heraclitus or Pythagoras. We have destroyed the atmosphere in which such roses blossom. By destroying these flowers, we have destroyed the possibility of other flowers who could have blossomed. What is the point, if this kind of treatment is going to happen?One Christian missionary – a great thinker in his own right, Stanley Jones – used to come to India. I had become very friendly with him just by chance, because the church in which he used to speak was just near my house. I said to him once, “Jesus has promised to come back again, very soon. Now it is too long. You cannot stretch ‘very soon’ that long – one year, two years but not two thousand years!”He said, “I had never thought about it.”But I told him, “I have thought about it: he will never come!”He said, “On what grounds are you saying this?”I said, “If he is intelligent, then one experience is enough. What have you given to the man? Crucifixion – and you are still expecting him to come?” And I told Stanley Jones to read a book that he had not read – Dostoevski’s Brothers Karamazov, one of the greatest books written by any man. But it is so big that very few people have dared even to start to read it. Just the voluminousness of the book prevents them. But it is so valuable that hundreds of Bibles are of no value compared to it. Dostoevski has written it with his own blood.In that book one character is Ivan Karamazov. There are three brothers, hence the name Brothers Karamazov. One brother is very religious, almost saintly. Another brother is a rationalist, an atheist, absolutely against the other brother – thinks him naive, stupid – and his worship.One day he tells him a story….He says, “Have you heard that Jesus has come back?”The other brother said, “I have never heard. Where is he?”He said, “You are continuously reading The Bible. You don’t have time to inquire what is happening around. Jesus had come on a Sunday morning in Jerusalem, hoping, ‘Now, I will be received and welcomed, because last time they were not my people. Now I am going amongst my own people. My own priests and bishops and cardinals and the pope – they will celebrate my coming. And I had promised the second coming; I have to fulfill it.’“The crowd was coming out of the church, the morning service had ended, so he stood there under a tree waiting to see whether they would recognize him or not. A crowd gathered around him – they recognized him not as Jesus Christ, but that “he seems to be some crackpot who is trying to pretend to be Jesus Christ” – and they started advising him that before the bishop comes out of the church, “It is better you get as far away from here as possible.”But Jesus said, “I am Jesus Christ.”And they all laughed.He said, “This is strange. People laughed the same way eighteen centuries ago, but they were not my people. And you are my people, my sheep, my flock.”And people said, “Just get down. Don’t pretend. We accept that you are a good actor, but that does not mean that you are Jesus Christ. What is the guarantee? Have you got any certificate, any message from God? It is just that you look like Jesus Christ. Anybody…and there are many who play the part of Jesus Christ in dramas, it is nothing new. Just don’t be stupid. If the bishop comes to know, you will be in difficulty.”Jesus said, “Wait. You are ordinary, uneducated people. You cannot understand. But the bishop is my representative. He is bound to recognize me.” The bishop came out and the crowd gave way for him.The bishop shouted at Jesus Christ, “You idiot, get down from that platform and come into the church!”Jesus said, “Have you not recognized me?”He said, “I have recognized. Just get into the church.”Jesus followed him thinking, “Perhaps he does not want to recognize me in front of people, or he wants to talk to me privately inside the church.”And inside the church the bishop locked him into a room and told him, “I will release you only when you come to your senses – and I will call a barber to shave your beard and change your clothes. This kind of thing cannot be allowed. It is irreligious.”Jesus could not believe. He said, “This is strange!”In the middle of the night the bishop came with a candle, unlocked the door, fell at the feet of Jesus and said, “Forgive me. I had recognized you, but we are doing your business perfectly well. You are not needed at all. In fact, if you insist, we will have to crucify you – unwillingly – because people like you are always troublemakers. With great difficulty we have managed your empire. Almost half the earth follows you, not because of you but because you have the best managers – the priests, the bishops, the cardinals, the pope. What more can you do? We are already doing it! It is better you go back. Don’t make unnecessary trouble; otherwise the second coming will become the second crucifixion.”This story from Brothers Karamazov I told to Stanley Jones and asked him what he thought about it. It is fictitious, but I think it has a truth in it – if Jesus comes, this will be the behavior towards him….I have heard that one early Sunday morning a young man looking like Jesus entered a church before the bishop entered. The bishop was almost in shock, but thought, “Perhaps he is just a hippie – these hippies are creating so much trouble. Now he is pretending to be Jesus Christ. What is he doing here?”He approached the young man, and the young man immediately said, “Don’t be misguided by your mind. I am not a hippie, I am Jesus Christ. You have been worshipping and you have been asking for me to come and now I have come. Last time, I had come to a very remote part of the world, uneducated. I thought this time, New York would be better.”The bishop could not figure out what to do. He said, “Wait a minute.” He phoned immediately to the Vatican, to the pope, saying, “I am in great trouble. A man whom I think is a hippie, but he looks exactly like Jesus Christ…and who knows? He may be. I need your guidance.”The pope said, “Jesus Christ? Do two things: inform the police and look busy!”It has not only happened in Greece, it has happened almost all over the world. Judea has not been able to create another man of the quality of Jesus, nor has Arabia been able to create another man of the quality of Al-Hillaj Mansoor…. Something similar, in different ways in different countries, has created a spiritual poverty.In India we have not crucified Gautam Buddha but we have been more sophisticated in destroying him, far more clever – and it is bound to be so because India is a far more ancient land than Greece. At least for ten thousand years India has been in existence.Gautam Buddha and Socrates were contemporaries, but before Socrates there is emptiness in Greece. There were sophists, but sophists are not seekers of truth. There is not a single figure who can be compared to Socrates. Greece reaches its youth with Socrates – and dies young with Socrates. Much more was possible.Gautam Buddha was not the first in the line but the last. Socrates was the first in the line. Gautam Buddha was not new to India – Krishna and Adinatha and Neminatha and Rama and Parasuram and Yagnavalkya…and the story goes back at least ten thousand years. A far more sophisticated country, naturally. It has killed Gautam Buddha not by poisoning him, but by far more subtle means.The Hindu scriptures say – and you can see it – that in India Gautam Buddha’s influence has completely disappeared. The whole of Asia became influenced by Gautam Buddha – faraway countries like Korea and Taiwan and China and Mongolia and Japan and Sri Lanka and Burma. The whole of Asia except India became Buddhist. What happened to India?Buddhism simply disappeared from India as if Buddha had never been born here. The Hindu priest is more cunning than the masses who crucified Jesus and the masses who decided to poison Socrates. The Hindu priest is far more ancient, far more cunning, far more clever; he knows that if you kill somebody, then there will remain sympathizers. Then there is a possibility that a religion may become consolidated just because the founder was killed.Christianity is not founded by Jesus but by the cross; hence I have always called it Crossianity. It has nothing to do with Jesus. If Jews had been a little more sophisticated, as Hindus were, they would have tolerated Jesus. He was not doing any harm. Even if he was saying that he is the only begotten son of God, what is the harm? Let him believe it. All that he needs is some psychiatric help. But crucifixion is not psychiatric help.Hindu priests have written that God created the world – he created heaven and hell – and he appointed the Devil to rule over hell, but millions of years passed and nobody entered hell because nobody was committing any sin. The Devil became tired. He reached God and he said, “I resign! What kind of job? Millions of years I am waiting…not a single soul has ever reached. You can appoint somebody else.”God said, “Don’t be worried. Go back. I will make arrangements so that people start entering into hell. I will be born as Gautam Buddha in India and I will corrupt people’s minds and they will start going astray from the authentic Hindu religion. Then don’t blame me. Hell will be overcrowded and you will have to control it.”Since then, the Devil is perfectly happy, his empire has been growing. All the Buddhists that have disappeared from India are in hell. And this was a strategy: Gautam Buddha was condemned by the Hindus exactly in the same terms, but in a very cunning way.Socrates was condemned by saying that he was corrupting the youth – and the same was the case about Gautam Buddha, but it was enough just to spread the idea: “He is a god so you can worship him. But remember, don’t get influenced by him, don’t follow him.”He is certainly a god – Hindus accept him as one of the reincarnations of God, but his reincarnation is to “corrupt people so that the Devil is satisfied.” Do you see the sophisticated way? They don’t deny Gautam Buddha’s godhood, but they deny his philosophy, his religion. They say it is all corruption, to make people go astray from virtue.It is a strange fact that Hindus have succeeded in destroying Gautam Buddha far more successfully than the Jews with Jesus, or the people who killed Socrates. They have all failed.A time came just three hundred years after Gautam Buddha’s death…Three hundred years afterwards, Alexander the Great from Greece came to India. His teacher was Aristotle, one of the disciples of Plato who was a disciple of Socrates. And he was surprised that Buddhism had almost disappeared. Buddhists were either killed or converted or forced to leave the country.Even in Bodhgaya – where Gautam Buddha became enlightened, and his followers have made a memorial temple – the priest is a brahmin because there was no Buddhist to be found, even to be the priest in the temple.I have been to the temple. I asked the priest, the present priest whose family had been there generation after generation. His family have become the owners of the land and the temple where Gautam Buddha meditated, became enlightened, where he used to walk. Every place is occupied by the brahmins, and it has been so for eighteen centuries. You could not even fight the case. And they are against Gautam Buddha. They don’t believe in his philosophy, but they worship Gautam Buddha because he is a Hindu god who helps the Devil to populate Hell. He is a god, but his philosophy is absolutely wrong and his religion is a corruption. Nobody in the world has killed a great philosophy like Gautam Buddha’s with such subtle and sophisticated means.It has happened all over the world that man has settled into a kind of mediocre, retarded state of mind. Now Gautam Buddhas don’t arise, now Socrates is no longer heard. But because of these people’s disappearance from the earth, we have become so poor, we have forgotten completely our innermost being. And this situation has helped the priests – which is the most corrupted, cunning profession in the world; it exploits people.Your question is very significant. You say that in the ancient temple of Delphi, only three admonitions were engraved on the original temple: Be, know yourself, keep the measure. God is not mentioned, heaven and hell are not mentioned, worship and prayer are not mentioned.In fact, within these three words the whole religion is complete. Other than these three words, all is non-essential rubbish which priests have been imposing. The garbage has gathered so much that the authentic is completely lost. Just a single word, be, is the whole of religion. The other two are explanations.You are – that much is certain. Being is certain – but who you are, for that you will have to go on an inner journey. Hence the second statement: Know thyself.And the third statement is of immense importance: Keep the measure. Unfortunately, nobody has been able to keep the measure. In fact it is very difficult for the so-called scholars to exactly understand the meaning. Why keep the measure? For what? A strange statement: Be, Know Thyself, Keep the Measure. You will have to look….You are and the world is. You have one universe of your inner being and you have another universe outside you. Keep the measure means: remember the introvert has lost the measure, has forgotten the balance; the extrovert has also got lost. The West has lost balance because it is only extrovert; it only thinks about objective truth – the reality that is available to science. And the East has lost the measure because it only thinks of its own inner world; the outside is condemned as illusory, maya. It does not exist, it only appears. Don’t be bothered with appearances.The East has decided for the inner and the West has decided for the outer. Both have forgotten what was engraved on Delphi’s temple: Keep the Measure – a tremendously meaningful statement.You are, but without knowing who you are, it does not have much meaning, significance. Understanding, awareness that you are – just knowing this much, that “I am” – is not enough. It is not much knowing. You have to go into your inner being to explore the vast blissfulness and the peace and the silence and your divineness, your godliness. But don’t get lost into the inner. The outer is also divine, the outer is also immensely useful.Science and religion…unless they are together, they are going to create some kind of poverty. The West is poor spiritually. It may have immense wealth and all kinds of technology and all kinds of comforts, but what is the use? The whole house is full of things but the master is completely lost.You don’t know who you are.And if you insist, “Who are you?” you will think that you are asking a significant question. Others will think, “You seem to be mad. I am a doctor. I am an engineer. I am a businessman…what more do you want to know about me? My family, my father’s name, my name – what else?”And certainly you are not your name; it is just a label – useful. You are not just your profession, you are not your job, and you are not your wealth. You are not your knowledge. Then who are you?In this simple statement, be, is hidden the whole art of meditation. It means just being silent without any thought, simply drowning into your own consciousness, deeper and deeper, until you reach to the very center. And it has to be your own experience, you cannot borrow it. Without knowing it, you will remain poor. You will have many things, but you will not have yourself.Knowing thyself is the only way to experience the meaning and significance of existence.Now there are contemporary philosophers in the West, existentialists, who insist that there is no meaning, no significance; man is just accidental, it has no essence. These people are very influential today. In fact that is the only contemporary school of philosophers in the West. They represent the genius of the whole West. Their conclusion can only be suicide. If life has no meaning, if life is an accident, then why suffer? Why be miserable? Why be old and why be sick and why go into unnecessary anxieties, wishes, angst? There is no point.According to existentialism, you are not needed, you are unnecessarily forcing yourself. You are just like mushrooms, grown up existentially, accidentally, because a cloud rained; otherwise you are not needed. You are not serving any purpose. Existence is perfectly happy without you. The stars will not miss you. Do you think they will miss you? Do you think they will miss if Niskriya is not sitting there like a Chinaman? – that without him everything will be disturbed?No, existentialists say everything will continue to be as it is. You will not be missed, because you are unnecessary.One wonders that people like Jean-Paul Sartre and Jaspers and Heidegger…why don’t these people commit suicide? Perhaps the only reason is that there is no meaning in committing suicide either. So drag on, and wherever you go, in whichever direction you go, you will reach the grave, so what is the hurry? Why dig your own grave? Somebody else will dig it.The West has lost all contact with the inner being and the East is poor, hungry, starving, because it has lost…Remember the third statement engraved in the temple of Delphi: Keep the Measure. Remain balanced. The outer and the inner should be like two wings: with one wing you cannot fly like an eagle into the sky; you need both the wings.Science alone is going to lead humanity to suicide, and religion alone is going to lead humanity to the same goal – suicide, starvation.Just by the end of this century, in this country alone five hundred million people are going to die because there is not going to be any food. Already half of the country is starved, undernourished. We have just seen in Ethiopia, one thousand people dying per day, and now there is another famine – and this is going to be a bigger famine than the last one. Perhaps two thousand, three thousand people will die every day. This is forgetting the immense, the significant balance: Keep the Measure.These three words are enough.You are asking, “Osho…These may include meditation, self-awareness, et cetera, but no God. How then could they constitute a whole religion?”God is not a necessity of any religion; God is a necessity of priesthood. God has nothing to do with religion. Buddhism has no God, Jainism has no God; there are religions already which have no God.I don’t see any point. If you are truthful, sincere, meditative, alert, and you know yourself – if you know the beauty of your being, the immortality of your soul, the eternity of your existence, God never comes in the way. Nobody has met God ever.In those three precepts, Be, Know Thyself, Keep the Measure, God is not mentioned because God is not needed at all. It is an unnecessary hypothesis – not only unnecessary, but harmful. In the name of God, so much cruelty, so much violence, so many crusades: Mohammedans destroying Christians, Christians destroying Jews, Mohammedans destroying Hindus, Hindus destroying Buddhists. And the reason? The reason is that their hypothesis of God is different.This is sheer stupidity – to fight for a hypothesis. And for centuries, millions of people have been burned alive, just because their hypothesis of God was different. Such strange behavior has been shown by the priesthood of all religions of the world and everything becomes possible in the name of God.Just a few days ago, the Vatican pope gave a declaration to all the Catholics of the world: “You cannot confess directly to God.” Strange. You have to confess via the right channel, otherwise the priesthood will be finished. If you start confessing directly to God, then what are thousands of bishops and cardinals and priests going to do? Their whole business is to be mediators between you and nobody.In India there is a place, Surat, where there is a local, small religion, but of very rich people. Their high priest takes the money whenever somebody dies and writes a note in the name of God saying, “This money will be delivered to you when you reach paradise.” The man dies and the written note is put in the pocket of the dead man, so when he reaches he can cash the money.I used to stay in Surat in the house of a friend who belongs to that religion….I said, “You must be utterly stupid. All that money is going to your high priest’s pocket.”He said, “No, this is not possible.”I said, “Then let us go to your cemetery. We will have to open a grave and let us see whether the card is there, the man is there, or they have reached heaven.”He was hesitant. He said, “But this is very irreligious.”I said, “I don’t belong to your religion. You stand aside, I will dig!”So I pulled out a freshly buried man and took out the note. He had given three hundred thousand rupees to the high priest. I said, “Look. The card is there, the man is there, and in all these graves – whichever grave you want I can dig.”He said, “No, don’t dig. Just get out from here. If somebody finds out there will be trouble. Somehow push this man inside the grave and put the card into his pocket. It is none of our business.”But I said, “Everywhere this is being done…”Why is the pope insisting…concluding that it is a sin to confess directly to God? It is a strong statement. You have to confess to the priest and the priest will manage for God’s compassion and he will give you some punishment – and punishment means a few dollars!I have heard…A bishop and a rabbi were great friends. They had decided to go to the golf course, so the bishop was finishing his business quickly. But there was a long line of confessors. The rabbi was waiting outside in the car. Finally he came into the cabin. The cabin is divided with a small window: on one side stands the confessor, on the other side sits the priest.The rabbi said, “We are getting late.”The priest said, “I am doing the business as quickly as possible, but people go on and on. When they confess they don’t confess in a summary way: long stories…It seems as if they enjoy it. They say in detail, ‘I have done a rape. This happened and that happened….’ It is a simple thing: you have committed a rape, put ten dollars in the box and get out!”The rabbi said, “You get ready. I don’t know, because in my religion this kind of thing does not happen, but nobody knows who is sitting on the other side. You get ready and I will finish the business.”But a rabbi is a rabbi. Another man came and he said, “Father, excuse me. Again I have committed a rape.”The rabbi said, “Just put twenty dollars in the charity box.”The man said, “But this is too much. Last time it was only ten dollars. Have the rates gone up?”The rabbi said, “No, the rates are the same – ten dollars in advance. You can commit one rape more!”Without the priest, who is going to collect these dollars? And where do these dollars go? The pope goes around the world at least three times a year, doing a very stupid thing which he can do in the Vatican as many times as he wants – kissing the earth. He can do it every day – what is the point of going to Australia, coming to India? Perhaps the taste may be a little different, but how much money is wasted? Each tour costs eight million dollars. Even when Queen Elizabeth went to Australia, it cost only three million dollars. When the pope went it cost eight million dollars – and they are all coming out of your pockets.God is not getting anything! God is the creation of the priests to exploit you. God has nothing to do with religion. And the inscription on the temple of Delphi, is absolute in those three points. The religion is complete. All else is commentary.Be authentic and true and sincere and yourself – not somebody else, not a personality but an individuality; not having a mask but your original face. Be, and Know Thyself. Look into your own inner world, of what it consists. It consists of eternity, it consists of blissfulness, it consists of ecstasy. It makes you the richest person in the world. It consists of intelligence, purity, love, compassion – all that is great. But it will not help to make you rich on the outside. It will not create a marble palace because you know yourself. That is the meaning of Keep the Measure.And there is no conflict, no contradiction. You can be meditative and you can be creative. In fact you can be more creative if you are meditative. You can create much more on the outside if your own roots have gone deeper in your being.In these three words the whole religion is complete. But the people who have reached these heights, these riches, created antagonism in the mediocre minds.Socrates was asked by the judge who pronounced his death sentence by poison – he must have been a man of some compassion and some intelligence – he said, “Socrates, I am helpless, because the majority of the people of Athens want you to be killed. But I can suggest to you a few alternatives: you can leave Athens” – because in those days Greece was not one country, but every city was a state. So Athens was a state in itself, and once you crossed the boundary of Athens, the constitution of Athens or the law of Athens became invalid.So the judge said, “I can manage. You simply get out of Athens. There is no need…I don’t see the point in unnecessarily destroying yourself.”Socrates said, “Death is going to come anyway, and moreover I have lived in Athens my whole life. This is the most civilized state in the whole of Greece. If this civilized state cannot tolerate me, who is going to tolerate me? In this old age, again to start my academy or my school somewhere else…and the result, I know, is going to be the same. It is better at least to be poisoned by the most civilized part of the country.”The judge said, “I have another alternative: you stop speaking – because they are against you for the single reason that by speaking you corrupt people, you destroy their conditionings. You stop speaking, be silent. In old age it is good.”Socrates said, “Just because of fear I should be silent? No. You don’t understand me. Without speaking the truth, what is the point for me to live? If I have to live, I have to speak the truth. Don’t unnecessarily be worried. If the majority decides to give me poison, perhaps this is the way existence wants to take me back.”A man of tremendous courage…but with him, Greece lost something very essential: the urge to seek the truth. In fact, unconsciously people must have become afraid even to mention the word truth. If it leads to death, it is better not to bother about it and never to question the superstitions of the people. Just remain silently one with the crowd; it is safer, more secure.And the moment any community of human beings loses the urge to search and to seek the truth, in a certain way, it dies. It vegetates, but it does not live. It loses dignity.I have been to Greece and I have never been outside my house. Amrito, who was my host, is sitting just in front of me. She had found a very beautiful palace on a small island just by the sea. Sannyasins from all over Europe had gathered. We had nothing to do with Greece or its politics; we were meditating, we were enjoying, we were dancing, and I never left the house in fifteen days.And I was to be there only for four weeks, but the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox church started sending telegrams to the prime minister, to the president, to the newspapers – statements that I am corrupting people’s minds. I had not even gone out of my house….Finally, he threatened that if I was not thrown out of Greece immediately, he was going to dynamite the palace where I was staying with my friends. These are the people who teach “God is love.” He was ready to kill people, to burn people alive who have done no harm to anybody. And the reason? – that my stay in Greece is going to corrupt the youth, the same old reasons that were put against Socrates.I could not believe it: how can I corrupt the morality and destroy the religion just in fifteen days? They have created the morality in two thousand years, and if the morality and the religion which has been created in two thousand years can be destroyed by a tourist in four weeks, it is worth destroying!I was arrested. They did not have any arrest warrant; just the prime minister became afraid that my stay may rock his boat. On the airplane the police officer came to see my passport and he stamped on my passport “deported.” I asked him, “Do you understand law? Are you aware that you are putting a seal of deportation on a man’s passport who has not committed any crime?”I took his pen and just crossed out his stamp that he had put on my passport. He said, “What are you doing?”I said, “I am not deported. I am simply leaving – and you sign here!” He became so afraid…. I said, “If you don’t sign, then tomorrow in the court you will have to sign. Otherwise, tell me what crime I have committed and give the evidence.”My passport has become a historical thing! He signed immediately out of fear and stamped again that I was simply leaving Greece, not deported.At the international airport of Athens there were forty police officers with the chief of the police and all the high police officers – as if I were a terrorist! News media people were present and they wanted to ask me a few questions. I was answering them and I told them that these police officers are the same people, it seems, who must have poisoned Socrates, because the same is the reason. But for me it is too early…At least Socrates had lived his whole life, a long life. He was not a tourist. I was going myself in two weeks. And these people have no arrest warrant; just they had loaded guns against a person who had not even a paper knife.The chief of the police came out of the crowd to interfere, and I said to him, “I don’t like anybody interfering with me. Just get back to your place and keep your mouth shut, because these people are not taking your interview; they are taking my interview!”And I was amazed…. He is the chief of the police, and he simply went like a dog, tail between the legs, back into his place! I could not believe it; I was thinking that he would argue – and I wanted him to argue because the whole news media was there, television from all over the world. Perhaps he was afraid that if he said anything…”This man seems to be strange! Nobody tells a police officer to ‘Shut up and get back to your place,’ so it is better to get behind the crowd.”I asked the men who had arrested me, “Can I stay the night in a hotel in Athens? It is late, twelve o’clock in the night. My plane is standing here; in the morning I will leave.”They said, “No. We cannot allow you to stay even a few minutes. You have to leave immediately. That is the order from the prime minister” – just out of fear of an old idiot, the archbishop, who had been protesting from the very first day I entered Greece.The archbishop had been threatening that “I will bring a protest,” but he never did it, so I inquired, “Amrito, find out what is the matter. I am waiting for the protest and it never comes.”Amrito said, “He will never come, because nobody goes to his church except six old ladies, so he will look like an idiot leading a procession of protest of six old or almost dead ladies. He will only threaten. Who is going to carry out the threat that he will dynamite the house – those old ladies?”Amrito and my other sannyasins and the intelligentsia of Greece, Nobel Prize winning people, are all protesting that this treatment of me has been absolutely illegal, unconstitutional. Their fight continues. And I have told Amrito, “Whenever you can manage, now this time I am going to come and I am going to invite all the sannyasins from all the European countries. Then we will have a protest and procession against this old idiot, and then we will see what he can do.”But it is strange…. When I was arrested I was asleep. My secretary, Anando, was standing outside on the porch. She said to the police officers, “You sit and we will wake him up. Let him at least change his clothes and then you can do whatever you want.”They said, “We cannot wait.”As I was awakened, I heard they started throwing stones against glass windows, doors. I had no idea what was happening. I simply thought perhaps the archbishop had come with his old ladies – I missed the scene it seems – dynamite was exploding. But it was just the police officers who were doing it – and they had dynamite too!They have not answered the protest which was done on my behalf by the Greek intelligentsia. The politicians have nothing to say; they are simply silent.Sitting here, I am fighting in twenty-five countries – wherever my people are – either in the courts or in protests or in parliaments. Perhaps it has never happened: a man who is sitting here, who never goes out of his house, who never enters even into this city…But love has its own ways and love has its own weapons. Even though Socrates has been dead for twenty-five centuries, his fight continues. I am part of that fight. It is the same fight, with the same people; just the bodies have changed and nothing else.Now you have to become also part of this fight. Nothing illegal and unconstitutional should be perpetuated in any country which calls itself democratic, but listens to the threats of religious priests. If the country was really democratic, just because of his threat the archbishop should have been arrested. He has been committing a crime, or at least threatening to commit it.Rather than punishing him, I have been punished. But I have been punished in so many countries that now I have started almost enjoying it!It has been too Greek and too serious. For the change…Paddy, Sean and Mick are going for a drink one day when just before they enter the bar a man comes flying out of the door and falls down the steps in front of them.“My God,” cries the man, “the bartender there is almost crazy. Whatever you do, don’t mention his ears!”The boys are curious, so they go inside taking a cautious look at the bartender, on their way to a table. The bartender is a mean looking character, with a completely shaved head and no ears – just two holes in the sides of his head.Mick goes up to the bar first and not being able to look the man in the eye says, “Gee, I love your red velvet pants. Where did you get them?” The bartender lifts a huge fist and knocks Mick to the floor.Sean tries next, and feeling uncomfortable looks down at the floor and says, “I like your shoes. Where did you get them?” The man lifts his huge fists and knocks Sean to the floor.So Paddy strides up to the bar, looks the man straight in the eye and says, “You wear contact lenses, don’t you?”The bartender takes Paddy’s hand and shakes it vigorously, “Thank you,” he says. “You are the first person all day who has had the guts to look in me in the eye and treat me as a human being. And yes, I do wear contact lenses. But how did you know?”“Simple,” says Paddy. “You could not wear glasses because you have no ears!”Old man Finkelstein is determined not to grow old and senile. He hears about a clinic in Switzerland that claims to be able to make you younger. So he packs his bags and leaves on the next plane. At the clinic he is given hormonal injections, blood transfusions, animal implants and everything else that the medical profession can devise.On his last day at the clinic, the doctor visits him. “Well, Mr. Finkelstein, that’s the end of the treatment,” he explains. “No more painful injections, no more operations. However, we have to do one or two more tests, so you won’t be able to go home tomorrow, you will have to stay one more day.” At this old Finkelstein breaks down and begins to cry.“What is wrong?” asks the doctor. “Are you in pain?”“No,” sobs old Fink, “but what will Mummy say if I am late back to school?”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 14 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I am standing before a door on which is written: Mysteries of Existence. I open it and find myself at your feet. Looking deep into your eyes, I see that suddenly the door is there again. I open it and once more, I am here at your feet.Osho, how do you manage to be both the door and the mystery on either side?The feet of the master are only symbolic.What is real is your deep gratitude. What is real is your loving surrender. What is real is dissolving your personality and your ego.If your trust is total, indubitable, then the feet of the master can become the door because gratitude is the door, and trust is the door, and love is the door.The same is true about eyes; there is no mystery, but with the eyes there is a little difficulty. With the feet you are not in contact with another being. Nobody is there when you look into the eyes of your master. The danger is you may see yourself reflected in the mirror of his eyes. The danger is that the revolution that can happen through the feet will be more complicated if it happens through the eyes.The eyes are certainly capable of becoming doors to the divine but you have to remember that everything has to happen within you. To tell the truth the master does nothing! He is simply there, available, opening many doors – whichever is your choice. His eyes can become doors, his feet can become doors – just his remembrance can become a door. The love that you feel – and the master may be thousands of miles away, the love can become the door.The whole alchemy of transformation depends on you.Are you ready to be transformed?Then even a single gesture of the master indicates the truth. Then his eyes or his feet – all are doors to the divine.The day Gautam Buddha died, he insistently told his disciples, “Don’t make statues of me. Avoid making temples for me because they can be deceptive. Your remembrance is enough; it is the authentic temple. Your surrender and your love and your dissolving yourself into the master’s being – nothing else is needed.”But people are people…. When Gautam Buddha died they started worshipping the tree, the bodhi tree. Its name became bodhi tree because that is the tree where Buddha became enlightened. With gratitude and love and the flowers of their hearts, they found that it was as if the one who had left the body was still sitting under the tree.But life has its own way…. Soon they started making temples. In the first temples there was only a carved tree in marble, no statue of Buddha. But the decline started, and it was not far away that soon the tree was replaced by the statues of Buddha. The world is so strange that the man who has died with his last wish that his statues should not be made, has the greatest number of statues in the world. There are millions of temples in China…particularly one temple which has ten thousand statues of Buddha. These are dead flowers. The fragrance does not arise any more. You can call them art, but they are not the fulfillment of the master’s final statement.And he was right that “within five hundred years my religion will disappear.” It was exactly after five hundred years…his temples, statues, priests and rituals surrounded the whole of the East. But the trust disappeared, the love disappeared, the sensitivity and gratitude disappeared.You can have thousands of statues – it can be a good collection of pieces of art, but it is not religion. The statue has no heart and you cannot commune with the statue the way you had communed even with the feet of Buddha. Life was flowing in its most beautiful and highest consciousness.The West has never understood why in the East disciples touched the feet of the master. They don’t understand a simple thing, because it has not happened there – something invisible, non-objective. When the disciple, with total love and humbleness, dissolves himself in touching the feet of the master, the energy that is flowing, the energy that has come to its purest form, thrills the disciple. And remember, energy always flows downwards, energy never flows upwards.If the master touches the head of the disciple, that is immensely important, but very esoteric because that creates a circle of energy: from his hands the energy is flowing into the disciple, from his feet the energy is flowing into the disciple. The disciple is almost flooded with the master’s being, his ecstasy.The West has missed a tremendously significant experience. In the West to touch somebody’s feet looks humiliating, disrespectful. In the East if the master moves his feet and does not allow you to touch his feet that means you are not prepared, you are not open; the energy cannot move in you. And the master, encompassing the disciple from both ends, turns the wheel of his life to new dimensions.So it does not matter whether it is the feet or the eyes, or just the remembrance or just the heart throbbing with love and gratitude.The door will open – there is no mystery. It is a simple arithmetic – but not the arithmetic that is being taught to you. It is the arithmetic of the spiritual world, and those who have not tasted the feeling, the fragrance of it are certainly very poor.Little Ernie is taken to the dentist’s office for a checkup. “It is okay, Doc,” says Ernie. “You can take off the mask, I have already recognized you.”The master has no mask but certainly your recognition is needed. When and where, in what situation the recognition penetrates your heart like a ray of light, depends on your intensity of search. Finally, the day you recognize yourself, you will find that you and the master and the universe are all one. There is nobody to surrender to, there is nobody to fight against. And then descends the ultimate peace that transcends all understanding – but it does not transcend experiencing.Don’t be analytical. The seeker on the path has to be open, available, non-analytical, non-rational; not arguing with the reality, but just taking it as it comes, tasting it and its fragrance.You are immortals, you just don’t know it. The whole universe is yours but you are like small children collecting colored stones on the sea beach. The whole mysterious world is not far away. You need not move a single step towards it; it comes to you if you are ready. Just remember, “Am I ready…ready to open? Indefensible?” Are you ready to allow the fresh breeze of life to pass through you?The seers of the Upanishads have made the most significant statements. One of their statements addresses you as amritasya putrah: “Oh! Sons of immortality.” Certainly, your body is not addressed, nor is your mind addressed, but you are much more. The body and the mind are both useful instruments, but don’t make a cage of them and don’t be present in them, and you will know how much blissfulness is possible, how much aliveness is your inheritance. You inherit the whole universe with all its beauty.The master is only an excuse to show you the path and an example to show that what has happened to him can happen to you – you need not go in doubt and hesitation. Every man and woman has the seed of being divine. Those who have realized it, out of sheer compassion, they go on whether you listen to them or not; they go on trying their best somehow to reach you.The story is that when Gautam Buddha died and he reached the gates of paradise there was great celebration, because only once in a while the gate opens, once in a while a man achieves his total potential. But Buddha refused to enter the door…. It is a parable; don’t think it is a historical thing. But sometimes parables carry more truth than history. Buddha refused on the grounds, “How can I enter paradise when millions of people are groping in the dark and searching in the dark? I will wait until the last human being has entered paradise.” The Buddhists think he is still waiting.Whether he is waiting or not, one thing I know for certain is that existence is waiting and you are postponing for stupid mundane things, things which do not matter, which are simply junk and are delaying the time of your flowering. The spring comes and goes and you remain without flowers. A master is a spring.When the master knocks at your door, then drop everything because nothing is more important than to know yourself, to be yourself and experience the great beautitude and the ecstasy that is your birthright.Two Israeli spies caught in Cairo are put up against the wall, and the firing squad marches in. The Egyptian captain asks the first spy, “Do you have a last wish?”“A cigarette,” he replies.The captain gives him a cigarette, lights it up and asks the second spy, “Do you have a last request?”Without a word the second spy spits in the captain’s face.“Harry,” cries the first spy, “please, don’t make trouble.”What more trouble…? They are going to be shot dead. What more trouble can you cause? And asking for a cigarette as the last thing, shows our minds. Just think that if God appears before you and asks you, “What do you want?” What are you going to ask for? A beautiful car? A palatial house? A beautiful woman? Then you will see with what kind of rubbish your mind is filled.I don’t think anyone is going to say, “I want to meditate…I want to realize myself.” These things can be postponed – what is the hurry? Right now, a cigarette is needed, and anyway self-realization will not provide cigarettes, palaces…! You don’t know what self-realization will provide. The very idea of self-realization does not arise because you take it for granted that you know yourself.Socrates was right when he said, “Know thyself.” There is no more important thing in life to do. Don’t waste your whole life in things which you will laugh about later on: how much you wasted, how much ecstasy was possible…and you were smoking cigars, running after women – or vice versa in the case of Niskriya!Now, the fellow understands that women are approaching him to say, “Don’t be worried boy, we are here to take care of you.” The Chinaman cap that he was wearing has been presented to him by a woman whom he has fancied for years. And she came herself, seeing the situation that Niskriya had become a hero in a single day. Before any other woman catches hold of him, the woman that he has been fancying for years approached, herself.Now he is in trouble; he cannot do his work. He is a man of a very one-dimensional, scientific attitude; he does not look here and there. Now all these women are going to disturb him. His real love affair is photography. Now he is praying to me, “Save me. I am perfectly happy alone” – but it is too late.You go on doing things repetitively in your life – the same things, without ever bothering about the real mysteries, the real meanings, the real significance of your being. The day you become interested in your being, meditation blossoms automatically.And if by chance you come across a man whose eyes become doors to a world beyond, touch his feet and you will be filled with a strange energy and vibration which is a music, a harmony, a synchronicity with existence.The master is only an example of what you can also be.Two tramps are lying on adjacent benches. One of them is reading an old newspaper: “It says here in a health report that you can exercise over one hundred muscles when you laugh.”“That’s typical,” replies his friend, “those health nuts take the fun out of everything.”…Now even laughter becomes an exercise!Milarepa, you have the capacity of love, of trust, of creativity. You are showered with all the blessings that are possible. Don’t miss this opportunity. Touching the feet of a master is simply a gesture that “I am ready,” that “from my side there will be no obstruction,” that “I withdraw all defense strategies.” The master won’t have to do anything. By becoming open, dropping all defense strategies, the door has opened. The master was just a remembrance of your own future.The master has never existed in this sense in the West. Teachers have existed, but a master is not a teacher. A teacher teaches you doctrines, theologies, philosophies; a master simply opens the door of your innocence, of your simplicity, of your ultimate awakening.The master is not a teacher. The master is simply a remembrance that, “My God, what am I doing? Here is a man surrounded with an aura of beauty and truth; it is not a time to miss. This man reminds me that I can also be in such glory, in such cosmic blissfulness.”A hotel manager is giving some advice to his staff about how to cope with embarrassing circumstances.“Suppose one of you enters a room,” he explains, “and finds a lady in a state of undress. Anything you do or say could make matters worse, but there is a simple way out. Just pretend you are shortsighted and say something like, ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir, I’ll come back in a minute.’ That will save her from embarrassment.”The next morning a young waiter is on duty taking breakfast up to a room. He knocks on the bedroom door and receiving no answer, walks in. There on the bed, a naked couple are indulging in an energetic bout of lovemaking. Suddenly, they sense the waiter’s presence and there is a ghastly silence until the waiter remembers the lecture of the day before. With complete confidence he asks, “Would either of you gentlemen like breakfast?”Whatever I say to you, don’t interpret it, because every interpretation is misinterpretation. Whatever I say, simply absorb it. Let it become part of your being, and you will never be in such an embarrassing situation.Dr. Bones and Dr. Skinner are out duck hunting early one morning while it is still dark. They hear an owl in the tree above them snoring.“I’m such a great surgeon,” brags Bones, “that I can go up there and take out that owl’s tonsils without even waking him up.”Ten minutes later, Bones climbs down the tree and holds up two tiny tonsils.“That’s nothing,” says Skinner, “I’m so nimble with my hands, I’ll climb up there and remove the owl’s testicles without him feeling a thing!”Sure enough, a few minutes later, Dr. Skinner returns with a pair of tiny balls.Months later, the owl flies over the same tree with a friend.“Hey!” says the friend. “It is bedtime, let us sleep in that tree tonight.”“No thanks,” replies the owl, “I slept there a few months ago and ever since I have not been able to fuck worth a hoot or hoot worth a fuck.”You have to use very subtle surgery in removing your ego, in removing your idea that you are separate from existence. It is perhaps the most subtle thing in the world to be able to touch the feet of the master and not feel for a single moment that you are doing something against your being, that you are losing your dignity – but on the contrary to feel that for the first time you have felt the energy which makes you dignified, luminous, and to see that those feet don’t belong to any individual. Those feet are simply a device for you to drop your ego, the idea of speciality, the idea of being somebody, to just be simple and innocent.The East has earned much by a simple device of the disciple touching the feet of the master. And when the master feels that the disciple’s act is authentic and sincere, he puts his hand over his head and the disciple is flooded with the same energy that is overflowing the master. It is a strange transfer – invisible, but experienceable.I am reminded of Mahakashyapa, perhaps Gautam Buddha’s most innocent and most pure disciple….He was told by Gautam Buddha, “You are enlightened. You have everything that I have. Now, go and spread the word.”Mahakashyapa said, “If I had been alert, I would not have become enlightened. To be close to you, to be able to touch your feet every day and be flooded with your love, your compassion was enough for me. If there is a way to become unenlightened, I would rather become unenlightened.”Buddha said, “That is difficult. You cannot go backwards.”He said, “But what will I do? Each morning when I touch your feet, my joy, my blessing, my ecstasy reaches to the highest point. And when you touch my head, it feels as if a shower of roses is falling over me. I will miss it very much.”Buddha said, “You will not miss. Just do one thing: remember in whichever direction I am, bow down to the earth and touch the feet – and the same thing will continue to happen.”He was so innocent, he trusted and went away. Every morning the first thing he would do was to find out where Buddha was and in that direction – and perhaps that direction was not right, perhaps Buddha was not there, but in his heart, in his trust, he would touch the feet. Tears of joy would flow from his eyes and he would feel a hand on his head. That was an absolute guarantee that he was in the right direction. And the same flowers, with even more fragrance would start showering like rain around him.People told him, “Mahakashyapa, you have been declared enlightened by Gautam Buddha and you crawl…? Enlightened people don’t crawl! What is this nonsense? There is nobody and you are touching the feet with such grace. And when you get up, you are almost a different man, so luminous…”He said, “Distance makes no difference. Love knows no time and no difference of space. It is something that happens within you; the outer is only a device. And as far as tears are concerned, they are not the tears of pain or anguish, they are tears of joy, of utter celebration that he has not forgotten. And I feel his hand on my head. That gives me the guarantee that the direction is right.”When he came back to Gautam Buddha, he asked, but Gautam Buddha laughed. He said, “You are so innocent, Mahakashyapa. Everything was happening within you; even that hand was your own. And I know it was impossible for you to find exactly where I am, in which direction, from hundreds of miles away. But because you trusted, the miracle happened.”The greatest miracle in the world is trust. But remember, I am not saying belief. Dictionaries go on confusing people. If you ask dictionaries what trust is, they will say that it is belief, it is faith. It is neither. Belief is always with a doubt hidden behind it. Faith is blind, not your own experience. But trust is your own experience. Once you have tasted the sweetness of trust, you don’t need any religion and you don’t need any prayer.I have told you many times, but this story is so beautiful that I love to tell it….Before the Russian revolution – Russia has one of the most orthodox Christian churches…. Christianity is such a childish religion that they call someone a saint not in the same way as we in the East call a certain person a sant. Although people who are concerned only with words and translations think sant and saint are the same, they are not. The Eastern word sant means one who has realized sat, the truth. It is his own realization.And the Western concept of saint is one who has been certified by the church. It comes from the word sanctus; he has been sanctified, certified that he is a saint.But in this beautiful story of Leo Tolstoy…The archbishop of Russia became very much concerned because people were going more and more to visit three saints. And there were so many rumors and talk about the three saints who lived on a small island in a vast lake. He wondered, “I have not certified them; how can they become saints?” But seeing that thousands of people are going to touch their feet…Finally, he decided something had to be done, otherwise these three persons would destroy the whole religious hierarchy. Things have to be done in a certain way – Christianity has created hierarchy, bureaucracy.In the East, one cannot conceive that a sant needs anybody’s certificate; his own experience is enough. In the East, one cannot believe that even the pope, the representative of Jesus Christ and God, is elected. Is this politics or religion? We have never elected anybody as Gautam Buddha; we have never elected anybody as Krishna…. When a person has the experience, the very authority that his experience gives him – he is recognized, has to be recognized, and he is not bothered about whether you recognize him or not. But how can you keep your eyes closed…how long when the sun has risen?Finally, the archbishop took a motorboat and went to the island to see what was happening.It was early morning, and seeing those three poor people he said, “My God! These idiots…who has made them saints?”He went there with great authority. Seeing that the archbishop himself had come, all the three touched his feet. He was very satisfied. He said, “Who has made you saints?”They said, “We are poor people. Nobody has made us saints – and we are not. We just live here under this tree and we don’t know what happened, how the rumor went around and why thousands of people come. And how can we convince them that we are not saints? We are not very educated.“In the beginning we used to try to say that we are not saints – that brought the opposite result. People thought, ‘They are so humble; they say they are not saints…They must be. No ego…’ So we dropped it. We said, whatsoever is happening, let it happen. You can help us. Just tell people that we are not saints, but poor men. Tell them not to come here, because they unnecessarily disturb us the whole day.”The archbishop was very grateful and felt that it had been a good act to come, but that he should have come earlier because they had become famous nationwide. He asked them, “Do you pray every day?”They looked at each other. They said, “Yes.”“What is your prayer? Do you know the Christian authorized prayer?” he asked.They said, “We are uneducated. We don’t know any authorized prayer.”“Then what kind of prayer do you do every day?”They nudged each other saying, “You say.”The archbishop said, “Say it.”They said, “It is a little embarrassing because we have made it ourselves. And it is a very simple prayer. Please don’t laugh, and don’t tell anybody. Knowing that God is three – God, the holy ghost and the son – and we are also three, we thought we could make a prayer…. So we put our minds together and made a prayer: God, you are three, we are also three, have mercy on us. This is our prayer.”The archbishop, in spite of himself, could not resist laughing, “This kind of thing you think is prayer? Stop all this nonsense. I will teach you the authorized prayer.”But the authorized prayer was long. When he was finished, one of them said, “That long prayer, we cannot remember. You have to repeat it. We will try our best. At least you have to repeat it two times more, because we are three and you have to repeat the prayer at least three times. Perhaps we may remember it.”He repeated the prayer three times. They touched his feet; he blessed them and went away in his motorboat, feeling very happy. Just in the middle of the lake he saw a miracle. All those three poor people were coming running on the water.He could not believe his eyes. He had not even deeply believed that Jesus had walked on water – and these fools, they are running on water! He stopped the boat and they said, “Forgive us. We have forgotten. The authorized prayer is too long. Can you repeat it one time more?”The archbishop must have been a man of intelligence. He said, “No need to repeat. Your prayer is right. You continue your prayer. I have been praying that authorized prayer my whole life. I cannot walk on water, and you are doing the miracle.”They said, “This is not a miracle. This is our usual practice. We are poor people, we don’t have boats, and our trust in God is absolute. He is three; we are three; have mercy on us – and he has never failed us. He has always been merciful to us.”Trust opens the door to the uneducated, uncultured. It is not a question of knowledgeability, scholarship. It is not a question of being elected a pope. It is hilarious that God’s representative should be elected by human beings. It is sheer politics. If God wants his representative, he should nominate him, but he seems to be so utterly lazy that after six days of creation…What he has been doing nobody knows! He even had to send the holy ghost to make poor Mary pregnant – even that much trouble he would not take.The East understands one thing: truth is your own experience and it comes from your trust. And when it comes, it comes with an authority not derived from any scripture or any representative of God. It is intrinsic in the experience itself.I only teach you trust, love, compassion, and a way to your inner being – meditation. And whoever you are, whichever religion you have unfortunately been born into, whichever race…it doesn’t matter. The color of your skin…I don’t know exactly now how much it will cost, but twenty years ago, it took nearly one rupee’s worth of color to make a man a Negro. But remember one thing: the Negro is richer than you are. His skin is far richer than the white skin!We have created all kinds of discriminations and all kinds of theologies, man-made, mind-manufactured. They are not going to help. You have to be very simple, and your religion has to be very simple.Trust life, love life….Rejoice life, and existence will take care of you.Existence really takes care – I can forget and my watch…At the exact moment it reminds me! Just look at your watch….

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 15 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I remember you saying, “Don't surrender to a person, surrender to love.”I'm in a relationship with a beautiful and powerful woman and we both definitely don't want to surrender to each other. What does it mean to surrender to love while being in relationship? I'm quite in a mess.Prem Avida, I can understand; you are really in a mess and there is no way out.I have heard that there are three rings of love: the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffer-ring.Your question makes it clear that you have not understood what I mean when I say, “Don’t surrender to a person, surrender to love.” And love is never a relationship; this is your problem. Relationship is bound to be a bondage. In relationship either you have to surrender or the other has to surrender.And you yourself are recognizing that you are in relationship with a beautiful and powerful woman,…and we both definitely don’t want to surrender to each other.Then just live in coexistence. Live the way all poor husbands are living. Show to the world that your wife is so surrendered to you…who is preventing? You just have to tell a lie and there is no mess – and surrender to the powerful and beautiful woman. But remember, the moment a man surrenders to a woman he loses dignity in her eyes. She starts looking here and there for someone who has the guts not to surrender.You don’t seem to have guts. There is no need to surrender to each other. Surrender to love means: enjoy in the happiness of the other, rejoice in the being of the other; be in tune with each other, dance in harmony.The question of surrender is political, it is not a question of love. And relationship is not love at all; it means love has ended and relationship has begun. It begins very soon after the honeymoon – mostly in the middle of the honeymoon. It is not easy to live with another person whose life-style is different, whose likings are different, whose education and culture is different, and above all the other happens to be a woman – even their biology is different.But one thing you have to understand clearly is that it is the man who longs for domination, and it is the woman who dominates. This is what I call coexistence: live and let live. More than that is all imagination. If you really had known what love is…The basic thing is not to create a relationship. Stand aloof as the pillars of a temple stand aloof, but support the same roof. Don’t destroy the individuality of the other, enhance it if you can; otherwise, at least leave it as it is, uninterfered with.Freedom is not to be destroyed in the name of love.Freedom is a far higher value than your so-called love.The moment you create a relationship you are entering into a contract, a business deal. Love disappears, it becomes law. Now you are not very far away from the divorce court. Unless you are a person who loves to be dominated, who likes to be henpecked – then you have got a perfect woman. Then don’t make any fuss, simply surrender, declare, “I am a henpecked husband. I am your poor servant; you are my master. You order and I will follow.”Actually that is what is happening all over the world but nobody says it. There are many things which are not asserted in the society.A small child was asked by the teacher, “Can you name an animal which changes color?”The small boy stood up and said, “What colors do you mean? I have not only known, but I live with such an animal who even changes his whole being.”Even the teacher could not understand. She said, “What is that animal?”He said, “He is my dad. When he goes out he is a lion – just look at his chest and his mustache – and when he comes back to the house he is just a rat!”It has a long history which persists in humanity’s unconscious. The man is always afraid of a few things. Somebody may disturb their relationship, he wants to make a prison cell for his wife, but it doesn’t matter. Even in that prison there are people: the chauffeur…You cannot make it a hundred percent foolproof, because then even you cannot enter into it.The fear, the jealousy that your object of love – and remember when I use the word object, I use it very emphatically. Man has treated woman as a sexual object, not as a human, an equal spiritual being – just a commodity!For thousands of years women were sold in the marketplace, auctioned. And even today – although the form has changed the reality remains the same – you prevent your wife from having any kind of friendship with any other man. It is an ugly way. In this vast universe you are not alone. There are so many unique people and your wife is just a human being and it is a human frailty that sometimes she may see somebody and a great love may arise in her.It may be casual, but your fear is very strange, it arises out of your financial mind, your greed. You are afraid – your son has to be your son; the empire that you are creating should not go into the hands of somebody else. You will die one day – your son should receive as a heritage your desires, your ambitions, your riches. All that you have achieved and all that you wanted to achieve, your son has to fulfill it.Your son is a projection of yourself. In a certain way it is true. Your son is nothing but a miniature cell of your being. You will die, but you will live in your children, they will be your blood and your bones. The fear is that if the wife is allowed freedom then it will be very difficult to know whether your son is actually yours or somebody else’s.A man was consulting an astrologer. He was very skeptical of the whole thing. Just out of curiosity and to prove the astrologer wrong, he said, “You are talking about faraway things, past lives, future lives…I want to ask you a simple question. This is your test piece: can you tell me where my father is at this very moment?”The man closed his eyes and said, “Your father has gone fishing.”He said, “I knew already that you are cheating people. My father is dead; he has been dead for four years. How can he go fishing?”The astrologer said, “The man you think is dead was not your father. Your father has gone fishing, just go and ask your mother.”To make it a certainty and a guarantee that your son is your son the whole problem of bondage and contract and relationship, and doubts and jealousies, and fights and fears…the whole mess has descended on humanity for this stupid reason. It does not matter who owns what, when you are in your grave. Your palace and your money…what difference does it make? Just an ego trip, a very deep ego trip…. When I say surrender to love I am saying that loving is enough, don’t make it a relationship. I am absolutely against marriage. Marriage is one of the causes of human misery, one of the most fundamental causes. And unless man drops this whole idea of marriage he cannot drop jealousy, he cannot drop fighting; the wife cannot drop nagging and questioning and inquiring.A man was tired because the wife would somehow always find out that he has been with a woman. Women have a very intuitive approach towards life. The man may deny, “I have not been…” but the fragrance from his coat shows that he has been with a woman; it is not the fragrance that he uses or is used in his house. Or just a hair on his coat will be enough proof….So the man consulted a psychiatrist, “What should I do? Every day it is a problem and she finds something somehow and humiliates me, tortures me. Her way of torture is very simple. Whenever I say that I want to make love to her, she turns to the other side and says, ‘I’m suffering from a headache.’“This headache has been so much of a problem to the husbands. The wife is suffering from a headache, but the real headache is happening to the husband.The psychiatrist said, “How does she find out?”The man said, “She has thousands of ways to find out. There is a time limit and if I don’t come home within that time limit, then ‘Where have you been?’ is the first question on entering the house. I have to think continuously where I have been! That question has to be answered and I know that she is not going to believe it, because I myself don’t believe it. There is no authority in saying it, no sincerity. I cannot look her in the eyes and say that I have been with friends or I have been at the Lions Club.“The moment I see her, my mind starts getting confused about which answer to give, because she is going to find out. I said one day that I had been playing cards with a friend. She immediately phoned the friend and he said, ‘I have not seen your husband for months.’ I never thought that she would do this! One day she found a hair, a long hair – and that was enough!”The shrink suggested to him, “Shave your hair completely, and before you go into the house, take care that there are no hairs on your coat, on your shirt.”He said, “My God! I have to shave my head?”The shrink said, “Even your own hair may create trouble – and you have long hair.”He said, “First I will try to clean my clothes. First I should go to the cleaners to be certain that there are no hairs.”And he reached home and the wife looked at him, searched about for some clue…not even a single hair around? She started crying, “This is the end of our relationship. You have started moving with bald women. There is a limit! There is not even a hair on your coat. Where have you been?”Husbands and wives are continuously fighting, fighting unnecessarily and destroying their lives miserably. To be a husband or to be a wife is such a misery that looking around the world one cannot imagine that man is a rational being as defined by Aristotle. If he was rational, at least marriage would have been dropped long ago. But Aristotle himself married two women and they used to beat him. And he is the father of Western logic…!Just a few days ago there was a survey in America showing that women have started to confess for the first time that their husbands beat them. Previously it was thought that it is an ugly tradition of the poor countries of the East where women are beaten by their husbands.In countries like India it is prescribed in the scriptures that if you want to live in peace, once in a while, a good beating of your wife is an absolute necessity. But nobody has ever thought that the same is the situation in Europe, in America. The only difference is that in the East it has been a very long tradition, and even religious scriptures give it sanction.In the West people used to think that husbands didn’t beat their wives, but the reality is surfacing. Because of the women’s liberation movement, women are confessing that they are being beaten by their husbands. They have not told it to anybody because of the prestige of the family, but the truth is that it is not only women who are beaten by men, men are also being beaten by women, although there is no scripture that says that every wife should beat the husband once in a while just to bring him to his senses.In reality it happens every night all over the world, wives are throwing things at husbands. A pillow fight is almost a religious thing: every day it has to be done – anyway it is good exercise and nobody is harmed. Wives go on breaking things, but they always break things which are worthless. They are wiser than men. Even in their anger they keep an alert eye not to destroy something valuable, not to destroy the TV…! Old dishes…? Break them. They make a good noise also, a language which is understood in the whole neighborhood.They throw things at their husbands, but they make certain that they don’t hurt the poor fellows; otherwise they will have to take care of them. They never make them a real target. They throw things here and there avoiding the poor fellows.But it goes on and after all this fight – as happens in every war – some kind of peace, some kind of treaty and the husband goes out to buy ice cream. And people are living together in this misery without any analysis of where it is coming from. It is coming from private property and the desire to keep the property in the hands of our own children.Karl Marx used to think that when communism comes, marriage would automatically disappear. He was logically right, but life is strange; it never follows logic. It always goes surprisingly, shockingly, illogically, irrationally…Karl Marx’s theories were tried in Russia just in the beginning years of communism. For three years they tried to dissolve marriage, but then finally they found that if marriage is dissolved, misery is dissolved. Then to keep people enslaved is impossible. They are enslaved because they are in such suffering they cannot think of freedom. They cannot be free from their wives – what kind of freedom can they think of? And where is the time?One man was packing his suitcases and his wife said, “Where are you going?”He said, “I am going to Paris. I have heard that there you make love to a woman and the woman gives you ten dollars.”The wife said, “Wait, I am coming with you.”The man said, “But what are you going to do? What is your purpose?”She said, “My purpose is to see how you manage to live on twenty dollars for the whole month.”After three years of effort the Russian government understood that marriage is absolutely necessary to keep the nation. If marriage disappears the nation cannot remain any longer. It will follow, because marriage is certainly the unit of the nation. Once there is no marriage, thousands of things will change. And the government became afraid: Who is going to take care of the children? What will happen to the ancient prejudice of morality? It will disturb the whole structure…They dropped the idea, thinking that Marx was only a theoretician, he was not a man of practicality. He had not taken into consideration the consequences of his idea. The idea is still great, but just as an idea it cannot be practiced. But the strange fact is that Marx himself never practiced it. He was a married man with children and he lived the same miserable life as every husband and every wife lives.A world which accepts individuals and their freedom of love has certainly to take care that unless your society, your community wants children, you cannot produce children. When the society wants children, the children will belong to society and will be brought up by the society.You can meet your children, you can love your children and it will be far better that children grow away from you; otherwise seeing the mother and father continuously fighting, do you think the children are getting a right direction for their lives? They are being conditioned to repeat the same thing! They will fight with their husbands, they will fight with their wives, because that is how things are; that is how things have always been!An ancient story says that whenever Adam used to go to sleep, Eve used to count his ribs. She was created out of one of the ribs of Adam; one rib was missing. That’s okay, but if another rib goes missing then there is danger; there is some other woman in the bushes.Jealousy is perhaps the ugliest attitude in life. But the way life has been managed up to now you cannot avoid jealousy. About everything there is jealousy. The wife is worried that the husband goes out; one never knows where he is going, what he is doing. She takes every care in her own way. Every month on the first day she takes all the money that he earns, so he cannot go anywhere.One man rushed into his general manager’s office and said, “You are such an idiot, and I used to think you were my friend…”They worked in the same office and had the same status. But the first man got a pay raise and just to make his friend’s wife jealous, his friend phoned to say, “Your husband has got a raise this month.”The wife waited the whole month….The husband was feeling very happy that she accepted the old salary and she did not know that now he was getting more: “That much I can use for my own purposes.”But the moment the wife took the money she said, “Bring out the rest; you got a raise.”Now he was caught red-handed deceiving his own wife. She took all of the money and she was crying and weeping. The husband had to console her and he was feeling guilty: “I am sorry that I did it, but how did you manage to know?”She said, “Your friend phoned so I was waiting for the whole month to see…You talk so much about trust and faith. What happened to the trust and faith? You were being faithless and what were you going to do with the money? You tell me in detail what was in your mind! There must be some woman…I have always suspected! The way you enter the house always looks as if you are hiding something. Your very face gives the idea of a suspicious, faithless man. Now you are caught red-handed.”And this goes for every point….I was traveling to Kashmir, and in my air-conditioned coupe there were only two seats. I was there and there was one other person, a woman. On every station a man would come and would bring fruits and sweets.I asked the woman, “I think your husband loves you very much?”She said, “Yes, we have been married for seven years.”I said, “Don’t lie to me.”She became angry saying, “Why are you saying that?”I said, “No husband will bring sweets and flowers and whatever is available at every station. I can say with guarantee that the man is not your husband.” She looked at me.She said, “Strange, but I have to confess he is my husband’s friend.”I said, “If he was your husband, once he had put you in the compartment he would have disappeared. If he had to travel in another compartment he would not have missed that great opportunity. You would have been fortunate enough if he had met you at the destination where you were going!”Whenever you see people, if the husband and wife are together you can immediately see that they are married because the husband does not look to this side or to that side, but keeps looking straight down. The wife keeps an eye on the husband, and both look sad.We have made such a sad world unnecessarily, when the same people could be so happy. I sometimes think that just a twenty-four hour experiment is enough to prove what I am saying. Exchange your wives and there will be such joy and such great laughter and singing and dancing. Life will become aflame. Just those twenty-four hours will prove what I am saying that marriage is a very subtle, psychological imprisonment.If you really love the woman you say you love, then give her freedom, and in that freedom it is implied that she can have weekends and you cannot interfere. You also can have weekends. It is strange; simple things can make this world very beautiful – just weekends.But you say that you want a relationship and you also don’t want to surrender, neither of you. Then why drag me into the trouble? Just fight it out. Sooner or later one starts cooling – the hot affair dies down.Two small kids were sitting on the steps of a school. The smaller one said, “Every boy has a girlfriend, but I can’t find a girlfriend.”The other said, “You are too small to have that much trouble. Just grow up, enjoy your freedom. Once you are grown up you cannot enjoy your freedom. You will find a woman. The real problem is not how to find a woman, the real problem is how to get rid of her.”Getting is very easy – you can ask Niskriya! Now he is trying to get rid of the witch that he has found, avoiding in every way…and that was so joyous. He confessed to the witch in the middle of the night – under the influence of booze – “This is my greatest life experience.” And in the morning all was finished – he is back to his camera. And now other women are torturing him. He himself has invited the trouble; otherwise nobody was bothering him. Looking at him everybody thought that he is a very meditative person.Just looking at him any woman would bypass him, but now women know that he is a great lover, he has just got the face of a meditator. That does not mean anything. He waited long and finally he blurted out. How long can one wait just because he has got a face which appears to be that of a meditator? It is not his fault.Sally Goldberg goes to the doctor to ask for some help in losing weight before her wedding day. He prescribes a course of pills for her.A few days later she returns to his office, “These pills have awful side effects,” she says worriedly. “They make me feel terribly passionate and I get carried away. Last night I actually bit off my boyfriend’s ear.”“Don’t worry,” says the doctor, “an ear is only about sixty calories.”Osho,Would you please speak about the three rings of love? – the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffering?You seem to be in the same trouble. I have already described those three rings. Just the first two rings are okay. The real problem is the third ring which comes without fail. If you want to avoid the third ring, avoid the first.Little Ernie is looking through the family photo album when he comes across a photo of his parents’ wedding day.Ernie calls his father over, and pointing to his mother’s wedding dress says, “Was that the day that Mum came to work for us?”Little Ernie is dragged by his mother into the doctor’s office. She sits down and says, “Doctor, is it possible for a nine-year-old boy to remove his own liver?”The doctor roars with laughter. “Of course not,” he replies, wiping the tears from his eyes.Ernie’s mother turns round and cuffs Ernie on the ear, “What did I tell you?” she shouts. “Now go straight home and put it back in again!”Hymie Goldberg loses a lot of money on the stock market and is in a terrible state. He goes to visit his doctor and says, “Doctor, doctor, my hands won’t stop shaking.”“Tell me,” says the doctor, “do you drink a lot?”“I can’t,” says Hymie, “I spill most of it.”“I see,” says the doctor and then proceeds to give Hymie a thorough examination. When he has finished he says, “Tell me, do you get a tingling in your arms, aches in your knees and sudden dizzy spells?”“Yes,” replies Hymie, “that’s exactly what I get.”“That’s funny,” says the doctor, “so do I…I wonder what it is!”Then the doctor refers to his notes for several minutes before looking up and saying, “Tell me, have you had this before?”“Yes,” says Hymie, “I have.”“Well, there you are then,” replies the doctor, pressing the buzzer for the next patient. “You have got it again!”Things are so clear. You can see all around: rings and wedding rings and sufferings. There is not even an exception to find – there is no question…But because everybody is in the same boat, and everybody grows with the same kind of people, one starts accepting it as the only reality possible for human beings. It is not so.Man can grow in many different directions, in many different ways. The way he grows is just imitation. Because other people are doing it you go on doing it. Do you hear these bands? These are leading a few idiots towards the same imprisonment I am talking about. You should go and see! The idiots will be sitting on the horses almost looking like kings, not knowing where they are going.In India this wedding ceremony has a very strange history. There was a time when people used to go to snatch a girl from other tribes – hence the horse! It is a remnant of all those old days when marriage was the beginning of a war. One tribe would invade the other tribe, steal as many young girls as possible…. And even today a sword hangs symbolically by the side of the man who is sitting on the horse going to the girl’s house to get married. And the crowd that follows is a reminder that marriage was once an attack by a crowd on another tribe.No idiot even asks why the sword, and what is its purpose? There is not going to be any fight; the marriages are prearranged…But remnants go on for centuries, and if you go into a deep research you will be surprised. The horse, the sword, the crowd, the marriage party…it used to be the army. And the band was a declaration: “We are coming. Be ready.” It is a war symbol.And those women stolen forcibly, violently, naturally became slaves. Times changed, now anybody can sit on a horse with a sword and go into the street with a bogus crown…! If he is alone people will start throwing stones at him shouting, “Where are you going? Who are you? What is the purpose? Whose horse have you got?” But in a marriage party the same man is respectfully garlanded.History is a very beautiful study if you go deep into it. The father of the girl touches the feet of the father of the boy. That is symbolic of defeat: “We are defeated” – otherwise there is no reason for it. And there is no reason for all these fireworks; these are the remnants of bombs and shots. It was a violent affair and it was expected that the woman should love and respect the husband so much that if he died, the woman had to jump in the funeral pyre with her dead husband. She also had to burn, alive. By committing suicide she was very much respected. Memorials were raised because she proved to be a true lover. How can she live when her beloved has died…!I can understand it is possible, but I cannot understand one thing: no man ever jumped into any woman’s funeral pyre, and nobody ever bothered that only the women were expected to love men. In fact while the funeral pyre was still hot and burning, people started thinking about the marriage of the man whose wife had died. Rather than jumping in the funeral pyre, he starts thinking about riding another horse – strange and stupid behavior.In this century, when we think humanity has become a little civilized, still things go on – and we allow them to go on, although we are also the victims.Just something for the marriage ceremony….Wu, the Chinaman has a bad case of constipation. He goes to his doctor who prescribes a course of pills and asks Wu to come back and see him next week.Wu takes the pills and duly shows up at the doctor’s office the next week.“Did you move yet?” asks the doctor.“No move yet,” replies Wu.So the doctor prescribes a stronger dose.Wu comes back the following week and the doctor asks, “Did you move yet?”“No move yet,” replies Wu.So the doctor gives him a huge dose of pills and a box of suppositories.Next week Wu comes back and the doctor asks, “Did you move yet?”“Yes,” replies Wu. “Had to move. House full of shit!”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 16 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Is it always good to follow the heart or once in a while should a clear mind decide what is to be done? And what to do when they want to go in opposite directions?Your question is hilarious – to say the least! Let them go on their way. Why should you be worried?The mind is going in one direction; the heart is going in another direction. It is none of your business to interfere. Simply remain a witness and see where these fellows are going. Not understanding the secret of awareness is the cause of your problem.You are neither the heart nor the mind.You are a pure consciousness behind them. And unless you get identified they cannot go anywhere; they don’t have their own energy.You ask me, “Is it always good to follow the heart?” and I have been teaching you that your heart, your body, your mind, should follow you. This is how we go on misunderstanding.You are not to be a follower of any; you are simply to be a witness. Witnessing the mind moving in one direction and the heart in another is a great experience. Experience that you are neither of them. You can remain above and they cannot move very far. They need each other’s support and finally they need energy from you, because you are life, they are only instruments.Your question is just like this: my left hand wants to follow this side, my right hand wants to follow this side – what am I supposed to do? Of course, to follow the right is always good. Right is right and left is wrong!Not to follow is the secret of freedom, and once your heart and your mind know that you are not a man who is going to follow, they will stop quarreling, they will stop moving, because they don’t have any energy. The energy comes from you and it comes because you get identified with them, but every identification is wrong.You remind me of Ruthie Finkelstein who has been having therapy for some time without finding much improvement in her generally depressed and confused state. Finally she tells her therapist that she is going away for a few weeks for a holiday in Greece. Some time later the shrink receives a postcard from Ruthie which says, “Having a lovely time, but why?”You cannot even have a lovely time without inquiring why – and that destroys your whole joy. The questions are a disturbance. No question is of any importance. Just to be silent and watch what goes on around in you – in the mind, in the heart – and remain aloof, will not only solve this question, it will solve all your questions. But mind loves to ask!You are saying you feel very happy following the heart and you know it is always good…Who told you? The heart has also committed as many crimes as the mind.When a Mohammedan destroys the statue of a Gautam Buddha, do you think he is doing it from the mind? It is his heart. When he forces somebody on the point of the sword to change his religion and become a Mohammedan, do you think he is following his mind? He is following his heart. The heart has its own conditionings which go deeper than the conditionings of the mind.The heart has always been praised for the simple reason that it gets no chance – the mind goes on playing the whole game and society prepares you not to listen to the heart.But the Christians who were killing Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans who were killing Christians – and they are still doing that – not for a moment does a doubt arise that what they are doing is absolutely inhuman and cannot be religious. If it was done by the mind the question would have arisen, but because it is done by the heart, the heart does not know questioning. They feel with absolute certainty that if a man is killed in a crusade which they call jihad, then that man has already reached to paradise. And according to the number of people you kill, the more certain becomes your paradise.These are not mind things. They have entered the heart, slowly, slowly sinking down through the centuries. Just one difference is that the mind always questions if what you are doing is right or wrong. The heart never questions. That’s why all the religions want you to surrender, to be faithful, to believe. These are the qualities which enter into the heart.I don’t teach the mind. For that there are thousands of universities. I don’t teach the heart because I know the heart can do things more cruelly than the mind. The mind at least hesitates; the heart believes totally.I teach you awareness of your being beyond both the heart and the mind. I say unto you, disidentify yourself and they will forget going this way or that way. And for the first time you will be the master and they will simply be servants. You can order them and they will have to follow, because without your order they cannot get any nourishment.As far as your problem is concerned, let both of them go wherever they want. Simply remain centered – above, alert, not being dragged by them and not being influenced by them. Then your purity of awareness will lead you to the cosmic purity of existence. That is the only way of merging with the whole. All else is just an utterly futile exercise.Your silence will take you to the right path. Neither does your mind know silence nor your heart. Your consciousness will take you in the right direction. Neither does your mind know how to be conscious nor your heart. They are both fast asleep and whatever they do is going to prove stupid and dangerous to yourself and others.If all the crimes that have been committed in the world are counted, then you will be surprised that all the religions are the fundamental causes of those crimes. They teach love and they practice hate. They teach oneness and they practice discrimination. The religious history of man is so mean, so ugly, that to be part of any religion is to prove that you are retarded, that you don’t know what these religions have done.Old Sam Finkelstein arrives from Russia to visit his relatives in America. On his way to Texas he sits down in a train between two rednecks. He nods in a friendly way but the rednecks sit in stony silence.Old Sam notices an American newspaper lying on the seat and picks it up. Having taken classes in English for the past few months, he is able to read most of the page, but all of a sudden he turns to the redneck on his right and says in a thick Russian accent, “You look like an intelligent man. Would you be kind enough to tell me what this word is?”The redneck winks at his friend and without looking at the paper says, “That word is syphilis.”Old Sam thanks him and reads on. A few minutes later he turns to the other redneck and says, “You are obviously a man of education. Would you kindly tell me what this word is?”The redneck smirks, winks at his friend and ignoring the newspaper says, “That word is gonorrhea.”“Syphilis and gonorrhea?” cries old Sam. “Ah, my God – that poor Ronald Reagan!”Don’t take any problem, any question seriously. Your taking them seriously makes them important and forces you to find the solution. Whenever a question arises in you, just be silent and watch the arising of the question. Watch how it becomes more condensed, watch how it becomes more clear – but go on watching. And you will be surprised that just as you are simply watching and not getting involved, it starts evaporating. Soon there is tremendous silence left behind it, and this silence is the answer!But what do people do? A question arises in their minds – and there are thousands of questions; you will need millions of lives to find the answers for all of them. Still you will remain ignorant, knowledgeably ignorant. And because of the question you start asking others…perhaps somebody else knows the answer – that makes you a beggar. The knowledge that you get from others is borrowed; it is not going to help you at all.One thing and only one thing helps.Watch the question and don’t be dragged by it in any direction.Be silent and see the whole question and what happens to it. It comes and it goes; no question remains there. It is just like a signature on water: you have not even made your full signature, and it has started to disappear.The art of meditation is how to make your questions disappear, not to give you an answer. The answer will bring new questions and there is no end to it. Meditation will leave you in a space where there is no question, no answer, but only a purity, a simplicity – the same that you had known when you were born. You were alive but there was no question. You were so full of wonder. Your eyes sparkled seeing a small thing.In a right society – for which I go on hopelessly hoping – a child’s innocence should not be destroyed. And when we have an almost oceanic innocence all around, the beauty and the experience of it are so tremendous and so strong that who cares about stupid questions? In fact they never arise.I am reminded of D.H. Lawrence, a man of this century whom I have loved much. He was condemned from all corners – not as much as I am condemned, but he prepared the way. He was walking in a garden early in the morning with a small child, and the small child asked, “Uncle, why are the trees green?”As far as language is concerned, the question is absolutely correct, but you know that it is stupid and you cannot say that it is stupid. If it had been somebody other than D.H. Lawrence, who was a man of great sincerity and authenticity…Any other knowledgeable person would have told the child that trees are green because of a certain chemical, chlorophyll.Perhaps for the moment the child would have been silent: chlorophyll…. But sooner or later the questions were bound to arise, “Why do all the trees have chlorophyll? Who goes on giving them chlorophyll? What is the purpose of making all the trees full of chlorophyll? What is chlorophyll…?”But D.H. Lawrence looked at the innocent eyes of the child and said, “My boy, trees are just green,” and the boy was immensely happy. The trees are green because they are green – it is not a problem, and the small boy understood it. What can you do? If the trees are green, they are green. It is their problem, it is not our problem – why should we be bothered?But as man grows and is filled and fed by all kinds of knowledge and information in the name of educating him, in the name of making him civilized and cultured, we spoil a tremendously beautiful innocence. And there is no need to know why the trees are green…. It is perfectly good that they are green. If they decide to change, that is their problem, they can change.But look at people’s questions and you will find that all questions without exception are stupid. Although I might say that this question is very significant, you know I am a contradictory man. It does not bother me, why should it bother you? I am controversial. It has never bothered me, it has bothered the whole world. Strange! These are my problems and I don’t consider them as problems. They are my unique individuality. Why should you bother? And people get sad….Just a few days ago Hasya brought news of a sannyasin that had dropped sannyas because “Osho says many things which are not in The Bible.” I am not speaking on The Bible. I don’t care a bit about The Bible. But deep down he must have been waiting to be confirmed in his beliefs, to be blessed: “You are right and your Bible is right.” And strangely enough, before that he had not read The Bible!He took sannyas first thinking that I am talking about The Bible. And being impressed he went into an utterly boring book, The Bible. No intelligent man can read it from the first page to the last page – nobody does it. And what is the problem? Why should I talk about things which are in The Bible? Rather than dropping The Bible, he dropped sannyas. Such is the way of conditioning.Three missionaries, all nuns, are walking along the street and one is describing with her hands the tremendous grapefruits she has seen in Africa. Then the second one, also with her hands, describes the huge bananas she has seen in India. The third nun, a little deaf, asked, “Father who?”Strange questions – nothing to do with your own being and its growth. But people go on for their whole lives and finally, they become just walking encyclopedias. They know everything, and deep inside at the center is still the same innocence with which they were born. It is not knowledgeable, it is not ignorant; it is simply innocent.And to be utterly innocent is the whole purpose of all meditations, particularly here. I allow you to ask questions so that I can destroy them as much as possible.Osho,Just the name of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi uttered from your lips sends waves of an unknown force like a wild wind through me. Tears well up with an unbearable feeling of longing. Perhaps I missed Rumi and again, because of the same stupidities, I am missing with you.Beloved, can you comment?It is true: the very word mevlana has still, after twelve hundred years, a life of its own. And if you are open, mevlana is going to stir strange waves, open unknown dimensions.There have been thousands of masters in the world, but nobody’s name begins to stir your heart and being with a song and with a juice like Mevlana. And Mevlana simply means the master. In Persian, Arabic and in Urdu, the Mohammedan countries, the word maulana is used for the master. But great must have been the disciples of Jalaluddin Rumi, who never called him Maulana; they changed the whole word. They started to call him Mevlana, “my Beloved Osho.”Maulana means a man of great knowledge. It has no juice in it. It is dry, desert dry. Mevlana is a play on the same word but with a slight change. Even those who don’t understand its meaning, when they hear “Mevlana” something in their being starts responding to the word. Ordinary words are not that potent, but mevlana is an exception. It has beauty because it does not say that the person, Jalaluddin Rumi is a man of knowledge. It has some love in it, some trust in it. It does not refer to knowledge at all. It simply refers to my heart, to my being. Mevlana means “my master,” and not just my master but my beloved Osho.Since Mevlana no Sufi mystic has been called “Mevlana.” No Sufi mystic has stirred so many people’s hearts. So I can understand that you say “just hearing the name of Mevlana sends waves of an unknown force like a wild wind through me. Tears well up with an unbearable feeling of longing. Perhaps I missed Rumi, and again, because of the same stupidities, I am missing with you. Beloved, can you comment?”Only one thing can I say to you, Abhiyana: it is possible you may have been with Mevlana; hence a faraway echo of that beautiful man. His dances and his songs, his grace and his peace and his showering of love may be stirring you. You are not here for the first time; most of the faces are perfectly well known. You may have changed your mask, but that does not mean anything, your inner being still shows something that you have carried from many many lives. And because you all have been here all the time since eternity, there is every possibility you may have missed Mevlana, and now there is a sadness. But Mevlana very gracefully allowed you to escape. I am a different type of man. I will follow you until you get it! This time you cannot go before you get it – not because of you, but because of me!However stupid you are, the very recognition makes you innocent. Stupid people never recognize that they are stupid, and if you tell them, “You are stupid,” you are in a trouble. Only a man of innocence can say, “Because of my stupidities I missed something far back. It is a very faint picture or a very faint echo of a song.” But this time it is not going to happen, because my way of working is totally different from Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.I am really a dangerous man!If twenty-five countries don’t allow me to enter, it is not without any reason. Once I get hold of somebody I never leave him unless he says, “Beloved Osho, I have got it! Now let me go home.” And you cannot cheat me because I know when you have got it and when you have not got it.Those who were not worthy, and I could not see any possibility that in this life however hard I hit them, they were going to open their doors…They were hiding behind the doors and locking them from inside. Finally, I thought it is wasting time and I should leave this work to some other master who knows the art of entering into these people, a real locksmith. I am not a locksmith. The world is vast. How many people can I manage? It is better to let them go. I made arrangements and devices so that those people would disappear to wait for future lives, to be caught by another master of a different quality.But you don’t belong to that category. If even just the word mevlana thrills you, you are already ready to sing and to dance and to celebrate existence. To me, other than that, there is no religion. You are a simple person, accepting your stupidity.Especially for you, a few beautiful anecdotes to laugh at in the middle of the night when you get them! Right now you can laugh just to keep company, but the real thing happens in the middle of the night when suddenly, under your blanket, your belly starts, “My God, this joke has done something to me!”A Couch Potato is watching football on TV and eating peanuts at the same time. His wife comes in and somehow manages to distract him, so he puts a peanut in his ear by mistake. He tries everything but can’t get the peanut out.Just then his daughter and her boyfriend Chip come in and find her father shaking his head and sticking his finger in his ear.“Let me help you,” says the boyfriend. “I will put two fingers in your nose and blow in your other ear.”So the desperate Couch Potato lets the boyfriend try, and sure enough, the peanut flies out. The man is ecstatic and goes back to watching TV.Later that night the Couch Potato and his wife are lying in bed when she asks, “That Chip is really a nice boy. What do you think he will be when he finishes college?”“I don’t know,” replies the husband, “but by the smell of his fingers, I think he will be our son-in-law.”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 17 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,So often a feeling that I can't describe fills my heart and my whole being. During the other morning's discourse it felt like overwhelming love for you and the whole. But now I realize that the same feeling or a very, very similar feeling also comes up in fear, anguish, throbbing pain, helplessness and frustration.I am trembling and confused. Osho, can you say something?There is certainly something very similar in very different emotions: the overwhelmingness. It may be love, it may be hate, it may be anger – it can be anything. If it is too much then it gives you a sense of being overwhelmed by something. Even pain and suffering can create the same experience, but overwhelmingness has no value in itself. It simply shows you are an emotional being.This is typically the indication of an emotional personality. When it is anger, it is all anger. And when it is love, it is all love. It almost becomes drunk with the emotion, blind. And whatever action comes out of it is wrong. Even if it is overwhelming love, the action that will come out of it is not going to be right. Reduced to its base, whenever you are overwhelmed by any emotion you lose all reason, you lose all sensitivity, you lose your heart in it. It becomes almost like a dark cloud in which you are lost. Then whatever you do is going to be wrong.Love is not to be a part of your emotions. Ordinarily that’s what people think and experience, but anything overwhelming is very unstable. It comes like a wind and passes by, leaving you behind, empty, shattered, in sadness and in sorrow.According to those who know man’s whole being – his mind, his heart and his being – love has to be an expression of your being, not an emotion.Emotion is very fragile, very changing.One moment it seems that is all.Another moment you are simply empty.So the first thing to do is to take love out of this crowd of overwhelming emotions. Love is not overwhelming. On the contrary, love is a tremendous insight, clarity, sensitivity, awareness. But that kind of love rarely exists, because very few people ever reach to their being.There are people who love their cars…Niskriya loves his camera…! That love is of the mind. And then you love your wife, your husband and your children – that love is of the heart. But because it needs change to remain alive, and you cannot allow it its changeability, it becomes stale. The same husband every day – it is such a boring experience. It dulls your sensitivity, it dulls every possibility of joy. You slowly start forgetting the language of laughter. Life becomes simply work without any joy. And one has to work because one has a wife and one has children.I have heard…An old couple appeared in court. The husband was ninety and the wife must have been eighty-five; they wanted a divorce.The judge could not believe his eyes. He said, “At this age? Any moment you can pop off. What are you asking for? What will you do with the divorce? How long have you been married?”The man said, “It must have been at least sixty years or even more.”The judge said, “I cannot believe how you lived together for sixty years, and now at the end of your life, you want a divorce? Why have you waited so long?”The old man said, “We had to wait till all our children died! Now is the chance to be free and enjoy life.”Their whole lives they lived together – it must have been utterly stale. But the love that is of the mind is simple: you can change your camera because the camera will not create any trouble. It won’t fight you, it won’t have tantrums, it won’t drag you to the court, it won’t ask for money. It is a simple thing.Because of this simplicity, most of the people in the world have changed from loving human beings to loving machines, all kinds of machines – it may be a car…It is simpler, you can change it any moment; there is no barrier. People have started to love animals. There are dog lovers who are carrying their dogs everywhere. It is better because you can control, you can beat your dog and still it will welcome you with its tail. It is a joyous experience.People have other kinds of animals – birds, parrots – and they pay too much attention to them. It is not a simple fact. It shows something deeper about our existence: we cannot love human beings; it is a constant trouble.One wife had just married and was talking to her friend. The friend said, “This man is a drunkard. You should not have married him; it will be a constant trouble.”The woman said, “No. I will change his habits. It may take a few years, but I will make him docile, obedient. He is a good man.”The other woman said, “You are living in a fantasy. I have had a dog for five years and I have been teaching him with no effect. I tell him that trees are not toilets – he won’t listen. I beat him, I don’t give him food – he looks very sad. Finally, I also start feeling sympathy for the poor…but he will not change his habits. A dog is so stubborn, and you are thinking of changing a man, and that too, a drunkard!”But the very idea that you will change your wife and you will change your husband and you will change your friend, is dangerous. It means conflict from the very beginning. It means it is going to be a struggle, not a joy, not a dance, but a fight.People start drinking just to avoid the struggle that is waiting at home. When they are drunk then it does not matter even if the wife beats them, they are unconscious. Millions of people are drinking poison for the simple reason of avoiding those whom they had thought they loved.A man was drinking whiskey….His wife was tired of teaching him. Wives are great teachers! No wonder that in schools slowly, slowly men are being replaced by women. They are great teachers. They don’t smoke, they don’t drink, they don’t go hunting…they don’t do anything out of the way. They have manners and etiquette, they don’t use dirty words….When George Bernard Shaw published his dictionary – a valuable contribution to literature – three old women approached him, very angry, “You seem to be a sex maniac!”He said, “My God, what have I done?”They said, “Look at this book you have published.”In that twelve-hundred-page book, there were three words which people think are dirty.George Bernard Shaw said, “You are great scholars. You must have read twelve hundred pages of a dictionary to find out three words. Are you the sex maniacs or am I the sex maniac?”…The wife was tired of teaching the husband. Finally she tried another way. She said, “Now I myself am going to drink if you don’t stop.”The husband was a little shocked thinking that it would be very difficult – two drunkards in the home both teaching each other not to drink. It is a very rare experience. He tried saying, “No. It does not look good in a woman.”A woman is a pious being, a religious being. Just look in the church; it is filled with women. Only a few men go there – just to find some woman if they can. Their interest is not in the crucified Jesus – who is interested in criminals and who is interested in a boring sermon?…The man said, “It does not look good.”The woman said, “I am determined. Either you stop or I am going to start.”The man said, “My stopping is impossible. If you are stubborn just take a little taste.”He gave her a little cup full of whiskey. These things don’t taste good. The woman took one sip and threw the cup and said, “My God! It is almost poison.”And the man laughed and said, “And you always thought that I was enjoying…! It is not a joy. You do your work. It takes long practice and great guts. It is not for you.”But why do people drink? To avoid those whom they love or at least think they love.Two men are sitting in a bar, every day. Late at night when the bar is due to close, the barman has to almost push them out. They go on drinking and drinking. One day, just before they started drinking one man asked the other, “We are the only two real drinkers; the others are just learners, immature. Can I ask why you drink so much?”He said, “I have to, otherwise I cannot face my wife. When I am utterly drunk I have so much courage I could face a lion! And when I am absolutely drunk I go home, I hit my boot on the doors, open the door, throw things here and there, make great noise, enter my wife’s room, give her a good hit on the hips and say to her, ‘Darling, how about it?’ – and she pretends to be deeply asleep!“It is because of her I have to drink. Since I got married, I have not married my wife, I have married this alcohol. But what is the reason for you? You are also in the same position?”The other said, “No. I am not married. I am a bachelor.”The other man said, “Bachelor? It is unbelievable. Being a bachelor, what are you doing here? Drinking late in the night and you are just a bachelor?”The bachelor said, “What else to do? In the house there is nothing but darkness. Sitting alone one becomes bored. Here it is very colorful and so many strange things happen every day. I started as what you call an amateur, but slowly, slowly…Now I am a perfect drunkard.”There are people who are drinking because they have wives, and there are people who are drinking because they don’t have any wives. It is a strange world. One does not know on what logical basis it is being run, whether there is any logic at all in life or it is absolutely absurd.Raga, you have to take your love out from the emotional grip where it has been since your birth, and you have to find a route to your being. Unless your love becomes part of your being, it is not much different from pain, suffering, sadness.Emotions are not going to help you become an integrated individual. They are not going to give you a granite soul. You will remain just like a piece of dead wood moving in the stream here and there, not knowing why.Emotions blind man exactly as alcohol does. They may have good names like love, they may have bad names like anger, but once in a while you need to be angry at someone, it relieves you. You will see dogs making love on the roads, and people hitting them with stones. Now those poor fellows are not doing any harm to anybody and they are performing a biological ritual that you perform – they just don’t have to hide in houses – and they do so well. A crowd will move around them throwing stones, beating them…strange behavior!People need to be angry once in a while, just as once in a while they need to be in love, and once in a while to hate someone. It doesn’t matter. That’s why people like Adolf Hitler can manage to find followers, on the grounds that it is because of the Jews that the world is in misery – so we have to erase the Jews from the earth and there will be no problem. All the problems are created by a Jewish conspiracy. He killed six million Jews and not a single problem of the world is solved. Now the world has more problems than it had before, but he convinced people like Martin Heidegger, the greatest philosopher of the contemporary world. Martin Heidegger was a follower of Adolf Hitler and also believed that it was the Jews…Just now I have received information from Japan, although in Japan there are not many Jews…There may be more Jews here in this place than in the whole of Japan! Here you can suspect that you are surrounded by the Jews; still, they don’t have any conspiracy or anything. Two books have appeared – again the same logic or illogic – claiming that because of the Jews the world is in trouble, that there is a world Jewish conspiracy, and unless Jews are eradicated completely, the world will never be at ease. And those two books have become best-sellers in Japan!Man gathers anger, rage, hate, and then it is only a question of finding some opportunity so that he can express his destructiveness. Any excuse will do.Religions give good causes. One worries that if there is only one God, then the Jews are killing the Mohammedans, the Mohammedans are killing the Christians, the Christians are killing others – and it goes round and round everywhere in the name of God!In fact, Mohammed had written on his sword: My Religion Is Peace. That is the meaning of Islam, that is the name Mohammedans give to themselves. And these peaceful Mohammedans have killed so many people, not only people, but have destroyed so many temples and so many beautiful statues because they don’t believe in statues. It is perfectly okay…who is saying that you should believe? The statue is not following you insisting, “Believe me.” If you go to ancient Indian temples, you will see the destruction that Mohammedans have caused.In the name of God, that there is only one God and he has no statue, they have destroyed much beautiful sculpture which would take hundreds of years to make. That may be your idea, so you should not have any statue, but who are you to interfere with somebody else whose idea is that there is a God and who has as many statues as you can conceive?Hindus believe in hundreds of gods – but what is the harm? That is their business, their problem. If they are doing something stupid, you can enjoy, but it is not right to destroy their statues.But the reality is that the labels of ‘God’ and ‘religion’ are all superficial. In reality people are angry and they don’t have objects to show their anger, so they go on collecting anger, hate, rage…and then there is a limit. It explodes like bombs – anything will do!In India Mohammedans and Hindus were fighting. Now Sikhs and Hindus are fighting because the Indian constitution has accepted Hindi as the national language. Although forty years have passed, they have not been able to impose Hindi as a national language because every other group which speaks a different language starts fighting.In the south there are different languages, in the north there are different languages – and in the name of languages, riots go on happening.I used to live in a city…They destroyed all the boards on the shops – anything on which English was written, and forced people to write the boards on their shops in Hindi. And now it is a very very difficult problem, because trains pass from one province to another province. In one province they will paint the name in one language, and the train will enter into another province and they will paint it in their language. It was a constant trouble and fight, and trains were delayed for days because unless their writing is complete…In each compartment the passengers have to write down the name in their language, and whoever prevents them…immediately there is going to be killing…!Trains were set on fire because people were resisting. Buses were set on fire because the board was not in the language which the people spoke. But buses have to travel all over the country. Now if entering every state – India has thirty states – the buses and trains have to change…it will become a tremendous and hilarious job – but any excuse is enough…!Emotions are dangerous in the sense that they overwhelm you and they are almost alcoholic.Paddy gets an invitation to his rich cousin’s wedding in Dublin. At the reception he feels a bit self-conscious in his country clothes so he spends most of his time in the corner drinking whiskey. Finally, he decides to join the party, and asks the most important looking lady guest to dance a Viennese waltz with him. Paddy is angrily refused.“There are four reasons why I won’t dance with you,” says the guest. “First, you have had too much to drink. Second, the band is not playing a waltz. Third, I am not a woman. Fourth, I am the archbishop of Dublin!”But when they are drunk, people start seeing things….The hostess at a kid’s birthday party goes up to little Ernie, “How come,” she asks, “your little brother is so shy? He has not moved from that corner all afternoon.”“He is not shy at all,” insists Ernie. “It is just that he has never had to wear a necktie before and he thinks he is tied to something.”Just a little more awareness is needed and all your overwhelming things will start disappearing. A man is really clean and clear when he never gets overwhelmed by anything, when he is always alert and aware and himself, and is not lost in any emotion, whether it is love or anger or anything else.Young Herbie, on vacation in Florida, is getting frustrated because he cannot attract any girls. Every day on the beach he watches as Bernie Bernstein, an older man, is surrounded by young, beautiful women.One evening Herbie approaches him at the bar and asks Bernie for some advice.“Well,” says Bernie, “the first thing is to get a smart haircut, then buy yourself a skimpy swimsuit instead of those baggy shorts. And for a finishing touch, put a rolled up pair of socks in your swimsuit. It works every time!”Herbie follows the advice, but has no luck. The next evening in the bar he complains to Bernie, “Ah eh,” says Bernie, “I saw you on the beach. The haircut looks great and you bought a fantastic looking swimsuit, but the next time, try putting the socks in front!”Just a little awareness about what you are doing…Ruthie Finkelstein goes to buy shoes, wearing a miniskirt with no underwear underneath. The shoe salesman is overcome by the sight and says to her, “I would like to fill your pussy with ice cream and eat it all out!”“That is the most disgusting thing anyone has ever said to me,” she cried. “I am going to tell my husband and he is going to beat you up!”Ruthie stomps home and tells her husband Moishe, who happened to be reading his newspaper.“Honey,” he says, “I am not going to fight with that man for three reasons. First, you have a whole closet full of shoes and we really can’t afford any more. Second, you were provoking the man by not wearing any underwear. And third, I don’t want to mess with anyone who can eat that much ice cream!”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 18 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,As far back as I can remember from my early childhood until I took sannyas, I was very much suffering from the strong feeling that everything was too complicated. Since I met you eight years ago things have started to be slowly, slowly more and more simple. For me, this is a miracle for which I can say thanks forever.To be simple is very significant for me. Please, can you speak about simplicity?The world is as you are. It is complicated if you are complicated. It is very simple if you are simple. In other words you are the world. Mind makes everything complicated. Even the simplest thing becomes complicated for the simple reason that mind’s function is to fight against complexities and win over lands which it itself has projected.But for the heart, everything is simple. It simply takes the world as it is. And if you go a little deeper, for the being even the word simplicity is too complicated. Things are as they are. And in this experience existence becomes your home – not a struggle to solve problems, not a turmoil of emotions, but a place to rest and relax and let things be as they are.So you have a three-layer system in your being. The uppermost is the mind, which is only interested in complexities. If it meets God it will not be interested at all because there is no God and no possibility to meet him. For centuries, mind goes on complicating, fabricating, theorizing philosophies about one who in the first place does not exist.Mind creates the idea of God and then starts inquiring what God is. And naturally, you cannot find God so it becomes more and more complex, you have to develop belief systems. God has been the center of all theologies, all religions, and thousands of scholars are worrying about God.The second layer, of the heart, does not project anything, it simply accepts things as they are. But a man of the heart is not acceptable to society. He is too simple, almost a simpleton. And at the fundamental roots of your being, the world’s complexity, simplicity and the problems they create have never arisen. There it is utter silence; there is no problem at all.Things are so beautiful and the world is so full of music, songs, playfulness. But it opens itself only to the person who has centered himself in his being.You say, Since I met you eight years ago, things have started to be slowly, slowly more and more simple. For me, this is a miracle for which I can say thanks forever. To be simple is very significant for me. Being with me is in fact being with yourself. Being sincerely with me, you are yourself. You have touched the world of being – and just being is enough. These birds singing around…and just see the trees how joyous they look basking in the early morning sun…. That seems to be no problem at all. But the mind cannot live without problems and it cannot easily allow retirement; it gives fight. That’s why what can happen in an instant, is happening slowly, slowly.Either you are simple or you are not. There are not categories that one is a little more simple and the other a little more…Simplicity does not belong to the world of categories, measurements. It is a quality, and you have not to do anything to be simple. That is one of the most important things to remember. Millions of religious people have tried to be simple, but when you try to be simple, your simplicity itself becomes tremendously complex. It is not authentic simplicity which is created by effort. Simplicity has to be spontaneous, by understanding and not by effort; by meditation, not by action. You have simply to understand that mind has a certain sickness of making things complex.One German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, was approached by a beautiful young woman. She waited long, but he must have been a man like Niskriya. He never looked this way or that way. He simply went from his home directly to the university. He functioned almost like a robot. People used to fix their watches on seeing Immanuel Kant going to the university. When he was coming back, it again showed the time.The girl gathered courage and told him that she loved him. He was very much shocked that somebody loved him – it is becoming a dangerous situation. He said, “I will think about it.”She said, “No, I really love you.”He said, “You may love; that is your problem…”“…and I want to get married to you.”He said, “It is a very complicated problem. First, I have to find out all the pros and cons about marriage – what will be the benefit and what will be the trouble – and weigh them. Unless I come to a point where I see that to be married is better, you will have to forgive me.”And he worked hard, looking into encyclopedias, poetry, love stories. Then he said, “My God, what trouble I’m getting into. Already, my whole time is wasted by investigation and I am not married.” In three years he accumulated three hundred points in favor of marriage and two hundred and ninety-nine points against marriage.A friend told him, “You should understand one thing: this intellectual agony that you are going through, even without getting married, in three years you have got a real taste of it. And I suggest one thing more to you: whenever it is a question to experience a thing or not to experience a thing it is better to experience. That will make you more mature.”So the list was now equal. And the friend said, “Don’t be afraid. All over the world everybody is married.”So he said, “Okay, if you all say – and now the points are the same. I will go…” And he knocked on the doors of the girl’s house.Her father came out and he said, “You have come a little late. My girl got married three years ago. Now she has two children. You will have to find someone else.”He said, “No, I don’t want to find someone else. I am relieved of such a burden. In these three years I have been in such a torture. It is enough experience.”Mind only thinks about things. “What will happen after death?” Why can’t you wait? One thing is certain: you will die – I guarantee it! How you prefer to die, that is another matter, but there are books and books about death and what will happen after death. In India people were more philosophically minded, not now, but twenty-five centuries ago….In the golden days of Gautam Buddha, they even started to think about what was happening before the world. Ordinarily, nobody bothers. Have you ever been concerned where you were and what was happening to you before birth? The problem simply does not arise. And once they have created a belief system that something was happening before birth, then the whole philosophy of reincarnation…and there are complexities in the philosophy, different interpretations.The day Gautam Buddha died, his followers divided over small points into thirty-two schools: how many hells there are…Now these are purely mind games. You have not been in a hell, nor have you met anybody who has been in a hell.Jainas believe there are three hells – just a mind calculation because there are small-time sinners who drink tea and eat in the night, and smoke once in a while. Just small sins…! Some place has to be made for them. So the first layer is of small sinners. Then there are bigger sinners who steal, who murder, who commit suicide and so on and so forth. And the third is specially for the greatest sinners: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan. The categories are absolutely necessary for the mind to figure out things. And nobody bothers whether there is any hell or not. And similarly there are three heavens, just to equalize and balance.Buddhists believe that there are seven hells because there are so many sins that they cannot be divided into three categories only. And the followers of Buddha thought, “Our approach is far more scientific; you have only three hells…”There was a man who must have had a great sense of humor; his name was Makkhali Gosal. He was also a competitor theologian. He said, “All these people who are talking know nothing. There are seventy-seven hells.” Sins have to be categorized in a more mathematical, accurate way, and this is just an example. Mind has been creating all kinds of problems which don’t exist, but once the mind has created them, then they become very complicated – and all answers bring more new questions.In the Middle Ages, all the Christian theologians were concerned with a special discussion – you will think they were all idiots – how many angels can stand on a pinpoint?! What business…? That is their problem, how many can stand on a pinpoint. In the first place, why should they stand? Is there not something else to do? But the problem was to prove the weightlessness of the angel, and different theologies were giving different answers – and they were conflicting.The whole world has lived in controversies which have to be understood as mind-created. Mind enjoys very much. If there are no problems and life is simple, there is no work for the mind. The mind goes out of employment.The heart does not project problems, but gets caught into a small net of things, jealousy, anger, love, and makes too much of it. They are not theological problems, they are not very philosophical. They are simple but there is some shadow of the mind in them.Only your being has no emotions and no thought.It simply is.In that isness a tremendous world opens all its mysteries.It is good that you are going slowly slowly, but better will be to take an instantaneous jump, because slowly slowly, you can go on and on for lives…. And if you see the point that as mind becomes simple, a beauty, a grace arises in your being, a childlike wonder about everything, a peace and a silence and a blissfulness – why should you go slowly? Everywhere, you go with speed. Slowly means you are going reluctantly, trying to postpone it as long as you can, and meanwhile solve a few problems.This will not take you to it. This is the experience of the mystics that if you see the point, in that very point all problems, all questions, all philosophies, everything disappears.Miss Goodbody has been teaching for twenty years, so all the kids bring her presents. They line up in front of her holding the gifts and she tries to guess what they are.Little Ernie’s father has a liquor store and she notices that little Ernie’s package is leaking, so she tastes it.“Did you bring me Scotch whiskey?” she asks.“No,” replies little Ernie.So Miss Goodbody turns to little Ronnie. Little Ronnie’s father is a florist.“Did you bring me some love roses?” asks Miss Goodbody.“Yes, teacher,” replies Ronny, passing her the flowers.Then Miss Goodbody goes back to Ernie’s leaking package and tastes it again.“Did you bring me gin?” she says.“No,” replies little Ernie.Little Ruthy’s father has a candy store.“Have you brought me candy?” asks Miss Goodbody.“Yes, teacher,” replies Ruthy and gives her the package.Then Miss Goodbody goes back to Ernie and tastes the leaking packet again.“Did you bring me rum?” she asks.“No,” replies little Ernie, “I brought you a puppy.”This world is so hilarious. What complications…? The poor puppy is just doing his thing.Little Ernie gives a loud wolf whistle in the middle of Father Murphy’s sermon, and his grandfather picks him up and carries him out of the church.Once they are outside, he starts to scold. “How could you?” he cries, “Making such a noise in the church…!”“Well,” replies little Ernie looking quite excited, “I have been praying for a long time that God would teach me to whistle, and this morning he did.”Just look at life with more playful eyes. Don’t be serious. Seriousness becomes like a blindness. Don’t pretend to be a thinker, a philosopher. Just simply be a human being. The whole world is showering its joy on you in so many ways, but you are too serious, you cannot open your heart.Mendel Kravitz, the American from New York, goes to Japan on a business trip and meets a lovely young Japanese woman. She cannot speak much English and he does not know Japanese.After dinner together they go back to her apartment and Mendel starts to make passionate love to her. All the time the beautiful Japanese girl is yelling, “Titti gochi, titti gochi, ah titti gochi.”Mendel thinks that she must never have had such a great lover as himself.The next day Mendel and a Japanese businessman are playing golf. Halfway through the game, the Japanese man hits a hole in one. Not knowing any Japanese, but delighted for his friend, Mendel wants to show his excitement and cries out, “Ah, titti gochi!”The Japanese businessman spins around and looking amazed asks, “What do you mean by wrong hole?”Young Fergin Finkelstein has just graduated from law school and is applying for a job at a large corporation. The personnel manager looks him in the eye and says, “Mr. Finkelstein, are you an honest attorney?”“Honest?” says young Fink. “Let me tell you something. My father lent me ten thousand dollars for my college education and I paid him back in full after my very first case.”“I am impressed,” says the manager. “And what was the case?”Young Fink turns red and says, “My father sued me for the money.”As far as I am concerned I don’t see any complexity anywhere. All complexities are man-made. Simplicity is divine. It is not manufactured; it is simply here. You just have to open your eyes, your sensitivity, receptivity, and allow it to touch your heart, to enter into your being.A beautiful world is possible if people are just simple, but to be simple is the exact meaning of religious. To be simple can be reduced to the first part of the statement on the temple of Delphi: be. And you will be surprised that everything is so juicy. But you never entered into the world of being and everything becomes a trouble, a puzzle, a complication, a complexity – and you have to solve it without knowing that the problem is false, it cannot have a right solution.Mulla Nasruddin was given an interview with a shipping company. The manager asked, “Nasruddin, it is a dangerous job. Sometimes the ocean behaves so roughly. If you are caught in tidal waves, what are you going to do with your ship?”He said, “No problem at all. I will simply lower down the defense mechanism that every ship has, just weights, huge weights which keep the ship stable even when there is so much turmoil all around.”The manager said, “Another tidal wave is arising…?”He said, “No problem. I will again lower down a huge weight” – In the shipping world these weights are called langers.The manager said, “But if a third wave comes, what will you do?”He said, “No problem…a bigger langer.”The manager is in a difficulty what to do with this man. He says, “From where are you getting all these langers?”Mulla Nasruddin said, “And from where are you getting these tidal waves?”The same is the source….You go on bringing tidal waves and I will go on lowering bigger and bigger langers.Mind creates problems, raises tidal waves and then searches for langers and creates those langers also…. But more tidal waves are coming, and things become very difficult.Paddy and Sean are sitting in the pub one day talking about their wives when Paddy looks into the distance, sighs and says, “Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who will give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness?”“No,” says Sean, “I am afraid I don’t.”“I will tell you what it means,” replies Paddy sipping his beer, “it means you are in the wrong bloody house.”In your own house it is not going to happen. Wherever I have lived I have always loved to be friends with drunkards because they are such juicy people and they say such great things – and no newspaper takes any note…!In my village, just in front of my house was a barber’s shop. And that barber was a miracle man. He was so opium addicted that it was a miracle that he managed to find where his shop was and where his house was.But every day I used to sit in his shop, and something was bound to happen. He would cut somebody’s mustache off and then he would say, “Wait. I have urgent work to do in the market.”And the man would say, “But this is stupid…sitting here in the barber’s chair with half a mustache! You are not reliable. When will you return? And whether you will return or not today…and I have other things to do.”And the barber would say, “Don’t be worried. I will come.”Sometimes it would happen that somebody had come to be shaved, and he would shave his head. And once he had started, half of the hairs gone – now there is no way. And he was a great philosopher. He would say, “Don’t worry. These hairs grow like grass. They will grow. And as far as I am concerned, you need not pay until they grow. Then you can pay me if you feel like it. But you had such beautiful hair that I felt to shave it completely. So what do you say? Should I complete the process or leave it as it is?”Naturally, the man would say, “You complete the process, you idiot! Everybody warned me, ‘Never go to this barber. He is not in his senses.’“He would shave him completely and he would say, “You don’t be worried. I will not charge you anything.”The man said, “It is not a question of charging anything…the whole village is going to laugh.”And in India particularly, you shave your head completely only when your father is dead…”So everybody is going to ask, ‘My God, what happened to your father?’“And he would advise, “No, it is just a question of a few days – it will grow.”And I would spread the rumor that his father is dead; and then say, “Mistakenly he thought he was dead, so he shaved his hair. Don’t torture him.”One day he told me, “What do you think? – because you are my greatest fan.”I said, “That’s true.”…”If all the opium addicts make a political party, can they create a revolution in the country?”I said, “If they can manage to make a party, the revolution has already happened.”He said, “You are right, because opium addicts don’t agree with anybody else. Even amongst themselves they are continuously disagreeing about everything. These are the most difficult people, but it is the absolute necessity of the times if you want this country to be liberated from the politicians. You should do something.”I said, “But what can I do?”He said, “You can at least start a party for opium addicts.”I said, “The idea is good, but I am not an opium addict myself.”He said, “That I will teach you, but promise me that after that you will take great care. These opium addicts are very dangerous people.”One man was pissing behind his shop – in India it is common – and the barber caught hold of him and the man was trying…”What are you doing?”And he said, “You idiot. In my absence you are milking my cow? I heard the noise!”You have just to look and you will find a very simple world, and it will give your being such a shower of blessings.You don’t have to go to any church. Those churches are created by very complicated people. You don’t have to go to a temple – those gods are mind-manufactured. You don’t have to go anywhere.Just go within yourself and relax, and go on relaxing till you touch the very center of your being. And suddenly, the whole scene of the world changes: everything becomes totally new and fresh.Just these owls…just this silence…. What is complicated? These trees trying to reach to the stars – what is complicated?You are complicated.The world is absolutely simple.And you are complicated because you are not rooted in your being. So please, don’t go slowly and don’t go with speed; just don’t go anywhere.Remain within you. That sentence on Delphi center: Be…But if you cannot do that, then Know thyself – then find out some meditative method, some awareness technique and Keep the measure.In everything remain balanced, and life itself is a teaching in simplicity.

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 19 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Why can I not just fall in love with any woman and be blind like every man?Niskriya, your question is very special. You are asking, “Why can I not just fall in love with any woman and be blind like every man?” It is simple, Niskriya: because you are not a blind man.And as far as women are concerned, they like blind men! They don’t fall in love with buddhas. You are so alert and aware and meditative – women don’t like these things at all. Just seeing you once, they will never come close to you.Falling in love is possible only when the woman understands that the other is also going to fall. Looking at you, it does not seem possible. You may stand in love, but you cannot fall. Nothing can be done about it. This is your type, and I don’t think it is good to make any effort to change your type. You are a unique person in this unique community.Everyone here is falling in love and falling out of love, and Niskriya is standing, watching the whole scene and wondering, “Why am I not falling?” You are not just another man; you are yourself. And it is a great quality not to fall, particularly in love, because then you have to fall out. It is an unnecessary exercise. A few people like doing exercise, a few people don’t like. You are a silent man – beyond all these exercises.Only this woman seems to be interested in you! So find out later on – she will come to you by herself – but it will last only one night. In the morning you will find you are standing again. This is your destiny.Moishe Finkelstein pays his bill and starts to get up from the table.“By the way, sir,” says the anxious-looking waiter, “do you believe that history repeats itself?”“I certainly do,” exclaims Moishe, “I know of a number of cases.”“Well, sir,” replies the waiter, rubbing his hands together, “one gentleman who was in here yesterday left me a five dollar tip.”“Amazing,” says Moishe, reaching for his hat, “perhaps he will be here again tomorrow.”Everybody understands things in his own way and everybody has to be himself. History may be repeating, but no individual repeats.Paddy has been suffering from chest pains, and although the tests have been inconclusive, the doctor tells him that if he wants to live much longer, he will have to lead a quiet life – no late nights, no exercise, and no sex.“Okay,” says Maureen when she hears the news. “From now on I will sleep downstairs on the sofa, then he won’t be tempted.”They live like this for three weeks. Then one night they bump into each other on the stairs.“What are you doing out of bed?” asks Maureen.“I can’t stay upstairs on my own anymore,” replies Paddy. “I’m coming downstairs to die.”“Thank God for that,” says Maureen, “because I was just coming upstairs to kill you!”Big Chief Running Bear walks into the drugstore and starts complaining to the druggist.“Rubbers you give me no good!” he says, “Chief go, Ugh! Squaw go, Ugh! Rubbers go, Boom!”The druggist is very sorry and gives the Indian a new package.“These are the strongest rubbers made,” he says.The next day, the chief is back.“Rubber no good!” He explains, “Chief go, Ugh! Squaw go, Ugh! Rubbers go, Boom!”The frustrated druggist goes into the back of his shop, cuts a piece from a bicycle tire, and glues one end shut. He then goes back into the shop and hands it to the chief.Next morning, the squaw comes into the drugstore.“Rubber you sell chief too good,” she says, “Chief go, Ugh! Squaw go, Ugh! Chief’s ball go, Boom!”This is a world where a variety of people exist. You are a special case. But this woman…just wait; she is going to torture you! Beware of this woman, otherwise tomorrow will come the question of how to get rid of a woman – and everything has gone, Boom!It is better, Niskriya, to be silent. You are here to meditate. But that woman is too much for you, absolutely determined…unafraid, not knowing you. A few others are also becoming interested.Have you asked the question or is it a kind of advertisement?Osho,The more I meditate, the more empty I get inside. I had an idea that when one meditates, one slowly is transformed into being more laughing and loving, but I just get hollow and empty and start withdrawing myself from others. I prefer now to be alone, but I do not feel happy; the hollowness in me makes me feel deep sorrow.Osho, what is happening to me?Dolma, I know what is missing in you and that is a trust, and you have not been able to get rid of your guilt that you are carrying within yourself. I have been asked if Dolma should be allowed in the commune or not – because you were part of that company who destroyed the commune in America. But I could not say that you should be stopped from entering the commune.It would have been tremendously helpful if you had revealed in what ways you participated in destructive things, because you were very intimately part of the gang – but you are hiding all that. That is making you hollow; otherwise, in this place, nobody is hollow, and everybody who goes in does not find emptiness, but finds nothingness which is totally different from emptiness.Emptiness is something sad. Nothingness is another name of fullness; it is overflowing. You don’t find love arising because the guilt is heavy. It is still time: if you confess everything that you have done, you will be relieved of it.Just a few days ago, Patipada was here and she wrote asking to be in the commune. I asked her first for an apology, because she was also like you, although not that deep in the destructiveness. She replied, “I don’t feel that I have done anything wrong, and I don’t feel like apologizing.”I said, “Then it is up to you, but you cannot be part – it is better you leave.”After two months she came again and with tears wrote a letter saying, “I am very sorry. I know I have done wrong things and I know I have been part of many things which culminated in helping the government to destroy the commune. I was wrong to say that I have nothing to be sorry for. I am sorry and I ask for forgiveness.”I said, “If it is coming from your deepest heart – not just a political, diplomatic strategy – then you will find your home again amongst my people. I will not prevent you. I will give you another chance.”But I was hoping Dolma would express by herself her guilt and her apology – but she has not done that. She is here but she cannot be part because of that guilty feeling, “I have misbehaved, I have misused the trust and love and compassion…” She will find herself alone in the thousands of people who are here, surrounded by a wall of her own guilt.If she wants to be free, she has to confess it and the confession has not to be diplomatic. If it is diplomatic, it is not going to help. If it is authentic, it will immediately transform your sadness into laughter, your aloneness into a meaningful meeting and merging in the commune.You have not even asked the real thing in your question. It is very strange: people have problems, but they ask something else; they don’t expose themselves. You are asking about meditation as if you are a meditator. And you are saying, “The more empty I get inside,” and I know you have never been inside.If even for once you have been inside, your first realization would have been that you owe something to the commune – an apology at least.You are saying, I had an idea that when one meditates, one slowly is transformed into being more laughing and loving. Do you understand what you are writing in your question, I had an idea that when one meditates…? Certainly it is not your experience, it is just…an idea, that when one meditates one slowly is transformed into being more laughing and loving, but I just get hollow and empty and start withdrawing myself from others. But this is not because you are meditating.Just face the reality, look in the mirror and remove your masks. And what is only your idea will be found just phony.Meditate, but right now, the condition in which you are, you cannot meditate. And because you cannot meditate, the guilt does not allow you to mix with people because these are the same people you have betrayed…It is so easy to accept, because it is very human to err. It is more human to realize that one has erred, that one has committed a mistake. It is not something that one has to be afraid of. I am not sending you into hell, but if you don’t accept and realize what has been done by you or by the company in which you were an intrinsic part, you will remain empty and you will start withdrawing from people. And finally you will create the hell.The hell is not somewhere else. It is not geographical. It is your psychology: a psychology which is messed up, confused, and has become ugly and is afraid to expose itself to the sun and to the wind…Dolma, just do that.Search out within yourself – because nobody knows more than you what has been happening in the group you were part of – what kind of power trip, and in that power trip what kind of blindness, the things that you did in that blindness or supported or you did not object to.Unless you unburden your heart it is very difficult for me to help you. And you will feel deep sorrow. I feel compassion for you, because I don’t have any condemnation for anyone. People are unconscious, they go on doing things and they don’t know where it will lead them, what will be the consequences.So it is not just you; everybody is in the same boat. And one should always be alert that whenever he finds that he has done something wrong – although there was a certain feeling that this is not the thing to do – still one went on doing it because it was giving power, prestige, respectability.The group to which you belonged in the commune in America – none of that group were meditators; they had no time to meditate – but they were conspiring to do all kinds of things, even trying to murder people. You may not have done anything, but if you were part of the group and you remained silent, you are as much responsible as the person who did it.There is no problem: you simply confess everything. Just write a letter in The Osho Times confessing everything that you did, that you knew was being done by other people and that you never objected to, but on the contrary, you supported. You will be free of this guilt, this hollowness – and happiness is not very far away, and meditation is your birthright. And one who goes in meditation, always goes into fullness, into nothingness.But nothingness is not emptiness. Nothingness is simply no thing-ness, a space, pure, unobstructed. The whole sky becomes available to you within your own being.Kowalski’s son has been acting strangely, so Kowalski takes him to the psychiatrist.“Tell me, son,” asks the psychiatrist, “how many wheels are there on a car?”“Four,” replies the boy.“Very good,” says the shrink. “And what is it that a cow has four of that a woman has two of?”“Legs,” answers the kid.“Good,” says the shrink. “And what does your father have that your mother likes the most?”“Money,” replies the boy.The psychiatrist turns to Kowalski and says,“You don’t have to worry about your son, he is smart.”“He sure is!” says Kowalski. “I missed the last two questions myself!”Just accept what you have missed and you will feel unburdened, happy, and you will be accepted back – nobody is going to reject you. But in the commune in America, you had become part of a group which separated itself from the whole commune of five thousand people. Just twenty women and the desire is to dominate? It is very human.Because I was silent and I was in isolation, and I was not talking to anyone, not meeting with anyone, this power group became superior to others, starting the egoist trip.The simple thing for you is to accept that you have been wrong and that you deeply feel sorry for it, and nobody is going to be angry about it. I don’t teach people to be judgmental. They will all feel sympathetic towards you, loving towards you. What happened, happened, but we can change the future. The past is already gone, but if you go on carrying the past inside yourself, then it is not gone. It is present and it will remain your future also. This will be like a cancer which will kill you.Paddy is driving along a winding mountain road in his old Ford car.Suddenly a sleek sports car going in the opposite direction almost runs him off the road. And to make things worse, a young woman driving the sports car sticks her head out of the window and yells at him, “Pig!”Paddy immediately reacts angrily by sticking his head out of his car and yelling back at her, “Bitch!”He then rounds the next bend in the road and smashes straight into a huge pig!You cannot avoid what you are. You will meet yourself again and again. On some other bend of the road, you will meet yourself.Old man Finkelstein comes to the doctor’s office.“Doc,” he says, “you have got to give me something to pep me up. I have got a date tonight with my twenty-five-year-old secretary and I want to be sure that I am able to perform.”The physician smiles and gives him some pills. Later that night, out of curiosity, he telephones Finkelstein.“Did the medicine help any?” asks the doctor.“It was great!” replies Finkelstein, “I have managed three times already.”“And how about the girl?” chuckles the doctor.“Oh,” replies Finkelstein, “She has not got here yet.”Osho,Sometimes, sitting with you in discourse, everything inside me becomes so relaxed, so silent, that my mind seems to stop thinking thoughts, and although I hear the sound of your voice, the words cease to carry any meaning. However, this state lacks a certain alertness, as if when the mind becomes silent I fall unconscious.Have you an alarm clock for my witness?What do you think my jokes are for? I know that you will fall asleep. If I talk great theology you will enjoy a good evening, but I don’t let you enjoy. My jokes are the alarm clock. So many people laughing, how can you relax and fall asleep? Impossible!I have to tell these jokes; otherwise I may fall asleep also…because you are so many and I am alone! Just think.Now before I fall asleep…After Fagin and Rosa Finkelstein get married, they soon establish a household routine that includes having sex every evening at nine-fifteen.(The master pauses, looks at his watch and declares…)There is still time!After several weeks of this, Rosa catches flu and gets an injection that kills all but three of the germs in her body.The trio of surviving germs holds an emergency meeting to discuss how they might escape.“I am moving up to the tip of her ear,” says the first germ. “That flu shot will never get me up there!”The second germ says, “I am going to the tip of her toe!”“You guys can go and do what you want,” says the third, “but when that old ‘nine-fifteen’ pulls out tonight, I am going to be on top of it!”

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 20 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I have never been loved by a man. Either there is a very strong sexual connection, but without lovingness or caring, or there is caring and understanding, but sex doesn't happen. I want so much to connect with a man in totality that I am always looking. My feeling is that there is a lesson for me here in receptivity, but perhaps also in humbleness.Osho, please comment.Mayoori, it is one of the oldest problems human beings have faced. Their fancy is about pure love, care, concern, but their biology has a different program. It has no concern with your pure love or caring. Its concern is to reproduce the species. Biology is purely sexual.The effort is going to fail if you want a love which is non-biological. And the problem becomes more complicated. The woman can perhaps wait, because her sexuality is passive sexuality, it is spread all over her body. It feels immensely joyful to her just to be cuddled, loved, cared. Sex seems to her to be something lower, animalistic.But one has to consider man also. His sexuality is localized. One thing: it is not all over his body. And second: it has to be aggressive. The woman’s egg waits inside – it can wait for infinity – but the man’s sperm cannot wait that long. He wants to have the marathon race as quickly as possible. That’s why he pretends romance and all goody-goody things, but his real intention is when it is nine-fifteen…! He is constantly looking at the watch. Everything else is good, but the real goal is nine-fifteen.And the situation is determined very quickly…. Those one million sperms that will be released in one sexual act will never have such a marathon race again; it is a question of life and death. Only one out of one million will reach to the woman’s egg which is just sitting there.Once one sperm has reached the egg, the egg is closed. Sometimes it happens that a few friends reach together; then you have twins. But that is very rare and anyway one million people cannot reach – they will kill the woman if they reach at the same time…nine-fifteen! There are wiser ones who stand by the side and see the whole scene, and there are idiots who don’t look here and there and go direct like an arrow because there is not much time. The life of a sperm out of a man’s body is only two hours.Once a man’s sperms are released, he wants to sleep. He’s tired and it is enough. Now he doesn’t think about romance, he does not have any inbuilt program for a little afterplay…before, he has to. So within two or three minutes – that is nine-seventeen – he is already thinking, “When will this nonsense stop?” Certainly it is tiring for him; it is his energy that is going out.The woman is not losing energy, she is gaining energy. And she could not even get an orgasm, because the orgasm takes some time. The man should play with her body, provoke every cell and fiber of her body so she becomes afire. But no man is concerned and it looks stupid also, “What are you doing? Just do the real thing and go to sleep.”It is very difficult to find a man who will love you and not just as an object of sexual release. It does not mean there will not be any sex. It may be just a small part in a big, romantic, loving, caring atmosphere. It will be very difficult for you to find such a man, and meanwhile you will be becoming older. So my suggestion is, if that man ever comes into your life – very good; meanwhile Niskriya is perfectly okay. And I am not making a story! Niskriya has been interested in Mayoori for at least three years, but Mayoori never gave him any chance to come close. But when she saw that one witch had already got him, the next night she reached to Niskriya…!Niskriya could not believe it – this is the woman he has been fancying. But Niskriya is a very scientific, mathematical person – a technologist, and that too a German technologist.So Mayoori was coming to him…he was happy, but it did not last. Next day he asked the question, “Every girl has a boyfriend, every boy has a girlfriend – there are even boys who have boyfriends and girls who have girlfriends…why is nature so hard on me? I only have my camera…!”You can do everything with the camera, but doing romance is a little too much. You can talk to the camera, say, “Sweetheart…” But for more than that the poor camera cannot help much – and particularly Niskriya’s camera; he won’t even allow anybody to touch it. He is such a perfectionist!So as far as I know, right now Niskriya is free. You can give him a try. And don’t ask the impossible. Try! The impossible also can happen, but it needs tremendous intelligence, understanding, playfulness. You can create the atmosphere in which even a man like Niskriya may start feeling love for you. I am risking my own cameraman, because he cannot have two romances. His romance is filming and everything has to be perfect.The most you can do is have your sexual relationship with people who are not romantic in any sense, and have your friendship with people who have gone beyond sex. You will either have to make a certain arrangement or you will have to change the man. It is not only the man’s responsibility to love you, to give you care and understanding and sex, it is also your responsibility. It is a question of a very subtle dialogue.If you are loving, caring, you will create a kind of synchronicity in the man also. That is the whole art of love. Nature has missed it or did not bother about it, because its concern was different. But your poetic heart, your individuality is far bigger than your biology. It cannot be satisfied only by biology.But remember, don’t go on looking for that man. Create the situation from your side too.I have heard…A man was saying that he has toured around the world looking for a perfect woman. One listener asked him, “Did you find her?”He said, “Yes, but she was looking for a perfect man.”Love has to be a sort of creativity.Then only does sex remain as a small part in it. My understanding is that the woman has more capacity to create the atmosphere of caring because she is by nature programmed to be a mother. Every woman should also be a mother to her lover.So take care of him, his clothes, his food, his cleanliness and slowly, slowly the man and his hardness – which is natural to him – will start melting. He will also start thinking, “Poor Mayoori is doing so much for me; I should also do something.” Then he is certain to bring ice cream. And without ice cream no love is complete. I don’t know why it is so, but it is so!Niskriya was very happy when he saw Mayoori approaching him. For three years he has been dreaming about her – a beautiful woman – but I don’t think they could manage to be together long. They both need a certain art and a certain understanding.Unfortunately the world has taken it for granted that everyone knows how to love, so no educational system, no university has courses for the art of love. It is very strange that the most important thing is neglected.One day when I was sitting with the vice-chancellor in his room, a girl came in with tears in her eyes, but I could see that behind her tears there was a subtle joy. And she said that a certain boy was harassing her. He takes the air out of her bicycle tires, he throws small stones at her, he continually writes letters…“Even my family has become concerned because he never signs them. They also harass me, ‘Who is this man and why does he go on writing love letters to you?’ I know who he is, but I cannot tell them because then there will unnecessarily be a quarrel and fight. I have come to ask you to do something and prevent this harassment.”The vice-chancellor said, “Don’t be worried, I will call this boy right now and it will not happen again.”I said, “Wait.”He said, “Why?”I said, “Wait. Before you call the boy I have to ask a few questions to you in front of this girl.”He looked a little shocked – I was a professor in his university. He said, “You always behave strangely. It is none of your concern.”I said, “It is my concern, it is everybody’s concern. Answer me honestly. When you were a student in the university at this age have you not done the same things to any girl?”He said, “My God!”And I said, “Remember, you cannot deceive me and you will lose all your honor in my eyes if you deceive. Tell the truth.”He said, “Yes, I used to do such things.”I said, “One part of it is clear.”The girl was amazed. Tears disappeared, she was almost smiling, and I said to her, “Now you ask yourself, are you really interested that nobody should harass you, nobody should throw stones at you, nobody should take air out of your bicycle tires, nobody should write you love letters…? Be honest the way the vice-chancellor has been honest. Will you be happy then?”For a moment she hesitated and she said, “No, in fact I enjoy whatever he is doing.”“Then why have you come here to complain?”She said, “Talking about him makes me very happy. He writes such beautiful letters.”And the vice-chancellor said, “This is a strange situation. Now what am I supposed to do?”I said, “You simply don’t do anything. If you do anything I am going to your house and will inform your wife what you have been doing in your college days.”He said, “No, don’t do that. That will make my life hell. It is already a hell. Have mercy on me! I’m an old man and those are very faraway echoes of when I was a postgraduate in a university. Yes, once in a while I remember those beautiful faces which have all failed…and I have ended up with a bitch.”I said to the girl, “From tomorrow – at least in my class – you should sit with the boy.”She said, “With the boy?”I said, “Yes, with the boy. Nag him. Start what is going to happen in the end. It is better to be finished beforehand. Pinch him, and I assure you he will enjoy.”She said, “This is a strange solution, I have never heard…And what will the others say?”I said, “Don’t be worried about others. If anybody says anything send that person to me and I will put him right.”This is the situation because nobody is taught a simple art of love. Because the boy cannot touch the girl, he throws a stone. At least the stone he has touched will touch the girl.It does not appear clearly to people who don’t understand the human mind that he is touching the girl from a distance because closeness is not allowed, he is taking the air out of her bicycle…In fact, he wants her to be on his bicycle, but neither does he understand nor does she understand.…”Send your boy to me and I will teach him how he should behave.”She said, “I have come here so that he should be punished. It seems you have punished me and you have punished the vice-chancellor too. And that boy who is harassing me is being rewarded.”I said, “He has to be rewarded, he is courageous for writing love letters. Where are all those love letters?”She said, “I have collected them.”I said, “If you hate that boy why have you collected those love letters? You should have burned them, but you enjoy them. And do you read them again and again?”She said, “You know so much! Yes, it is true. Every night when everybody is asleep I read them again and again. He writes such beautiful things, so nice – and he looks beautiful.”I said, “Then what is the problem?”The problem is that society is not providing proper guidance for what you should do, and it is one of the most fundamental problems of man’s life: his sexuality, his love. Somehow he has to learn how to rise above biology. Biology remains a part – I am not against biology, but biology is very mediocre and ordinary. Some poetry, some music, some dance – and finally, some ice cream. They are absolutely needed.Mayoori, give poor Niskriya a try – he was immensely happy when he saw you approaching him…The world has been teaching girls: You should run away and allow the boys to chase you. But don’t run away so fast that they lose hope. Run away and then wait. Let them come closer and then run away and wait…finally to be caught…. It is just to give you a sense that you are responsible for whatever happens afterwards. Because the girl was running away, you chased her, you caught her. And in fact the truth is that she is managing it so that you can chase her. She is managing it so that you can catch her. So she remains higher than you and she will remind you again and again, “I was not after you, you were after me.”But there is no need for chasing and being caught. People should be more understanding and approach each other saying, “I have something in my heart that starts dancing when I come close to you. If you also have something of the same perhaps we can have a few days…” And life is not so long!One famous Urdu poem is….Life consists of four days.Two are for preparation and two for waiting.Waiting for what? Preparing for what? In a small life don’t waste time in unnecessary moralities, puritan ideologies, preachers and their teachings…They are all hypocrites.Be authentic and say to a man or a woman, “I love you. I like your eyes, I like your face…That does not mean that I will like everything of you, but I will try to avoid those things. If you have any sensitivity for me, I am available. I don’t ask for your totality nor should you ask for my totality.”That’s what you are asking: totality. Poor human beings cannot be total; and things go on changing. Today what seems to be great love, tomorrow will not seem to be so great. And the day after tomorrow, it will be ordinary repetition and you will start looking here and there for how to have that great totality again.There is no totality, there is only illusion of totality in life. The man of intelligence understands that life is not perfect and is not meant to be perfect. It is imperfect. We are all imperfect beings. So although there may be nooks and corners which you don’t like about a person, there may be things that you do like…. Don’t wait for a dream girl. Be more realistic and try to understand that everybody has faults, and to love someone does not mean that you have to change that person. To love that person does not mean that you have to destroy his freedom.To love simply means that you feel that something clicks within the two of you. As long as that dance within your heart remains, good. I have always considered that every couple should have a weekend, just a change. I don’t see that there is any immorality in it, but simply intelligence. Why force people to live in boredom? Such a small life…four days and they too are wasted in boredom. And after the weekend your own wife will again be…”My God, she looks beautiful!”Every woman is almost the same and every man is almost the same. The non-essentials are different: somebody has a beard and somebody has not…. The whole humanity should live in a kind of loving atmosphere which allows freedom so that boredom does not set in.Mayoori, you have a great chance. A man who has been thinking of you in his dreams is here just in front of me. Nobody dreams about the poor fellow, because he is so statue-like that one feels afraid.I have heard people ask for photographs of Niskriya just to make their children afraid, but a woman like Mayoori may change his stone-like…Just last night he was standing almost the way the soldiers of Adolf Hitler used to stand: straight. And the day before he was wearing the Chinaman’s cap with a small note: Excuse Me. You will have to think of the whole joke, then you will understand what “Excuse Me” means. He is trying his best. Just see what he does today…!Paddy picks up a girl in the pub and then takes her for a drive in his old Ford car. He stops on a deserted section of country road, turns to the girl and begins to make some rather predictable advances.“Just a minute,” the girl declares, pushing him away. “I’m really a prostitute, and I have to charge you fifty dollars.”Paddy reluctantly pays her and they make love. Later Paddy sits silently at the wheel.“What is the matter?” asks the girl. “Are we not leaving?”“Not quite yet,” says Paddy, “I am really a taxi driver, and the fare back is fifty dollars.”But people manage….A young fireman is becoming bored with his sex life, and feels he needs to make it more juicy.He gets the idea of using codes, like he does when he is fighting fires, and explains the idea to his wife.“When I say Code One,” says the fireman, “that is your signal to run upstairs to the bedroom. Code Two means get undressed and jump into the bed and Code Three means we make mad passionate love.”All goes well for a week and their love life reaches new heights. But one night after going through all three codes, the wife suddenly yells out, “Code Four!”The fireman looks at her and says, “What is that?”“Code Four!” she cries. “More hose!”Gorgeous Gloria is very fond of her parrot, but is always embarrassed by its bad habits.Whenever Gloria brings home a boyfriend, the parrot cries, “Someone is going to get it tonight!”So she takes the parrot to the vet for treatment, but the vet tells her that her bird must be lonely and in need of female companionship.At the pet shop Gloria explains her story and asks about a female parrot.“I’m afraid we are out of female parrots at the moment,” says the storekeeper, “but in the meantime, why don’t you take home this nice lady owl and see how they get on together?”A few nights later, Gloria comes home with a new boyfriend.The parrot takes one look and screeches, “Someone’s going to get it tonight!”“Whooo?” hoots the owl.The parrot glares at the owl and squawks, “Not you, you big-eyed bitch!”Father Murphy is explaining the meaning of faith to his congregation.“In the front row,” he says, “we have Paddy and Maureen and their five children. Maureen knows they are her children – that is knowledge. Paddy believes they are his children – that is faith.”Old man Finkelstein is having lunch with his young grandson, Fagin Finkelstein, the lawyer. Over brandy and cigars, the old man explains how he has succeeded in business.“When I arrived in this town, my boy,” he begins, “I had nothing but the suit I was wearing and a small brown parcel which represented my entire worldly possessions. And now I own three factories, employ two thousand people, live in a large mansion and drive a Rolls Royce.”“Amazing,” says Fagin. “That is some achievement. But, tell me, what did you have in your brown paper parcel?”Old man Fink puffs on his cigar and says, “Two million in cash!”Mayoori, Niskriya may not look like a romantic lover, but he has good cash.

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Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 01-27Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 21 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,The other night I heard you give an answer to the American sannyasin, Dolma, in response to a question asked by another Dolma.It seems as if it was the question Dolma needed to ask, but hadn't, so you helped her to. Your compassion is simply stunning.Interestingly, several sannyasins were quite concerned that you seemed to have got the Dolmas mixed up and that you were “wrong.”Would you please comment?I knowingly have not used the whole name, Anurag Dolma, because I wanted to answer another Dolma who was here two months ago, just remained two days and said to people, “This is not the place for me anymore and these are not the people with whom I would like to live” – and left.I certainly knew that this question cannot be from that Dolma. But just as she needed the answer you also needed the answer. The Dolmas may have been different, their questions deep down were the same. And moreover, I answered not the question, but the person.Both of the Dolmas have the similar problem of personality. You are more courageous that you have remained, the other one was a coward. Rather than accepting that she has betrayed the commune, she thought it better to leave the place. She could not see herself in the mirror of the thousands of eyes all around. Every eye would have reflected her guilt. And how was she going to face me? She had not even written a question or a letter.There is nothing wrong – I have my own ways. This is not a teaching school; this is a world of a master who is concerned with your potential being. And as far as your potential being is concerned most of the questions are exactly about you. You may not have stumbled upon it today, perhaps tomorrow. Or perhaps you may have raised the question within yourself yesterday, but were not courageous enough to expose yourself.Every question has to be understood as the question of the whole commune. Only then can you learn as much as is possible to learn. If you think, “It is a question of Deva Dolma, it has nothing to do with us,” you are missing something. Something in it must be a part in you too, expressed, unexpressed. Perhaps a few have betrayed, a few are waiting to betray. But I am not addressing questions, I am addressing the whole commune, the whole atmosphere in which I want you to live and grow.It is just a strategy that I answer somebody’s question. There is no need at all even to mention the name, because the question as such belongs to almost every human being more or less.Mick Jagger orders an extremely expensive, custom-made suit, but is very dissatisfied with the finished garment.“I told you to make the pants tight!” he remarks angrily to the tailor. “I want them tight enough to show my sex.”“I am sorry, sir,” the tailor protests, “but if they were any tighter they would show your religion!”I have been told by my bodyworker, Anubuddha, to look all around. He says that because I go on looking in this direction, people want their seats in this direction. And according to him my neck gets disturbed. So from now onward, once in a while I’m going to look all around, just as an exercise.Where is Avirbhava? She must be holding the wall, because two times the wall has moved towards me…!Osho,I don't usually ask personal questions about your private life, because I feel it is private and none of our business.However, one question intrigues me deeply, and I can't resist asking it: Osho, what is your relationship with little Ernie?Maneesha, it would have been right if you had not asked this. Little Ernie is your brother, but he is not my son. But he is really cute, intelligent and anybody can be really proud of him.Little Ernie’s father invites his boss to dinner, in the hope of getting a promotion at work.Days are spent planning the menu and getting the house just right, but the effect is ruined when little Ernie appears on the stairs just as the boss arrives.“I wanted to see you,” says Ernie, “because Mum said you were a self-made man.”“I am,” smiles the boss, “and proud of it!”“In that case,” says Ernie, “why did you make yourself look so ugly?”The elevator on a New York skyscraper is packed with people.Suddenly a tall man screams out in agony.Little Ernie looks up at his mother, “I don’t care, Mom,” he says, “it was in my face, so I bit it.”Maneesha, he is everybody’s brother, not only yours. There are a few universal characters. Ernie is one of those universal characters. And you know I talk about all of those universal characters.But it is good not to ask me personal questions, because they are not going to help you in any way. You are here for your own personal growth, you are not to be worried about my personal life; in fact, I don’t have much personal life. Eighteen hours at least is sleeping.I have been told many times that I should write my autobiography. What autobiography? No love affair…Even Niskriya is smiling. He must be thinking, “Now look in what trouble I have been up to now.”I am not in trouble. Just to avoid trouble I am not in any love relationship. And without love relationships, without a wife and children what autobiography…? I am not a man of actions.Today after I finished lunch, my Coke was just sitting in front of me on the table, but I waited and waited for Shunyo…Finally she showed up. She said, “You have finished?”I said, “I have finished long ago, I am just waiting for my Coke.”She said, “But the Coke is here.”I said, “It is there, that’s what I am thinking. The Coke is here; I am here – nothing is happening. I am simply waiting for someone…”These people, you don’t know…Anando opens the door and forces me into my bathroom: “It is time to take a bath.”I said, “This is strange, I could have walked myself.”They don’t even allow me to open the door of the car…!I have looked many times – at the most, half a page will do for my autobiography, and the rest of my life I have been sleeping. Seeing the fact that for eternity one has to sleep, I thought, why bother? Just start it right now.My physician, Dr. Amrito goes on trying to cure my troubles. My hand hurts – he has been injecting it as many times as he wants. I am so lazy that I will not even stop…so let them do what they want to do. Finally, this morning I said, “Just wait a few days. When I am gone keep my skeleton and study it well, and wherever things are incorrect correct them. Why torture me unnecessarily now?”I don’t have any personal life. Just today I told Hasya not to answer any letter from anybody who addresses me as “friend,” because I don’t have any friend.I don’t take any responsibility. Once you accept somebody as a friend you have accepted somebody to be an enemy in the future. It is better from the very beginning to be on the safe side. Already I have so many enemies, why go on increasing them?A person who is asking questions, but is not ready to be a disciple does not deserve to be answered either, because disciple simply means one who is capable of learning. And a person who himself is accepting that, “I am not going to be a disciple, but I want these questions to be answered” – why should I bother? He has not even the respect.You don’t ask spiritual questions to your friends; you don’t ask questions about meditation and the inner life to your friends. Friends are in the same boat; I am not your friend. I may call you friends just out of my love, but that does not mean that you can call me your friend. The moment you call me your friend, I am not going to answer, because you are in the same state of consciousness as I am…what is the point of answering? You must know!If you want to learn you have to be a learner, a disciple. If, because of my love, I call you my friend that does not give you the permission to start calling me your friend.The distance between our consciousnesses is infinite.I am calling you from a sunlit peak.And you are in a dark valley.And anyway Maneesha, neither do I have any personality nor any personal life.Reduced to its simplest: I talk to you twice if my body allows. Once in a while it freaks out. Then two times a bath – just a quick shower, as quick as one can do. Fifteen hundred calories of food – which even small babies will find insufficient – because if I take more I will have to become a member of the Couch Potato Club.I don’t have any antagonism as far as potatoes are concerned. They are very good people; they have never done any harm to anybody. But still I don’t want to enter into that company.So for your information, this is my autobiography.…And then two times of sleep – in total eighteen hours. I don’t have any ambition for tomorrow. If by chance I am still here I will talk to you about things which may help you on the path. If I am not here perhaps that may also help you, because then you cannot take me for granted. Perhaps my remembrance may give you much more light than I can give you.Never take me for granted, because I have nothing to stay for: no desire, no ambition, nowhere to go. I have not even visited the M.G. Road market. I hope that some time, by chance…Just a few days ago I had to go to Jehangir Hospital to see one of my old lovers, Manik Bafna, because he had a second heart attack. If it was the first I would not have gone. A second is too much. The third is the last – after the third also I will not go, because there is no point. The right point was the second.And I heard from sannyasins that there is a rumor in the hospital that I had a heart attack, and I had come to be checked, but I did not like the place so I did not go – because within two minutes I was out. Naturally the hospital servants and doctors must have thought that I did not like the place. Who likes places like hospitals?So Maneesha, there is not much. I think I could have given you more information – Maneesha is writing books about me; she would have been helped – but I am helpless. You can invent anything you like. I will say yes, so you need not be worried. Even if you say that I have a wife and five children, I am not going to contradict it. What is wrong in it? Everybody has a wife, everybody has many children. And there is no harm; one really feels proud.But it is better not to ask such questions.Adolf Hitler is inspecting his panzer division. Every boot and button is shining bright and there is a deathly silence over the parade ground.All of a sudden someone sneezes.“Who sneezed?” Hitler shrieks at the men.Nobody dares to answer. Hitler raises his arm, and the first row of soldiers is shot dead.“Who sneezed?” Hitler shrieks again.There is no reply, so Hitler raises his arm and the next row of soldiers is shot dead.“I will ask you one more time,” says Hitler. “Who sneezed?”A man in the back row timidly raises his hand.“It was me,” says the soldier.“A-ha!” says Hitler, “Gesundheit!”…Can I have a little exercise? because I don’t have any other time to do the exercise.(The master slowly moves his head all the way round the semicircle of delighted sannyasins in front of him.)Luigi comes home after eighteen months abroad and is amazed to find his wife, Carlotta, has a three-week-old baby.Carlotta explains that she dreamt she had sex with him and she got pregnant.Luigi files for a divorce, and in court, the judge is astounded by Carlotta’s story. The judge stands up and asks the audience if they ever had intercourse with a ghost.In the back of the courtroom, Luigi’s grandfather raises his hand, and the judge calls him up to testify.“Now-a,” says the judge, “you say-a you had-a intercourse with a ghost?”“Ah, scusa,” says the old Italian, “I thought-a you say-a goat!”Before another exercise…Nobody is willing for a small exercise…. Anubuddha, this is not good.One bright Sunday in the morning after church, Mother Superior takes the nuns out for a bicycle ride.But before long, most of the nuns are squealing and giggling and fooling around.“All right, girls,” shouts Mother Superior, “if you don’t calm down and behave yourselves, I am going to make you put the bicycles seats back on!”Just the last…Gertie Kowalski goes to visit Dr. Bones with cuts and scratches on her knees.“How did this happen?” asks Bones.Gertie blushes a deep red, but then she finally tells him.“The truth is, Doctor,” she says, “that I have been doing it doggie style.”“Well, that is no problem to cure,” says Bones. “Just roll over and do it in the missionary position.”“I have tried it,” says Gertie, “but each time I do, I get knocked out by the smell of my dog’s breath!”

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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1. The Search for the BullIn the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull.Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains,my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull.I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.Comment:The bull has never been lost. What need is there to search? Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. Far from home, I see many crossroads, but which way is the right one, I know not. Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.2. Discovering the FootprintsAlong the river bank under the trees, I discover footprints!Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints.Deep in remote mountains they are found.These traces no more can be hidden than one's nose looking heavenward.Comment:Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull. Then I learn that, just as many utensils are made from one metal, so too are myriad entities made of the fabric of self. Unless I discriminate, how will I perceive the true from the untrue? Not yet having entered the gate, nevertheless I have discerned the path.We enter on a rare pilgrimage. The Ten Bulls of Zen are something unique in the history of human consciousness. Truth has been expressed in many ways, and it has always been found that it remains unexpressed whatsoever you do. However you express it, it eludes – it is elusive. It simply escapes description. The words that you use for it cannot contain it. And the moment you have expressed it in words, immediately you feel frustrated as if the essential has been left behind and only the nonessential has been expressed. The Ten Bulls of Zen have tried in a single effort to express the inexpressible. So first, something about the history of these ten bulls.Basically, there were eight pictures, not ten; and they were not Buddhist, they were Taoist. Their beginning is lost. Nobody knows how they started, who painted the first bulls. But in the twelfth century a Chinese Zen master, Kakuan, repainted them; and not only that, he added two more pictures, and eight became ten. The Taoist pictures ended on the eighth; the eighth is emptiness, nothingness. But Kakuan added two new pictures. That is the very contribution of Zen to religious consciousness.When one goes on an inner journey one leaves the world, renounces all that hinders the path, renounces all that is nonessential so that the essential can be searched, sought. One tries to become unburdened so the journey can become easier, because the journey, this journey, is toward the height, the greatest height there is – the very pinnacle of human possibilities, the very climax. One leaves the world; one renounces the world. Not only the world – one renounces the mind, because the mind is the cause of the whole world. The world of desires – the world of possessions – is just the outer part. The inner part is the mind: the desiring mind, the lustful mind, the jealous, competitive mind, the mind full of thoughts; that is the seed.One renounces the outer, one renounces the inner, one becomes almost empty – that’s what meditation is all about. One becomes totally empty. But is this the end? The Taoist pictures ended with nothingness. Kakuan says this is not the end – one comes back to the world, one comes back to the marketplace; only then is the circle complete. Of course, one comes totally new. One never comes with the old; the old is gone, gone forever. One comes totally renewed, resurrected, reborn – as if this man had never gone; as if this man is coming totally fresh and virgin. One comes back to the world, and again one lives in the world, yet lives beyond it. Again one becomes ordinary – chopping wood, carrying water from the well, walking, sitting, sleeping – one becomes absolutely ordinary. Deep inside, the emptiness remains uncorrupted. One lives in the world but the world is not in your mind, the world is not within you. One lives untouched, like a lotus flower.These two last pictures bring the seeker back to the world, and Kakuan has done a tremendously beautiful thing. One comes to the marketplace; not only that, one comes with a bottle of wine, drunk – drunk with the divine – to help others also to be drunk. There are many who are thirsty, there are many who are seeking, there are many who are stumbling on their path, there are many who are in deep darkness. One comes back to the world because of compassion. One helps other travelers to arrive. One has arrived, now one helps others to arrive. One has become enlightened, now one helps others toward the same goal. And each and everyone is searching for the same goal.The Taoist eight bulls are good, but not enough; beautiful, but something is missing in them. Emptiness is perfect, but there is a perfection still to be attained. Emptiness is perfect, let me repeat it, but still there is a perfection yet to be attained. Emptiness is perfect in a negative way. You have renounced, it is negative, but you have not yet loved. The positive is missing. Unhappiness is gone, misery disappears, but you are not yet ecstatic. You have attained to silence and silence is beautiful, but your silence is not yet a fulfillment, it is not an overflowing; it is not a blissful dance of your inner being.Here Kakuan goes beyond Taoism and beyond Buddhism – because both ended in emptiness, as if the journey were complete. You have reached Everest – cool, collected, calm. Now, what is the point of coming back to the marketplace? But if your meditation does not become compassion, then your meditation is still somehow hiding your ego, then your meditation is still selfish.If you don’t cry, if tears don’t come to your eyes for others, and if you don’t come back to the world to help people who are stumbling, then somehow your meditation is still not religious. It has helped you; you may be feeling very, very good, but unless it becomes compassion and you overflow in all directions, the tree has come to a stopping point, it has not yet flowered. The tree is green, healthy, perfectly beautiful looking, but a tree without flowers is not fulfilled. A tree without flowers may look beautiful, but there is yet a perfection to be attained. The tree must bloom; the tree must release the fragrance to the winds so it can be carried to the very ends of existence.Kakuan brings the seeker back into the world. Of course, the seeker is totally different, and naturally the world cannot be the same. He comes to the marketplace, but he remains in his meditation; now the marketplace cannot become a distraction. If the marketplace becomes a distraction, then your meditation is not yet complete. If anything can distract you, then your meditation has been a forced thing – you have made yourself still, you have controlled yourself somehow. Your meditation is still not spontaneous; it is not a natural flow. It has not happened to you; you have made it happen. Hence the fear of coming back to the marketplace.You will find many sannyasins in the Himalayas who are stuck there with the eighth bull – empty, silent. There is nothing wrong with them, at the most you can say nothing is wrong with them, but you cannot say that they have bloomed, you cannot say their fragrance is released in the winds. Their light is still burning only for themselves. It has a certain ugliness in it. One may not see it immediately, but if you ponder over it, you will see that this is selfishness. In the beginning it is good to be selfish, otherwise you will never grow; but in the end, with the meditation coming to a real completion, a crescendo, the ego must disappear, the selfishness must disappear. You should become one with the whole.Not only that – Kakuan says that one comes with a bottle of wine. Tremendously significant! One comes drunk with the divine. One is not only silent, one dances, one sings, one becomes creative. One is not simply escaping and hiding in a cave. One is so free now that there is no point in hiding anywhere. Now freedom is one’s quality.The world becomes a new adventure. And the circle is complete: from the world back to the world; beginning from the marketplace, ending again in the marketplace. Of course, totally different – because now you don’t have a mind, so the marketplace is as beautiful for you as the silent Himalayas; there is no difference. And people are thirsty. You help them, you show them the path.Buddha has said that when somebody becomes a siddha, attains, there are two possibilities. Either he remains quite content in his attainment, not moving out of it; then he becomes like a pool of water – fresh, cool, silent, with no ripples, but a pool of water… He is in a way static, not a river, flowing. Buddha has used two words. If you become a pool of water he calls you “arhat.” Arhat means one who has attained to perfection but is not at all concerned with others. And another word he uses is bodhisattva. If your meditation flowers into compassion you have become a bodhisattva; then you help others and your ecstasy is being shared.Kakuan painted ten pictures of the whole search of man – and man is a search. He is not only an inquirer: he is inquiry. From the very moment of conception the search starts. If you ask scientists, they will say that when a man and woman meet, the man releases millions of cells and those cells start running somewhere, toward the female egg. They don’t know where it is, but they run fast. The search has started. They are very tiny cells but they are seeking the egg. One of them will reach the goal; others will perish on the way. One of them will reach the egg, will be born into the world. From that moment the search has started, the inquiry has started. Until death, the search continues.Socrates was dying. His disciples started crying and weeping; it was natural, but he said to them, “Stop! Don’t disturb me – let me inquire into death. Don’t distract me! You can cry later on, I will be gone soon. Right now, let me inquire into what death is. I have been waiting my whole life for this moment to go into the reality of death.”He was poisoned. He was lying on his bed watching death, inquiring into what death is. And then he said to his disciples, “My feet are getting numb, but I am still as much as I was before. Nothing has been taken away from me. My feeling of my being is as total as before. My feet are gone.” Then he said, “My legs are gone, but I am still the same. I cannot see myself reduced to anything less. I remain the total.” Then he said, “My stomach is feeling numb, my hands are feeling numb.” But he was very excited, ecstatic. He said, “But still I say to you: I am the same, nothing has been taken away from me.” And then he started smiling and he said, “This shows that sooner or later death will take my heart also – but it cannot take me.” Then he said, “My hands are gone, now even my heart is sinking, and these will be my last words because my tongue is becoming numb. But I tell you, remember, these are my last words: I am still the same – total.”This is the inquiry into death. From his very conception to the very end, man is an inquiry into the search for truth. And if you are not searching for truth, you are not a man. Then you have missed. Then at the most you look like a man, but you are not man. Your humanity is only in appearance but not in your heart. And don’t be deceived by appearances: when you look in the mirror, you can see that you are a man - that proves nothing. Unless your inquiry grows to such heights that your whole energy is transformed into inquiry and you become a quest, you are not a man.That is the difference between other animals and man. They live, they don’t inquire. They simply live, they don’t inquire. No animal has ever asked: What is truth? What is life? What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Where do we come from? For what goal are we destined? No tree, no bird, no animal… This big earth has not asked this. This tremendously vast sky has never inquired about this.This is the glory of man. He is very small, but bigger than the sky because something in him is unique – the inquiry. Even the vast sky is not so vast as man, because there may be an end to the sky, but there is no end to man’s inquiry. It is an eternal pilgrimage – beginningless, endless.These ten bulls are pictorial representations of the inquiry, the inquiry that I call man. Kakuan painted the pictures, but he was not satisfied. They are tremendously beautiful pictures, but he was not satisfied. Truth is such that whatsoever you do, you remain discontented. It cannot be expressed. Then he wrote poems – to substitute. First he painted these ten pictures; feeling dissatisfied, he wrote ten small poems to supplement them. Whatsoever was missing in the pictures he tried to put into the poems. Again he felt dissatisfied. Then he wrote ten commentaries in prose. I know then too he must have felt dissatisfied, but then there was nothing else to do. Truth is vast, expression limited, but he had tried his best. Nobody has done that before or since.Painting is the language of the unconscious. It is the language of visualization. It is the language of children. Children think in pictures, hence in children’s books we have to make many, many pictures, colored pictures. The text is very small, pictures are very big – that is the only way to persuade children to learn to read, because they can learn only through the pictures. The primitive mind thinks in pictures.That’s why it is thought that languages like Chinese must be the most ancient because they are pictorial. The language has no alphabet; Chinese, Japanese, Korean don’t have any alphabet – they have thousands of pictures. That’s why it is very difficult to learn Chinese; an alphabet makes things very simple. For each thing, a picture! How many things are there in the world?Pictures can never be very accurate. They only give you a hint. For example, if in Chinese you have to write war, fight, conflict, then Chinese has a pictogram: a small roof, and under the roof two women are sitting – that is fight. One roof and two women! That means, one husband and two women – fight. But this is just indicative, a hint.Children think in pictures, in dreams. Whatsoever they have to think, first they have to visualize it. All primitives do that. That is the language of the unconscious. You still do it; however articulate you are with language, and however proficient you have become in rational argument, in the night you still dream in pictures. The more primitive you are, the more colorful your pictures will be; the more civilized you have become, the less and less colorful your pictures become. They become, by and by, black and white.Black and white is the language of civilization. The rainbow is the language of the primitive. Black and white is not a true language, but we tend… All people who have been trained in Aristotelian logic tend to think in black and white, good and bad, night and day, summer and winter, God and the Devil – black and white! There are no other mid-stages. Who is between God and the Devil? Nobody. This is not possible. Look at a rainbow: seven colors. Black on one side, white on the other side, and between these two a great range of colors, step by step.The whole of life is colorful. Think in colors, don’t think in black and white. That is one of the greatest diseases of humanity. The name of the disease is “Aristotle-itis” – it comes from Aristotle. You say: This man is good. What do you mean? And then you say: That man is bad. What do you mean? You say: This man is a saint, and that man is a sinner. What do you mean? Have you ever seen a sinner in whom the saint has completely disappeared? Have you ever seen a saint in whom the sinner has completely disappeared? The difference may be of degrees; it is not black and white.Black and white thinking makes humanity schizophrenic. You say: This is my friend and that is my enemy. But the enemy can become a friend tomorrow, and the friend can become an enemy tomorrow. So the difference can be, at the most, relative; it cannot be absolute. Think in color – don’t think in black and white. Visualization is the language of children, of all primitive people, and of the unconscious. Your unconscious also thinks in pictures.Kakuan first tried the unconscious language because that is the deepest: he painted these ten bulls. But he felt dissatisfied. Then he wrote ten poems as a supplement, as an appendix. Poetry is mid-way between the unconscious and the conscious: a bridge, a misty land where things are not absolutely in the dark and are not absolutely in the light – just somewhere in the middle. That’s why where prose fails, poetry can indicate. Prose is too superficial; poetry goes deeper. Poetry is more indirect but more meaningful, richer. But Kakuan still felt dissatisfied, so he wrote prose commentaries.First he wrote the language of the unconscious, the language of painters, sculptors, dreamers; then he wrote the language of the poets, the bridge between the unconscious and the conscious – of all art. And then he wrote the language of logic, reason, of Aristotle – the conscious. That’s why I say such an experiment is unique; nobody else has done that. Buddha talked in prose. Meera sang in poetry. Unknown painters and sculptors have done many things – Ajanta, Ellora, the Taj Mahal. But a single person has not done all three things together.Kakuan is rare, and he must have been a great master. His painting is superb, his poetry is superb, his prose is superb. It rarely happens that one man is so extraordinarily talented in all the directions, all the dimensions of consciousness.Now the poems of Kakuan:The Search for the BullIn the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull.The bull is a symbol of energy, vitality, dynamism. The bull means life itself. The bull means your inner power, your potentiality. The bull is a symbol, remember that.You are there, you have life also, but you don’t know what life is. You have the energy, but you don’t know where this energy comes from and what goal this energy is going toward. You are that energy, but still you are not aware of what that energy is. You live unaware. You have not asked the basic question: Who am I? That question is the same as the search for the bull: Who am I? And unless this is known, how can you go on living? Then the whole thing is going to be futile because the basic question has not been asked, has not been answered. Unless you know yourself, whatsoever you do is going to be futile. The most basic thing is to know oneself. But it happens that we go on missing the most basic, and we go on worrying about trivia.I have heard one anecdote:A young woman who was planning her wedding visited the hotel where the reception was to be held. She was busily looking over the place, pointing out where the punchbowl would be, where the bridesmaids would stand, and then she said to the hotel manager, “In the receiving line, my mother will stand here, and I will stand next to her, and here on my right will stand what’s-his-name.”She had forgotten the name of the husband! In life it happens continuously that you go on making arrangements about the useless, and about the most essential you become completely oblivious.What is your name? The name with which you have become acquainted as yourself is just a given name, it is just utilitarian. Any other name will do just the same. You are called Ram, you can be called Hari; it will not make any difference. What is your real name? What is your original face? Who are you? You will make big houses, you will purchase big cars, you will manage this and that, and when you die you will leave a big account in the bank – all nonessential, and without ever going for the real quest of who you are.The bull means your energy – the unknown strange energy that you are, the tremendous energy out of which you have come into being, which goes on growing in you like a tree. What is this energy? That is the meaning of the bull.In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. What do the tall grasses symbolize? Poetry talks in symbols. Painting paints the symbols, poetry talks the symbols. The tall grasses in which your bull is lost are desires. So many desires, pulling you this way and that. So many desires! Constantly a tug-of-war: one desire pulls you to the south, another to the north.In a small school the teacher asked, “Now, can anyone tell me where we find mangoes?”“Yes, teacher,” replied a little boy. “Wherever woman goes – man goes.”Wherever woman goes, man goes on following the woman; the woman goes on following the man. The whole of life is just a running after this desire or that. Finally, nothing is attained; only frustrated dreams, a heap of frustrated dreams. Look back – what have you attained? You have been running and running – where have you got? These are the tall grasses.Money attracts, power attracts. And without asking oneself why you should run after these things, you go on running. In fact, because the whole society is running, every child inherits the disease. Everybody is running – the child learns by imitation. The father is running, the mother is running, the brother is running, the neighbor is running, everybody is running – for power, prestige, money, things of the world. Unaware, the child is also forced into the main current of life. Before the child can start thinking, he is already running.In our schools we teach competition, nothing else. In our schools we prepare children for the greater competition of life. In our schools, in fact, nothing is going on except a rehearsal: how to fight, how to manage yourself, and how to leave others behind, how to come out on top. But nobody asks the basic question: What is the point? Why should one hanker for the top? What are you going to do when you have reached the top? When you have become the president of a country, what are you going to do? How is it going to fulfill you?It is as if a person was thirsty and we put him on a track which leads to more and more money. He comes, struggles hard, accumulates much money, but the money is not related to the thirst at all. Then suddenly he feels frustrated. Then he says: Money cannot do anything; but now it is too late.See what your inner need is and then work for it, and work diligently for it, intelligently for it. But first see what your inner need is. And the inner need can be recognized only when you recognize who you are.If you can understand the quality of your energy, you will be able to understand what is going to fulfill you. Otherwise, not knowing oneself, one goes on running. The running is almost mad. Stop beside the road, meditate a little, reconsider what you are doing, why you are doing it. Don’t run in a fever because running will make you run faster. Running will make you, by and by, incapable of stopping. You will go on doing something or other; it will become a habit. Without it you will not feel alive.I know people who have earned enough money to retire. In fact, they have been saying their whole lives that once they have attained to such money, they would retire. But they don’t retire.I know one man. In the past twenty years I have stayed with him many times. Whenever I visited Kolkata I would stay with him and he would always say, “I am going to retire; now I have enough. Just a few things have to be arranged because it is not good to leave things incomplete, and then I will retire.”Last time I visited him I asked him, “When? Will you retire after your death? You go on saying that first you have to complete things but you go on starting new things, so they will never be completed.”He said, “No, now I have fixed a time, that after ten years I will retire.”He was sixty then, now he is dead. He worked hard and he lived like a beggar just hoping that some day he was going to enjoy. But by the time he had money, he had become obsessed with having more and more.One very basic thing has to be understood: these things are not going to fulfill you because they are not basic needs. One needs something else. But that something else has to be searched for within yourself; nobody else can give you the direction. You have your destiny within you. You have the blueprint within you. Before you start running after anything, the most fundamental thing is to close your eyes, get in tune with yourself, with your energy, and listen to it – and whatsoever it says is good for you. Then you will feel fulfillment. By and by, you will come closer and closer to your blooming, to your flowering.But people are afraid to become themselves. People are very afraid to be themselves because if you try to be yourself you will become alone. Everybody is unique and alone. If you try to be yourself, you will feel aloneness. So people follow others, the crowd; they become one with the crowd. There they do not feel alone – surrounded, so many people are there. If you meditate, you will be alone, but if you get mad about money, you will never be alone – the whole world is going there. If you search for godliness you will be alone; but if you search for politics, power, then the whole world will be there, you will never be left alone.People are afraid of being alone. People can never know themselves if they are afraid of being alone; they can never search for the bull.Walter Kaufmann has coined a new word for a certain fear that has always existed but for which there has never been a word. He calls it decidophobia. People are afraid to decide anything on their own: decidophobia. They allow others to decide for them, then they don’t take responsibility.You were born accidentally into a Hindu family, or a Christian family; then you allowed your parents to decide your religion. How can your parents decide your religion? Who are they to decide your religion? And how can it be decided by birth? Birth has nothing to do with religion. How can your birth decide? Their parents decided their religion and so on and so forth; and you will decide the religion of your children.Borrowed… There must be some deep fear in making a decision on your own. The fear is that if you decide on your own, who knows? It may be wrong. It is better to let others decide; they know more, they have more experience. Let tradition decide, let society decide, let the politicians decide, let the priests decide. One thing is certain: others have to decide so that you are free of the responsibility of making a decision. Hence people go on following others, and everybody goes on missing his own individuality.There are two ways to avoid decision. One is to let others decide. Another is to never decide, simply drift. Both are the same because the basic thing is not to take the responsibility for deciding. The new generations have chosen the other alternative: drifting. The older generations have chosen the first alternative: to let others decide. You may not allow your father to decide, but that doesn’t mean that you are going to decide for yourself – you may simply drift. You may do things, whatever happens, you may become driftwood.In both ways the search becomes impossible. The search means decisiveness. The search means taking risks. So remember this word decidophobia. Don’t be afraid; drop this fear. Who else can decide for you? Nobody can decide anything for you. Yes, others can help, others can show the path. But the decision has to be yours because through your decision your soul is going to be born.The more decisive you become, the more integrated you become. The more you take the responsibility for commitment. Of course, it is very dangerous, but life is dangerous. I know there are many possibilities of going astray, but that risk has to be taken. There are possibilities you may err, but one learns by erring. Life is trial and error.I have heard…In the eighteenth century, France had its effete and privileged aristocracy, and a poor scholar was hired to teach geometry to the scion of one of the nation’s dukedoms.Painstakingly, the scholar put the young nobleman through one of the very early theorems of Euclid, but at every pause, the young man smiled amiably and said, “My good man, I do not follow you.”Sighing, the scholar made the matter simpler, went more slowly, used more basic words, but still the young nobleman said, “My good man, I don’t follow you.”In despair, the scholar finally moaned, “Oh, monsignor, I give you my word that what I say is so.”Whereupon, the nobleman rose to his feet, bowed politely, and answered, “But why, then, did you not say so at once so that we might pass on to the next theorem? If it is a matter of your word, I would not dream of doubting you.”But life is not a matter of anybody’s word. It is not a theorem, it is not a theory. You cannot accept it just because somebody else is authoritatively saying it is so. Authority is a trick. You hide your fear behind it.You have to decide. Decisions can be fatal but there is no other way. You may go astray, but nothing is wrong in it. Going astray, you will learn something, you will become richer. You can come back and you will be happy that you went astray, because there are many things which can be learned only by going astray. There are millions of things which can be learned only if you are courageous enough to make mistakes. Remember only one thing: don’t make the same mistake again and again.If religion is decided by others, then there is no need to search. Your father says that God is. Your mother believes in heaven and hell, so you believe. The authority – the priest, the politician – says something and you believe it. You are avoiding; through belief you are avoiding trust. Belief is the enemy of trust. Trust life! Don’t believe beliefs – avoid them! Avoid beliefs – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity. Seek on your own. You may come to find the same truth. You will come, because the truth is one. Once you have found it, you can say: Yes, the Bible is true – but not before. Once you have found it, you can say: Yes, the Vedas are true – but not before. Unless you have experienced it, unless you become a witness to it personally, all Vedas and all Bibles are useless. They will burden you; they will not make you free.In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull.Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains,my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull.I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.The search is difficult because the truth is unknown. The search is difficult because the truth is not only unknown – it is unknowable. The search is difficult because the seeker has to risk his whole life for it.Hence Kakuan says: Following unnamed rivers… If you are following scriptures you are following named rivers. If you are following a certain religion, a sect, a church, then you have a map – and there cannot be any map for the truth. There cannot be any map because truth is private and not public. Maps become public; they are needed so that others can follow. Superhighways are shown on the map, but not small footpaths; and religion is a footpath, not a superhighway. You cannot reach God as a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. You reach as you, authentically you, and you cannot follow anybody’s path.Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains, my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull. There comes a moment in the search when one feels completely exhausted, tired. One starts thinking it would have been better if he had never started his search. One feels so frustrated that one starts feeling jealous of those who have never bothered about such things. This is natural, but that is exactly the moment when the real search starts.This exhausted energy, this tiredness, is of the mind. The mind feels tired because the mind is always happy following maps. With the known, the mind remains the master; with the unknown, the strange, the mind is completely at a loss. The mind cannot figure out what is going on – the mind feels tired, the mind feels exhausted. The mind says: What are you doing? Why are you wasting your life? Come back! Come to the world, be as other people are! Follow the crowd; don’t try to be an individual.Hence, you never see hippies beyond the age of thirty-five. By that time they are tired. By that time they start thinking of marriage, of settling down, of getting a house. By that time they start becoming squares. By that time they have forgotten all about revolution and rebellion and all that nonsense. They become part of the status quo; tired, exhausted; in fact, repentant, feeling sort of guilty. This moment comes in everybody’s search. It is an essential moment. If you can continue, even feeling exhausted, tired, frustrated; if you can still go on and on, then the mind is dropped and the first glimpses of meditation appear.The second poem:Discovering the FootprintsAlong the river bank under the trees, I discover footprints!If you go on, if you don’t listen to the mind and its game of tiredness, exhaustion, and this and that… The mind wants to pull you back – to the fold, to the crowd. The mind wants you to belong to a sect, to a church, so that you need not decide every step on your own. Everything is decided already, everything is ready-made. You just have to believe in it.Along the river bank under the trees, I discover footprints!Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints.Deep in remote mountains they are found.These traces no more can be hidden than one's nose looking heavenward.The mind drops. The mind is dropped only when you go on and on when the mind is saying to stop. If you don’t listen to the mind and you say: I am going to inquire, I am going to search; if you are tired, you can drop the mind. The mind will cling to you a little while longer. But if you don’t listen and you remain aloof and unconcerned and your eyes are focused there on the goal, on the bull, you will come to discover footprints. They have always been there, only you were too crowded with thoughts, too clouded by the mind. Hence you were not able to see those subtle footprints.Along the river bank under the trees, I discover footprints! Even under the fragrant grass… I told you that the tall grass represents desires. And now, even under the grass, under your desires, you find the same footprints of the bull. Even under your desires you find godliness hidden. Even under the so-called worldly things, you have been seeking something of the beyond.If a man is searching for more and more money, what in fact is he searching for? Money? If he is searching for money, then there will come a point where he will be satisfied – but that point never comes. It seems he is searching for something else. Mistakenly searching for money, he is trying to find something else. He wants to be rich.Let me say it this way: a man who is searching for money wants to be rich but he does not know that to be rich is totally different from having money. To be rich means to have all the experiences that life can give you. To be rich means to be a rainbow, not black and white – all the colors together. To be rich means to be mature, alert, alive.The man who is searching for money is searching for something else; that’s why when money is achieved, nothing is achieved. The man who is searching for power – what is he, in fact, searching for? He wants to be a god. In the world, he says, if you have power you can pretend to be a god. Behind his search for power, the search for godliness is hidden. So when he attains to power, suddenly he will feel powerless inside, impotent: outside, riches; inside, poor, a beggar.Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints. Deep in remote mountains they are found. These traces no more can be hidden than one’s nose looking heavenward. Then one is surprised: how was it possible that I couldn’t see these footprints? They are just in front of me! They have always been there, like one’s nose on his face. But if your eyes are closed or clouded, then you cannot see.I have heard one anecdote:It was late at night and due to several detours a man had become completely lost. He stopped at a farmhouse to ask the way, “Am I headed in the right direction for Atlanta?” he inquired of the woman who opened the door.“Which way you headed?” she asked.Unsure of the direction, he tried again: “I mean are my car lights pointed the right way?”“Yes, sir,” said the woman. “At least the red ones are.”This is the situation: the faster you run, the more confused you get. The speedier you get, the more confused you get. By and by, you lose all sense of direction. You simply go on zooming from here to there. Speed itself becomes the goal, as if by running fast one feels one is getting somewhere; hence the attraction for speed. It is a neurosis.The whole of science is engaged in making things speedier and speedier. Nobody asks where you are headed. And as I see it, your red lights are showing the right direction. Somewhere behind you, you have already left home. Somewhere at the very source of your being is your home. Only one thing is fortunate for you: whatsoever you do, you cannot go very far from home, because whatsoever you do is a sort of sleep-walking.A woman was very upset. “My husband,” she told the doctor, “seems to be wandering in his mind.”“Don’t worry about that,” said the doctor. “I know your husband. He can’t go far.”I know you. You can’t go far because, in fact, you are simply dreaming about the speed, about the going, about the goal. You are fast asleep. It is all happening in your mind, not in reality.Hence, Zen says that if you are ready, this very moment enlightenment is possible because you cannot go far. If your traveling is real traveling, then sudden enlightenment is not possible. You will have to come back. You will have to travel the same distance again.You have been traveling for millions of lives. If the same distance has to be travelled back, then enlightenment is almost impossible. If enlightenment is going to be gradual, it is almost impossible. Zen says it has to be sudden – as if a person is fast asleep and dreaming, and dreaming that he has gone to the moon. But in the morning, when he opens his eyes, where will he find himself? On the moon? He will find himself here, now. The moon will disappear with the dream.The world is a dream. Not that it does not exist, not that it is not. The world is a dream because the world that you think is is nothing but your dream; you are asleep, unconscious, sleepy, moving, doing things. It is fortunate that you cannot go far! You can become awakened this very moment.Now Kakuan’s prose comment for the first sutra:The bull never has been lost. What need is there to search? Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. Far from home, I see many crossroads, but which way is the right one I know not. Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.The bull never has been lost because the bull is you. The bull is your energy, it is your life. The bull means the principle of your dynamism. The bull has never been lost. What need is there to search? If you can understand that, then there is no need to search. Then that very understanding is enough. But if that understanding does not dawn on you, then the need to search arises.The search is not going to help you reach the goal because the goal has never been lost. The search is only going to help you drop greed, fear, possessiveness, jealousy, hatred, anger. The search is only going to help you drop the hindrances, and once the hindrances are not there, suddenly one becomes aware: I have always been here; I have never gone anywhere else.So the whole search is negative in a way. It is just like when somebody makes a statue out of a marble block. What does he do? He simply chips nonessential parts away, and by and by the image appears.Michelangelo was making a statue of Jesus and somebody said, “Your creation is great.”He said, “I have not done anything. Jesus was hiding inside this marble block and I simply helped him to be released. He was already there; but just a little more marble was there than was needed. The nonessential was there – I have cut away the nonessential. I have simply discovered him, I have not created him.”In fact, the marble block had been discarded by the builders. Walking around the church which was being built, Michelangelo asked the builders, “Why has this marble block been thrown away?”They said, “It is useless.” So he took it away – and one of the most beautiful images of Jesus came out of it.Michelangelo used to say, “When I was walking by this block, Jesus called me. Hidden inside the block he said, ‘Michelangelo, come and release me!’ I have done only negative work.”The bull is already there. The seeker is the sought. Just a few unnecessary things are crowding you. The search is negative – drop them and you discover yourself in all your glory.The bull never has been lost. What need is there to search? Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. Far from home, I see many crossroads, but which way is the right one I know not. Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.The comment on the second sutra:Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull. Then I learn that, just as many utensils are made from one metal, so too are myriad entities made of the fabric of self. Unless I discriminate, how will I perceive the true from the untrue? Not yet having entered the gate, nevertheless I have discerned the path.Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull. Understanding the teaching… Buddhas, millions of buddhas, have been on this earth. They have all taught the same thing. They cannot do otherwise. The truth is one, descriptions many. The truth is one – they have all talked about it. Now, if you try to understand, you will be able to discern the footprints of the bull. But rather than understanding, you try to follow – and there you miss.Following is not understanding. Understanding is very, very deep. When you understand, you don’t become a Buddhist. When you understand, you become a buddha yourself. When you understand, you don’t become a Christian. When you understand, you become Christ himself. Following will make you a Christian. Understanding will make you a christ – and the difference is tremendous. Following is again decidophobia. Following means: Now I will simply follow blindly. Now there is no question of my own decision. Now wherever you go, I will go. Understanding is: Whatsoever you say, I will listen, I will meditate. And if my understanding arises and gets in tune with your understanding, then I will follow my understanding.Teachers are helpful, they indicate the way. Don’t cling to them. Following is a clinging – it is out of fear, not out of understanding.Once you become a follower, you lose the track. Once you become a follower, one thing is certain: you are not inquiring any longer. You can become a theist and you can say, “God is, I believe in God.” You can become an atheist and you can say, “I don’t believe in God. I am an atheist, or a communist,” but in both cases you have joined a church. You have joined a doctrine, a dogma. You have joined a mob, a crowd.The search is individual, full of danger. One has to go alone. But that is the beauty of it. In deep aloneness, only in deep aloneness, where not even a thought is present, godliness enters you – is revealed to you. In deep aloneness, intelligence becomes a bright flame. In deep aloneness, silence and bliss surround you. In deep aloneness, eyes open, your being opens. The search is individual.What am I doing here? I am trying to make you individuals. You would like to become part of a crowd; you would like that because it is very convenient and comfortable to follow like a blind man. But I am not here to make you blind. I am not here to allow you to cling to me, because then I will not be in any way helpful to you. I will allow you to be close to me, but I will not allow you to cling. I will allow you all the possible ways to understand me, but I will not allow you to believe in me. The difference is subtle but great. And remain alert, because your mind will tend to throw all responsibility on me.That’s what you mean when you say: I have surrendered. It is not a surrender of trust – it is out of decidophobia, out of fear, a fear of being alone. No, I am not here to make your journey comfortable, convenient, because it cannot be made comfortable and convenient. It has to be hard – it is hard; it is uphill. And in the last moment, in the final moment of what Zen people call satori, not even I will be there with you. Only up to the gate can we be fellow travelers. When you enter the gate, you enter alone.So, on the whole path I have to make you capable of being alone. I have to help you drop fear, help you to become decisive. Trust life – there is no need of any other trust. Trust life and it leads you spontaneously and naturally to the ultimate, to the truth, to godliness – or whatsoever you want to name it.The river of life is flowing toward the ocean. If you trust, you flow in the river. You are already in the river, but you are clinging to some dead roots on the bank, or you are trying to fight against the current. Clinging to scriptures, clinging to dogmas, doctrines, is not allowing the river to take you with her. Drop all doctrines, all dogmas, all scriptures. Life is the only scripture, the only bible. Trust it and allow it to take you to the ocean, to the ultimate.Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I don't know why I am here.Nobody knows – and there is no way to know it, and there is no need to know it. This constant questioning – why am I here? Why am I doing this? This constant hankering for the why is a disease of the mind. No answer is going to satisfy you because the why can be asked again. If I say something – you are here because of this – the why will be pushed back a little, that’s all. You will again ask: Why? The why is never-ending.Once you understand it, you drop it. The why is ridiculous. Rather than asking why you are here, it is better to use the opportunity, it is better to flower, it is better to exist authentically. And the beauty of it is that once you start existing authentically, truly, once you stop all nonsense thinking and you start delighting in life, once you are no longer a philosopher, the why is answered. But it is not answered by anyone from the outside, it is answered by your own life energy.The answer is possible, but it is not going to come as an answer; it is going to come as a lived experience. The answer is going to be existential, not intellectual. The question is intellectual. Drop it! Rather, simply be! Otherwise, you can go on asking. For centuries man has asked millions of questions; not a single question has been solved by speculation, thinking, logic, reason. Not even a single question is solved. On the contrary, whenever people have tried to answer a question, the answer has created a thousand and one more questions.Who created the world? That has been answered: God created the world. And then immediately the question arises: Who created God? Or: Why did he create the world? When did he create the world? And why did he create such a world – so miserable, so hell-like? The one who was answering you that God created the world must have thought that your question would drop; but out of one answer, a thousand and one questions arise. The mind is a question-creating mechanism.So the first thing to understand is: drop questioning why. Immediately you become religious. Continue with the why, you remain philosophical. Continue questioning, and you remain in the head. Drop questioning. Suddenly the energy moves in a new dimension: the dimension of the heart. The heart has no questions, and in that the answer hides.It will appear paradoxical, but still I would like to say to you that when your questioning stops, the answer comes. But if you go on questioning, the answer will become more and more elusive.Why are you here? Who can answer it? If it can be answered, you will no longer be a man, you will become a mechanism. This mike is here and there is a reason for it; it can be answered. The car is there in the porch: the why can be answered. If your why also can be answered, you become a mechanism like a mike or a car – you become a utility, a commodity. But you are a man, not a machine.Being man means freedom. Why is there freedom? You can ask the question, but the question is foolish. The why about man cannot be answered. And if the why about man cannot be answered, how can it be answered when you ask it of the ultimate, of God? Even about man, the why cannot be answered – about God it is also almost impossible even to raise the question rightly.My effort is not to answer your questions, but to make you aware that out of a hundred questions, ninety-nine are simply foolish. Drop them! Once you have dropped the foolish questions – they look very philosophical – the one real question remains. And that question is no longer concerned about irrelevant, nonessential things. That one question is concerned about existence, about you, your being. Not why you are here, not about the purpose of your being here, but about your being here – who you are: Who am I?This can be known because for it there is no need to go to anybody else; you can go inside. To answer it, there is no need to look in the scriptures – you can look inward. To answer it, you just have to close your eyes and go into inner silence. You can feel yourself – who you are. You can taste the flavor – who you are. You can smell it, you can touch it. This is existential questioning. But why you are here, I don’t know. And there is no need to know.The second thing to be understood: whenever you ask such questions, they are indicative of certain states of mind. For example, whenever you are miserable, you ask why. Whenever you are blissful, you never ask why. If you are suffering, you ask: Why am I suffering? But if you are dancing blissfully, at ease, deep in contentment, do you ask: Why am I blissful? The why would then look ridiculous.We ask why about something which is not acceptable to us. We ask why about suffering, misery, hell. We never ask why about love, happiness, blissfulness, ecstasy. So the why is simply an indication that you must be miserable. So rather than asking why you are here, ask why you are miserable. Then something can be done because misery can be changed.Buddha used to say to his disciples: “Don’t ask metaphysical questions; ask existential questions. Don’t ask who created the world; don’t ask why he created the world. These questions simply show that you are living in misery. Ask why you are miserable, then the question is alive and something can be done about it. Something which will change your misery, which will transform the energy that is involved in misery, will release it from the misery. And the same energy can become a flowering of your being.”You are here – who are you? You cannot ask me that question. A real question has to be faced by yourself. How can I answer your question, who you are? If you cannot answer, then how can I answer your question, who you are? Whatsoever I say will be from the outside – and you are there, deep, very deep within yourself. You have to go deep, you have to fall into your own abyss, into that inner space where only you are and nobody else; not even a thought passes by.Only in that space will you have the answer – not a verbal answer, not that somebody will say from within you that you are a soul, or you are God. Nobody will say anything, because there is nobody – pure silence. But that silence is the answer. In that silence, you feel, you know. There is no need to give you any information. No words are needed. You have touched your rock bottom, your innermost core.It happened that a small boy was initiating his younger brother about school. The first grader said to his four-year-old brother: “The smart thing for you to do is not to learn to spell your first word. The minute you learn to spell cat you are trapped. From then on the words get longer and longer and longer.”If you are here, you have spelled the word cat. This question is asked by one of my sannyasins, Yoga Pratima. You have spelled the word cat already. Now the words will become longer and longer and longer – you are trapped! So rather than asking why you are here, use this opportunity. Allow me and allow yourself – toward a transformation of your being. Allow me to enter you! Don’t ask stupid questions. Open your doors.Rather than answering you, I can help you toward an inner transformation where all questions disappear – and the answer appears. But that is experiential. You will know it, but you will not be able to tell others. You will know it, your whole being will show it; your eyes will say something about it – there will be a glow around you. People who have eyes to see will be able to see that you know it. But you will not be able to say who you are. No word can express that – it is so tremendously vast. You can have it, but you cannot express it.So what do you want? Should I give you a verbal answer why you are here? Can’t you see that whatsoever I say will be irrelevant? I can say: Because in your past lives you have earned many good karmas, you have been very virtuous – that’s why you are here. Is that going to help? That will make you even more egoistic. That will create a barrier between me and you. Rather than being open, you will become more closed.What do you want? Do you want me to say that I have called you as among a chosen few? You have not come, but you have been called? You would like such answers, but they are meaningless and harmful because once you start feeling that you are of the chosen few you will miss me, because these are all tricks of the ego. It goes on playing so many games.Don’t ask for answers. Ask for the answer. Then I can show you the way, I can lead you toward the temple. Once inside the temple, you will know. And there is no other way to know it.Knowing from somebody else can never really be knowledge. It remains, at the most, information. Knowing from somebody else is never intimate. It remains just on the periphery. It never penetrates to your innermost core, it never hits home. Philosophy and religion differ in this. Philosophy goes on thinking in terms of questions and answers, reasoning, syllogism, logic – it is thinking. Religion is not thinking at all. It is more practical – as practical as science, as pragmatic as science. The method of religion is not speculation; the method of religion is experience. Meditate more, and in the interludes, in the gaps, in the intervals when one thought has gone and another has not come in, you will have the first glimpses of satori, samadhi.This word interlude is very beautiful. It comes from two Latin words: inter and ludus. Ludus means games, play, and inter means between. Interlude means between the games. You are playing the game of a husband or a wife; then you play the game of a father or a mother. Then you go to the office and you play the game of being a banker, a businessman – a thousand and one games you play, twenty-four hours a day. Between two games – interludes.Go into yourself. For a few moments every day, whenever you can get an opportunity, drop all games, just be yourself – not a father, nor a mother, nor a son, nor a banker, nor a servant: nobody. These are all games. Find the interludes. Between two games, relax in, sink in, drown into your own being – and there is the answer.I can show you how to drown in interludes, but I cannot give you the answer. The answer will come to you. It is true only when it comes to you. Truth has to be one’s own – only then is it truth, only then does it liberate. My truth will become a theory to you; it will not be a truth at all. My truth can blind you, but cannot make your eyes more perceptive. My truth can surround you as a security, but it will be borrowed – and truth cannot be borrowed.The second question:Osho,Please explain the difference between decidophobia and disciplehood.The question is complex, and you will have to be very alert to understand it because with complex questions misunderstanding is more possible than understanding.The first thing: disciplehood is a great decision. You can become a disciple only if you drop your decidophobia because it is a great decision, it is a commitment. You cannot become a disciple if you are afraid of making decisions. This is the greatest decision in one’s life – to trust somebody else as the master, to trust somebody else and stake your whole life with the master. It is a gamble. Much courage is needed. Too many people come to me who say they would like to become sannyasins, but they are afraid. The decision is too much, and a thousand and one things have to be considered before they make the decision.Decidophobia means you are afraid of deciding anything. Disciplehood is a decision. If you are born a Hindu, that is not disciplehood. If you are a born Hindu and a shankaracharya comes to your town and you go and pay your respects, that is not disciplehood. You never decided to be a Hindu in the first place. This is coincidence; your Hinduism is just an accident. Somebody else is a Christian, and the pope comes and he goes to pay his respects – that is not disciplehood. He never decided to be a Catholic or a Christian.In fact, you remain a Hindu or a Christian because you cannot decide to get out of them. It is not a decision; it is a lack of decision. Because you are afraid of deciding, you continue whatsoever you have got from tradition, heritage, from your father and mother. Just think about it: people decide their religion by their blood. Is any greater stupidity possible? Your religion being decided by your blood? Then take the Mohammedan’s blood and the Hindu’s and the Christian’s blood, and go to an expert and ask him which is the Hindu’s blood and which is the Mohammedan’s blood. No expert can show you; blood is simply blood. There are differences in blood, but those differences are not religious.Deciding your religion just by birth is as if you are deciding your future by the I Ching, or going to an astrologer, deciding your future by the stars, or Tarot cards. These are not decisions; these are tricks for how not to decide. Somebody else decides for you. The book of I Ching was written five thousand years ago – somebody, nobody knows his name now, is deciding for you. You ask long-dead people to decide your future. You ask the past to decide your future. It is helpful in a way, because you are no longer needed to decide. If you are a Hindu, you have not decided it just by your birth. Your disciplehood is not disciplehood, it is decidophobia.Just observe: in small things you think too much, and in great things you don’t think at all. If you go to the market to purchase clothes, you decide – ordinary things, trivia, you decide. It is as if there is a rule that if you drive your car slowly then drive carefully, but if you are going beyond fifty miles per hour then close your eyes. In small things – purchasing clothes or toothpaste or soap – you decide. Religion, God, meditation, prayer, you leave to somebody else to decide.In great things you want to be blindfolded, and tradition works as a blindfold. People who are not born blind become almost blind because of a constant blindfold. Blinkers are on your eyes. Somebody’s blinkers are known as Hindu, somebody else’s as Christian, somebody else’s as Jaina, but they are all blinkers, blindfolds, given to you by the society because you are afraid of opening your eyes. So better to let somebody else decide; then you are freed of the responsibility, and you can say: We are obedient. Tradition is great, we simply follow the tradition. The past is great, and we follow the past.You can rationalize these things, but this is not disciplehood. Disciplehood is always a personal choice. For example, you are here. I am neither a Christian, nor a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan, nor a Jaina, nor a Buddhist, and if you decide to go with me, it is going to be a decision. If you suffer from decidophobia, you cannot go with me; then you will remain within the fold in which you were accidentally born.Once you decide – and “decide” means you have to decide, the responsibility is yours and it is personal - it is a commitment. I know it is very difficult to decide; hence much courage is needed. You can be Hindu easily; you can be Christian easily. But to walk with me you will have to drop your decidophobia. Only then do you become a disciple.So it depends what type of disciplehood you are keeping in your mind. In the world there are very few disciples. Yes, the people who decided to go with Jesus were disciples.Jesus passed by a lake, and two fishermen had just thrown their net in the lake. He came to them, and put his hand on one of the fishermen’s shoulders. The fisherman looked at Jesus – those tremendously penetrating eyes, those tremendously silent eyes, more silent than the lake – and Jesus said to that man, “What are you doing? Why are you wasting your whole life in catching fish? Come with me, I will teach you how to catch men. Why go on wasting your life catching fish? Come follow me!”A great moment. The man must have wavered between decidophobia and disciplehood. But then he gathered courage, he threw the net into the lake, and he followed Jesus.When they were leaving the town, a man came running and said to the fisherman, “Where are you going? Your father who was ill is dead. Come back home!”The fisherman asked Jesus’ permission: “Let me go for three, four days so I can finish with the last rites for my dead father, and then I will come.”And Jesus said, “Forget all about it. There are enough dead people in the town, they will bury the dead. You come follow me!” And he followed, he forgot all about his dead father.This is disciplehood. Those who followed Jesus were disciples, but Christians are not disciples; now they are following a dead tradition. Those who followed Buddha were disciples, but Buddhists are not disciples. You are my disciples. Some day or other your children’s children will also remember me – they will not be my disciples. If your children start remembering me, loving me, because of you, then they are not related to me – then they have a fear of decision. Don’t create that fear in your children’s minds. Let them decide for themselves.Life can become very rich if people are left to decide. But society tries to force decisions on you. Society is afraid that if it does not decide for you, you may not be able to decide. But, in fact, because of this, by and by you lose the capacity to decide things. And once you lose your decisiveness, you lose your soul.The word soul means an integrated unity within you. It comes out of great, fatal decisions. The more you decide and the riskier the decision is, the more integrated you become, crystallized.If you have decided – and remember the emphasis – if you have decided to be with me, this is a great revolution in your life, a momentous phenomenon. But if you are not the deciding one – you came here because your wife was here or your husband was here, your friends were here and you came here and you saw so many people running around in orange, and you started feeling like an outsider, and you started feeling a little uneasy, so that you felt alien, and because of that you also took sannyas – then this is decidophobia, this is not disciplehood; then you have followed the crowd. Your sannyas is not worth anything, because it is not your sannyas at all. You have imitated. Never imitate. Be decisive on your own, and every decision will give you more and more integration.This is a great decision – to commit, to get involved totally, to go with me toward the unknown. The mind will create a thousand and one doubts, hesitations; the mind would like to cling to the past. But if you decide, in spite of all this, you rise above your past, you transcend your past.But don’t try to be clever. Try to be authentic and true. Don’t try to rationalize, because you may have taken sannyas without any decision on your part. You may have drifted with the crowd. Then you will rationalize it. You will say: Yes, this is my decision. But whom are you trying to kid? You are deceiving only yourself.I have heard an anecdote:The mother was scolding her oldest son: “I have told you before that you should let your little brother play with the toys half the time.”“I do!” protested the kid. “I use the sled going downhill and let him use it going uphill – half the time!”Don’t try to be clever. You can call your decidophobia a disciplehood – but you are not deceiving me, you are deceiving only yourself. Be clear about it. Great clarity is needed in the search for truth.The third question:Osho,Why do I have such a strong reaction to discipline? And an attraction and a voice saying, “You must!”Is there a difference between obeying and surrender?There is a great difference. Not only a difference: obeying and surrender are diametrically opposite. Listen well.If you are surrendered then there is no question of obeying. Then my voice is your voice; you don’t obey it. Then I am no longer separate from you. If you are not surrendered, then you obey it, because my voice is separate from yours. You manage to obey; you enforce a certain discipline on yourself. There must be some greed behind it. You must be looking for some result. So you obey, but deep down you remain separate. Deep down the resistance goes on continuing. Deep down you are still fighting with me. In the very word obey there is resistance.Obeying is ugly. Either surrender or be on your own. Obeying is a compromise: you don’t want to surrender, one thing; and you are not confident to remain on your own, another thing. So you compromise. You say: I will remain on my own, but obey. I will listen to you, whatsoever you say, and will find ways and means to obey it.Surrender is a totally different thing. There is no duality in surrender. When a disciple surrenders to a master, they have become one; that moment the duality has disappeared. Now the master is no longer thought of as separate, so who is going to obey and who is going to obey whom?“Why does so much reaction come against discipline?” Because the surrender has not yet happened. Otherwise, discipline is beautiful; there is nothing like discipline. If surrender has happened, then you don’t enforce discipline, it comes spontaneously. When I say something to you, and you are surrendered, you hear my voice as your own. In fact, you will see immediately that this is what you wanted to do, but you were not clear about it. You will be able to understand that I have told you something about which you were groping in the dark. You had a certain feel for it, but things were vague – I have made them clear for you. I have spoken for you. I have brought your own heart’s desire to you.In surrender that is going to happen. Then what is the point of calling it “obeying”? It is not obedience. In obedience, a certain conflict is hidden.I have heard an anecdote…A man had been having trouble with his teenage son, so he sent him out to a cattle ranch operated by an old friend. After the youth had been working on the ranch a couple of months, the father asked about his progress.“Well,” said the rancher friend, “he’s been working good. Already he speaks cow language.”“Sounds alright.”“But,” said the old cowman seriously, “he ain’t learnt yet to think like a cow.”That’s the difference. Once you start thinking like a cow, then there is no question of any obedience or disobedience. Once you start thinking like me, then there is no question, then there is no problem, no conflict, no struggle, no effort. Then, in fact, you are not following me, you are following yourself. This happens in deep surrender.Ordinarily, people have a very wrong notion about surrender, particularly in the West. Surrender is a deeply Eastern concept. People think that in surrender your individuality will be lost. Absolutely wrong, one hundred percent wrong. In surrender your personality is not lost. In fact in surrender your personality for the first time becomes clear; because if you surrender, you surrender the ego, not the personality, not the individuality. It is just the wrong notion that you are somebody - you drop that notion. Once that notion is dropped, you are at ease; you grow. Your individuality remains intact, in fact it grows bigger and bigger. Of course there will not be the feeling of “I,” but a tremendous growth will happen.If surrender is not there, then millions of questions arise about how to obey.I was called to a seminar; chancellors and vice-chancellors from many universities had gathered there. They were very worried about the lack of discipline in the schools, colleges and universities, and they were worried about the new generation’s disrespectful attitude toward the teachers.I listened to their views and I told them, “I see that somewhere the very basis is missing. A teacher is one who is respected naturally, so a teacher cannot demand respect. If the teacher demands respect, he simply shows that he is not a teacher; he has chosen the wrong profession; that is not his vocation. The very definition of a teacher is one who is naturally respected; not that you have to respect him. If you have to respect him, what type of respect is this going to be? Notice: ‘have to respect’ – the whole beauty is lost, the respect is not alive. If it has to be done, then it is not there. When it is there, nobody thinks about it, nobody is self-conscious about it. It simply flows. Whenever a teacher is there it simply flows.”So I asked the seminar: “Rather than asking students to respect the teachers, please decide again – you must be choosing the wrong teachers, people who are not teachers at all.”Teachers are as much born as poets, it is a great art. Not everybody can be a teacher, but because of universal education millions of teachers are required. Just think of a society that thinks that poetry is to be taught by poets and everybody is to be taught poetry. Then millions of poets will be required. Of course, then there will be poets’ training colleges. Those poets will be bogus, and they will demand: Applaud us because we are poets! Why are you not respecting us? This has happened with teachers.In the past there were very few teachers. People used to travel thousands of miles to find a teacher, to be with him. There was tremendous respect, but the respect depended on the quality of the teacher. It was not an expectation from the disciple or from the student or the pupil. It simply happened.If you are surrendered, obedience simply happens without any self-consciousness. Not that you have to follow, you simply find yourself following. One day you simply recognize the fact that you have been following, and there has been no conflict, no struggle. The more you try to be obedient, the more resistance will grow.I have heard…A woman complained to her doctor: “You just don’t know how bad I feel! Why, I can’t even eat the things you told me not to!”Once you say to somebody, “Don’t do this!” a deep desire arises to do it. “Don’t eat this!” a deep desire arises to eat it. The mind always functions negatively; the very function of the mind is to negate, to say no.Notice how many times you say no in the day, and reduce that quota. Watch yourself, how many times you say yes and increase that quota. By and by you will see just a slight change in the degrees of yes and no, and your personality is basically changing. Watch how many times you say no where yes would have been easier; there was no need really to say no. How many times you could have said yes, but either you said no or you kept quiet.Whenever you say yes, it goes against the ego. The ego cannot eat yes; it feeds itself on no’s. Say: No! No! No! And great ego arises within yourself.When you go to the railway station, you may be alone at the window to purchase a ticket, but the clerk will start doing something; he will not look at you. He is trying to say no. He will at least make you wait. He will pretend that he is very busy; he will look into this register and this and that. He will force you to wait. That gives him a feeling of power, that he is no ordinary clerk – he can make anybody wait.It happened just in the beginning days of Soviet Russia when Leon Trotsky was the War Minister there. He was very strict with rules, discipline, this and that. There was going to be a great meeting of the Communist Party, and he was in charge of issuing passes. He completely forgot that he also needed a pass to enter the hall. When he went there the policeman who was standing at the gate stopped him. He said, “Where is your pass?”Leon Trotsky said, “Don’t you recognize me?”He said, “I recognize you perfectly well. You are our War Minister. But where is your pass?”Trotsky said, “Look at the other passes you are holding in your hands. They are signed by me.”The policeman said, “Maybe, but this is the rule, that nobody can enter without a pass. So go back home and find a pass.”Leon Trotsky wrote in his diary, “I could see how powerful he was feeling that day: saying no to the War Minister, making him feel tiny.”People go on saying no. The child asks his mother: “Can I go outside and play?” And immediately, without thinking for a single moment, she says no. Politics! What is wrong with being outside, going outside and playing? The child is going to go; the child will insist, and he will throw a tantrum, and then mother will say, “Okay, you can go.” This could have been done in the first place, in the very beginning, but even a mother cannot lose an opportunity to say no.The first thing that comes to your mind is no. Yes is more difficult. You say yes only when you feel absolutely helpless and you have to say it. Just notice! Make yourself a yea-sayer; drop no-saying because it is the poison of no on which the ego feeds itself, nourishes itself.A religious man is one who has said yes to existence. Out of that yes, God is born. Yes is the father of God; that yes attitude is a religious attitude.But remember: I don’t insist on obedience. Either be with me totally, or don’t be with me at all. Compromise is not good, compromise kills. Compromise will make you lukewarm, and nobody can evaporate from that state. Compromise comes out of fear. Take courage – either be with me or don’t be with me; but don’t be in limbo. Otherwise, one part of your mind will go on saying: I have to follow, I have to do this, and another part will go on saying: No, why should I do it? And this constant conflict within yourself dissipates energy, it is destructive. It will poison your whole being.The fourth question:Osho,What if there are not any gaps?Look within; it has never been so and you cannot be an exception. All seekers who have gone within have gone through the gaps. The gaps are there, but you have not looked and hence the question has an “if.” Please don’t ask “if” questions. I am not talking about theories, I am talking about facts.It is as if somebody asks: What if there is no heart within? But the “if” is just speculative. Close your eyes and you will hear the heartbeat. If you are to ask the question, the heart is bound to be there.If you are there to raise this question, the gaps are bound to be there. Without gaps, thinking cannot exist. Between two words the gap is a necessity; otherwise the two words will not be separate, they will overlap. Between two sentences there is a gap – necessarily so, otherwise there will be no division between the sentences, between two thoughts.Just look within.At the supper table one night a farmer was very angry.“Where were you boys when I called for you to help me an hour ago?” he demanded.“I was in the barn setting a hen,” said one.“I was in the loft setting a saw,” said another.“I was in grandpa’s room setting the clock,” said the third.“And I was in the pantry setting a trap,” said the fourth son.“A fine set you are!” exclaimed the farmer. “And where were you?” he asked, turning to the youngest son.“I was on the doorstep setting still.”So find a few moments when you can be just be “setting still”; immediately you will be in the gaps. Sitting silently, you will be in the gaps.Thoughts are intruders; gaps are your real nature. Thoughts come and go. The emptiness within you always remains; it never comes, never goes. The emptiness is the background; thoughts are moving figures against it. Just as you write on a blackboard with white chalk – the blackboard is there, you write with white chalk – your inner emptiness functions as a blackboard, and on that blackboard thoughts appear.Slow down! Slow down a little. Just sit silently, relaxed, not doing anything in particular. When you ask “if” questions, you are wasting time. In the same time and with the same energy, those gaps can be experienced and you can become immensely rich. And once you have tasted the gaps, then thoughts’ hold on you will disappear.The last question:Osho,Who cares? Is this creative indifference, or sleep?Please comment.Creativity can never be indifferent. Creativity cares because creativity is love. Creativity is the function of loving and caring. Creativity cannot be indifferent. If you are indifferent, by and by all your creativity will disappear. Creativity needs passion, aliveness, energy. Creativity needs you to remain a flow, an intense, passionate flow.If you look at a flower indifferently, the flower cannot be beautiful. Through indifference, everything becomes ordinary. Then one lives in a cold way, shrunken in upon oneself. This calamity has happened in the East because religion took a wrong turn and people started thinking that you have to be indifferent to life.One Hindu sannyasin came to see me once. He looked around my garden, and there were many flowers, and I was working in the garden when he came to see me. He said, “Are you interested in the flowers and gardening?” On his face there was a look of condemnation. He said, “But I was thinking you must be indifferent to all these things.”I am not indifferent. Indifference is negative, it is suicidal; it is escapist. Of course, if you become indifferent many things will not bother you; you will live surrounded by your indifference. You will not be distracted, you will not be disturbed. But just not to be distracted is not the point. You will never be happy and overflowing.In the East, many people think that to be indifferent is the way of religion. They pull away from life, they become escapists. They have not created anything. They simply vegetate and they think they have attained something. They have not attained anything.Attainment is always positive and attainment is always creative. God is creativity – how can you reach God by being indifferent? God is not indifferent. He cares about even small blades of grass, he cares about them also. He takes as much care to paint a butterfly as he takes to create a buddha.The whole loves. And if you want to become one with the whole, you have to love. Indifference is a slow suicide. Be in deep love, so much so that you completely disappear in your love, that you become a pure creative energy. Only then do you participate with God, hand in hand you go with him.To me creativity is prayer, creativity is meditation, creativity is life.So don’t be afraid of life, and don’t close yourself in indifference. Indifference will desensitize you; you will lose all sensitivity; your body will become dull, your intelligence will become dull. You will live in a dark cell, afraid of the light and the sun, afraid of the wind and the clouds and the sea – afraid of everything. You will wrap a blanket of indifference all around you and you will start dying.Move! Be dynamic! And whatsoever you do, do it so lovingly that the very act becomes creative and divine. I am not saying that you all should become painters and poets; that’s not possible. There is no need. You may be a housewife – your cooking can be creative. You may be a shoemaker – your shoemaking can be creative. Whatsoever you do, do it so totally, so lovingly, so intimately; get involved in it so that your act is not something outside. Move into your act and your act becomes a fulfillment. This I call religious. A religious person, a religious consciousness, is immensely creative.Never use the phrase: Who cares? That attitude comes from the ego – who cares? No, if you really want to grow, care more. Let care be your whole style of life. Care about each and every thing. And don’t make any distinction between the great and the small. Very small things – just cleaning the floor – do it with deep care, as if it is the body of your beloved, and suddenly you will see that you are being born anew through your own creativity.Each creative act becomes a rebirth for the creator, and each indifferent act becomes a suicide, a slow death. Be overflowing. Don’t be misers. Don’t try to hold – share! Let care be the very center of your life. And then there is no need to go to church, no need to go to temple, no need to kneel down before any god and pray. Your “butterfly life,” your way of life, is prayer. Whatsoever you touch will become sacred. I say whatsoever, unconditionally.Love makes everything sacred. Carelessness makes everything ugly.Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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[Osho did not speak on the evening that would have been Chapter #3 of this series. The following text was later given, to accompany blank pages within the book:]“Osho always speaks on silence; today he spoke in silence. His soundless sound was heard deep in the hearts. His message was clear and loud. He spoke without speaking. This was his great discourse. We rejoiced in it. We feasted on it. It was sheer benediction: The sound of one hand clapping. Now follows the text of the discourse, word for word. Please read it carefully. We hope you will rejoice in it too.”

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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3. Perceiving the BullI hear the song of the nightingale.The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore.Here no bull can hide!What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?Comment:When one hears the voice, one can sense its source. As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered. Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull! This unity is like salt in water, like color in dyestuff. The slightest thing is not apart from self.4. Catching the BullI seize him with a terrific struggle.His great will and power are inexhaustible.He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists,or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.Comment:He dwelt in the forest a long time, but I caught him today! Infatuation for scenery interferes with his direction. Longing for sweeter grass, he wanders away. His mind still is stubborn and unbridled. If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip.I wonder whether you have noticed that man is the only animal who draws his picture, his own picture. No other animal has ever done that. Not only does he draw pictures of himself, he stands before a mirror, looks at himself mirrored, reflected. Not only that, he stands before the mirror, looks at his reflection, and looks at himself looking at his reflection, and so on and so forth. Because of this, self-consciousness arises. Because of this, ego is born. Because of this, man becomes more interested in reflections than in reality.Notice your own mind! You become more interested in a pornographic picture than in a real woman. Pictures have a tremendous grip on the human mind; hence man lives in fiction. And self-knowledge is not possible in fiction. You have to become more interested in the real than in the reflected. Mirrors have to be broken. You have to come back home; otherwise, you go further and further away from yourself.This interest in reflections, fictions, dreams, thoughts, images, is the basic reason why man cannot know himself. He is not interested at all in himself. He is more interested in the opinions of others, what they think about him. That again is a mirror. You are constantly worried what people think about you. You are not worried at all about who you are – that is not a real quest – but about what people think you are. Hence you go on decorating yourself. Your morality, your virtue, is nothing but a decoration so that in others’ eyes you can look beautiful, good, righteous, religious. But this is at a great loss.If people think you are religious, that does not make you religious. If people think you are happy, that doesn’t make you happy. And once you are on the wrong track, you can miss your whole life.Become more interested in being happy than being thought happy. Become more interested in being beautiful than being thought beautiful because thoughts cannot satisfy your thirst, thoughts cannot satisfy your hunger. Whether people think you are well-fed or not is not the question; you cannot deceive the body. Real food is needed, pictures of food won’t do. Real water is needed, pictures of water, formulas about water, won’t do. H2O cannot quench your thirst. Once you understand this, then the discovery starts – then you are in search of the bull.Notice yourself. You will catch yourself red-handed many times a day when you are not thinking about reality but about fiction. Looking in a mirror and thinking that you are looking at yourself is one of the most absurd things. The face that is mirrored is not your face; it is just the surface, it is just the periphery. No mirror can mirror your center. And the circumference is not you. The circumference goes on changing every moment; it is in flux.Why are you so attracted to the form? Why not to the real? A man who is in search of his self, who has become interested in self-knowledge, goes on breaking all mirrors. He does not smile because people are looking at him so that a smile will give a good impression about him, he smiles when he feels to. His smile is authentic. It is not dependent on other people; it is not dependent on onlookers. He lives his life. He is not always trying to convince an audience that “I am so and so.”Remember: people who are too much concerned about convincing others are empty people, hollow within. They don’t have anything authentic. Otherwise, the desire will disappear. If you are a happy man, you are a happy man and you don’t think about it, about whether it has to be reflected in others’ eyes. You don’t go on collecting opinions. Whatsoever identity you think you have, just analyze it, and you will see thousands of people have said things about you and you have gathered them. Something your mother said, something your father said, your brother, friends, society, and you have gathered all that. Of course, it is going to be contradictory because of so many people, so many mirrors. Your identity is self-contradictory. You cannot call it a self, because a self is possible only when you have dropped living in contradictions. But for that you have to go within. The first step of understanding is that your self is already waiting for you – within you. You need not look into anybody else’s eyes.Don’t believe in mirrors – believe in reality.I have heard, once it happened:An old clergyman advised a politician to go out into the rain and lift his head heavenward. “It will bring a revelation to you,” he promised.Next day the politician returned. “I followed your advice,” he said, “and water came down my neck and I felt like a fool.”“Well,” said the old clergyman, “for a first try, don’t you think that’s quite a revelation?”If you can understand your foolishness, it is quite a revelation – and it is, because a journey begins from that point.A man who is constantly worried about his impression in others’ eyes, how he looks in mirrors, is a fool, because he is wasting a great opportunity in which tremendous experiences are possible. But he has not taken the first step, afraid that he will look like a fool. Don’t be afraid of foolishness, otherwise you will remain a fool.One day or another you have to recognize the fact that up to now you have lived in deep stupidity. And if you go on living this way – through mirrors, reflections, opinions – by and by you lose your individuality; you become part of the masses, you lose your soul. Then you are not an authentic individual.The word mass comes from a Latin root massa. Massa means something which can be molded, kneaded. And when I say you become a mass, I mean that you are being continuously molded by others, kneaded by others. But you allow it, you cooperate with it. You take all sorts of trouble to become a part of the mass, of some crowd, because alone you lose your identity. Your whole identity is through the crowd.That’s why people, when they retire, die sooner. Psychoanalysts say that life is cut by at least ten years. Politicians, when they are in power, are very healthy; once they are out of power, their health disappears, they die soon. Once out of power, their whole identity starts disappearing like a dream. Out of the office, suddenly you are nobody. You have been nobody your whole life, but you go on believing in the fictions that you create around you.A man who is a great officer thinks himself great; once his post is gone, all the greatness is gone. A man who is rich thinks himself rich through his riches; he feels he is somebody. If he becomes bankrupt suddenly, it is not only that his wealth disappears, his soul disappears, his whole identity is gone. It was a paper boat, it was a house of playing cards – a small breeze and everything is gone.Self-knowledge means that you have come to understand one thing: that you know yourself immediately, directly – not through others, not via others. There is no need to ask anybody else; how stupid it is to ask somebody: Who am I? How can anybody else answer it? Go inward – that is the search for the bull. Go into your own energy; it is there. Just taste it, just merge with it.Once you have understood that you have to seek your identity within yourself, in total aloneness, you are becoming free from the mass, from the crowd. Individuality is born; you are becoming an individual, unique. When I say “individual” I don’t mean an egoist. An egoist is always part of the mass. The ego is the total of all the opinions that you have gathered from others about you, and hence the ego is very contradictory. Sometimes it says you are not beautiful, very ugly; sometimes it says you are very beautiful, very lovely; sometimes it says you are a fool; sometimes it says you are a wise man because in so many situations so many things have been said to you about you, and you have gathered all of them. The ego is always in trouble. It is a false entity. It appears as if it is real, and it is not.When you become an individual – this word is good: it means indivisible. Individual means that which cannot be divided, that which cannot suffer any split, that which cannot be two, dual or many, that which is absolutely one, where no division exists. Then you are an individual. It has nothing to do with the ego. The ego is a barrier to individuality because the ego is always divided. So much so that many times people come to me and I ask them: Are you happy? They shrug their shoulders. I ask them: Are you unhappy? Again they shrug their shoulders. They are not definite about what state of mind they are in because there are many states of mind together within them. They would like to say both yes and no to every question.I have heard about a political leader who was suffering from a split personality, the beginning of schizophrenia. He was hospitalized. He had become very indecisive in ordinary things as well. He could not make ordinary decisions: whether to go to the bathroom or not, whether to eat this or not, whether to wear these clothes or not – small things, trivia. Anything that had to be decided would create trembling in him. He was treated six months in the hospital, and when the doctors decided that he was perfectly okay they told him, “Now you can go. You are now normal; the problem has disappeared. What do you say?”He said, “Yes and no.”The ego is many, it is never one. Because it has been collected from so many different people, it cannot be one. You are one, the ego is many. And if you think that you are the ego, then you are on the path of madness. Once you understand this, you can see the footprints of the bull.Once I traveled all over the country with a friend. He constantly carried his camera. In the Himalayas he was not interested in the Himalayas – he was interested in taking pictures. One full-moon night we were looking at the Taj Mahal, and he was interested in taking pictures. After a few moments together, I asked him, “What are you doing? The Taj Mahal is here; I don’t see you looking at the Taj Mahal. You are constantly worried about your pictures, whether the pictures will come out or not, whether the light is proper or not.”He said, “Why be worried about the Taj Mahal? Later on I am going to make a beautiful album of the whole journey. Then I can sit and see things.”This is “kodakomania,” interested more in pictures than in reality. Become more interested in reality. And whenever your mind tries to pull you away from reality – in pictures, fictions, dreams – become alert, come back. Come back to the present moment.One doctor used to come here; now he has been transferred from Pune. He was continuously taking notes; while I was speaking, he would take notes. I told him, “While I am speaking, try to understand it.”He said, “But taking notes is good, because later on, at home, with ease, I can go through them and understand.”Now this man will never be able to understand what I am saying because it is not a question of taking notes; it is the transfer of a certain vision. He never looked at me because he was looking at his copy. And I don’t think that he took good notes either, because by the time he wrote, something else had been said and he missed it. They would be just fragmentary. Then he would try to make a whole out of them; that whole would be his, not mine.You have to be here with me in reality, totally here with me. Then, only then, a new understanding arises. That should become your way of life, your very style. Constantly be engaged in reality; participate in reality. Don’t be an onlooker, and don’t get too interested in pictures; otherwise, by and by, you will lose the capacity to be aware of reality. The mind has old, deep habits, and it is going to be a constant struggle in the beginning. The mind is like a salesman.I have heard an anecdote:The salesman for a junior encyclopedia got his foot in the doorway and was trying to fast-talk the young mother of a five-year-old into buying a set of the books.“These books will answer any question your child will ever ask,” he assured her. “You will never be at a loss for an answer with these.” He patted the boy on the head, “Go ahead, Sonny. Ask me a question, any question, and I’ll show your mother how easy it is to answer by looking in one of these books.”The little fellow thought a moment, and then asked, “What kind of car does God drive?”Life is like that. The mind is like the salesman and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The mind goes on accumulating things, cataloging all the experiences – categorizing, classifying, filing – so that in the future when the time comes they can be used. But life is so alive that it never asks the same question twice. If you are too in your mind, then always whatsoever you answer is not the point – it can never be. Life goes on changing every moment. It is like a small child asking, “What kind of car does God drive?”You can find some answer to his also – a Rolls Royce, or something else – but the child is not going to ask the same question again. The next moment he will be asking something else. The child’s curiosity is more than any encyclopedia. And life is so innovative that no book can answer real situations.So try to be more alert rather than more knowledgeable. If you become too knowledgeable, you will collect pictures, memories; you will go on taking notes; you will go on comparing your notes. You will come to a beautiful rose, and you will compare with some other roses that you have seen in the past; or you may compare with some other roses which you hope to see in the future, but you will never look at this rose. And only this rose is true! The roses that are accumulated in your memory are unreal, and the roses that you dream about are also unreal. Only this rose is real. Remember this, herenow.If you shift your energy from your mind to your awareness, you will be immediately aware of the footprints of the bull. Ordinarily, you follow the crowd. It is convenient, it is comfortable; it is like a sedative. With the crowd you need not worry; the responsibility is with the crowd.You can leave all the questions to the experts. You can depend on a long tradition, the wisdom of the ages. When so many people are there doing one thing, it is easier to imitate them than to do your own thing because once you start doing your own thing, doubts arise: maybe I am right or wrong? With a great crowd doing something, you become part of it. The question never arises whether you are right or wrong. “So many people can’t be wrong,” the mind goes on saying, “they must be right. And for so many centuries they have been doing the same thing; there must be some truth in it.” If doubt arises in you, then doubt is your fault. For centuries and centuries a crowd has been doing a certain thing. One can follow easily, imitate. But once you imitate others, you will never be able to know who you are. Then self-knowledge becomes impossible.In the Malayan language, they have a word, lattah. It is very beautiful. The word means: people imitate others because they are frightened; out of fear, people imitate others. Have you noticed? If you are sitting in a theater and suddenly the theater is on fire and people start running, you will follow the crowd – wherever the crowd is going. It happens when a ship is sinking, the greatest problem becomes this: that the whole crowd runs toward one direction, they all gather together on one side, which makes the ship sink sooner.Whenever you are in fear, you lose individuality. Then there is no time to think and meditate, then there is no time to decide on your own; time is short and a decision is needed. In times of fear people imitate others. But ordinarily, also, you live in lattah, you live in a constant frightened state. The crowd does not like you to become different because that creates suspicion in others’ minds.If one person goes against the crowd – a Jesus, or a Buddha – the crowd doesn’t feel good with this man; the crowd will destroy him. Or, if the crowd is very cultured, the crowd will worship him. Both ways are the same. If the crowd is a little wild, uncultured, Jesus will be crucified. If the crowd is like Indians – very cultured, centuries of culture, of nonviolence, of love, of spirituality – they will worship the Buddha. But by worshipping they are saying: “We are different, you are different. We cannot follow you, we cannot come with you. You are good, very good, but too good to be true. You don’t belong to us. You are a god – we will worship you. But don’t trouble us; don’t say things which can unhinge us, which can disturb our peaceful sleep.”Kill a Jesus or worship a Buddha – both are the same. Jesus is killed so the crowd can forget that such a man ever existed. If this man is true – and this man is true – his whole being is so full of bliss and benediction that he cannot be seen. Only the fragrance that comes out of a true man can be felt – the blissfulness can be felt by others. That is a proof that this man is true. But if this man is true, then the whole crowd is wrong, and this is too much. The whole crowd cannot tolerate such a person; it is a thorn, painful. This man has to be destroyed – or worshipped – so we can say, “You come from another world, you don’t belong to us. You are a freak; you are not the normal rule. You may be the exception, but the exception only proves the rule. You are you, we are us. We will go on our path. Good that you came – we respect you very much – but don’t disturb us. We put Buddha in the temple so that he need not come into the marketplace; otherwise he will create trouble.”Out of fear you go on following others. Out of fear you cannot become an individual. So if you are really in search of the bull, then drop fear because the search is such that you will be living in danger; you will take risks. Society and the crowd are not going to feel good about you. Society will create all sorts of troubles for you so that you will come back and become normal again.The first thing I told you about man is that he is more interested in pictures than in reality, more interested in mirrors than in reality, more interested in his own image than in himself. And the second basic thing about man to be remembered is: man is the only animal who stands erect – the only animal that walks on his two hind legs. This has created a very unique situation for man.Animals walk on their four legs. They can look only in one direction. Man stands on his two feet – he can look in all directions. There is no need to turn his whole body; just by turning his head he can look in all directions. Because of this possibility, man became an escapist. Whenever there is a danger, rather than fighting, encountering the danger, he escapes. In the same situation where an animal would have to encounter the enemy, man tries to escape. All directions are available. The enemy is coming from the north – a lion is standing there – now, all directions are available for man; he can run away, he can escape.Man is the only escapist animal. Nothing is wrong with that as far as fighting with animals is concerned; and man was in the wild for a long time. He still goes on escaping from lions and tigers. He must have had great experiences in the past. But that escapism has become a deep-rooted mechanism in man. He goes on doing the same with psychological things.If there is fear, then rather than encountering it, he goes in another direction – prays to God, asking for help. Feeling an internal poverty, rather than encountering it, he goes on accumulating wealth, so that he can forget that he is poor inside. Seeing that he does not know himself, rather than encountering this ignorance, he goes on collecting knowledge, becoming knowledgeable, and like a parrot, goes on repeating borrowed things.These are all escapes. If you really want to encounter yourself, you will have to learn how not to escape. Anger is there; don’t escape from it. Whenever you feel angry, you start doing something to become occupied. Of course, if your energy goes in another direction, anger is repressed. It doesn’t get any energy from you, so it falls back into the unconscious. But it will take revenge; sooner or later it will find an opportunity again and will come up out of all proportion to the situation.If sex arises in you, you start doing something else, you start chanting a mantra. But these are all escapes. And remember: true religion is not an escape. The religions that you know are all escapes; but the religion I am talking about is not an escape – it is an encounter. Life has to be encountered. Whatsoever you encounter, you have to look into it deeply because that same depth is going to become your self-knowledge.Behind anger are the footprints of the bull. Behind sex are the footprints of the bull. If you escape from sex, anger, greed, this and that, you will be escaping from the footprints of the bull – and then it will be impossible to find out who you are.These two things: man is more interested in fiction, and he is always ready to escape… Have you seen people in a theater looking at a movie, how different they are there? They cry; as something happens on the screen, tears flow from their eyes. In real life you don’t find them so kind, so compassionate. In real life they may be very hard. But looking at a picture – and nothing is there on the screen, just light and shadow, a game, a dream – they cry and weep and they laugh, and they become excited. Rather than watching the movie, it would be more valuable to watch the audience. What is happening to these people?Man seems to be more interested in illusions than in reality. If you try to awaken somebody from his illusions, he gets angry; he will never forgive you. He will take revenge – you have disturbed him. These fictions of the mind and a constant readiness to escape are the two problems which have to be faced.I have heard…A mother wanted to spend Saturday afternoon downtown, and the father, a statistician, reluctantly agreed to give up his golf and sit with the children. On her return, the father handed over the following report on the afternoon:“Dried tears – nine times. Tied shoes – thirteen times. Toy balloons purchased – three per child. Average life of balloon – thirteen seconds. Cautioned children not to cross the street – twenty-one times. Number of Saturdays I will do this again – zero.”A statistician is a statistician. The mind is very mathematical; that’s why the mind has become so powerful. That’s why it is so difficult to get out of the mind. So much is invested in it: your whole efficiency, your whole caliber, your whole career – everything depends on the mind. In meditation you have to come out of it. Hence, many times you decide to come out, but deep down you go on clinging.The mind pays in many ways, particularly in the world. If you exist with no-mind, you will not be able to compete, you will not be able to struggle violently; you cannot become a part of the cutthroat rat race which is continuously going on. In this crowd of mad people, you will not be able to participate. You will walk down the side of the street; you will find a footpath of your own.Of course, you will become rich, tremendously rich, but the society will not count it as riches. You will become beautiful, tremendously beautiful, but your beauty will be incomprehensible to the mediocre minds of the society. You will become very, very happy, blissful, silent, but people will think that you have gone crazy because misery to them seems to be the normal state of the human mind. To be miserable seems okay, but to be blissful seems a sort of madness. Who has ever heard of a man being happy without being mad? It does not happen.So if you are really in search of the bull, you will have to take the risk of leaving the mass. And you can leave the mass only if you can leave the mind, because the mass has created your mind.The mind is the inner mass. The mass has created a mechanism inside you; from there you are controlled. The society believes in certain things; the society has inculcated those beliefs in you. Deep down, when you were almost unaware, it hypnotized you into a certain role. If you do something against it, immediately conscience will say no. That conscience is not really conscience; that’s a substitute, a social trick, politics. The society has created certain rules inside your mind, and if you go against them, immediately the voice of the society comes from inside: Don’t do it; it is wrong, it is a sin. The society, from inside, will force you to feel guilty.If you want to leave this so-called conscience, and achieve a real and authentic conscience, then great effort is needed. The whole effort is going to be this: to shift consciousness from your mind to no-mind, from conscience to consciousness.Conscience is given by society; consciousness arises in you. Conscience is borrowed, stale, rotten. It comes from the past which is no more: life has changed completely. Consciousness comes from you. Consciousness is always in the present, it is always fresh. Consciousness makes you integrated – consciousness is integrity.The word integrity is a Latin word; it comes from two roots – in and tangiere. Tangiere means pure, whole, uncorrupted, virgin. A man of integrity is a whole; not many – one. A man of integrity is pure, uncorrupted by the past, virgin. And out of that virginity arises the fragrance which we call religion.Morality is not religion. Morality is a social trick. Religion is individual discovery – you have to discover religion. Morality can be given; religion never.Now the third sutra:Perceiving the BullI hear the song of the nightingale.The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore.Here no bull can hide!What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?The fourth sutra:Catching the BullI seize him with a terrific struggle.His great will and power are inexhaustible.He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists,or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.The third sutra is about sensitivity. I hear the song of the nightingale. The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore. When you become sensitive, sensitive to all that is happening around you – the song of the nightingale – when you become sensitive to everything that is happening to you, and surrounding you, then the sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore.A religious search is different from a scientific search. In a scientific search, or inquiry, you have to be concentrated, so much so that you forget the whole world. There have been cases: a scientist was working in his lab and the house caught fire, but he was not aware of it. He had to be dragged out of the house, he was so concentrated. Consciousness becomes so narrow that everything else is excluded, bracketed off - only one object, like a target.In India we have a great epic poem, Mahabharata. The Bhagavadgita is only one part of it. The Pandavas and the Kauravas, the cousin-brothers, were being taught by a master archer, Dronacharya. One day he put the target on a tree, and he asked every disciple what he saw. Somebody said, “I see the tree and the sky and the sun rising.” Somebody said, “I see the tree, the branches, the birds on the tree.” And in this way he went on.Then he came to his chief disciple, Arjuna, and he asked, “What do you see?”Arjuna said, “I can’t see anything – just the target.”And Dronacharya said, “Only you can become a great archer.”Concentration is a narrowing of consciousness. A concentrated mind becomes very insensitive to everything else.Meditation is becoming aware of all that is happening, without any choice, just choicelessly aware.I hear the song of the nightingale. The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore. Here no bull can hide! With such a sensitivity, how can the bull hide? The bull can hide only if you are concentrated in one direction; then there are many directions in which the bull can hide. But when you are not concentrated in any direction, just open to all directions, how can the bull hide? A beautiful sutra! Now there is no possibility of his hiding, because there is not a single corner which is outside your consciousness. There is no hiding place.Through concentration you can avoid. You become alert about one thing at the cost of a thousand and one other things. In meditation, you are simply aware without any bracketing. You don’t put anything aside. You are simply available. If the nightingale sings, you are available. If the sun is felt, touches you on the body and you feel the warmth, you are available. If the wind passes by, you feel it, you are available. A child cries, a dog barks; you are simply aware. You don’t have any object.Concentration is objective. Meditation has no object to it. In this choiceless awareness, the mind disappears because the mind can only remain if consciousness is narrow. If the consciousness is wide, wide open, the mind cannot exist. The mind can exist only with choice.You say: This singing of the nightingale is beautiful. In that moment, all else is excluded and the mind has come in.Let me say it in this way: the mind is a narrowing state of consciousness, consciousness flowing through a very narrow passage, through a tunnel.Meditation is just standing in the open sky, available to everything.Here no bull can hide! What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns? And suddenly the bull is seen! In great sensitivity, suddenly you become aware of your energy, pure energy, sheer delight. What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns? No, no artist can draw it. It is the real bull, it is not a picture.The prose comment:When one hears the voice, one can sense its source. As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered.This is what sensitivity is all about – all your senses merged into one sensitivity. Not that you are eyes and ears and nose, no – you are eyesearsnose all together. There is no gap. You see and you hear and you touch and you smell and you taste all together, simultaneously. You have not chosen any sense in particular.Ordinarily, we all favor a sense. A few people are eye-oriented: they only see, they cannot hear so well – they are sound-blind. If some great music is going on, they simply feel restless: What is there to listen to? If there is something to be seen, they are ready. They may enjoy a dance, but they will not enjoy singing.There are ear-oriented people who can enjoy sound and singing, but their eyes are dull. The same is true with the other senses. Each person has devoted his energy to one sense and that has become a dominating factor, a dictatorial factor. Particularly eyes have become very important, and eighty percent of your energy is devoted to your eyes. Other senses suffer badly because only twenty percent is left for all other senses. Your eye has become an Adolf Hitler. The democracy of your senses is lost.That’s why whenever you see a blind man you feel more compassion than you feel toward a deaf man. In fact, your compassion is needed more for the deaf man because a deaf man is cut off from society completely. Because human society is basically language, all communication is cut off. A blind man is not so cut off from society. A deaf man is in a more difficult plight, but nobody feels as much pity for him as for a blind man. Why? Because eyes are eighty percent of our civilization.That’s why, if somebody attains to truth, we say he is a great seer. Why seer? Truth can be heard, truth can be tasted, truth can be smelled. Why do we just call him a great seer? Because of the eyes - we are eye-oriented. This is a very unbalanced state. Each sense has to be given its total freedom, and all the senses should merge into one great current of awareness and sensitivity.A real man of understanding lives through all the senses; his touch is total. If a real man of understanding touches you, immediately you will feel a transfer of energy. Suddenly you will feel something inside you has been awakened; his energy has touched your sleeping energy. Something arises in you.If you hear the voice of a man of understanding, his content is significant, but even his voice is significant. Something touches your heart, something soothes you. His voice surrounds you like a warm blanket – his voice has warmth, it is not cold. It has a singing quality in it, a poetry.The comment to the third sutra says: When one hears the voice, one can sense its source. As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered.Here Zen is superb. No other religion, no other development, has touched so deeply on the right path. Your senses should remain alive. Not only that: your senses should fall into a deep inner rhythm and harmony, they should become an orchestra. Only then can truth be known, only then can you catch hold of the bull.Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull!And then, when your senses are totally alive and merging into each other - you have become a pool of energy:Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull! This unity is like salt in water…Your awareness moves through all your senses like salt in water,…like color in dyestuff. The slightest thing is not apart from self.Out of this wholeness of sensitivity arises the self, the atman – your authentic being. Create a rhythm, create a harmony, create an orchestra of your being. Then the bull cannot hide anywhere.The fourth sutra:I seize him with a terrific struggle.Struggle is going to be there because the mind is not going to lose its power easily. The mind has been a dictator for so long; now you want the dictator to come down from the throne – it is impossible. The mind has become accustomed to bossing you and bullying you. It will give you a tough fight. It will go on following you, and it will go on finding weak moments when it can again overpower you.I have heard a very beautiful anecdote:The family was gathered at dinner. The eldest son announced he was going to marry the girl next door.“But her family did not leave her anything,” the father objected.“And she spends all her salary,” added the mother.“What does she know about football?” asked the younger brother.“Did you ever see a girl with so many freckles?” demanded the sister.“All she does is read books,” grumbled the uncle.“And doesn’t dress with what I would have called good taste,” snapped the aunt.“But she doesn’t forget the paint and the powder,” chimed in the grandma.“Yes,” said the son, “but she has one big advantage over all of us.”“What’s that?” came the chorus of voices.“No family!” retorted the son.The family always resists. Now the son is going to get married; that means another woman, a stranger, is now going to become the most important person in his life. The society feels shaken, the family feels shaken. No family accepts such a situation, ordinarily, normally, it fights.In India, love is not allowed. Marriage must be arranged by the family. The father has to think about it, the uncle has to think about it, the brothers, the mother - everybody except the person who is really concerned, who is going to be married. He is not asked, as if he has no part in it. He is going to live with this woman to whom he is going to be married, but he is not even asked how he likes her. Then the family does not feel threatened; it is their own choice.But if a son comes and says: “I have fallen in love,” the whole family feels antagonistic. The antagonism is because now a stranger is going to become very, very important. The mother will never feel at ease with the daughter-in-law. There is going to be a constant bickering and fighting because the mother has been supreme up to now, and suddenly she will be deposed. Now another woman, a stranger, who has not done anything for this boy, will become supreme. A conflict arises.The same happens with the inner search: your mind is your inner family. Whenever you want to do something new, whenever you want to go into the unknown, the mind resists, the mind says: No, this is not good. The mind will find a thousand and one rationalizations, and it is going to give you a hard struggle. That is natural, so don’t worry about it – it has to be so. But if you persist, you will become the master. Just persevere; persistence is needed.I seize him with a terrific struggle. Once you have seen the bull, the energy of your being, you can catch hold of it. Of course, it is going to be a struggle because the mind has remained in power so long.His great will and power are inexhaustible.He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists,or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.This energy, this bull, is inexhaustible. Sometimes it is standing on the top of a hill, at a peak of experience. Sometimes in a valley, a deep ravine.Once you become sensitive to the world around you, then your sensitivity can be turned toward the inside, toward your inner home. It is the same sensitivity with which you hear a nightingale sing, with which you feel the warmth of the sun, with which you smell the fragrance of a flower. It is the same sensitivity that now must be turned inward. With the same sensitivity you are going to taste you, smell you, see you, touch you.Use the world as training for sensitivity. Always remember: if you can become more and more sensitive, everything is going to be absolutely right. Don’t become dull. Let all your senses be sharp, their tone sharp, alive, full of energy. And don’t be afraid of life. If you are afraid of life, then you become insensitive so nobody can hurt you.Many people come to me and they say they would like to fall in love with someone, but they cannot because they are afraid they may be rejected. If somebody approaches them, they close themselves with the fear: Who knows, the other may create some trouble. Who knows, some problem may arise with the other. It is better to be sad and alone than to be happy together with someone because that happiness may bring dangers.Let me tell you a story:Tired of being engaged, he decided to cancel it in a diplomatic manner.“Darling,” he said one day, “we were never meant to be mates. Our temperaments are too different. We will only bicker and fight.”“Sweetheart,” she said, “you have the wrong idea. We love each other like two turtle doves.”“Really, my darling, we’ll never agree, and between us there will always be friction.”“No, it will be like Romeo and Juliet. I will be a perfect wife and we will never have a quarrel.”“Darling, I’m telling you that there will never be anything but arguments between us.”“But, sweetheart, I say…”“See,” he yelled, “what did I tell you? We are fighting already!”People are afraid. If they go into any relationship, they may be rejected. If they go into any relationship, they may not prove adequate. If they go into any relationship, then their reality will surface and the masks will drop. They are afraid because the other may leave some day, so it is better not to get involved; otherwise it will hurt too much. Then they become insensitive. They go blindfolded through life, and then they ask: Where is God? God is all around. You need to be sensitive, and then you can see the bull anywhere.Behind each tree, and behind each rock, the bull is hiding. Touch it with love and even the rock will respond, and you can feel the bull there. Look lovingly at the stars and the stars will respond; the bull is hidden there.The bull is the energy of the total. You are part of it. If you are alive and sensitive, you can feel the whole.The prose commentary:He dwelt in the forest a long time, but I caught him today! Infatuation for scenery interferes with his direction. Longing for sweeter grass, he wanders away. His mind still is stubborn and unbridled. If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip.There is a difficulty with the word whip. Ordinarily, the association comes to mind that you have to be very violent; you have to take the whip in your hands. But in Buddhism the whip is not a repressive symbol, not violent. The whip is simply awareness.For example: if somebody suddenly comes with a sword to kill you, what happens? In that moment, the mind stops. The sword flashes in your eyes and the mind stops. The moment is so dangerous that you cannot afford the luxury of thinking. Suddenly there is a break: the mind is no longer there, and no-mind arises.In dangerous situations, meditation happens spontaneously, for a single moment. You will be back again – but it happens suddenly. You are driving a car and there is going to be an accident; and a moment before, just a moment before, you become aware that an accident is going to happen – your brakes are not working, or the car is slipping. In that moment all thought stops. Suddenly, you are in a state of meditation, awake, alert. That is the meaning of the whip.In Zen monasteries, disciples meditate and the master goes around with a stick, his staff. And whenever he sees somebody drooping, falling asleep, he hits hard on the head. A sudden jerk – energy becomes alert, a momentary glimpse. Sometimes satori has happened that way. The master hits hard; you were almost falling asleep – try to understand it. When you are falling asleep, you are on the threshold. From that threshold, two doors open: one door goes into sleep, another door goes into samadhi. That moment is very pregnant. Ordinarily you will fall asleep – your old routine. But you are on the threshold, and if at that time you can be made alert and aware, your life may have a glimpse of satori, of samadhi.Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, also says that deep sleep is like samadhi, with only one difference: awareness is not there. In samadhi, you are as deep asleep as in any sleep, but you are alert. Your whole mechanism is asleep: body, mind – both are asleep. But you are alert. So sometimes it has happened that a man was hit on the head by the master and he became enlightened. This is the whip of Zen.If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip. The struggle is going to be difficult. One should be aware of it from the very beginning so that you don’t get disheartened on your journey. It is going to be difficult. The mind has a very negative attitude about your inner search; it is against it. And it is much easier to be against something than to be for it. It is much easier to say no than to say yes – the mind is a no-sayer.I have heard about one law expert, Clarence Darrow. He was a noted, world-famous criminal lawyer.He had found himself on the dissenting side of arguments since youth. And now he was to debate with another attorney.“Are you familiar with the subject?” he asked Darrow.“No,” Darrow admitted.“Then how can you engage in debate?”“That’s easy,” said Darrow. “I will take the negative side. I can argue against anything.”It is very, very easy to argue against anything. No-saying comes easily to the mind. Once you say yes, things become difficult. No simply cuts the whole thing; there is no need to go any further. For example, if I say to you: These trees are beautiful, and if you say yes, I may ask, “Why do you think these are beautiful?” It is going to be very difficult to prove. For thousands of years, philosophers have been thinking about what beauty is and nobody has yet been able to define it. So if I ask why, you will be in difficulty. But if you had said no then there would be no problem, because now it will be a problem for me to prove that they are beautiful. You simply say no.No is very economical. Yes is dangerous. But remember: once you say no, you become less alive. A man who goes on saying no, no, no, becomes more and more insensitive. No is a poison – be alert. Try to say yes more often – even if it is difficult because with yes the mind will lose its hold on you. With no, the hold will become stronger and stronger.The mind is going to follow you to the very end. Only at the very end, just on the steps of the temple of God, does the mind leave you – never before. It goes on following you.A businessman had died and gone to hell. He had hardly warmed up when he was slapped on the back by a hearty hand. Into his ear boomed the loud voice of a persistent salesman who had pestered him while on earth.“Well,” laughed the salesman, “I’m here for the appointment.”“What appointment?”“Don’t you remember?” the salesman asked. “Every time I called on you at your office on earth you said you would see me here!”Now they are in hell. The mind will persistently follow you to the very end. It leaves only at the last moment. Hence the struggle is difficult – but not impossible. Difficult, but possible.Once you have attained something of the no-mind, then you can see that whatsoever you have done was nothing compared to what you then have. You will feel as if you have not done anything – so precious is the innermost experience of finding your own energy, your life energy.The last thing: the bull is always waiting for you. That bull is not somewhere outside you. The bull is your innermost core. Between the bull and you there is a big wall of mind, of thoughts. Thoughts are the bricks, transparent bricks made of glass. So you can see through them and you may not even be aware that there is a wall between you and reality.I have heard that a fish one day asked the queen fish in an ocean, “I have been hearing so much about the ocean, so much talk about the ocean – but where is this ocean?”And the queen fish laughed and she said, “You are born into that ocean, you are born out of that ocean, you live in that ocean. Right this moment you are in it and it is in you. And one day you will again disappear into the ocean.”The question seems relevant because how can the fish know? The ocean has always been there, not missed for a single moment. It has been so obviously there, so naturally there, and so transparently there. One thing is certain: that the fish, the mind of a fish, is going to be the last thing to know anything about the ocean. So close, hence so distant. So obvious, hence so hidden. So available, hence one is not aware of it.Man also lives in an ocean of energy – the same energy inside, the same energy outside. You are born of it, you live in it, you will dissolve into it. And if you are missing it, it is not because it is very far away. You are missing it because it is very close. You are missing it because you have never missed it. It has always been there. Just become more sensitive.Listen to the nightingales more deeply. Listen to the trees, the music that surrounds you. Listen to everything, look at everything, touch everything with so much intensity and so much sensitivity that when you look at anything you become the eyes, when you hear anything you become the ears, you touch anything and you become the touch. Do not get stuck in any one sense – all the senses merge into one. All the senses become one sensitivity. And suddenly you will find you have always been in godliness, you have always been with God.To me, the whole training is how to become more and more sensitive. Other religions have told you to become insensitive, to kill and destroy your sensitivity. I tell you to make life as intense as possible because, finally, God is not separate from life. Being alive to life is being alive to God. And that is the only prayer; all other prayers are homemade, man-made. Sensitivity is the only prayer – God-given.Be alert, aware. Hear the song of the nightingale. Allow the sun to touch you and feel the warmth. Let the breeze not only pass by you but pass through you, so it goes on cleansing your heart. Look! Willows are green along the shore. Here no bull can hide! It is impossible for God to hide. God is not hidden, but you live with blindfolds on your eyes. You are not blind! God is not hidden. But blindfolds are on your eyes. Those blindfolds are thoughts, desires, imaginations, dreams, fictions – all fictions.If you can drop fictions; if you can renounce fictions, suddenly you are in reality. So I don’t ask you to renounce the world, I ask you to renounce the dreams – that’s all. Only renounce that which you do not have. Only renounce that which is not really there in your hands; you simply imagine it is there. Renounce your dreams, and reality is available.The struggle is going to be a little hard because the mind will not be so easily convinced, because it is going to be the death of the mind. So that too is natural, that the mind will resist. The death of the mind is your life, and the life of the mind is your death. If you choose mind, you commit suicide as far as your inner being is concerned. If you choose your self, you will have to drop the mind.And that is what meditation is all about.Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,You say that the mind's substance is memory and information. Does reading therefore inflate and invigorate the mind?It depends. It depends on you. You can use reading as food for the ego. It is very subtle. You can become knowledgeable; then it is dangerous and harmful. Then you are poisoning yourself because knowledge is not knowing, knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge. Wisdom can exist in total ignorance. If you use reading as food for the mind, just to increase your memory, then you are going in the wrong direction. But reading can be used in a different way; then reading is as beautiful as anything else in life.If you read the Gita, not to collect information but to listen to the song of the divine – which is not in the words but between the words, which is not in the lines but between the lines – if you read the Bhagavad Gita as a song of the divine, if you listen to the music of it, then it has a tremendous beauty and it can be helpful. In certain moments of deep absorption, you will become one with the divine.This can happen listening to the song of a bird also. So the question is not about the Gita, Bible or Koran – the basic question is about the listener. About how you listen. Are you greedy just to know more? Then all of them - the Gita, Koran, Bible - will poison you. If there is no greed, if you are just reading it as a beautiful poem; it has tremendous beauty in it. You are not trying to fill your memory with it, but you are just being aware - reading, watching, observing, going into it as much as possible. Remaining at the same time aloof – a watcher on the hills. You should not be impressed, because all impressions are like dust gathering on the mirror. I am not saying not to allow inspiration; that is totally different. To be inspired is totally different from being impressed. Anybody can be impressed, but to be inspired you need great intelligence, understanding.Inspiration is getting in tune with a certain scripture, to be meditative with it – not through your mind, but through your totality. If you read the Gita that way, you are reading the Gita with your blood, with your guts, with your heart, with your mind, with your body. Everything that you have, your totality, is there. When you are simply collecting information, only your head is there and nothing else. Then you gather impressions and you miss.Listening to me, the same is possible. You can listen to my words; you can listen to me. If you listen only to the words, you will leave a little more knowledgeable than when you came here; however, your burden will be more, not less. You will be deeper in bondage, not freed, because whatsoever I am saying, these are not words. Listen to the silence in them. Listen to the person who is speaking through them. Be with me! If you forget my words, nothing is lost. But if you carry only my words and you forget me, everything is lost.Listening to me should not be only through your head, but with your totality. You are a unity. Everything is joined together. When you listen to me, listen from your heart, listen from your feet, your hands – become a listener totally, not just with your head. If your head listens, then it goes on comparing with whatsoever you have known before. It goes on interpreting and, of course, your interpretations are yours, not mine.Everybody, if he is listening from his head, is going to listen from acquired knowledge, from some conclusions already achieved. Then he is not pure, not uncorrupted. Then he is listening from a corrupted mind – and whatsoever he interprets will be his interpretation.I was reading an anecdote; it happened in a small school:The teacher was telling the pupils about the discovery of America – Columbus and his journey and his discovery. One small boy was very, very excited; he was listening very intently, attentively. So the teacher asked him to write an essay on the discovery of America. This is what that brilliant boy wrote:Columbus was a man who could make an egg stand on end without crushing it. One day the king of Spain sent for him and asked: “Can you discover America?”“Yes,” Columbus answered, “if you will get me a boat.”He got the boat and sailed in the direction of where he knew America was. The sailors mutinied and swore there was no such place as America, but finally the pilot came to Columbus and said, “Captain, land is in sight.”When the boat neared the shore, Columbus saw a group of natives. “Is this America ?” he asked them.“Yes,” they replied.“I suppose you are Indians?” Columbus went on.“Yes,” said the chief, “and you are Christopher Columbus, I take it?”“I am,” said Columbus.The Indian chief then turned to his fellow savages and said, “The jig is up. We are discovered at last.”A child listens with a child’s mind, his own interpretations. Everybody listens with his own mind – then you are hearing but not listening.In India, when somebody is reading an ordinary book it is called “reading”; but whenever somebody is reading the Gita we have a special term for it - we call it path. Literally translated it will mean “lesson.” Ordinary reading is just reading – mechanical; but when you read so deeply absorbed in it that the very reading becomes a lesson, then the reading goes deep into your being. It is not only part of your memory now but has become part of your being. You have absorbed it, you are drunk with it. You don’t carry the message in so many words, but you have the essence in you. The very essential has moved into your being. We call it path.In reading a book, once you have read it, the book is finished. To read it twice would be meaningless; thrice will be simply foolish. But in path you have to read the same book every day. There are people who have been reading their Gita every day for years – fifty, sixty years – their whole life. Now that is not reading, because it is not a question of knowing what is written in it; they know, they have read it thousands of times. Then what are they doing? They are bringing their consciousness again and again to the same tuning, as if Krishna is alive before them, or Jesus is alive before them. They are no longer reading a book. They have transformed themselves into a different space, into a different time, into a different world.Read the Gita, sing it, dance with it, and allow it as much as possible to go within. Soon words are left behind, but the music goes deeper. Then even that music is left behind – only the rhythm resounds. And then even that is gone. All the nonessential is gone - only the essential remains. That essential is inexpressible. It cannot be said – one has to experience it.So if you read, it depends on you whether reading is going to help you become free, or whether reading is going to make you a greater slave. Whether it is going to become a freedom or an imprisonment depends on you.A music teacher took her class to a concert in the hope of further developing their musical appreciation. After the program she took them out to eat and they had cakes, ice cream and other goodies.Just as they were ready to go home, the teacher asked the youngest of them, “Well, did you enjoy the concert?”“Oh yes,” he replied happily, “all except the music.”If you read the Gita or the Bible only from your head, you will be enjoying everything else except the music; and the music is the real thing. That’s why we have called it the Bhagavad Gita – the song of the divine. The whole appreciation of it is in the internal coherence. It is poetry, it is not prose. And poetry has to be understood in a totally different way from prose.Prose is logical, poetry is illogical. Prose is linear, it moves in a straight line. Poetry is not linear, it is circular, it moves in circles. Prose is for ordinary things and ordinary experiences. There are experiences which cannot be expressed in prose. Those experiences need poetry. Poetry means a more liquid form. Poetry means a more singing, dancing, celebrating form. All great scriptures are poetry; even if they are written in prose, they are poetry. Poetry can be written in prose and prose can be written in poetry. So it is not a question of the linguistic form only – it is a question of its very essence.So when you read the Koran, don’t read it – sing it! Otherwise you will miss; you will miss everything because you will think you have understood everything, but the whole thing is in the music. If the music of the Koran, the Bible or the Gita surrounds you, and you have a dancing feeling, your energy is in sheer delight, overflowing, tears, laughter, dancing. If you feel as if a new breeze has entered your being, then you aren’t gathering dust.To read is to know a certain art. It is to go into deep sympathy. It is to go into a sort of participation. It is a great experiment in meditation. If you read the Gita the same way as you read novels, you will miss it. It has layers and layers of depth. Hence, path – every day one has to repeat it. It is not a repetition; if you know how to repeat it, it is not a repetition. If you don’t know, then it is a repetition.Try it for just three months. Read the same book – you can choose any small book – every day. And don’t bring your yesterday reading to it: again just as fresh as the sun rises in the morning – again fresh as flowers come this morning, again fresh. Just open the Gita again, excited, thrilled. Again read it, again sing it, and see. It reveals a new meaning to you.It has nothing to do with yesterday and all the yesterdays before when you read it. It gives you a certain significance today, this moment; but if you bring your yesterdays with you, then you will not be able to read the new meaning. Your mind is already full of meaning. You think you already know. You think you have been reading this book again and again – so what is the point? Then you go on reading it like a mechanical thing, and you go on thinking a thousand and one other thoughts. Then it is futile. Then it is just boring. Then you will not be rejuvenated by it. You will become dull. That’s why, out of a hundred, ninety-nine religious persons are dull. Their intelligence is not sharp; it’s almost stupid. It is very difficult to find a religious man who is not stupid, because they are repeating the same ritual every day – but their minds are on the wrong things, not on the rituals. You can do the same thing as absolutely new; there is no need to repeat it.You love a woman, then the woman is new every day. Reading the Gita or Koran is just like a love affair - every day is new. Maybe the words are the same, but the same words can carry different meanings. The same words can penetrate into your being from different doors. The same words in a certain moment can have a certain significance which they will not have in any other context. The meaning depends on you, not on the words you read. You bring meaning to the Gita, or Koran, or Bible, not vice versa.Of course, after twenty-four hours you are more experienced. You have lived life for twenty-four hours more. In fact, you are not the same person. The Gita is the same – you are not the same person. After twenty-four hours, how much water has flowed in the Ganges?One day you are in a mood of love. Another day you are in a mood of sadness. One day you are overflowing, another day you are a miser. Different colors and shades of moods - and in different shades and colors you will be reading the same book. Again and again, and the Gita becomes millions of doors. You can enter it from so many ways, from so many doors, and you bring the meaning. The meaning is yours.One day when your mind has stopped functioning completely and you are just a flow – when I say your mind has stopped functioning completely, I mean you don’t bring the past in at all; the mind is the past – if you don’t bring the past in at all and you can read and listen, then your reading has become a meditation. Yes, reading can be helpful, but ordinarily it proves to be harmful, because the way you behave with books is harmful to you. You simply collect; you go on collecting dead facts. You become a junkyard – maybe an encyclopedia - but you lose the inner coherence, the inner music, the inner harmony. You become a crowd - so many voices, no unity. This is not getting integrated; this is disintegration.So whatsoever you do – it is not only a question of reading, listening – whatsoever you do, it will depend on you.The second question:Osho,I took sannyas from Swami Shivanand of Rishikesh after reading his book Brahmacharya and other books of his.After some years, I was attracted to Sri Ramana Maharshi and thereafter to Sri Aurobindo due to his integral approach to the divine. From 1959 onward I was doing meditation on the lines indicated by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.Thereafter J. Krishnamurti's approach attracted me, now yours.I enjoy and feel happy whenever I read Sri Aurobindo's works, since he emphasizes living a full life and realization of the integral divine and gives much emphasis to physical transformation.You also emphasize not to negate life but to live fully, and have given a new meaning to sannyas. Hence I am here to embrace this also. I wonder whether I am on the right path or drifting? What is this multifarious attraction in me? Could you help me with a right path if I am drifting?The first thing to be understood: before one can come to the right door, one has to knock on many doors. Life is an adventure – of courage, daring, and basically it is trial and error. One has to go astray many times to come to the right path. And when I say the right path, I don’t mean that Sri Ramana’s path is not right, but it must not have been right for you; otherwise there is no need to go further.Once you have come to the right path for you - and it is always a question of the individual - it has nothing to do with Ramana, Aurobindo or me; it is a question of you. If you have come to me, and you feel at home, then your journey is finished. Now there is no need to drift any more, now you can settle and start working because while drifting work is impossible.It is as if you start constructing a house and in the middle of it you are attracted to something else, and you leave it and you start another house. And in the middle again you are attracted to something else. Then you will live like a vagabond. The house will never be completed. One has to settle somewhere, one has to commit somewhere, one has to make the fatal decision. But it is not difficult. If you have courage, it happens.One has to be available to many sources. It is good that you have been to Shivanand, to Ramana, to Aurobindo. It shows you have been seeking – but it also shows that you did not feel at home anywhere. So the journey continued. The journey has to continue until you come to a point where you can say: Yes, I have arrived. Now there is no need for any more departures. Then you can relax. Then the real work starts.Whatsoever you have been doing is just going from one place to another. The journey is exciting, but the journey is not the goal. One becomes enriched by the journey. You must have become enriched being open to so many sources; you must have learned many things – but still the journey continues. Then you will have to seek again and again.Now you are here. Try to see and try to understand: do you fit with me, or do I fit with you? Sometimes it is possible that you may have learned only one thing – how to drift again and again, how to go away again and again. It can become a mechanical habit. Then you will be gone from here also. So don’t allow mechanical habits to lead you. If you don’t fit with me, it is perfectly good to go away because then your being here would be a sheer waste of time for you. But if you fit, then take courage and be committed – because only after the commitment does real work start, never before.You think you have been to Shivanand and you think you have been initiated by him, but the initiation has not happened yet, otherwise you would not be here. Initiation means a commitment: that now one has looked all around – now this is the place to settle. Shivanand may have initiated you, but you have not taken the initiation yet. You have just been a visitor. You have not become intimate with any system of growth.It is as if the plant has been removed from one place to another again and again. The plant cannot grow; the plant needs to settle on one ground so that roots can go deep. If you go on moving the plant again and again, the roots will never grow; and if roots cannot go deeper, the plant cannot go higher.Hence commitment. Commitment means: this is the soil for me now and I am ready to settle for it. It is risky because, who knows, a better soil may be available somewhere else. So the risk is there, but one has to take that risk some day or other. If you go on and on just waiting for something better, something better, the time may be lost, and by the time you have arrived you will be dead.The real thing is the work. It is good to go around, have a look, visit many places, many people – but don’t make it a habit. That habit is dangerous. It won’t allow you roots. If roots are not there, the tree cannot be alive ? flowers are not possible; fragrance will not spread from you and your life will remain empty.So the first thing: don’t repeat your past a pattern in the future. Now you are here; don’t do the same thing to me as you have done to Shivanand, Ramana, Aurobindo. You don’t know what you have done.It happened…A great painter, James McNeill Whistler, is reported to have displayed a just-completed painting to Mark Twain. Twain looked at the painting judiciously from a variety of angles and distances while Whistler waited impatiently for the verdict.Finally, Twain leaned forward and, making an erasing gesture with his hand, said, “I’d eradicate that cloud if I were you.”Whistler cried out in agony, “Careful! The paint is still wet!”“That’s all right,” said Twain coolly, “I’m wearing gloves.”You must be wearing gloves. You think you were initiated by Shivanand, but it has not happened. Your gloves won’t allow it. You must be living in a capsule, closed. You must be clever, logical, cunning. You have been on the alert not to be committed anywhere deeply. Hence, before the commitment happens, you move on.You say: “I took sannyas from Swami Shivanand of Rishikesh after reading his book, Brahmacharya, and other books of his.” Now, if you are impressed by a book written on brahmacharya, it shows much about you. You must have something like a problem concerning your sexuality. It has nothing to do with brahmacharya or Shivanand. You must be obsessed somehow with sex – hence the appeal of brahmacharya. You must have been repressing sex. You must have been brought up with wrong ideas about sex; hence you became impressed by Shivanand’s book on celibacy.It is not that you are impressed by Shivanand – you are still following your own mind. You could not surrender to him. The phenomenon that you call initiation was intellectual; by reading the books, not by being in the presence of the master. You must be an intellectual, calculating, theorizing. This won’t allow you to go into a deep relationship – and the relationship between a master and a disciple is the deepest, deeper than the relationship between a lover and the beloved.You may have been impressed by what Shivanand has written, but deep down you search for it again and again. It is not Shivanand that you are impressed or influenced by. You have certain ideas in your mind; wherever you find those ideas appreciated, you feel good. With me it is going to be dangerous. I am not going to appreciate any of your ideas; they are all rubbish. I say that even without knowing what your ideas are, because that is not needed. Unless you are aware, all your ideas are rubbish. So it is not a question of saying that this idea is rubbish and that one is good. To me, all thoughts are rubbish; only awareness is valuable. And awareness has no ideas in it. It is a simple, pure light of consciousness.So it is going to be difficult with me. You may have come to the man now who can shake and shock you. With Shivanand, you thought you were with Shivanand, but basically, deep down, you felt that Shivanand was with you; that’s why you lingered there a little while. This is not going to be so here with me. I am not going to be with you, remember; you have to be with me. I am not going to be with you, I repeat, you have to be with me.So I am not going to fulfill your expectations in any way. If you have theories, I am against them already without knowing them because I am against mind and my whole emphasis is how to become a no-mind.The questioner seems to be too in his head: he became interested in Sri Aurobindo, “because he emphasizes living a full life and realization of the integral divine.” You have some fixed ideas, so whoever seems to be following your ideas you become impressed with. In fact, you remain impressed only with your own ego. You have been playing an ego game. You have been on an ego trip, that’s why Shivanand, Ramana, Aurobindo, nobody could help you.As far as I know, if somebody comes back from Ramana, then there must be something very deeply wrong. With Shivanand it is not much of a problem, with Aurobindo also it is not much of a problem. Shivanand is just ordinary. Aurobindo is a great intellectual, a mahapundit, a great scholar. So if somebody comes away, nothing is lost; you have not lost much because there was nothing to be gained in the first place. But if you have come away from Ramana, that shows something deep like a cancer in your soul. People like Ramana are very rare – thousands of years pass, then sometimes that quality of being arises. Ramana is like a Buddha, a Jesus, or a Krishna – a very rare phenomenon. But I know why you could not get in tune with Ramana: because of your Shivanands and your Aurobindos. To get in tune with a Ramana means to drop your ego completely. Great courage is needed.Now you are here. If you are really a seeker, then gather courage and drop the ego and the past. Forget the past; it has been nothing but a nightmare. Don’t go on repeating it; otherwise, you can go on repeating until the very end of time, changing from one person to another. This can become a habit; this shows simply your restlessness. Otherwise to come back from Krishnamurti would have been almost impossible. There is no need.So now become aware of your basic trouble: something in you is betraying your whole effort; something in you is continuously causing clouds around your intelligence. Your awareness is not sharp.It happened…The little girl was invited to dinner one night at the home of a friend. The hostess, knowing that many children don’t like spinach, asked if she liked it.“Oh yes,” the little girl replied. “I love it.”When the platter was passed, however, she refused to take any.“But, dear,” said the hostess, “I thought you said you liked spinach.”“Oh, I do,” explained the child, “but not enough to eat it.”Going to Shivanand, Aurobindo, Ramana, Krishnamurti, you have some idea that you like and you love these people, but your liking is not enough. You don’t love enough; otherwise you would have eaten them and they would have transformed you.Become aware! As it is, you have wasted a long time already. You can also go from this door empty-handed, but remember: the responsibility is yours. If you take courage, I am ready to give you whatever can be given. But for visitors nothing can be given, and even if it is given they will not be able to understand.If you are tired of your journey, going from one place to another, from one person to another; if you are really tired, then here I am, ready to give you whatsoever you are seeking. But you will have to fulfill one condition and that is: a total commitment. Unless you become part of my family, nothing can be given. Even then I would like to give you something, but you will not be able to take it. Or, even if you take it, you will think it is nothing because your mind will continuously befog you. It won’t allow you to understand, it won’t allow you to see directly. It won’t allow you to see what type of game you have been playing with yourself.Up to now it has been drifting. Become aware how much you have wasted. Many opportunities were there but you have missed them. Now don’t miss this opportunity! But I know the mind gets in a rut, it becomes a pattern. You go on repeating the same thing again and again, because you become very efficient in repeating it. Now get out of that vicious circle. I am ready to help if you are ready to take my help. Such help as this cannot be forced on you. You have to take it or not take it. Your freedom has to decide it; it is your choice.And don’t ask: What is the right path? All paths are right or wrong. It is not a question of deciding which path is right. The only thing to be decided is which path fits you. Of course, Ramana has a certain path – very simple, absolutely nonintellectual. The head was not required at all on that path; the head had to be dropped. If you had allowed him, you would have been beheaded by him. The head is not part of his path. It is a path of the heart.Krishnamurti is just the opposite. The path is absolutely true, but the head has to be used and transcended, not to be dropped. That’s why Krishnamurti appeals tremendously to intellectuals – nothing of the heart; everything is analysis, dissection. He is a great surgeon; he goes on dissecting. You give him any problem – he does not, in fact, answer it; he simply dissects it. And if you are listening with deep participation and sympathy, it is possible that through his dissection he gives you an insight – not the answer, but an insight – and that is your insight. He simply dissects the problem. He is a rare intellectual man; gone beyond intellect, but he has gone through it. Ramana bypasses intellect, he never passes through the intellect; his path is of the heart. Krishnamurti’s path is of the intellect, of the head, of understanding, dissection, analysis.Shivanand is not yet enlightened. He has no path – stumbling in the dark. A traditional man, he can make you knowledgeable, but he cannot help you toward ultimate understanding. A good man, a very good man, but just a good man, not yet a Jesus or a Buddha, not yet a Krishnamurti or a Ramana – a simple man. If he becomes enlightened some day in some life, he will be like Ramana – his path will not be of the head. But he is not yet realized.And then there is Aurobindo: his path is as yet the path of an unenlightened person, moving toward it but yet in the dark. The morning is not very far away, but it has not happened yet. If some day it happens, then he will be a man like Krishnamurti; he will go through the head – a great scholar, he has much appeal for those who like logic-chopping, hair-splitting.Then here I am: all paths are mine, or no path is mine. I am more concerned with individuals. When you come to me, I don’t have a certain path to give you. I look at you to find which path will be suitable for you. I have no fixed path. I have wandered on all the paths, and all paths are true. If it fits, then any path can lead you to the ultimate. If it doesn’t fit, then you can go on struggling, fighting, but nothing is going to happen; you are trying to pass through a wall. You will be hurt, wounded, that’s all; nothing is going to happen.I don’t belong to any path; hence all paths belong to me. I am more concerned with the individual seeker. If I see that devotion, worship, prayer, will be helpful to you, I teach you that. If I see meditation will be helpful to you, I teach that. If I see that just understanding, pure awareness, will be helpful, I teach that. If I feel that awareness is going to make you very tense, does not fit with your type, then I teach you to be lost completely in something, absorbed completely in something. Dancing, get into it so much that you become the dance and there is nobody watching it; don’t create any separation and division between you, become the act.Hence I am going to be very, very contradictory because to one person I will say something, to another I will say something else, sometimes even just the opposite, diametrically opposite. So whatsoever I have said to you, somebody may come and say to you: Osho has said something else to me. Don’t listen to anybody else. Whatsoever I have said to you, I have said to you. Otherwise, you will be confused.Millions of paths go toward godliness. In fact there is nowhere else to go. Wherever you are going, you are going toward godliness. All paths lead to godliness. But when you are seeking, only one path can lead you. If you start walking on all paths together, you will be lost. One has to choose a path. So please don’t repeat your old pattern.Now it will be very difficult. I am hurting your ego knowingly – because when I say Aurobindo is not enlightened, I immediately can feel what is happening to you. It is not a question of Aurobindo – whether he is enlightened or not enlightened, who bothers? It is his problem; it is not my problem; it is not your problem. But if you have been following Aurobindo and I say he has not yet become enlightened, your ego is hurt. You? Following an unenlightened person? Never, it is not possible!When I say Shivanand is good but ordinary, mediocre, of course you will feel hurt because you have been initiated by Shivanand. How is it possible that you, so intelligent, were initiated by a mediocre man? No, it is going to hurt, but I do it knowingly.I will create every sort of trouble for you so that if you stay, you really stay. If you decide to stay, it will be a real decision to stay with me. I am going to be hard. Shivanand, Ramana, Krishnamurti, Aurobindo, it seems, have been too compassionate toward you; hence you could drift.I will make every effort to drive you away. I will create a struggle within you, a friction, because that is the only way now; otherwise your old habit will go on functioning. If you come and ask for sannyas from me, I am not going to give it to you easily because you have been taking things very easy. This sannyas is going to be arduous.The third question:Osho,I came to a point where I saw the ego can be dropped right now – but then I had to see that I don't want to drop it. But I want to want.Can you bring light to this place?Let me tell you a few anecdotes:After being promoted to a high position in government, one man visited the town where he was born.“I suppose the folks here have heard of the honor that has been conferred on me?” he asked a former schoolmate.“Yes,” came the gratifying reply.“And what do they say about it?”“They don’t say anything,” was the reply. “They just laugh.”You think your ego is something valuable? People simply laugh at it. Except you, everybody else is against your ego. Except you, everybody else knows the ridiculousness of it – about your ego; I am not talking about their egos.What is the ego? It is a very ridiculous standpoint. The ego says, “I am the center of the universe.” The ego says, “The universe exists for me.” Ridiculous standpoints! Just a small understanding will be enough – not much light is needed. Just a small light will be enough. You are not the center of the world – because the world was here when you were not, and the world will be here when you are not here. You cannot be the center. You are not the center.If there is a God, then only God can say “I,” nobody else. It’s okay as a formal expression, but only God can say “I” because he is the center of the world. But he never says anything like that; he has been keeping quiet. Man goes on saying “I.” Why? Because it is very, very disorienting to feel that you are not the center of the world, that you are not the end and the purpose of the world, that the whole world has not been waiting for you; that without you the world can exist. It is very disorienting. If you feel this, you feel shaken – as if the earth has been pulled from beneath your feet and you are hanging in a bottomless abyss.The ego gives you a rock to stand on, but the rock is imaginary, it is just a dream. The ego is a declaration that “I am separate from others - separate from the trees, separate from the sky, separate from the sea - I am separate from others.” But are you? Are you really separate from others? In millions of ways you are joined with everything else.You are joined with your mother, your father, and your father is joined with his father and mother, and so on and so forth. It goes on and on. You are joined with the air every moment. If you don’t breathe, you will die. You are joined with the sun’s rays; if the sun simply forgets one day to rise in the morning, we will be dead within ten minutes. You depend on water, you depend on food. How can you say you are not joined with the trees? We are deeply connected with everything else – that is the meaning of ecology. It is one system.To say “I” is simply absurd. You cannot be independent – totally independent – then how can you say “I”? Just look at the ridiculousness of the “I.” I am not saying to drop it, because in the first place it is not there, so I cannot tell you to drop it. To tell you to drop it would mean that I accept that it is there. It is not there; it is simply a ridiculous notion, an idea with no substance in it. It is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. So I cannot say to drop it. I can only say: Wake up! Be awake! I can only shock you so that you can open your eyes and see that it is not there. Awareness is needed – I don’t teach egolessness, no.For centuries religious people have been teaching egolessness. That doesn’t seem to work out. Then people become egoistic about their humbleness. Then they say, “Nobody is more pious than me and nobody is more religious than me.” Look at the so-called religious people. You will never find sharper egos anywhere else. They go on trying to hide behind words, rituals, prayers, but the ego is there.Walter Kaufmann has coined a new word; he calls it humbition. Humility, humbleness and ambition he has joined together: humbition. And he says humbition is very good. But humbition is not possible – it is impossible. You can make a word out of two diametrically opposite things, but they cannot be joined. A humble man cannot be ambitious, and an ambitious man cannot be humble. But people go on trying to find some ways to hide – now humbition: I am humble and yet ambitious. This is impossible! A humble man is nonambitious, nonegoistic.So I am not going to tell you to become humble or humbitious. I only want to point out to you that the ego you are clinging to is not there in the first place. It is just an idea. And everybody knows this about your ego as you know about others’ egos, but the stupidity is that no one becomes aware of one’s own nonsense.The question is: “I came to a point where I saw that the ego can be dropped right now.” Then you have not come to that point because when you come to that point, there is no way to stop the ego dropping by itself. When you come to that point of understanding, it is not that you understand that now you can drop the ego. If you come to that point, you suddenly see there is no ego to be dropped or to be carried. You simply start laughing. The jig is up: at last America is discovered! Not that after understanding you have to drop it; in the very understanding it drops.Just as in the morning, you awake - do you drop your dreams? Can you say, “In the morning there came a moment of wakefulness where it was absolutely clear to me that if I want, I can drop my dreams”? No, that’s not possible. If you are awake, dreams are no longer there – not that you have to drop them, they simply drop! The very act of waking drops them. There is no need to drop them separately. Here arises understanding - there disappears ego. It is simultaneous; there is not even a single moment’s gap.“But then I had to see that I don’t want to drop it.” You missed. In the first place, the understanding was not there. Hence the second part, that you felt that you don’t want to drop it. If understanding arises, there is nobody to drop it or not drop it, and there is nothing to be dropped or not dropped.Whenever you think that understanding will arise, you think that you must be there and understanding will arise. No, there will be no you there. In understanding you disappear, just like the dew on the grass disappears, evaporates, when the sun rises.You are your ego. About whom are you talking? You are talking as if you are separate from your ego and your ego is something you can drop or carry. When ego is dropped, then who are you? You are dropped.I have heard about one movie star who claimed he had not slept well for twenty years. He was vacationing at the home of a friend in the Himalayas. One morning the friend noticed the star looked a little more drawn and tired than usual. “Did you get any sleep?” he asked.“Yes, I slept,” was the reply, “but I dreamed that I didn’t.”People go on playing hide-and-seek with themselves. You think you came to an understanding and then you decided not to drop it. Now you are asking me because you want to want to drop it. Understanding is enough; there is no need to want to want to drop it. It drops when you are in that state of understanding, in that space of understanding.So I am not worried about your ego. Forget about it! It is a shadow phenomenon; why be bothered? Rather, become more and more aware and understanding. Go on becoming more and more aware, and one day you will come and say to me: Now I am aware and I have been trying to find out where the ego is, and I cannot find it.Bodhidharma went to China. The emperor said, “I am in deep turmoil within. I am very ambitious. Although I have one of the biggest empires in the world, my ego still feels discontented.”Bodhidharma laughed and said, “You have come to the right person. Do one thing: come early in the morning at four o’clock. But remember to bring your ego with you; otherwise what can I do if you don’t bring it?”The emperor felt a little confused: What does he mean? He asked again, “What do you mean?”Bodhidharma said, “I mean exactly what I am saying, that’s what I mean. Bring your ego with you and I will be ready to finish it forever. But come alone; no need to bring any guards or anything.”Four o’clock in the morning? This man seemed very ferocious, and nobody knew what he would do. The emperor could not sleep. He tried to forget the whole thing and not go, but then there was an attraction also: “Maybe this man knows something, and he seems to be so confident.” He had seen many great saints, this and that, and nobody had said so easily, “Bring it, and I will finish it forever!”So finally he decided to go. He went there. Bodhidharma was sitting with a big staff in his hand. The emperor approached trembling.Bodhidharma asked, “Alone? Where is your ego?”The emperor said, “It is not a thing that I can bring. It is always in me.”Bodhidharma said, “Then it’s okay. Sit down, close your eyes, and find out where it is hiding in you. The moment you catch hold of it, just tell me.”Trembling, alone in that temple outside the town, the emperor for the first time in his life closed his eyes to meditate and he started looking around: Where is the ego? One hour passed, another hour passed. The sun was rising, and the emperor was sitting in such a blessed state. Bodhidharma shook him and said, “Now, that’s enough – two hours! Where is it?”And the emperor started laughing. He bowed down and touched Bodhidharma’s feet and he said, “I cannot find it.”Bodhidharma laughed and said, “See! I have finished it. Now whenever you have this wrong notion of ego, don’t go asking other people how to drop it. Just close your eyes and try to find where it is.”Those who have gone inside have never found it there. It is as if I give you a flashlight and tell you to go in the room and find where the darkness is hiding. You take the flashlight, you go into the room, but the darkness is not there. If you take the flashlight with you, the darkness is not there. If you don’t take the flashlight, then it is there. Darkness is an absence of light. Ego is an absence of awareness. If you bring awareness to your being, suddenly it is not there.So I don’t tell you to drop it, and whosoever says it has not understood anything.Whosoever preaches “Drop your ego,” has not understood anything about the ego – it is not there. You cannot drop it, you cannot carry it. It is simply ridiculous.The last question:Osho,How can I surrender when Judas is in the way?Nobody is in the way, no Judas, but your mind has a tendency to throw its responsibility onto somebody or other. The mind goes on finding scapegoats. This is a trick of the mind to save itself, to protect itself.Except for yourself, there is nobody in the way; only you are obstructing the path. Don’t call it names. Don’t say Judas; don’t say the Devil, Satan, Beelzebub; nobody is hindering your path. Once you believe that somebody else is hindering you, you are relieved. If it is not you, what can you do? Somebody else is obstructing the path. But I say there is nobody.Religious people, so-called religious people, have always created such things. They have created a Devil, so whenever you commit a sin, it is the Devil who tempted you. One feels relieved: So it is not me after all, it is the Devil. Hindus don’t talk about the Devil, they have their own mythology: that in a past life you committed wrong karmas. Those karmas are forcing you to do wrong karmas now. Again you are relieved – so what can you do? Your past life cannot be changed now. And if you ask these Hindus, “How did it happen that in the past life I committed wrong karmas?” they will say, “In another life you did wrong things.”In the first place, in the very beginning, how did sin start? Then they become angry. They say, “Don’t ask such questions – you have to believe.” The same question can be asked about people who believe in the Devil. There are more people who believe in the Devil than those who believe in God, because God is not very useful – the Devil is much more useful. God, in fact, is a little troublesome. If God is, then you feel restless; but if the Devil is, then you feel unburdened: you can throw all your responsibilities onto the Devil. You commit murder – the Devil tempted you. What can you do? You’re a helpless victim!Remember, this is not going to help. Don’t pity yourself so much and don’t try to look like a victim. This is a trick of the mind. Except for you, nobody is hindering the path. And except for you, nobody is going to help you. So don’t throw off responsibility. Take all the responsibility there is because only through accepting responsibility will your maturity happen.People go on using devices, and their devices look very logical. Of course, when you become angry and go almost mad, later on you repent, you feel guilty. Now how to manage it logically? Later on you say: I never wanted to do it. Later on you say: In spite of me it happened. Later on you have to repaint your image. You were mad, but you always think about yourself as one of the wisest and sanest people in the world. Now that image is broken. What can you do? Bring in the Devil, Judas – anything will do. You did not do it; somebody forced you to do it.In the story, when Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, the same thing started. Adam threw the responsibility onto the woman, Eve. He said, “Eve seduced me to eat the fruit.”Of course, Eve said, “I did nothing; it was the serpent.” And the serpent could not say anything, so it was finished! So with the serpent, everything was okay. Poor serpent!Everybody is trying to shift the responsibility onto somebody else. If the serpent could speak he would say, “God created me, and he created me in such a way that I had to do it.”Logic goes on finding ways and means – and it looks very logical. I have not come across anything more illogical than logic.Let me tell you an anecdote:The old blacksmith in a small town was telling a friend that when he was a young man his mother wanted him to be a dentist and his father urged him to become a blacksmith.“And you know,” said the old man, “it’s a lucky thing that my father had his way, because if I’d been a dentist I’d have starved to death.”“How do you know that?” asked the friend.“Well,” said the blacksmith, “I can prove it. I’ve been right here in this shop for over thirty years and doing a lot of blacksmithing, but not once in all that time has a living soul asked me to pull a tooth.”Looks logical. Logic looks logical, but it is not logical. In small things it may seem logical, but when you come to the deep, ultimate questions of life, logic is the most illogical thing. It is good for arranging small things, managing small things, but life is bigger than logic. Logic is only a part, a very tiny part of life.Listen to life. Close off and meditate more inside yourself. Close your eyes and meditate more, and see who is barring your path. Judas? There is nobody except you. If you are doing something wrong, take the responsibility on yourself, because that is the only way to transcend it one day. If you are doing it then the possibility is open: if you want not to, you may not do it. But if somebody else is forcing you to do it, then the possibility is lost, then freedom is impossible.Freedom and responsibility go together: they are two aspects of the same coin. If you want freedom, you have to be responsible for whatsoever you are doing. If you don’t want the responsibility, then you also lose your freedom.Everybody likes to be free and nobody wants to be responsible. We go on shifting responsibility. And in shifting responsibility to others’ shoulders, you are throwing away all possibility of freedom. Become responsible! If you have been angry, you have been angry. Don’t say: In spite of myself… Don’t bring in Judas; don’t say: Somebody else, some other force, has possessed me. No, nobody is possessing you.Whatsoever is happening, it is your choice. You have chosen it that way. You may be completely unaware of how you have chosen it, because sometimes you want one thing and you choose another – that creates the problem. You think you want one thing but you choose another. Or, you wanted something else, you have also chosen that, but the result is different.For example: you want to dominate people – that’s your choice. You want to dominate people, but when you dominate them they fight you because they are also wanting the same thing. They will try to dominate you; and now you don’t like it – struggle, jealousy - hell is created all around it. And you say: I never wanted it. But you wanted to dominate people - that was the seed.Always look for the cause. If the effect is there, the cause is bound to be there. If you have not seen the cause in the first place, the effect cannot be there, is not possible. People want to challenge the effect, but they don’t want to change the cause. This is the ordinary mind, the mind which is stupid.The intelligent mind is of a totally different quality. Whenever it doesn’t want any effect, it goes deep into the cause and drops the cause – then there is no problem!You want people to love you, and you are getting angry and hateful, and you do all sorts of things to people. You want them to love you; and when they don’t love you, when they hate you and they are also angry at you, then you say: These things are happening and I have never chosen them. You have chosen them. You wanted something else, but your choice is wrong. Look at the cause.Just a few days ago, a sannyasin came and he said nobody loves him here; he loves everybody and nobody loves him. He was very angry. I asked him to bring a few witnesses whom he loves and who don’t love him, and I would ask them what they say. They would say the same thing, that they love and nobody is returning their love. He was not ready to bring any witnesses.Everybody goes on thinking that he loves people and nobody returns the love, but it has never happened that way. It is against the law; it is against dharma, against the ultimate law of life. If you love, love comes in return. If it is not coming, go deeper; somewhere in the name of love you have done something else.A man asked his boss one day if he could borrow the farmer’s car on October 30th. The date was about a month away.“Sure,” said the farmer, the boss. “You can borrow the car. What’s happening then?”“I’m getting married that day.”“Fine!” said the farmer. “Who’s the lucky girl?”“Well, I ain’t picked her out yet,” was the reply. “Wanted to be sure of getting the car first.”Nonessential things. You want to be sure of them first and you think the essential is going to follow. Change that attitude: think of the essential first; the nonessential follows. Think of the essential first! What is essential? The effect is not essential – the cause is. The other is not essential – you are.Whatsoever is happening today, you have managed somehow. Unaware, unconscious, you have sown the seeds of it; now you have to reap it. People go on thinking that if they can manage the nonessential, the essential will come.For example, people think if they can earn enough money they will be happy. It is not so. If you are happy, you will be wealthy – that’s right, you will be rich. If you are happy, you will be rich. A happy person cannot be otherwise. He may not have big palaces, but still he will be rich. He may be a beggar on the street, but still he will be rich. But you first try to have much wealth, then you think you will be happy. It never happens that way because wealth cannot be a cause of happiness. Happiness is always a cause of wealth.You think that essential things will come: First let me manage the nonessential. By managing the nonessential I will create a situation. First, power, prestige, wealth – all nonessential things.Try to look deep into your being, and think of the essential. Be happy! Right this moment you can be happy. Nobody is barring the path. And if you cannot be happy right this moment, you can never be happy. Happiness has nothing to do with the future. Happiness knows no tomorrow because happiness does not depend on anything else. It is just an attitude. You can be happy right now as you are.Try to just be happy for no reason at all, and you will be surprised! You can be happy for no reason at all because happiness is the reason for many things, it is a basic cause. You can be happy – try it. You have been trying the other way; now try it from the basic cause. First have the cause – be happy – and then effects will follow by themselves. Always remember not to find scapegoats – that is a sure way to miss your life.Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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5. Taming the BullThe whip and rope are necessary,else he might stray off down some dusty road.Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle.Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.Comment:When one thought arises, another thought follows. When the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true. Through delusion, one makes everything untrue. Delusion is not caused by objectivity; it is the result of subjectivity. Hold the nose-ring tight and do not allow even a doubt.6. Riding the Bull HomeMounting the bull, slowly I return homeward.The voice of my flute intones through the evening.Measuring with hand-beats the pulsating harmony, I direct the endless rhythm.Whoever hears this melody will join me.Comment:This struggle is over; gain and loss are assimilated. I sing the song of the village woodsman, and play the tunes of the children. Astride the bull, I observe the clouds above. Onward I go, no matter who may wish to call me back.Truth liberates, and nothing else. Everything else creates bondage, a burden. And truth cannot be found by intellectual effort because truth is not a theory, it is an experience. To know it you have to live it, and that is where millions of people go wrong. They think that if they can cling to a belief, clinging will help them to find the truth. By and by they settle with the belief, and belief is not truth. It is a theory about truth – as if somebody has just settled with words, scriptures, doctrines, dogmas; as if a blind man has started believing that light exists, or a hungry man reads a book on cooking, believing this way, that way, but all the time remaining hungry. That is not the way to satisfy hunger.Truth is a food. One has to digest it, assimilate it; one has to allow it to circulate in one’s blood, beat in one’s heart. Truth has to be assimilated into your organic unity. Belief is never assimilated, it remains an unrelated phenomenon.You may be a Hindu, but Hinduism remains just an intellectual concept. You may be a Christian, or a Mohammedan, but they are not organic parts of your being. Deep down, the doubt continues.I have heard a story:Titov, the Russian cosmonaut, returned from space and was asked by Nikita Khrushchev privately whether he had seen anyone there. The story goes that he replied, “Yes, I really did see God,” to which Khrushchev answered: “I know that already, but you know our policy, so please don’t tell anybody.”Later Titov was with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The patriarch asked him whether he saw anyone in space. Titov, faithful to his instructions, replied, “No, there was no one.”“I know that already,” replied the church leader, “but you know our policy, so please don’t tell anybody.”Underneath your beliefs, whatsoever the belief, doubt continues. Doubt is at the center, and belief is on the periphery. So your life is basically determined by your doubt, not by your belief. You may be a Communist, and still somewhere deep down doubt continues. You may be a Catholic, a Christian, a theist, but deep down the doubt continues.I have looked into so many people belonging to different beliefs, sects, but deep down – the same doubt. And the doubt is neither Hindu nor Christian nor Mohammedan. And the doubt is neither Communist nor anti-Communist. Doubt is pure – simply doubt. For this pure doubt you will need pure trust.This pure doubt which has no adjective to it – Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan – cannot be destroyed by Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan concepts, beliefs, theories, philosophies. What can you do about this doubt?A real seeker is not searching for any belief to console him. Rather, he is trying to find a deeper center in himself which goes beyond doubt. This has to be understood. You have to go deep in your own being to such a point of aliveness where doubt is left behind on the periphery. Rather than doing that, people go on clinging to beliefs on the periphery, and doubt remains deep down. Just the reverse has to be the case.Go deeper into your being. Don’t be concerned about the doubt, bypass it. Let it be there! Don’t try to hide yourself in a belief. Don’t be an ostrich. Face the doubt – and go beyond it. Go deeper than the doubt. Then comes a moment in your being because at the deepest core, at the very center is only life. Once you have touched that deep core within yourself, doubt is just a faraway peripheral thing. It can be dropped very easily.There is no need to cling to any belief in order to drop it. You simply see the stupidity of it. You simply see the ridiculousness of it. You simply see how doubt has been destructive to your whole life, how doubt is continuously eroding your being, how it has been poisonous. Just seeing the fact that doubt has been poisonous, and that it has not allowed you to celebrate, that a great opportunity is being missed, you simply drop it. It is not that instead of doubt you cling to a belief.A real man of trust has no belief – he simply trusts because he has come to know how beautiful life is. And he has come to know how eternal, timeless, life is. He has just come to know that within himself is the kingdom of God. He becomes a king – and not a king in the ordinary sense of the word because that kingdom which comes from without is a false kingdom, a dream kingdom.I have heard about Shah Farouk, the king of Egypt: he was once asked how many kings there would be in the world after twenty-five years.He replied without hesitation that there would be five, and then he explained: “The king of England, the king of hearts, the king of diamonds, the king of clubs and the king of spades.”The kingdom that comes from the outside is just a kingdom of dreams. You can be a king, but you will be a king of playing cards or, at the most, the king of England. Nothing of much value, worthless; just a bogus symbol, meaning nothing.The real kingdom is within. And the most amazing fact is that you go on carrying it within yourself completely unaware, not knowing what treasures you have, and what treasures are yours to just claim.Religion is not a search for any belief. Religion is an effort to know the very ground of your being, to touch the very rock bottom of your existence. That experience of the rock bottom of your existence is what we mean when we use the word truth. It is existential. It is an experience.So don’t be too fooled by beliefs. Be alert – they are deceptions. Because of these beliefs people don’t search. Once you think you know, you believe you know, what is the point of searching? Beliefs are devices to avoid the search because the search is arduous, the search is difficult. Many dreams will be shattered, many images will be shattered, and you will have to pass through much pain. That pain is a necessity: it cleanses, it gives you solidity, integrity; it matures you. Those pains are like birth pains because through them you are going to be reborn.Belief is cheap; it costs nothing. Just a nodding of the head and you become a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. It is too cheap. Truth cannot be that cheap. You will have to sacrifice many cherished dreams. You will have to sacrifice your imaginary image. You will have to sacrifice many things which you value too much in your ignorance. You will have to come out of the cloudy state of your being where you are right now. You will have to rise above it. And, of course, climbing a mountain is difficult – there is no other mountain which is greater than you. You are carrying the greatest peak, the Everest, within you.Of course, the climbing is going to be difficult. But the difficulty pays; it pays tremendously. Once you reach the peak – just the effort, the difficulties, the challenge, the arduousness of climbing – something goes on crystallizing within you. The moment you reach the peak, it is not only a peak that you have reached – you have become the peak. You have attained to a height you had never known before. You were living in a dark valley; now you live in sunshine.So the first thing for the seeker is to be aware that beliefs are barriers. If you come to me as a Christian, you cannot come to me. If you come to me as a Hindu, you only appear to have come to me. But you cannot come because between me and you, your Hinduism, your Jainism, is creating a distance. What you believe makes no difference to me. All beliefs – unconditionally, all beliefs – are barriers.It happened once in a capital…The party picket lines were pacing in front of the courthouse where some comrades were being indicted. A policeman, trying to keep order, shoved an onlooker.“Don’t shove me!” the onlooker complained. “I’m anti-Communist.”The cop glared at him. “You just keep moving,” he ordered. “I don’t care what kind of Communist you are!”It makes no difference: the Communist is a Communist; the anti-Communist is also a Communist because it makes no difference whether you believe in Marx, or Moses, or Manu, or Mahavira. It makes no difference. You believe; whether in Srimad Bhagavadgita, or Das Kapital, or the holy Koran, it makes no difference. The believer’s mind is the wrong mind.Drop your belief so that you can come to encounter your doubt. Facing doubt, encountering doubt, trust arises. If you allow the doubt to be there, and you don’t hide somewhere else, if you face it in its nakedness, in the very encounter something new immediately arises in you - and that is trust. Trust arises facing doubt, not escaping from it; belief is an escape. And belief is a false coin, a false substitute for trust; it looks like trust, it is not trust. In belief, the doubt continues underneath as an undercurrent.In trust there is no doubt. Trust has never known doubt; trust has never encountered doubt. It is just as light has never encountered darkness - the moment light comes, the darkness disperses, disappears. But if you only believe in light, that is not going to help. You live in darkness and you go on believing in light – but you live in darkness! Your belief in light is not a help; it is a hindrance because if you had no belief in light, you would have searched for light. Believing in light, you think it is going to happen. It is there. Some day or other, by the grace of God, it is going to happen. You go on living in darkness, so belief is a trick of the darkness to protect itself. Belief is a trick of the untrue to protect itself. Be on guard.To believe is to take the symptoms to be the real disease. You go to a physician; he diagnoses your illness. He looks for symptoms, but symptoms are not diseases. Symptoms are only indicative that something is wrong somewhere deep inside. Doubt is an indication, just as when your fever goes high – a hundred and two, a hundred and three degrees – but the fever itself is not the disease.So if somebody has a high fever, don’t start giving him a cold shower. That is logical: if you think that the fever itself is the disease, then you cool down the body. The body is getting hotter and hotter, cool it down; give him an ice-cold shower. You are fighting the symptoms – you may kill the patient. This is not the way. The illness is somewhere deep down; the fever is simply indicative that something has gone wrong within. Treat that something which has gone wrong within and the temperature will come down to normal of its own accord.Doubt is a symptom, it is not the disease. When you cling to a belief, you are misunderstanding that doubt is the disease. So you think: If I believe, doubt will disappear. No, it won’t disappear – it will just go underground. It will become unconscious. The conscious you will believe in God; the unconscious you will go on denying him.Don’t be afraid of doubt. Doubt is not the enemy; doubt is a friend. The doubt is simply saying to you that you have not yet searched within; hence, doubt is there. You have not looked into your own reality; hence, doubt is there. Look into your own reality, and doubt disappears like darkness. Bring light.I have heard about a great Christian priest, Henry Ward Beecher. In his church there was a clock which was always either too fast or too slow, and people were always complaining about the clock. It was an everyday problem. Whoever came, he would tell Beecher, “The clock is not right.”One day Beecher got tired of it all and put a sign on the clock: “Don’t blame my hands,” it read. “The trouble lies deeper.”The trouble always lies deeper. The trouble is not on the surface. The trouble is not with the hands of a clock, but deep in the mechanism. So don’t try to change your mind from doubting to believing; that is not going to help. It is not a question of the mind – the trouble lies deeper, deeper than your mind, and you have to go deep within yourself.This is the whole meaning of searching for the bull. The bull is life energy, dynamism, vitality.The fifth sutra:Taming the BullThe whip and rope are necessary,else he might stray off down some dusty road.Being well trained he becomes naturally gentle.Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.The sixth sutra:Riding the Bull HomeMounting the bull, slowly I return homeward.The voice of my flute intones through the evening.Measuring with hand-beats the pulsating harmony, I direct the endless rhythm.Whoever hears this melody will join me.Listen to every word as carefully as possible: The whip and rope are necessary… The whip is a symbol for awareness, and the rope is a symbol for inner discipline. Awareness and discipline are the most fundamental things for a seeker. If you discipline yourself without awareness, you will become a hypocrite. If you discipline yourself without awareness, you will become a zombie, a robot. You may not do harm to anybody, you may be known as a good man or even as a saint, but you will not be able to live your real life - you will not be able to celebrate it. There will be no delight in it. You will become too serious; playfulness will be gone forever. And seriousness is a disease.If discipline is without awareness, then you will enforce it and it will be a violence, a rape of your own being. It will not give you freedom; it will create bigger and bigger imprisonments. Discipline is right, if it is based on awareness. Discipline goes completely wrong, becomes poisoned, when it is done not with awareness but by a blind, believing mind.So the first thing is the whip – the awareness. And the second thing is the rope – the discipline. Why the need for discipline? If you are aware, it seems awareness is enough. Eventually it is enough, but not in the beginning because the mind has deep patterns, and energy tends to come from the old habits and old patterns. New channels have to be created.You may have become aware, but that awareness will not be enough in the beginning because the mind, finding any opportunity to go with any old pattern, immediately slips, in a split second. It takes no time to become angry. By the time you become aware, anger has already flashed. Later on, when your awareness has become total, when your awareness has become an absolute with you – before anything happens, awareness is already there, a priori. If anger comes, before anger, awareness is already there; if sexuality possesses you, before it, awareness is there. When awareness has become a natural, spontaneous thing, like breathing, it is there even in your sleep, then discipline can be discarded. But in the beginning – no. In the beginning, when awareness is settling, discipline will be helpful.Discipline simply is an effort to create new pathways for the energy to travel, so it need not travel the old pathway.For many lives you have been continuously angry; the root is engraved. The moment you have energy, the energy automatically goes to anger. Hence, many religions prescribe fasting. If you are fasting – that means, if you are starving yourself – you don’t have much energy. Food creates energy. If you don’t have much energy, then you cannot become angry. But weakness is not a transformation; again it is a deception.Many religions preach fasting so that you can overcome sex. Of course, if you fast too much and your body is starved, you will not have enough energy for sexuality. For sexuality you need overflowing energy because sex is a luxury. When you have a lot of energy, then it happens. When you don’t have enough, it disappears of its own accord - but that is not true brahmacharya. You are deceiving yourself. Energy should be overflowing, but it should be channelled in a different dimension – the dimension of love. And you will have to create a discipline for that, so that when the energy arises it goes into love, not into sex – it goes into compassion not in passion, it goes into sharing not into greed.Discipline is needed to create new pathways. So awareness and discipline should go together. There are people who insist that only awareness will do. In a way they are right; but to get to that point of awareness where it is enough, where it is its own discipline, is very, very difficult. It rarely happens.Krishnamurti goes on saying that only awareness is enough, no discipline is needed. And he is logically right! But it doesn’t happen that way. Life is very illogical; it doesn’t listen to logic. So people have been listening to Krishnamurti for forty years, and nothing has happened because they think only awareness will do. But to get to that awareness, tremendous effort is needed – and they cannot afford that. In fact, Krishnamurti has become an escape for these people, so they can avoid discipline and they can go on thinking that only awareness will do. They go on living in their darkness, and the peak never happens.Then there are others who go on saying that discipline is enough, no need for awareness. They are talking of the other extreme. Discipline alone cannot be enough. The man who goes on forcing discipline on himself becomes, by and by, a mechanical robot.I have heard about a saint who died, but he was forced to go to hell. He could not believe it. He asked to see God and ask him what wrong had he done because for his whole life he was one of the purest of men.God said to him, “You have never done anything bad, that’s right. But you have never done anything good either because, in the first place, you have never been there. You were just like a robot.”A mechanism goes on doing something; it is neither good nor bad. The mechanism has no spirit, no soul in it. It simply goes on repeating. The repetition is dead. Repetition won’t help. You can do your prayers every day; but only the mind’s mechanism will be repeating them. You will not be in it. You can go on serving people, helping people – the poor and the ill – but if you are just acting like a robot, if the discipline is all and there is no awareness in it, then you are like a computer. Your skill may be great, but you are not there.Many religions have been just teaching discipline, morality, good actions and good deeds; that has not helped the world. People have not become alert or alive through it. Both opposites are half and half. Zen says that both awareness and discipline have to be followed together. A rhythm has to be created between these two opposites. One should start with the whip, and one should end with the rope.The whip and rope are necessary, else he might stray off down some dusty road. The bull is well acquainted with many dusty roads, and if the whip and the rope are not applied, there is every possibility that again the bull that you have caught will be lost.Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle. Then, unfettered, he obeys his master. Then there is no need for discipline. Then you have become a master. …well trained, he becomes naturally gentle. Training is needed, but training is not the goal. Training is just a means. Finally, one has to come out of training; one has to forget all discipline. If you have to continue in your discipline, that simply shows the discipline is not yet natural.In the beginning you remain alert; you create new pathways for your mind’s energy. By and by, there is no need – by and by, even to remain alert is not needed. One is simply alert; not that one tries to be alert. Only then is the flowering – when alertness is natural, when meditation is not something to be done but it simply goes on happening. It has become your very climate; you live in it. You are it. Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.The sixth sutra: Mounting the bull, slowly I return homeward. If you are not the master, then you go away, far away from home. If you are the master, you start coming back toward the original source. If you are not the master, then energy moves away from you – toward things, persons, power, prestige, fame. Energy goes on moving away from you, toward the periphery. Once you are the master, energy starts moving homeward.Kabir, one of the great Indian mystics, has said, “The day I became enlightened, I saw the Ganges flowing upcurrent, flowing back to the source.” He is right: the Ganges then no longer goes toward the ocean; it goes back toward Gangotri, its origin in the Himalayas.If you are the master, the mind follows you like a shadow. If you are not a master, you have to follow the mind like a shadow. The mind means outgoing energy; meditation means incoming energy – the same energy. Only the direction is different.Mounting the bull, slowly I return homeward. The voice of my flute intones through the evening. Remember this: if your search is not leading you toward more and more blissful states, where you can sing and dance, then something is wrong – then something is absolutely wrong. Then you are on some wrong path. Your blissfulness – your singing and dancing – is the indicator. It need not be extrovert: you need not sing so that others can hear it, but you will hear the singing continuously, there within you. If you like, you can sing and share, but there will be a dance inside you. The nearer you come to home, the happier you feel. Happiness is a quality of energy returning toward home.The voice of my flute intones through the evening. Measuring with hand-beats the pulsating harmony, I direct the endless rhythm. Whoever hears this melody will join me. That’s how millions have joined Buddha, Jesus, Krishna – their song, their blissfulness, their ecstasy is infectious. Once you hear, you cannot do anything but join. That’s why people are afraid to hear. People are afraid to come in contact with somebody who can change their direction, their life. They avoid them. They convince themselves that there is nothing to go for. But their argument is nothing but a rationalization of a deep, hidden fear.People behave as if they were blind and deaf. This is the cunning mind which goes on saying: Don’t go in this direction – there is danger. Danger for the mind, of course, but not for you. For the first time you will become masters of your being. But then you will have to allow somebody who has come to know to touch your heart and to give a rhythm to your heart; you will have to allow him so that he can share his harmony with you.In the East we call it satsang. It means to be in the presence of a master, to be in the harmony of the master, to fall in line with the master. The master is there – you simply sit around him, not doing anything. By and by you imbibe the climate, the milieu. By and by the energy of the master goes on overflowing, and you become open to it. By and by you relax, and you don’t resist, and you don’t fight, and you start tasting, and you start smelling something of the unknown – the flavor, the fragrance. The more you taste of it, the more trust arises.Just by being in the presence of an enlightened man, tremendous possibilities open, your potentiality starts functioning, working. You can feel the hum, the humming sound of the newness that comes to you. It is a sharing of a song, a sharing of a dance, a sharing of celebration.Remember this, let it be the criterion: if you are here with me and you become sad and long-faced and serious, then something is wrong. You have misunderstood me; your mind has misinterpreted me. If you are really here, vulnerable to me, open, then by and by you will see a song is bursting in you. You will feel that walking is no longer just walking – it is getting the quality of dance. The heart is not simply pumping the blood – now it is beating in harmony. You will feel the orchestra of life in you. Then you are on the right path. Then you have not misinterpreted me; then you have been imbibing me.That’s the meaning of sannyas: a simple gesture on your part that you are available – nothing else. Just a simple gesture that you are no longer resisting me, that you will not fight with me, that you are not going to waste time fighting, that you drop all defense measures. That is the meaning of sannyas – that you are getting ready for satsang, that now I can shower on you and you will be ready to receive. It simply shows your receptivity.The voice of my flute intones through the evening. Measuring with hand-beats the pulsating harmony, I direct the endless rhythm. Whoever hears this melody will join me. The same I say to you: whoever hears this melody will join me.Now, the prose comments for the fifth sutra:When one thought arises, another thought follows. When the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true. Through delusion, one makes everything untrue. Delusion is not caused by objectivity; it is the result of subjectivity. Hold the nose-ring tight and do not allow even a doubt.As you are, you cannot find truth. As you are, you can find only the untrue. It is not a question of seeking and searching, it is a question of your consciousness. If you are untrue, how can you find truth? Once you become true, you find truth. Truth happens to those people who have become authentically true themselves. If you are false, you will meet with falsity wherever you go because, in fact, it is not a question of the objective world, it is a question of your own subjectivity. You create your world. You are your world. So if you are wrong, you create a wrong world around you. If you are false, then you create a world of lies around you, you project your own world. So don’t be angry at the world. Whatever world you have, you have earned it. You deserve it. The world is nothing but your own magnified mind.When one thought arises, another thought follows. When the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true.Somebody asked Buddha once, “What is truth?” and he said, “Whatsoever an enlightened person is doing is true.”Somebody asked Mahavira, “Who is a real saint?” and Mahavira said, “Whosoever has become awakened.”It is not a question of acts. What you do does not matter – it is what you are. Ordinarily people think that though they are false, they can still do a few good things. That’s not possible. They know that they are ignorant, but still they think that something, a few fragments of life, can be transformed, “At least that much we should do.” But nothing is possible. You cannot do a few good things – it is impossible. It is not a question of what you do, it is a question of your being. If you are wrong, all that you do is wrong. Whatever the appearance, all that you do is wrong. You cannot do a right thing if you are not right in the first place. And if you are right in the first place, you cannot do anything wrong – whatsoever the appearance.If Krishna goes and becomes a thief, that is right. It has been very difficult for the Western mind to understand this Eastern attitude because the whole Eastern attitude depends on being and the whole Western attitude depends on doing. Goodness is something to be done; saintliness is concerned with actions. Not so in the East because you can perform a good action and you may not be good; then somewhere in the good action there will be some bad intention. It has to be so. If you are awakened, it is impossible to do anything wrong. Even if it appears to be wrong, even if the society decides it is wrong, the society is at fault because out of an awakened heart it is impossible for any wrong to arise.A fakir was invited to a dinner. The fakir was seated next to a man and during the evening he asked the man, “What are you living for?”“I am a pharmacist,” replied the man.“Yes,” said the fakir. “That’s what you are doing to make a living – but what are you living for?”There was a moment’s hesitation. “Well, sir, I really have not thought about that,” replied the pharmacist.In the West, and particularly for the modern mind whether in the East or in the West, doing has become more important. And when doing becomes more important, you lose all contact with your being, you lose all contact with the source of life. Then you go on doing a thousand and one things – except the most essential. The most essential is to know oneself, and you cannot know yourself unless you shift your whole consciousness from doing to being.Whenever somebody asks who you are, you say: I am a doctor, or, I am an engineer, or an architect, or something like that. These answers are wrong. This is what you are doing – this is not your being. When I ask you: Who are you? I am not asking you whether you are a doctor or an engineer. That’s what you do. That is not your being. That’s how you earn your living – that’s not your life.Who are you?If you drop the ideas of being a doctor, engineer, a professor, then suddenly you will become aware of a certain emptiness within you. You don’t know who you are. What type of life is this in which you are not even aware of who you are?One goes on avoiding this emptiness within oneself. One goes on fixing patches all around oneself, so from nowhere can you see this inner void. One goes on clinging to actions, and actions are no more than dreams – both good and bad. Good actions, good dreams; bad actions, nightmares. But both are dreams. The whole effort in the East has been this: to know the dreamer.Who is this dreamer? Who is this consciousness on which dreams come, flow and go?Through delusion, one makes everything untrue. Delusion is not caused by objectivity; it is the result of subjectivity. The world is not causing it: you are causing it. So never blame the world. Don’t say, as people are prone to say, that the world is illusory, the world is maya. The world is not maya, the world is not illusory. It is your mind, it is your own subjectivity which goes on creating maya – illusion – all around you.For example: you are walking, you have gone for a morning walk and beside the road you see a diamond, a beautiful diamond, shining. It is valuable for you; the value is given by your mind – otherwise it is a stone like any other stone. If you ask other stones beside the road, they will simply laugh at you: “Maybe a shining stone, but what difference does it make? A stone is a stone.” If no one passes along the road, then there is no diamond. Once a man passes along the road, immediately a certain stone transforms itself in his mind and becomes a diamond.Diamondness is given by the mind to the stone – it was never there. Once humanity disappears from this earth, things will be here but in a totally different way. A roseflower will be as ordinary a flower as any flower; there will be no difference. The Ganges will not be a holy river; it will be as ordinary a river as any other. There will be no difference between a church and a temple; they will both be just the same.The differences are brought by the mind. Categories are created by the mind. Appreciation and condemnation are of the mind. Once the mind is not there, everything is in its reality as it is. No evaluation arises.One who is untrue makes everything untrue. You go on projecting yourself – everything else functions as a screen.Delusion is not caused by objectivity; it is the result of subjectivity. Hold tight the nose-ring and do not allow even a doubt. In the beginning, the discipline has to be hard: Hold tight the nose-ring and do not allow even a doubt. In the beginning, the work is going to be hard, arduous because if you relax a little, the mind will go immediately into old patterns. It brings the old miseries back again. It creates the whole nonsense again and again. In the beginning, you have to be really strict.The night Buddha achieved enlightenment, he sat under the tree and he said: “I will not rise from this tree again in my life, if I don’t attain enlightenment. Finished!” He said, “I am finished with doing anything for it. I am going to sit here; this tree is going to become my death.” A total decision. At that moment he dropped his decidophobia completely – a total decision. Meditate on this! That very night, by the morning he became enlightened.I have heard a story about a Sufi mystic, Baba Shaikh Farid:Once, a young man approached Shaikh Farid. He was taking his bath in the Ganges River, and the man asked him how he might find God. Baba Shaikh Farid took hold of him, led him into the water. When they had gone in deep enough, he forced him under the water. The young man nearly drowned before the holy man released him.“Why did you do that?” he gulped incredulously.“When you long for God as much as you wanted air while you were under water,” replied Baba Shaikh Farid, “you will find him.”Your desire should become so intense that you put all that you have at stake. The passion to seek should be so total that not a single doubt is allowed to make you waver. The very intensity will bring truth. It can happen in a single moment! You just need to become a total intensity of inner fire.The decision should be total. It is arduous, of course, but everybody has to pass through that arduousness once. One has to pay for truth, and there is no other way to pay for it: you have to put your whole being on the altar. That is the only sacrifice that is needed. Hold tight the nose-ring and do not allow even a doubt.The prose comment for the sixth sutra:This struggle is over; gain and loss are assimilated. I sing the song of the village woodsman, and play the tunes of the children. Astride the bull, I observe the clouds above. Onward I go, no matter who may wish to call me back.If your intensity is total, the struggle is over. If you are really interested in seeking the bull, then don’t go on working for it half-heartedly. Either seek it, or don’t seek it because a lukewarm search is not going to help; it is a sheer waste of energy. If you want to seek, then put yourself totally into seeking. If you don’t want to seek the bull, forget all about it. Go into the world totally. Some other day will be the right moment for the search to begin.If you are not ready to put yourself completely in the search, to get involved with your whole heart, that simply shows that you are not yet finished with the world. The world still attracts you; desires still go on haunting you. You would still like to become a rich man, a powerful man, a president, or something like that. Greed is still hiding inside you. You still have not come to that moment of awareness where you realize that the real treasure is within you and not without. Then go into the outside world. Don’t be half-and-half; that is the most dangerous situation.If you are half religious and half worldly, you will miss both. You will not be able to cope with the world; your religion will become an interference. And you will not be able to cope with the inner search because your worldly desires will continuously distract you. There is no need! If the world still attracts you, if you still feel that there is something which has to be attained, then go, and get frustrated completely. You will get frustrated. It simply means that you need a little more wandering, going astray. Nothing is wrong in it – go fast! Go totally, so you are finished sooner. Then you are ripe. Then your whole energy will turn inward. Frustrated with the without, your energy will go inward spontaneously.But people are cunning. They want to have both worlds – they want to have the cake and eat it too. They are trying to be clever, and this cleverness is going to prove their stupidity. This cleverness is not intelligence – half-heartedly, nothing is attained. All attainment needs intensity, total intensity.In a single moment the struggle can be over. This struggle is over; gain and loss are assimilated. When the struggle is over, then one understands that everything was right. Gain and loss, both are assimilated. Going astray was also part of your growth, and going into the world was also part of your search for God. It was needed! So when I say go into the world, I don’t say it in any condemnatory sense. I simply say that it is needed. Be finished with it! You are not yet ripe. If you try half-heartedly to come to your inner source, it is going to be suppression. And suppression divides, makes you ill.I have heard an anecdote:A boy, his mother and his father had been invited to dinner at an aunt’s home. She was a fussy type and his parents had warned the boy to be on his best behavior. “Don’t start asking for things at the table, or reaching for things,” he was told. “Just wait until you are asked.”Somehow at the table the boy was overlooked as the good things were being served. He didn’t say anything. Finally, he coughed a little. Nobody paid any heed.At last, during a brief lull in the chatter, he said in a loud, clear voice, “Anybody want a clean plate?”That is the mind of the suppressed man – always watching, waiting; always hankering, desiring. And the mind will find some way or other to cough, or to say: Does anybody need a clean plate?Any suppressed desire is going to assert itself; it will find a way to assert itself. Never suppress a desire. Understand, but never suppress. Be aware, but never suppress. Desires are great lessons – if you suppress them, you will miss the lesson. Live in them. Live them consciously. Understand them, why they are there, what they are. And when I say understand them, the understanding is possible only if you don’t condemn them. If you already condemn them, then you cannot understand them. Be neutral: don’t decide what is wrong and what is right. Just observe.When anger arises, don’t say it is bad. In fact, don’t call it anger because in the very word anger a condemnation has entered. Simply close your eyes, say x, y, z, anything – that x is arising. Just feel the difference when you say anger is arising and when you say x is arising. Immediately there is a difference. With x you have no pro or con; with x you are neither in favor nor against. With x you are unprejudiced. With anger you are prejudiced – centuries of conditioning that anger is bad.Just look at it, observe it, watch it. Anger is also energy – maybe not moving in the right direction, but still the energy is there, part of the bull. Watch it. Observe it. And just by watching and observing, you will see the energy being transformed. Observation is alchemical. It changes the energy, the quality of it. Soon you will see: the same energy that was going to be anger has transformed into compassion. Compassion is hidden in anger as the tree is hidden in the seed – but going deep, insight is needed.If you become repressed, you not only repress those things which have been condemned by the society, you also start repressing all those things which are natural and are not to be repressed.So go into the world; be finished with the world. Don’t be afraid of the world because if you are afraid you will try to escape half-ripe, and to be half-ripe is the worst shape to be in. Let the heat of the world make you perfectly ripe. You are so frustrated, disillusioned that now you are available to go on some other trip, into some other space.And then a beautiful thing happens. For example, sex will disappear, but that doesn’t mean that love will disappear. A totally new kind of energy arises in you. Love will become strengthened, love will become vigorous. And if sex happens, it will be part of love; it will have a totally different context. So it is not good to call it sex.Right now, if love happens at all, it happens as part of sex. Sex remains the basic thing. Love is just a shadow to it. When sex disappears, love disappears. When you become interested sexually in some other person, love disappears from the person you were sexually related to before.But when sex energy is transformed, moves into higher realms, you become urdhva-retus – the energy is not moving downward but upward; or not moving outward but inward, which is the same. Inward and upward are the same dimension. Downward and outward are the same dimension. They are not two different dimensions. When your energy moves upward or inward, sex becomes a part, a shadow, of love. It is then no longer important in itself.If you are repressing and not becoming aware, then you will repress sex and you will repress love also because you will become afraid. Whenever love comes into your mind, sex will follow – immediately. You will also become afraid of love. A repressed person becomes afraid of energy itself.I have heard about one man who was in love with a woman, and he asked the woman to marry him. But before she accepted she inquired, “Just one thing, Harry. Are you the sort of man who would expect a wife to go out to work?”Harry said, “Look, Sybil. No wife of mine is ever going to have to go out and take a job – unless, of course, she wants food and clothes and luxuries like that.”Now food and clothes are not luxuries, but if you repress, then you become afraid of everything. Then fear grips you. A repressed person is a frightened person, afraid of everything.If you present some money to Vinoba Bhave, he will not touch it. He’s afraid to touch money. Not only that, he will turn his head so he cannot see it, or he will close his eyes. Now this seems a little too much. It seems like the miser is standing on his head; it is the same type of mind.The miser goes on accumulating money, and then one day, frustrated, he starts repressing his desire for it. Then he chooses the reverse course, the opposite pole. Then he is even afraid to see money. Now if money, itself, is worthless, then what is the fear in seeing it? If money has no deep attachment in you, deep obsession in you, then why close your eyes? You don’t close your eyes to other things. If you ask Vinoba he says: “Money is dirt.”One of his disciples came to me once and he said, “I asked Vinoba and he says money is dirt.”“But then,” I said, “go back and tell him: ‘Then, whenever you see dirt, close your eyes! Don’t touch earth, don’t walk on earth. Hang yourself in the air. because if money is dirt, then dirt is money. But you behave differently: with dirt you are not afraid! With money you are afraid.’”No. I cannot believe that money is dirt. Money is still money, dirt is dirt. When you call money dirt, you are simply showing some deep obsession. Otherwise, why is money dirt? Money is a useful means. Use it, but don’t be used by it! I can understand that. Don’t be used by it!That is how a person who is aware functions in life. But if you repress, you move to the opposite polarity. A miser stands on his head, becomes a great, great person who has renounced the world. Remember: repression is not going to help.This struggle is over; gain and loss are assimilated. I sing the song of the village woodsman, and play the tunes of the children. Beautiful! One becomes like a child – simple, innocent, happy in small things. I sing the song of the village woodsman… Astride the bull, I observe the clouds above. Onward I go, no matter who may wish to call me back.The old world calls me back. The old desires call me back. The old patterns call me back. But now it doesn’t matter; I am moving toward the real treasure. So delusions cannot attract me any longer, and everything has become beautiful – the clouds in the sky, and the song of the woodsman.The real saint becomes like a small child – simple, almost like an idiot. Saint Francis used to call himself the fool of God. Lao Tzu says: The whole world is clever except me. I am an idiot.One becomes like a small child – with no logic; tremendously alive, but not hung up in the head. Energy becomes a flow; now there are no blocks, nothing is frozen, and the boundaries merge. Then one is not separate from the whole, but simple, like woodsmen and their simple song. Life becomes a simple song, and life becomes innocence.Once you know what life is, tremendous beauty arises in your being. Everything becomes luminous, illumined with God. Each stone becomes a sermon. Each silence becomes a song. One feels the benediction constantly being showered upon oneself.Astride the bull, I observe the clouds above. Onward I go, no matter who may wish to call me back.Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,For some years I have been keeping a journal to record my ideas, thoughts, feelings, spaces. Lately, though, I open the book and just stare at the blank page or draw little pictures. Much seems to be happening yet nothing seems to be happening. The words just don't seem to come the way they used to.One should be happy, one should feel blessed, if instead of words silence starts coming to you. These are the gaps, the intervals. So don’t be worried about the words that are not coming which used to come. Something else tremendously valuable is coming to you. You have not yet recognized it. Pure space is coming to you. Empty space is coming to you. Nothingness is coming to you, and God appears only out of this nothingness. Only out of this nothingness is truth encountered. Forget about the words. Just wait! Look at the blank page – a blank page has much more on it than any written page can ever have.There is a Sufi book, The Book of the Books. It is completely empty. Nothing is written in it. If you purchase it, you will feel cheated. But that book really is the book of the books. If you read it, you will read the ultimate in it. It is indicative. It is simply a gesture: become as empty as that book.So when the blank page is before you, don’t even draw pictures because that will keep you occupied and you will miss the great nothingness that is coming closer to you. The mind gets afraid, and in fear the mind starts doing anything just to keep itself occupied.Make it a meditation. Keep the blank page before you and watch, and become as blank as the page. Let two blanknesses meet, and in that encounter you will be lost and something of the beyond will penetrate you. You will never be the same again because you will taste something which is deathless. You will taste something of the formless – of the unknown, of the inexpressible, of the eternally elusive.The mind goes on growing words. Those words occupy you. They fill you and they don’t give any space for something else to enter you. The words block you. Then your flow is not spontaneous, not natural. Then there are too many rocks around you. Words exist like rocks around you.If it is happening, then much is happening: rocks are no longer there, and the flow is getting in tune with the divine. Only nothingness can be in tune with the divine. So please don’t even draw pictures because that is again a trick of the mind. Your mind is unable to bring up words; something else will do – drawing pictures will do. Just look at the blank page. Even better is to sit facing the wall and look at the blank wall.That’s what Bodhidharma did for nine years. He became enlightened by just facing a wall. That was his mantra and meditation. That was all that he did. It is not doing at all. He did nothing; he simply sat facing the wall. Just think! If you sit facing a wall for nine years, you will become as blank as the wall. By and by thoughts will not come; they will not chase you. By and by they will find some other host. You are too indifferent to them.Blankness is tremendously valuable, but we have always been trained to be full of words. So when this starts happening, one becomes a little scared. You start feeling that nothing is happening. Yes, in a totally different sense, nothing is happening because nothing is the greatest happening there is. Use this great opportunity that has come to you. It is what meditation is all about: to be empty.But in the West – and for the modern mind wherever it is, in the West or in the East – somehow a deep association has been conditioned that emptiness is something negative. Not only that, but there is a condemnation in being empty. People think that to be empty is to become a workshop for the Devil. It is not so. To be full of words is to be a workshop for the Devil. To be empty is to become a workshop for God – because God can only function when you are not.When you are so absent that you are not in any way an interference, that you don’t come between God and you, that you are not a disturbance in any way, you are so silent that you are not – immediately godliness starts functioning in you. The moment you stop functioning, godliness starts functioning.So don’t be afraid. Love this empty space. It is not negative. It is the most positive thing in the world, the most absolutely positive thing in the world because out of nothingness everything arises, and into nothingness everything disappears again. This whole universe arises out of nothingness and disappears into nothingness again. Nothingness is the source and the seed, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.Remember this, so whenever you are coming close to nothingness, feel happy and dance and celebrate so that it can become more and more available to you. The more you welcome it, the more of it will be coming to you. Welcome it, feel delighted – you have been blessed.The second question:Osho,In almost every lecture I have the tendency to go to sleep. When that happens, I wake up with a shock, or rather in a shock, which goes through my whole body. Is this the whip?Not yet! Just the shadow of the whip. But the shadow of the whip is still something. If you are a man of understanding, the whip will not be needed; its shadow will do. If you are not a man of understanding, then sooner or later the whip itself will be needed.Buddha has said that there is one type of man for whom just the shadow of the whip is enough. Just like very, very intelligent horses: just the shadow of the whip is enough. Then there is a second type: the sight of the whip is needed, the shadow won’t do – the mediocre mind. Then there is a third type, the lower, for which even the sight of the whip won’t do – you must use the whip. And there is also a fourth type, the lowest; lower than that is nobody. Even hitting him with the whip, whipping him, is not going to help. These four types are four stages of sleep.It is natural to fall asleep while listening to me. That is one way the mind avoids me. Something is happening here which is going to destroy your mind. The whole effort is how to demolish your mind so that you can become new again, so that you can be reborn, how to help you die so that resurrection becomes possible. Only out of your death will life flame up, will life come to you.Your mind feels it! It is dangerous to listen to me. The mind creates many sorts of excuses to be absent. Sometimes it goes on thinking, listening only on the periphery. Sometimes it goes on arguing – whether what I am saying is right or wrong, agrees with you or doesn’t agree with you. Then too one is missing. Or, if you stay long enough with me, then arguing will stop; then by and by the mind will start falling into sleep. That is the last trick; then there is no need to listen!But one thing is good: that you have become aware that you fall asleep. There are many who fall asleep and don’t know it. And the shock that comes to you is good. Use it! If you use it, by and by sleep will disappear. Sleep is a trick to create a barrier between me and you. If logic does not work, then sleep works.Whatsoever I am saying to you is in a way the same truth again and again. So the mind can say to you: What is the need to listen? You can have a little rest. The mind can say: These things have been said many times before. But I am saying these things again and again to you because you have not yet heard.Somebody asked Buddha, “Why do you go on repeating the same things again and again?”He said, “Because of you!”If you hear me, then there is no point in repetition, but you don’t hear me even when I repeat them a thousand and one times.The mind can create the idea that you can sleep, you can rest. The mind can even say to you that this is very meditative, that you fall to sleep and everything becomes silent. Sleep is not wrong, but there is a time to sleep. If you are sleeping here, then one thing is certain: when you are sleeping you are not sleeping.There is a time to sleep and there is a time to be awake. There is a time to be working, and a time to be lazy and not work. Your life should move in an order, in an inner order. Sleep in the night as deeply as possible so that in the morning you can become as awake as possible. If you have slept well during the night, you will be awake in the morning. If you have not slept well, then you will feel sleepy. To feel sleepy in the morning is bad because that simply shows your energy is not functioning rightly, that your energy is not functioning in a healthy way.Think again about your night and your sleep during the night – it must be disturbed by dreams. Some disturbance must be there so that in the morning you are not fresh; in the morning you are feeling tired. Either your sleep is not complete during the night, or you may be sleeping too much. That too is dangerous. Six, seven hours’ sleep is enough. If you sleep more than that, sleep is not paying; on the contrary, it starts making you lazy.The function of sleep is to make you alert, energetic, alive. But if you sleep more than needed, then it is just as if you eat too much; then the food becomes poison. There is a quantity which is needed for the body; more than that becomes a load on the body. Then it is destructive, it is not life-giving. There is a quantity of sleep that is needed. More than that, then you feel lazy, then the wheel moves in the wrong direction.Everybody has to find the right quantity of sleep and food for oneself. That should be a basic for any seeker because much will depend on it. So either you are not sleeping enough or you are sleeping too much. Hence, in the morning you feel lazy or sleepy. While you are listening to me, keep alert, keep yourself as aware as possible because even in that awareness, if you miss what I am saying, nothing is missed because at least awareness will be practiced. And basically awareness is the goal.This is just a decision: if you want to be aware, alert, you can be. One just has to say to the body and the mind, definitively, I want to be aware and alert.Start being the master of your own self. Give rest to the body, but don’t become a slave. Listen to the body’s needs, but remain capable, remain in control, remain a master. Otherwise the body has a lethargy in it, and the mind has a repetitive, mechanical quality in it. Then it can become just an everyday habit. You come to listen to me, you sit, and the body and mind start going to sleep. Break it! Come out of it.The third question:Osho,For me the most beautiful meditation is to sit in a corner and watch the children playing around the ashram. But I'm in trouble: is this a meditation at all?Watching is meditation. What you watch is irrelevant. You can watch the trees, you can watch the river, you can watch the clouds, you can watch children playing around. Watching is meditation. What you watch is not the point; the object is not the point. The quality of observation, the quality of being aware and alert – that’s what meditation is.So perfectly good! Children are beautiful – pure energy dancing around, pure energy running around. Delight in it and watch it. I don’t see why you are feeling yourself in trouble. The mind goes on creating trouble. Whatsoever you do, the mind goes on creating trouble.Now the mind says: Is this meditation at all?Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. The action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action is. Walking can be a meditation, if you walk alert. Sitting can be a meditation, if you sit alert. Listening to the birds can be a meditation, if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation, if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not go to sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation – and don’t be worried about it.The mind constantly creates some anxiety. Many times people come to me. They say they are feeling very good, very high – but is this real? Now the mind is creating some new trouble: Is this real? The mind has never asked this before. When you have a headache, do you ask: Is this real? You trust in misery too much. A headache is necessarily real, but if you experience high emotions and you feel a peak of bliss, the mind starts creating a subtle anxiety: Is this real? You may be in a delusion, hallucination, imagining. You may be dreaming. Or if you cannot find anything else, then Osho must have hypnotized you. You must be in hypnosis.Because of this tendency of the mind, you cannot believe that you can be blissful, that you can be happy – the mind clings to the miserable. The mind is always seeking and searching for hell because it can only exist in misery. In bliss it disappears. It has throbbing life only in misery; its business goes well only in misery. Whenever you are happy it is not needed; when you are blissful, who needs the mind? You have already gone beyond it. The mind feels left behind, neglected, it starts nagging at you. It says: Where are you going? Are you hypnotized? What illusions are you seeing? These are all dreams!Because of this tendency, millions of people have come to a meditative point at some time or other in their life, but they miss the door. The door comes but they cannot believe in it. Meditation is as natural a phenomenon as love. It happens to everybody. It is part of your being, but you cannot believe in it. Even if meditation happens, you somehow overlook it. Or even if you feel that something blissful is happening, you cannot say to others: Something blissful is happening. You are afraid others will think that you have gone mad. Your own mind goes on saying that it is not possible; it is too good to be true. So you forget about it.Remember again: in your childhood, or later on when you were young, there must have been a few moments. It is impossible that those moments should not be there; they have been there in everybody’s life. Just try to recollect again and you will remember there have been moments when something was opening, but you closed it, afraid.Sometimes, sitting in a silent night, looking at the stars – and something was going to happen and you shrank; apprehensive, frightened. You started doing something else; it was too good to be true. You missed an opportunity. Sometimes, in deep love, just sitting by the side of your beloved, something started happening; you were going in some unknown direction. You became scared; you pulled yourself back to earth.Sometimes, for no reason at all, just swimming in the river, or running around in the hot sun, or just relaxing on the beach and listening to the wild roar of the ocean, something started happening inside you, some inner alchemical change, as if your body were creating LSD. Something inside – and you were going into a totally unknown dimension – as if you had wings and you could fly. You became afraid; you started clinging to the earth.It has happened many times when people come to be initiated into sannyas. Sometimes, if I see very perceptive people, very receptive, and I touch their head, immediately they become scared. Just a few days ago the daughter of Ashok Kumar, one of the very famous film actors, took sannyas. The moment I touched her head she started crying, “Stop, Osho! Stop! Stop!” And her whole body was shaking. She started clinging to the earth. A door was very, very close. Something tremendously valuable could have happened, but she became afraid.Many times in each person’s life, such moments come; but those moments are not aggressive, they cannot force anything against you. If you are ready, you can move, drift into them, slip into them, float with them, to the farthest end of existence. If you are afraid, you cling to your shore and you miss the boat. The boat cannot wait for you.So don’t be disturbed by the mind. Watching children playing around is a beautiful meditation because watching is meditation. But remember, don’t think about it. If children are dancing, running around, playing, shrieking, jumping, jogging, don’t start thinking – just watch. Watch without any thought. Be aware, but don’t think. Remain alert – just seeing, purely seeing, with clarity, but don’t start thinking about it; otherwise you have already moved away. Watching children, you can remember your own child back home. Then you have missed, then you are not watching these children. Some memories are floating in your mind. A film starts running; then you are in a daydream. Simply watch!The fourth question:Osho,The ultimate search is individual, but can you explain the integral part of the beloved in Tantra and the search of our inner self?A very intricate, complex thing has to be understood: if you are not in love, you are lonely. If you are in love, really in love, you become alone.Loneliness is sadness; aloneness is not sadness. Loneliness is a feeling of incompleteness. You need someone and the needed one is not available. Loneliness is darkness, with no light in it. A dark house, waiting and waiting for someone to come and kindle the light.Aloneness is not loneliness. Aloneness means the feeling that you are complete. Nobody is needed, you are enough. And this happens in love. Lovers become alone – through love you touch your inner completeness. Love makes you complete. Lovers share each other, but that is not their need, that is their overflowing energy.Two persons who have been feeling lonely can make a contract, can come together. They are not lovers, remember. They remain lonely. Now because of the presence of the other, they don’t feel the loneliness – that’s all. They somehow deceive themselves. Their love is nothing but a deception to deceive oneself: I am not lonely – somebody else is here. When two basically lonely persons are meeting, their loneliness is doubled, or even multiplied. That’s what happens ordinarily.You feel lonely when you are alone, and when you are in relationship you feel miserable. This is an everyday observation. When people are alone they feel lonely, and they are in a deep search for somebody to be related to. When they are related to somebody, then misery starts; then they feel it was better to be lonely – this is too much. What happens?Two lonely people meet – that means two gloomy, sad, miserable persons meet. The misery is multiplied. How can two uglinesses become beautiful? How can two lonelinesses coming together become completion, totality? Not possible. They exploit each other; they somehow try to deceive themselves through the other. But that deception doesn’t go far. By the time the honeymoon is finished, the marriage is also finished. It is very temporary. It is just an illusion.Real love is not a search to go against loneliness. Real love is to transform loneliness into aloneness. To help the other – if you love the person, you help him to be alone. You don’t fill him or her. You don’t try to complete the other in some way by your presence. You help the other to be alone, to be so full out of her or his own being that you will not be a need.When a person is totally free, then out of that freedom sharing is possible. Then he gives much, but not as a need; he gives much, but not as a bargain. He gives much because he has much. He gives because he enjoys giving.Lovers are alone, and a real lover never destroys your aloneness. He will always be totally respectful about the aloneness of the other. It is sacred. He will not interfere in it; he will not spoil that space.But ordinarily so-called lovers are very afraid of the other and the other’s aloneness, his independence. They are very afraid because they think if the other is independent then they will not be needed, then they will be discarded. So the woman goes on trying to make it so that the husband will remain dependent, always in need, so that she can remain valuable. And the husband goes on trying in every way to make it so that the woman always remains in need, so that he remains valuable. This is a bargain, and there is continuous conflict, struggle. The struggle is that everybody needs his freedom.Love allows freedom; not only allows, but strengthens freedom. And anything that destroys freedom is not love. It must be something else. Love and freedom go together; they are two wings of the same bird. Whenever you see that your love is going against your freedom or that of your beloved, then you are doing something else in the name of love.Let this be your criterion: freedom is the criterion; love gives you freedom, makes you free, liberates you. And once you are totally yourself, you feel grateful to the person who has helped you. That gratefulness is almost religious. You feel in the other person something divine. He has made you free, or she has made you free, and love has not become possessiveness.When love deteriorates it becomes possessiveness, jealousy, struggle for power, politics, domination, manipulation – a thousand and one things, all ugly. When love soars high, to the purest sky, it is freedom, total freedom. It is moksha – it is absolute freedom.Now the question: “The ultimate search is individual, but can you explain the integral part of the beloved in Tantra and the search for our inner self?” Tantra is purest love. Tantra is the methodology of purifying love of all its poisons. If you are in love, the love I am talking about, your very love will help the other to be integrated. Your very love will become a cementing force for the other. In your love, the other will come together because your love will give freedom; and under the shade of your love, under the protection of your love, the other will start growing.All growth needs love – but unconditional love. If love has conditions, then growth cannot be total because those conditions will come in the way. Love unconditionally. Don’t ask anything in return. Much comes on its own – that’s another thing. Don’t be a beggar. In love be an emperor. Just give it and see what happens. It comes back a thousandfold. But one has to learn it. Otherwise one remains a miser; one gives a little and waits for much to come back, and your waiting, your expectation, destroys the whole beauty of it.When you are waiting and expecting, the other feels that you are manipulating. He may say it or not, but he feels you are manipulating. Wherever you feel manipulation, you want to rebel against it because it is against the inner need of the soul because any demand from the outside disintegrates you. Any demand from the outside divides you. Any demand from the outside is a crime against you because your freedom is polluted. Then you are no longer sacred. You are no longer the end – you are being used as a means. And the greatest immoral act in the world is to use somebody as a means.Each being is an end unto himself. Love treats you as an end unto yourself. You are not to be dragged into any expectations. Tantra is the highest form of love. Tantra is the science, the yoga of love.So a few things should be remembered. One: love, but not as a need – as a sharing. Love, but don’t expect – give. Love, but remember your love should not become an imprisonment for the other. Love, but be very careful; you are treading on sacred ground. You are entering the highest, the purest and holiest temple. Be alert! Drop all impurities outside the temple. When you love a person, love the person as if the person is a god, no less than that. Never love a woman as a woman and never love a man as a man because if you love a man as a man, your love is going to be very, very ordinary. Your love is not going to be more than lust. If you love a woman as a woman, your love is not going to soar very high. Love a woman as a goddess, then love becomes worship.In Tantra, the man who is going to make love to the woman has to worship her for months as a goddess. He has to visualize in the woman the mother-goddess. When the visualization has become total, when no lust arises, when seeing the woman sitting naked before him he simply feels thrilled with a divine energy, no lust arises, the very form of the woman becomes divine, and all thoughts stop and only reverence is felt – then he is allowed to make love.It looks a little absurd and paradoxical. When there is no need to make love, then he is allowed to make love. When the woman has become a goddess, then he is allowed to make love – because now love can soar high, love can become a climax, a crescendo. Now it will not be of the earth, it will not be of this world; it will not be of two bodies, it will be of two beings. It will be a meeting of two existences. Two souls will meet, merge and mingle, and both will come out of it tremendously alone.Aloneness means purity. Aloneness means that you are just yourself and nobody else. Aloneness means that you are pure gold; just gold and nothing else – just you. Love makes you alone. Loneliness will disappear, but aloneness will arise.Loneliness is a state when you are ill with yourself, bored with yourself, tired of yourself, and you want to go somewhere and forget yourself into somebody else. Aloneness is when you are thrilled just by your being. You are blissful just by being yourself. You need not go anywhere. Need has disappeared. You are enough unto yourself. But now, a new thing arises in your being. You have so much that you cannot contain it. You have to share, you have to give. And whosoever accepts your gift, you will feel grateful to him that he accepted. He could have rejected it.Lovers feel grateful that their love has been accepted. They feel thankful because they were so full of energy and they needed someone to pour that energy into. When a flower blooms and releases its fragrance to the winds it feels grateful to the winds – the fragrance was growing heavier and heavier in it. It was becoming almost a burden. It was just as if a woman is pregnant and nine months have passed and the child is not being born, is delaying. Now she is very burdened; she wants to share the child with the world. That is the meaning of birth.Up to now she has been carrying the child in herself. It was nobody else’s but her own. But now it is too much; she cannot contain it. It has to be shared; the child has to be shared with the world. The mother has to drop her miserliness. Once the child is out of the womb, it is no longer the mother’s; by and by it will go away, and far away. It will become part of the great world. The same happens when a cloud comes full of rainwater ready to shower, and when it showers, rains, the cloud feels unburdened and happy and grateful to the thirsty earth because it accepted the gift.There are two types of love. One: love when you are feeling lonely – as a need, you go to the other. Then love when you are not feeling lonely, but alone. In the first case you go to get something; in the second case you go to give something. A giver is an emperor.Remember, Tantra is not ordinary love. It has nothing to do with lust. It is the greatest transformation of lust into love. The ultimate search is individual – but love makes you individual. If it doesn’t make you individual, if it tries to make you a slave, then it is not love – it is hate pretending love. Pretending to be love, it is hidden hatred just managing somehow; managing somehow and pretending that it is love.Love of this type kills, destroys individuality. It makes you less of an individual. It pulls you down. You are not enhanced, you don’t become graceful. You are being pulled into the mud. Everybody starts feeling that he is settling into something dirty. Love should give you freedom – never settle for less. Love should make you a white cloud, completely free; a wanderer in the sky of freedom, with no roots attached anywhere. Love is not an attachment; lust is.Meditation and love are the two ways to attain to that individuality I am talking about. Both are very, very deeply related together. In fact they are both aspects of the same coin: love and meditation.If you meditate, sooner or later you will come upon love. If you meditate deeply, sooner or later you will start feeling a tremendous love arising in you that you have never known before – a new quality to your being, a new door opening. You have become a new flame and now you want to share it.If you love deeply, by and by you will become aware that your love is becoming more and more meditative. A subtle quality of silence is entering you. Thoughts are disappearing, gaps appearing – silences. You are touching your own depth.Love makes you meditative if it is along the right lines. Meditation makes you loving if it is along the right lines. And there are only two types of people in the world, basically: those who will find their meditation through love, and those who will find their love through meditation.For those who will find their meditation through love, it is Tantra; that is their science. For those who will find love through their meditation, for them it is Yoga; that is their science.Tantra and Yoga, these are the only two ways – basically, very foundational. But both can go wrong if you don’t understand them well. The criterion is: listen! If you meditate and it doesn’t become love, know well you have gone wrong somewhere. And you will find ninety-nine yogis out of a hundred have gone wrong. The more they enter their meditation, the more they become against love. They become, in fact, afraid of love. They start thinking of love as a distraction. Then their meditation is not real meditation. A meditation out of which love does not arise is not meditation at all. It is an escape, not a growth. It is as if a seed has become afraid of becoming a plant and blossoming into flowers, and has become afraid of releasing its fragrance to the winds – a seed has become a miser.You will find this type of yogi all over India. Their meditation has not come to bloom. Their meditation got constipated somewhere on the way. They are stuck. You will not find grace on their faces, and you will not find intelligence in their eyes. You will see around them a certain climate of dullness and stupidity. You will not find them alert, aware, alive. A certain deadness because if you are alive you have to become loving. To avoid love they avoid life.And these people will always be escaping to the Himalayas, anywhere where they can remain without others. Their aloneness will not be aloneness, it will be loneliness – you can read it in their faces. They are not happy being alone. On their faces you will see a certain type of martyrdom – which is foolishness – as if they have been sacrificing. You will find ego there; humbleness, no – because whenever humbleness comes, love comes. If the ego becomes too strong, then love can be destroyed completely. The ego is the opposite of love.Yoga is in the hands of the wrong people. And the same happened with Tantra. In the name of Tantra, people started just fulfilling their lust and sex and their perversions. It never became meditative. It became a subtle rationalization of lust, sex and passion. It became a trick; you can hide behind it. Tantra became a blanket to hide behind for all sorts of perversions.So remember this. Man is very cunning. He has destroyed Yoga, he has destroyed Tantra. Remain alert! Both are good, both are tremendously beneficial, but the criterion to remember is that if you are doing one rightly, the other will follow as a shadow. If the other does not follow, then you are wrong somewhere.Go back, start again. Go into your mind, analyze your mind. Somewhere you have tricked yourself. It is not difficult because you can deceive others, but you cannot deceive yourself. That is impossible. If you just go within and watch, you will come to know where you have been deceiving yourself. Nobody can deceive himself; it is impossible. How can you deceive yourself?The fifth question:Osho,How far can one rely on one's “inner voice”?The first thing: the inner voice is not a voice, it is silence. It says nothing. It shows something, but it says nothing. It gestures toward something, but it says nothing. The inner voice is not a voice. If you are still hearing some voice, it is not inner. “Inner voice” is a misnomer; it is not the right word. Only silence is inner. All voices are from the outside.For example: you are going to steal something and you say the “inner voice” says: Don’t steal! This is a sin! This is not the inner voice – just your conditioning: you have been taught not to steal. This is society speaking from you. It appears to be from within, but it is not. If you had been brought up in some other way and you were not taught that stealing was bad, or you were taught that stealing was good, then this inner voice would not have been there – and you know it.If you have been brought up in a family which is vegetarian, then the moment you see non-vegetarian food, some inner voice says: Don’t eat it – it is a sin! But if you have been brought up in a non-vegetarian family, then there is no problem. You simply cannot believe how inner voices say to other people: Don’t eat it! It depends on what you have been taught.This is not an inner voice; this is just your social conscience. Society has to create an inner arrangement in you because the outer arrangement is not enough. The police are there, but that is not enough – the police can be deceived. The courts are there, but it is not enough because you can be cleverer than the courts. The outer arrangement is not enough; some inner arrangement is needed.So society teaches you that stealing is bad: this is good, that is bad. It goes on teaching, continuously repeating it; it enters your being, it becomes part of your inner world. So when you go to steal, suddenly somebody inside says: No! And you think the inner voice or God has spoken. No, nothing of the sort. This is just society speaking from you.Then what is the inner voice? You are going to steal, and suddenly you become silent and you cannot steal. Suddenly you are frozen. A gap arises. Your energy stops. Not that somebody says: Don’t steal! No voice is there – just inner silence. But you are in the grip of the inner silence.It happened…A great Buddhist monk, a mystic, Nagarjuna, was passing through a village. The emperor of the country was a follower of Nagarjuna, and he had given him a gold begging bowl with diamonds studded around it. It was very costly, and Nagarjuna was a naked fakir. When he was passing, a thief could not believe it: a naked man with such a tremendously valuable thing! So the thief followed him.Nagarjuna was staying outside the town in an old ruined monastery. There were not even doors, so the thief was very happy. He thought, “Now he will rest; or at least in the night he will rest, go to sleep. I can take it, there is no trouble.” So he was hiding behind a wall.Nagarjuna looked out and he said, “You had better come in and take this begging bowl so that I can sleep at ease. You will take it anyhow, so why not just give it to you? I think it is better to give it to you. I would not like to make you a thief – this is a gift!”The man came in, but he could not believe it. In spite of himself he touched the feet of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna said, “Now you can go because I have nothing else. Be at ease and leave me at ease.”But the thief said, “Just one thing: I would also like to be so unattached to things as you are. You have made me feel very poor. Is there any way that someday I can also attain to such a peak of consciousness?”Nagarjuna said, “Yes, there is a way.”The thief said, “But let me say one thing first: don’t tell me to stop stealing because wherever I go – and I go to mystics and saints and I am a famous thief around here, so they all know – they immediately say, ‘First stop stealing,’ and I cannot do that. I have tried but I cannot do that, so please don’t make that condition. Whatsoever else you say I will do.”Nagarjuna said, “Then you have not yet met a mystic or a saint. You must have been meeting ex-thieves; otherwise, why should one bother about your being a thief? Be a thief! That is your business; that is not my worry. I would like to tell you just one thing, and that is: go, do whatsoever you feel, but be aware, alert. Don’t do anything unconsciously, mechanically, robot-like.”The thief said, “This is perfectly okay. I will try it.”Nagarjuna said, “I will wait fifteen days in this monastery; you can come and report.”On the tenth day the thief came running, perspiring, and he said, “You are a tricky fellow! For ten days continuously I have been trying. When I go – and this has been something of a miracle: never in my life have I been so unsuccessful – I enter the houses, I open their treasures, and I remember you and then I see. And when I become aware, I become so silent that I cannot move. My hands won’t move! When I am unconscious my hands move, but then I remember I have promised you. I become conscious again – I cannot take anything with me. I have to leave it. For ten days continuously! So please, tell me something else.”Nagarjuna said, “That is the only thing. Now it is up to you to choose: you can drop awareness and remain a thief, or you can have awareness and let the thief be dropped. That is for you to choose. I am not saying for you to stop stealing. Go on stealing; if you can do it with awareness, then I am not worried.”The thief said, “That is impossible; I have tried for ten days. If I am aware, then I cannot steal. If I steal, then I am not aware.” And the thief said, “Really, you have got me – and I cannot leave this awareness now, I have tasted it. Nothing is worth it now, nothing is more valuable now.”Nagarjuna said, “Then don’t bother me any more. Go and teach the same thing to other thieves!”The inner voice is not a voice, it is an energy phenomenon. You are gripped in awareness, in silence. And in that silence, whatsoever you do is right; whatsoever is not right you cannot do.So I don’t tell you not to do this, and do that. I simply tell you what Nagarjuna told the thief: Just be aware!If you are not aware, then you will have to choose. If you are not aware, then there is always a choice of alternatives – to do this or to do that – and one is always puzzled. If awareness is there, there is no alternative. Awareness is choiceless. It simply allows you to do that which is right; it does not allow you to do that which is not right. There is no question of your choice. So don’t ask how far one can rely on one’s inner voice.The first thing: the inner voice is not a voice – it is silence. The second thing: you need not be worried about relying on “how far.” Just remain in that inner space of silence, total silence. Virtue is a by-product, it is not a discipline. It follows awareness like a shadow, a consequence.The sixth question:Osho,I am aware of my need for approval and acceptance from others. I don't want to be driven by this need. How can I resolve this?One has to see the foolishness of it. It is not a question of resolving it. One has to see the ridiculousness of it, then it falls away. It is not resolved. Diseases are not to be resolved; they fall away. Just try to see the foolishness of it.I will tell you a few anecdotes:A woman, newly arrived to live in a spacious mansion, met the woman she knew lived in a cottage at the edge of her estate.“Welcome to our little community,” greeted the cottage dweller.The new resident, drawing herself up haughtily, replied, “Please do not address me. I never speak to an inferior.”“Oh?” replied the cottage dweller sweetly, “and where in the world did you ever meet one?”Everybody is an egoist. It is difficult to see that you are in the same boat. You can see others in the same boat. Just see it – that everybody in deep ignorance remains an egoist, goes on thinking in terms of the ego. Nobody is here in the world to fulfill your ego; everybody is trying to fulfill his own. Who has time to fulfill your ego? And if sometimes somebody fulfills your ego, he must be fulfilling it as a means of fulfilling his own.Basically, everybody is interested in himself. As you are interested in yourself, others are interested in themselves. Just become aware of this.Everybody is trying to compete; and in this competition, and in this egoistic, ambitious race, one is destroying all that is beautiful. One is destroying a beautiful life that could have flowered and become a pinnacle of existence – Buddha-like, Jesus-like, Krishna-like. But everybody is asking others, begging: Approve of me! Say something that gives me a good feeling about myself. Hence, flattery works. Hence, anybody can deceive you just by flattering you.People go on doing things which they never wanted to do, but they go on doing them because that is the only way they can get the approval of others. Everybody is distracted from his destiny because others are looking, and they have a fixed idea about how to approve of you.It happened…The new bride had returned to the small town after her runaway marriage. “I suppose my elopement was a nine-day wonder around here,” she commented to the village’s lone policeman.“It would have been,” he replied, “only the Smiths’ dog went mad the same night.”People go on wasting their time and life and energy. There is no need! In fact, as you are, you are perfect. Nothing needs to be added to you. God never creates anybody imperfect. How can he create anybody imperfect? Religious people have taught you that God created the world. And they go on teaching that you are created by God in his own image. And still they go on teaching: Become perfect! This is simply absurd. God created you in his own image, and still you need perfecting? Then God must be imperfect. Out of God, how can imperfection come? Creation carries his signature. You also carry his signature. Drop this begging!Somebody is asking for money, somebody is asking for bread, somebody is asking for approval. All are beggars. Don’t ask. In asking you will miss much that is already available to you. Look rather than asking. Look within yourself and the emperor of emperors is there. Start enjoying it, start living it!It happened…The famous college athlete had just returned from the Olympics with a chest-full of medals when he fell ill.At the hospital the doctor took his temperature, shook his head doubtfully, and said, “You’re running a temperature of a hundred and five.”“Oh, yeah?” answered the athlete weakly. Then, suddenly interested, he asked, “Hey, doc, what’s the world record?”Drop all this nonsense! You have already been approved of, otherwise you could not be here. God has accepted you, given birth to you. If van Gogh paints, whatsoever painting he creates is already approved of – otherwise he would not have created it in the first place. If Picasso paints something, in the very act, the painting is approved of. The painter has put his heart into it. Go deeper into your own being – God has put all the treasures that you need there. He has approved of you, accepted you. He is happy that you are!But you don’t look there. You are asking from others like a beggar: Approve of me! They are also beggars just like you. Beggars asking beggars. Even if they approve of you a little, they will wait for you to approve of them. It is going to be a bargain. Just think about it: they don’t have anything to give you when they themselves are begging; and what can you give them when you yourself are begging? Just a little alertness and one drops all begging. And with that, ambition drops, ego drops. One starts living.Dance while you are alive. Breathe blissfully while you are alive. Sing while you are alive. Love, meditate while you are alive. And once you change – you shift your consciousness, your focus of consciousness – from the outside to the inside, you feel tremendously happy and blessed. Just to feel “I exist” is such a blessing that nothing else is needed. “I exist!” All dance, all song, all blessings, are included in it. “I exist!” God is included in it.Don’t make your god a beggar. Be a god! Recognize your godliness and then there is nothing to achieve. One has simply to start; one has to start to live. Live like a god: that’s my message to you. I don’t say: become a god. I say: You are – start living! You are – recognize it! You are – remember it! You are – just become mindful of it.There is nothing to be achieved. Life is not an achievement, it is a gift. It has already been given, what are you waiting for? The door is open, and the host has already invited you. Come in!Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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7. The Bull TranscendedAstride the bull, I reach home.I am serene. The bull too can rest.The dawn has come. In blissful repose,within my thatched dwelling I have abandoned the whip and rope.Comment:All is one law, not two. We only make the bull a temporary subject. It is as the relation of rabbit and trap, of fish and net. It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud. One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.8. Both Bull and Self TranscendedWhip, rope, person, and bull – all merge in No-thing.This heaven is so vast no message can stain it.How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire?Here are the footprints of the patriarchs.Comment:Mediocrity is gone. Mind is clear of limitation. I seek no state of enlightenment. Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists. Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me. If hundreds of birds strew my path with flowers, such praise would be meaningless.Gertrude Stein was dying. Suddenly she opened her eyes and asked her friends who were gathered together around her, “What is the answer?” Now this is tremendously beautiful, almost a koan. The question had not been asked, and she asks, “What is the answer?” Of course, nobody was capable of answering it. They looked at each other. They were at a loss even to understand what she meant. A Zen master was needed, somebody who could have responded from his heart – spontaneously, immediately. Who could have laughed uproariously, or shouted, or done something. Because such a question – What is the answer? – cannot be answered through words.Stein is saying that the question is such that it cannot be formulated – and yet the question is there, so what is the answer? The question is such that it is impossible to utter it. It is so deep; it cannot be brought to the surface. But still it is there, so what is the answer? The question is such that it is not separate from the questioner; as if the questioner’s whole being has become a question mark: What is the answer?They looked at each other. They were completely at a loss as to what to do. They must have thought the dying woman had gone mad. It is mad, absurd, to ask, “What is the answer?” when the question has not yet been formulated. No one replied. No one was aware enough to reply to it. No one responded because in fact no one was there to respond. No one was so present as to respond.“In that case,” she insisted, “what is the question?” Again silence followed. How can anybody else tell you what the question is? Certainly she has gone mad. Certainly she is no longer in her senses. But the question is such that it is impossible to say what it is. The moment you say it, you betray it. The moment you verbalize it, it is no longer the same. It is not the same question that was there in the heart. Once it becomes verbalized, it becomes a head thing. It looks almost trivial, almost superficial. You cannot ask the ultimate question. In asking it, it will not be the ultimate any longer.Only a master could have understood what she was saying. She was a beautiful woman, a beautiful person, of tremendous understanding. And at the last moment of her life, she flowered in this koan. You must have heard her famous statement which has almost become a cliché, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” Nothing can be said about the rose, except that it is a rose. All that you can say about it will falsify it. It is simply there in its strange beauty, with its unknown fragrance, as a fact. You cannot theorize about it. And whatsoever you theorize will be about something else, will not be about this rose; will be a reflection in the mirror, will not be the true thing.A rose is a rose is a rose – nothing more can be said. Nothing is being said when you say: A rose is a rose is a rose. If you go to a logician, he will say this is a tautology; you are repeating the same word unnecessarily. You are not saying anything! But something is being said: that nothing can be said.“In that case,” she insisted, “what is the question?” The silence remained unbroken. Nobody was capable of responding. A reply was not needed; she was asking for a response.You can go on thinking about life and death, and you can go on creating many theories and hypotheses, but the whole of philosophy is just rubbish. Life remains unanswered, death remains unanswered. At that moment, Stein was asking about life and death; about that which is life, about that which is also death – about the ultimate, the substratum, the very ground of your being. She was asking: Who am I? But philosophy has no answers. Philosophy has been trying to answer; centuries of thinking, speculation, but the whole effort is empty.Omar Khayyam said: “Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint, and heard great argument about it and about, but ever more came out by the same door as in I went.”“About it and about…” Much argument, much philosophizing, but about it and about, never exactly to the point, beating around the bush. Much excited argumentation goes on; nothing comes out of it. Seems like just gibberish. Nothing can come out of it because life is not a philosophical question. Any answer that is only philosophical is not going to be the answer. Life is existential. Only an existential answer can satisfy you, not an answer given by somebody else; not an answer fabricated, manufactured by the mind; not an answer borrowed from the scriptures, but an answer that arises in your being – flowers, blooms, brings your total destiny into a manifest state, makes you fully aware. It is going to be a realization; not an answer but a realization, not an answer but a revelation, not an answer but an experience – existential.This is the whole story of the ten bulls. The search is existential. Zen is the most straightforward. It goes directly to the target. It never goes here and there; it is never about and about. It is not beating around the bush; it is straight like an arrow.One of the greatest philosophers of the West, Ludwig Wittgenstein, came very close to the Zen attitude; he almost knocked on the door. He says: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. That the world is is the real mystery. Not how you are here, not how you came here, not the purpose of your being here, but just the fact that you are here is the greatest mystery. Just the fact that you are, that I am, is the greatest mystery. And when the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question.It reminds me…A man came to Buddha and he said, “Please answer my question without using words because I have heard it of old that the answer is such that it cannot be put into words.”Buddha laughed and he said, “Of course, you have heard rightly; but put your question without using words, then I will answer your question without using words.”Then the man said, “That is impossible.” Then he understood: if the question cannot be formulated, how can the answer be formulated? If the question itself cannot be stated, how can you demand an answer?Wittgenstein is right. When the answer cannot be put into words nor can the question be put into words, the riddle does not exist. Neither can the question be put into words nor the answer, so where is the riddle, so where is the problem?This is a tremendous insight. The problem does not exist – it is created by the mind; it is a mind-creation. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.Somebody asked Wittgenstein, “Then why do you go on writing such beautiful books?” His book Tractatus Logico Philosophicus was recently acclaimed one of the great, great books of the whole of human history. “Then why do you go on writing books? If the question cannot be formulated and the answer cannot be given – then why?”He said, “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical.” Let me repeat it: “Anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical.” He has used them as steps to climb up beyond them. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.The moment you understand, then whatsoever I am saying also is nonsensical. If you don’t understand, then it looks meaningful. All meaning is because of misunderstanding. If you understand, then all meaning disappears; only life is. Meaning is of the mind, a projection of the mind, interpretation of the mind. Then, a rose is a rose is a rose – not even these words exist. Just the rose – just the rose without any name, without any adjective to it, without any definition to it. Life just is – suddenly without any meaning, without any purpose. And that is the greatest mystery to realize.So meaning is not the real search. The real search is to come upon life itself – raw, naked.All questions are foolish in a way and all answers also. All questions are foolish in a way because they are all mind-created, and the mind is the barrier between you and the real. The mind goes on creating questions, it delays the search. It convinces you that you are a great seeker because you are asking so many questions. But because of your asking you are collecting clouds around you. First you will ask, then the question will surround you. Then you will start getting some answers, then answers will surround you. There will always remain a barrier between you and raw, wild, naked life – that which is. It is neither a question nor an answer – it is a revelation. When the mind is not, life is revealed to you. It is simply there, manifested in all its glory, available in its totality.Man goes on asking questions, and it appears to him that this questioning is somehow a great search. It is not. All questions, all answers – all are games, all games. You can play if you like, but nothing is going to be solved through them. And people go on asking to the very end of their lives.But Gertrude Stein did well. At the last moment she revealed a Zen quality. She proved herself a woman of understanding, of awareness. Of course, the people who were there could not understand what she had revealed. She would have been understood in the East, not in the West. There she must have been thought mad just before dying – because our questions continue, the same foolish questions. Even at the very edge, when death is coming, we go on asking the same routine, rotten questions, and we go on seeking for answers.I have heard…It happened in a bank. The bank robber shoved a note across to the teller which read: “Put the money in a bag, sucker, and don’t make a move.”The teller quickly wrote out a note and shoved it back: “Straighten your tie, stupid. Your picture’s being taken.”Even at the moment of death, you will be straightening your tie because your picture is being taken. Man remains interested in mirrors. Man remains interested in what others are thinking about him, what others are saying about him. Man goes on just creating a beautiful image of himself. That is your whole life effort. One day you will disappear, and your image will fall into dust. Dust unto dust, nothing remains.Be aware. Don’t be too interested in the image. Be interested in the real, and the real is within you – it is your energy. It has nothing to do with anybody else. No mirror is needed for self-knowledge because self-knowledge is not a reflection. Self-knowledge is a direct, immediate encounter; you come face-to-face with your own being.The seventh sutra:The Bull TranscendedAstride the bull, I reach home.I am serene. The bull too can rest.The dawn has come. In blissful repose,within my thatched dwelling, I have abandoned the whip and rope.The bull transcended. Once you have become master of your mind, the mind is transcended. The moment you have become master of your mind, the mind is no longer there. It remains only if you are a slave to it. Once you have taken hold of the bull and you are riding on it, the bull disappears. The bull exists as separate from you only if you are not the master. This has to be understood.You remain divided if you are not the master, you remain schizophrenic, fragmented. Once mastery arises in you, once awareness and discipline – the whip and the rope – are there, divisions dissolve, you become one. In that oneness, the bull is transcended. Then you don’t see yourself as separate from your mind. Then you don’t see yourself as separate from your body. Then you don’t see yourself as separate from the whole. You become one.All masters are one with existence; only slaves are separate. Separation is an illness. In health, you are not separate from the whole – you become one with it.Just try to understand it. When you have a headache, your head is separate from you. Have you noticed it? When the headache goes on hammering inside, knocking inside, your head is separate from you. But when the headache disappears, the head also disappears; then you can’t feel it, then it is no longer separate, then it has become part of your being.If your body is perfectly healthy, then you don’t have any body sense – as if you are bodiless. Bodilessness is the definition of perfect health. If something hurts, immediately you become aware of it – and in that awareness is separation. A thorn is in your foot, or your shoe pinches, then a division is there. When the shoe fits perfectly, the division is transcended.You are aware of the mind because somehow your life is not in harmony – some discordance, something out of tune, out of accord. Something out of step is going on within you, hence you feel divided. When everything falls in tune and in harmony, all divisions are transcended.This is the seventh sutra: Astride the bull… one is riding on one’s own energy. The energy is not moving in some other direction, and you are not moving in some other direction. Now both are moving in the same direction. The fight is no longer there, the division has disappeared. You are not fighting with the river; you are flowing, riding on the river. Suddenly, you are not separate from the river.Go into a river. First try to go upstream – fight, struggle, and you will see the river is fighting with you; you will say the river is trying to defeat you. You will see: the river will defeat you eventually because a moment will come when you will become tired, and you will see the river is winning and you are getting defeated.Then try the other way: float with the river, let go, and by and by you will see that the river is not fighting with you. In fact, the river was not fighting with you at all; even when you were going upstream, the river was not fighting with you. It was only you who was fighting, who was being egoistic, who was trying to win, to be victorious, who was trying to prove something, that “I am somebody.” That idea of being somebody was creating the whole problem.Now you are nobody, floating with the river, in a deep let-go. The river is no longer against you – it never was! Only your attitude has changed, and you feel that the river has changed completely. The river has always been the same; now you are riding on the river. If you can float totally, not even a slight effort to swim, just floating, then your body and the river’s body merge. Then you are not aware where your body ends and where the river’s body begins. Then you are in an organic unity with the river. Then you will feel an orgasmic experience. Being one with the river, suddenly all limitations are transcended. You are no longer small, you are no longer big – you are the whole.Astride the bull, I reach home. And that is the way to reach home – because home is the origin, the very source where you came from; home is not somewhere else. Home is where you come from, where you have arisen from. Home is the source. If one allows oneself to be in a deep let-go, one reaches home. “Home” means one reaches the very source of life and being, one touches the very beginning.Astride the bull, I reach home. I am serene. You cannot be serene in any other way. The only way to be serene is not to be. The only way to be serene is to be in a deep let-go, surrendered, one with the energy of life.I am serene. The bull too can rest. Not only can you rest; the bull can also. Not only can you rest, but the river can also. When the conflict continues, neither you nor God can rest. Remember this – this is something very valuable to remember always – if you are not serene, God cannot be serene; if you are not happy, God cannot be happy; if you are not blissful, God cannot be blissful because you are part of him, part of the whole. You affect him as much as he affects you.Life is interrelated. Everything is interrelated with everything else. It is an ecology, a deeply interrelated co-relationship. Coherence exists. If you are not happy, then God cannot be happy because you are a part. It is just as if my leg is not happy, how can I be happy? That unhappiness affects me. Not only are you in deep trouble, your life energy is also in deep trouble with you. Not only you are complicated and ill; your life energy has become complicated and ill.I am serene. The bull too can rest. The dawn has come. In blissful repose, within my thatched dwelling, I have abandoned the whip and rope. Now there is no need for the whip and the rope. The whip means awareness and the rope means discipline. When you have come to a point where you can feel yourself one with the river of life, then there is no need for awareness or discipline. Then there is no need to meditate. Then there is no need to do anything. Then life does it for you. Then one can relax because one can trust totally. Then there is no need even for awareness, remember.In the beginning, awareness is needed. In the beginning, even discipline is needed. But as you grow spiritually the ladder is transcended, you can throw it away.…within my thatched dwelling, I have abandoned the whip and rope. Remember: a saint is really a saint only when he has abandoned the whip and the rope. That is the criterion. If he is still trying to pray, to meditate, to do this and that, and to discipline himself, then he is still not yet enlightened. Then he is still there and some doing continues. And doing accumulates the ego. He has not reached home. The journey is yet to be completed.In China there exists a beautiful Zen story:A very rich woman served a monk for thirty years. The monk was really beautiful, always aware, disciplined. He had a beauty that comes naturally when your life is ordered – a cleanness, a freshness. The woman was dying, she was very old. She called a prostitute from the town and asked the prostitute, “Before I leave my body I would like to know one thing – whether this man I have been serving for thirty years has yet attained or not.” The suspicion was natural because the man had not yet abandoned the whip and the rope.The prostitute asked, “What am I supposed to do?”The woman said, “I will give you as much money as you want. You go in the middle of the night. He will be meditating because he meditates in the middle of the night. The door is never locked because he has nothing which can be stolen. So open the door, and watch his reaction. Open the door, come close, embrace him, and then come back and just tell me what happened. Before I die, I would like to know whether I have been serving a real master or just an ordinary, mediocre being.”The prostitute went. She opened the door. A small lamp was burning; the man was meditating. He opened his eyes. Seeing the prostitute, recognizing the prostitute, he became afraid, a slight trembling, and he said, “What! Why have you come here?” And when the woman tried to embrace him, he tried to escape. He was trembling and furious.The woman came back and told the old lady what had happened. The old lady ordered her servants to burn the cottage that she had made for this man, and be finished with him. He had not reached anywhere. The old woman said, “At least he could have been a little kind, compassionate.”The fear shows the whip had not yet been abandoned. The anger shows awareness was still an effort, it had not become natural, it had not become spontaneous.The eighth sutra:Both Bull and Self TranscendedFirst the bull is transcended: the mind – mind-energy, life, life-energy – is transcended. And then, when you have transcended life, you transcend yourself.Both Bull and Self TranscendedWhip, rope, person and bull – all merge in No-thing.This heaven is so vast no message can stain it.How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire?Here are the footprints of the patriarchs.The moment the mind disappears, you also disappear – because you exist in the struggle. The ego exists in the tension. For the ego, a duality is needed. It cannot exist with a non-dual reality. So just notice: whenever you are fighting, your ego becomes very sharp. Watch yourself for twenty-four hours and you will see many peaks and many valleys of your ego, and many times you will feel that it is not there. If you are not fighting with anything, it is not there. It depends on a fight.Hence people go on finding ways and means and excuses to fight because without the fight they simply start disappearing. It needs constant creation, just like one pedals a bicycle. You have to go on pedaling; only then does the bicycle keep going. Once you stop pedaling, sooner or later the bicycle is going to fall down. It is a miracle: on just two wheels, against gravity, you go on riding. But constant pedaling is needed.The ego is a miracle: the most illusory thing and it seems to be the most solid and real. People live for it and die for it. But it needs constant pedaling – that pedaling is your fight. Hence, you cannot live without fight. You will find some way or other. You will start fighting with your children if you cannot find somebody else. You will start fighting with your wife or your husband, sometimes for no reason at all. In fact, no reason is needed; all reasons are rationalizations. But you have to fight, otherwise you start disappearing, you start melting. You start falling as if you are in an abyss, a bottomless abyss.In the morning, when you are just out of sleep, there is for a few seconds a state of no-ego. That’s why you feel so pure and clean and virgin. But immediately the world starts. Even in the night, in your sleep, you go on fighting; you go on creating nightmares, so that the thread with the ego is not completely lost.The ego is possible only in conflict, struggle. If you have nothing to fight about, you will create some way or other to fight.I was just reading the other day about a man who never had a fight with his wife, and the neighbors wondered what type of man he was. He would come home from his factory always laughing and happy, never tired, never tense. Even his wife sometimes wondered: He never fights, never is angry. What is the matter?Then the whole neighborhood gathered and inquired, and the man said, “There is nothing much in it. In the factory…” He worked in a glass factory where, whenever something did not come up to standard, it was given to him and he smashed it – that was his job. Saucers, cups, glasses – the whole day he smashed them. He said, “I feel so happy, there is no need to fight with anybody. It is already too much! I feel on top of the world.”You know well that whenever the wife is not feeling good, more saucers will be broken, more cups will fall down. It has to be so. The ego finds some way or other, anything – even imaginary – will do, but something has to be destroyed. So fight arises.Woodchoppers, woodcutters, are very silent people. Their psychology is different: the whole day chopping wood, their anger is thrown out. They are constantly in catharsis. They don’t need Dynamic Meditation. You will find them very loving people. Hunters are very loving people also; their whole work is violence, but they are very loving people – you will not find better people than hunters. They don’t need to bring their ego against you; they have had enough of it with the animals.If you go to prisons and see the criminals there, you will be surprised that criminals have more silent eyes than your so-called saints. Your so-called saints are sitting on volcanoes, constantly repressing something. Criminals have not repressed anything, that’s why they are criminals. They don’t carry a volcano within them. They are good people in a way – more silent, more loving, more sincere. You can trust them. But you cannot trust your saints – they are dangerous people; they go on accumulating much poison. They also have to create imaginary fights.You must have heard about saints: the Devil comes to tempt them. It is nowhere: the Devil doesn’t exist; it is their own imaginations. They need some fight, otherwise they feel bad. Their egos cannot exist: they are no longer part of the market. That cut-throat competition is no longer for them; they have dropped out of it. Now, where can they sustain their egos, how to sustain their egos? They are not in politics – where can they sustain their egos? They are not poets, painters – where can they sustain their egos? They are not doing anything, not fighting with any competitors, so they create imaginary enemies – the Devil – and they start fighting with the Devil.In India, we have many stories in the Puranas, in the old scriptures, that whenever saints are meditating, beautiful women come from heaven to tempt them. Why should anybody care? They are not doing anything bad, just meditating. Why should anybody be in any way interested in distracting them? But apsaras, beautiful damsels from heaven, come and dance around them. And they put up a great fight! They try to conquer the temptations.Now this is all imaginary. They have left real enemies; now they are creating imaginary enemies because the ego cannot exist without enemies. A fight is needed; real, unreal, is not the question. If a fight is there, you can be. If there is no fight, you disappear. Hence the greatest message that I can give to you is – remember it – you have to come to a point where all fight is dropped. Only then will you transcend yourself. Only then will you never be again the small self, the tiny, the ugly self that you are. You will transcend it and you will become one with the whole.Whip, rope, person and bull – all merge in No-thing. A great nothingness arises in which everything is lost. This emptiness is not negative: it is the very source of all being. But it has no limitations.This heaven is so vast no message can stain it. How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire? As a snowflake will disappear in a raging fire, in this tremendous energy of the whole, everything disappears – whip, rope, person and bull.Here are the footprints of the patriarchs. Here you find, for the first time, where buddhas have walked. Here you find, for the first time, the fragrance of the enlightened ones, the significance of their being, of their realization. Here you listen to their song. A new dimension opens its doors. Call this dimension nirvana, moksha, kingdom of God – anything you like – but something absolutely different from the world you have known up to now opens. Here are the footprints of the patriarchs, all the great ones who have walked into nothingness and disappeared into it.The prose comment for the seventh sutra:All is one law, not two. We only make the bull a temporary subject. It is as the relation of rabbit and trap, of fish and net. It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud. One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.All is one law, not two. Oneness is the very nature of existence. Twoness is our imagination. Hence, all our lives we are hankering for love. The hankering for love is nothing but a symptom that where oneness exists, we have created a twoness which is false.You cannot find a person who is not in deep need of love – who wants to love and wants to be loved. Why so much desire for love? It must be something very deep-rooted. This is the deep-rooted truth: life is one, but we have imagined ourselves as separate. That separation becomes heavy; it is false and a burden. Love is nothing but the idea of becoming one again with the whole. Hence the desire to be loved; hence the desire to be needed; hence the desire that somebody should accept your love. It seems difficult to become one with the whole. At least some person will accept you; at least from the door of one person you will be able to bridge the gap.That’s why if you are not in love, you constantly think of love. That becomes haunting; it haunts you. It continuously hovers around you. And if you are in love, then a second thing arises: love, however deep and intense, seems insufficient – something seems to be missing. Those who are not in love, they seek love; those who are in love, they become aware that something more is needed. Great lovers are greatly frustrated deep down because they come to meet, then they come to a point where it seems everything will disappear. Again they are thrown back to themselves. They have glimpses of closeness, but not of unity. If you have loved well, then the desire for prayer or meditation arises.The desire for prayer is this: I have loved and I have found that love gives glimpses. But glimpses make you even thirstier than before. One is thirsty and then comes to glimpses of a beautiful river, a fountain – so cool. One hears the song of the fountain, and then it disappears – one becomes even thirstier than ever before. Those who are not in love, they suffer; but their suffering is nothing compared to those who are really in love. Their suffering is tremendous; their suffering is very penetrating and very intense because they are close and yet far away. It seems the kingdom is just around the corner, and the closer they come, the farther away it goes. It looks like a receding horizon.Love is the first step toward godliness; prayer or meditation is the final step. Love teaches you a new thirst, a new hunger; hence love is beautiful. People come to me and they ask me about love, and I say to them: Go into it – knowing well that I am sending them into danger. I am not sending them into deep love so that they can be satisfied. Nobody is ever satisfied. I am sending them into a deep love affair to make them really thirsty, to make them so thirsty that only godliness will suffice – nothing else.Love prepares you for a great thirst, a thirst for the divine because you have had glimpses in the other person. There have been moments when you have seen the god or the goddess. When you have looked deep into the other person, you have found solace; a serenity has come to you. But it is temporary, momentary, it comes and goes; more like the stuff of dreams than of reality.A man came to Ramanuja, a great mystic, and he said, “I would like to fall in love with God. Show me the path!”And Ramanuja said, “Tell me first one thing: have you ever loved anybody else?”The man said, “I am not concerned with this world and worldly affairs, with love and things like that. I want God.”Ramanuja said, “Again, please think about it. Have you ever loved any woman, any child – anybody?”The man said, “I am saying to you: I am a religious person; I am not a worldly man, and I don’t love anybody. Show me the path, how I can attain to God.”It is said Ramanuja started weeping. Tears came to his eyes, and he said, “Then it is impossible. First you will have to love someone. That is the first step. You are asking for the last step and you have not even taken the first? Go and love somebody!”Only when love does not quench your thirst does God become a need. But both the needs are on the same path. The basic reason is that we are not in reality separate from the whole, but we think we are separate. Hence, the desire arises to become one with the whole.The first step is to be taken with someone you can fall in love with, and then the second step will arise out of it of its own accord. A true love necessarily leads toward prayer. And if a love is not leading you toward prayer, it is not love yet; it is not true love because a true love necessarily proves that it is not enough. More is needed. A true love brings you to the door of the temple – has to. That is the criterion of a true love.All is one law, not two. We only make the bull a temporary subject. The sutra says: the bull is not separate from you; it is just a temporary subject. In your misunderstanding, it has to be thought of that way. It was just a hypothesis, used and then thrown into the rubbish, used and then transcended. So don’t go on fighting continuously. The fight should not become an eternal affair. The fight is just a device. Remember this.I have seen people who have been fighting their whole lives. They have been fighting and fighting, not only in this life but also in their past lives – they have become warriors. Now they have completely forgotten the very aim. Now the fight itself has become the aim! Now they go on fighting, and through fight they go on accumulating a subtle ego – very pious maybe, but still poisonous. They go on accumulating a very subtle ego. Ascetics, monks – watch them and you will find a very sharp ego, steel-like. It is not so sharp in worldly people because worldly people know that they are ignorant.I have heard one story:Against his better judgment, a man, a very old man, consented to go with his teenage son and his nephew on a trial run of the souped-up motor job they had put together. When the jalopy failed to make a curve, and finally bounced dizzily to a stop in a ploughed field, he lowered his head into his shaking hands.“Are you hurt, dad?” asked the son. “Want to go to a doctor?”“No,” came the studied reply. “Since only a jackass would ride in this contraption, take me to a veterinarian.”The worldly man knows that he is a jackass. His ego cannot be very sharp. He knows that he has been chasing after foolish things. He knows it! He knows well that he has been after foolish things, but feels weak. Knowing it, he also goes on falling into the old trap, in the old track, in the old routine. He is a weakling – that he knows, and repents. Many times he decides not to fall into the old trap again, but he keeps doing it again. He knows his weaknesses, his limitations. His ego cannot be very sharp.It happened…Mulla Nasruddin went to a psychiatrist. He said, “I don’t have much money, and I don’t have any time to waste on that couch stuff. All I want to do is ask you just two questions.”The psychiatrist said that was not the way he usually did his business, but in this case he would make an exception: “What are your questions?”Said the Mulla, “My first question is this: Is it possible for a man to be in love with an elephant?”The psychiatrist thought that one over seriously for a few moments. Finally he said, “No, it is not possible for a man to be in love with an elephant.”Mulla looked disappointed. Was the doctor sure? The doctor said there was no doubt about it.“Well, then,” said the Mulla, “my second question is this: Do you know anybody who could use an oversized engagement ring?”The ordinary worldly man knows that somehow he is being foolish and stupid. His love affair is a stupid affair; he is in love with elephants – money, power, prestige. He knows very well that this is not possible; he knows that somehow he is going wrong, but feels incapable of resisting, feels incapable of stopping himself, feels weak. He cannot have a great, sharp ego.But the religious ascetic, one who has gone away from the world and has gone to the Himalayas, feels tremendously egoistic. His ego is very sharp, like a sword. Of course, it cuts nobody because he has left the world. It is good that he has left the world. It cuts himself, it is self-destructive.People who are in the world, their egos harm others. People who have left the world, their egos harm only themselves. They become masochistic. They start fighting with themselves and destroying themselves. In fact, they take a subtle, perverted joy in the miseries that they create, in the sufferings that they impose on themselves. A very perverted indulgence.Remember this: if I tell you to be aware, it is just a device. If I tell you to be disciplined, it is just a device, a useful measure for you. Don’t make it a goal. Remember always: it has to be transcended one day, so don’t get deeply attached to it.It is very difficult. First I have to teach people how to meditate; and it is difficult to move them into meditation. Reluctantly – they create all sorts of difficulties – somehow I force them into meditation. Then the day comes when I want them to drop it, and they don’t want to drop it. First they never wanted to enter the path, then they become too attached to the path. They think if the path is dropped their whole life is wasted – as if now they cling to the staircase, to the ladder. First they were afraid to get on it; then they are not ready to leave it.Meditation is good, it is medicinal. The word meditation comes from the same root as the word medicine. It is medicinal. Medicine is needed when you are ill. When you are healthy, the medicine has to be transcended. It is not a goal. You should not carry the bottles with you always. There is no need to be proud of your medicines.Meditation has to be transcended. Awareness has to be transcended. Discipline has to be transcended. A moment comes when one has to live spontaneously – chopping wood, carrying water from the well, eating when hungry, sleeping when feeling sleepy, living absolutely ordinarily; no longer worldly, no longer otherworldly; no longer materialist, no longer religious. Just simple, ordinary. A real man of this quality cannot be categorized. You cannot call him worldly or religious. He is beyond categories. He has gone beyond logic.We only make the bull a temporary subject. It is as the relation of rabbit and trap, of fish and net – a temporary relationship. It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud. When the moon is emerging from the cloud, it is just accidental that the cloud is there. It is not part of the moon’s nature. When the moon is hidden behind the cloud, then too it remains the same moon. When it comes out of the cloud, it is the same moon. Nothing has changed. The cloud was just a temporary, momentary condition.The mind is a cloud. Thinking is like clouds. You are the moon. The world is like a cloud; it has not made any difference to you. In your intrinsic nature it has not affected you at all. You remain pure, you remain divine.That’s why I go on insisting that you are gods right now. There is no need to postpone it. Maybe there is a cloud, but that doesn’t make any difference. You can realize your godliness even hidden behind a cloud. The moon remains the same moon. One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.The prose comment for the eighth sutra:Mediocrity is gone. Mind is clear of limitation. I seek no state of enlightenment. Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists. Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me. If hundreds of birds strew my path with flowers, such praise would be meaningless.Mediocrity is gone. The mind is mediocre. People say that somebody has a mediocre mind; that is wrong because all minds are mediocre. The mind as such is mediocre. Remember it: mediocrity is the quality of the mind itself.Intelligence is not of the mind, intelligence is of the beyond. When the mind is not there, then there is intelligence. When the moon is not hidden behind the cloud, then you can see it – brilliant, shining. When it is hidden behind a cloud, the cloud interferes with the brilliance; it cannot reach you. Then you cannot see the brilliance of it. Every person is a brilliant moon hidden behind a cloud. The cloud is the mind: you are the no-mind.Mediocrity is gone. Mind is clear of limitation. And when there is no limitation, there is no-mind.I seek no state of enlightenment. In this moment of realization, who bothers about enlightenment? There are hundreds of beautiful stories in Zen:Somebody comes to a master and he asks, “I would like to become a buddha,” and the master hits him hard.The man says, “But why? Why are you hitting me? What wrong have I said?”And the master says, “You are a buddha, and you want to become a buddha? That’s impossible!”A buddha trying to become a buddha is impossible. Hence a good hit is needed to bring you back home, to bring you back to your senses, to realize that you are speaking nonsense. You are a buddha.Sometimes it happens that just the hit comes, and the person becomes enlightened. It must be the right time. It must be that the man has been searching for many lives and is tired of the whole journey, weary of the whole journey, and is ready. That last straw was needed for the camel to drop down, and the hit was the last straw.This is true – you are already that which you seek. The seeker is the sought. The goal is not somewhere far away in the future. It is just under your feet. It is exactly where you are standing. You may take time to realize it; you may take many lives to realize it, but that doesn’t make any difference. The day you realize it, you will laugh at the whole foolishness of it – that it was just under your feet all along.The eighth prose comment: Mediocrity is gone. Mind is clear of limitation. I seek no state of enlightenment. Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists. All states are transcended: enlightenment, no-enlightenment; the world, nirvana – all are transcended.Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me. This eighth picture has nothing in it: a circle with nothing inside; neither the bull nor the seeker after the bull. Whip, rope, bull, the fighter – all have disappeared. Pure emptiness.This eighth picture was the last Taoist picture because Taoism could not see what more could happen. Finished! Everything has disappeared. No-thing has happened; now what more can happen? Everything has been transcended. Pure transcendence has happened; now what more can happen? But Kakuan created two more pictures – he must have been a great creator – and those will be the remaining two pictures we will discuss. But this is the last Taoist picture.This is the difference between Tao and Zen, and this is also the difference between Buddhism and Zen. Buddha would also have liked the eighth to be the last. His disciples, Bodhidharma and Kakuan and Baso, have gone a little further than the master. Zen is not just Buddhism, it is more than Buddhism. It is the ultimate flowering – as if Buddha has also been improved. A few touches, master touches, and the whole face changed.Zen brings a totally new form of religion to the world.Zen is going to be the religion of the future of humanity because it teaches how to renounce and it also teaches how to renounce renouncing. It teaches how to go beyond the world, and it teaches how to go beyond the beyond. It looks paradoxical but it is not because when you go beyond the beyond you are back in the world – the circle is complete.With Buddha the circle remains a little incomplete. Nirvana remains nirvana, the world remains the world – separate. The enlightened man remains enlightened, the unenlightened remains unenlightened – separate. Zen bridges them. The ultimate flowering is when a man is neither enlightened nor not enlightened – beyond categories. He lives in the world and yet does not live in the world. He lives in the world but the world does not live in him. He has become the lotus flower.Be a lotus flower. Be in the water, and do not let the water touch you.Going to the Himalayas and being pure there is not very difficult. What else can you do? You have to be pure; it is almost helplessness.Bring your Himalayas back into the world. Let your Himalayas be herenow in the world, in the marketplace, and then there is the criterion, the test.The real criterion is in the world. If you have really attained to nirvana you will come back to the world because now there is no fear. Now you can be anywhere. Now even hell is heaven and darkness is light and death is life. Now nothing can distract you. Your attainment is total, perfect, ultimate.Be a lotus flower!Enough for today.

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The Search 01-09Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Search 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,It seems as if everything I perceive in or out of meditation is my own creation or projection. I can't distinguish between what I see, feel or am creating.Osho, what is real?There is no need to distinguish between thoughts, dreams and reality. If you try, you will feel more confused. There is no way to distinguish because as far as the mind is concerned everything appears in the mind as a thought. It may be real, it may not be real; but the moment anything appears in the mind it appears in the form of thought.You cannot distinguish, and there is no need. Don’t go on that journey because it becomes a journey of thinking, and meditation is lost. Rather, on the contrary, remain centered in your witnessing. Don’t be distracted by the objects in the mind; whatsoever they are, they are mind stuff. Simply remain more centered in your witnessing. Just be the watcher. Don’t try to distinguish. Whatsoever appears in the mind, just watch it. Watch it appearing, watch it being there, watch it disappearing.Sooner or later, when you are really centered… And this can happen any moment. That moment always remains unpredictable. Whenever you feel centered, the whole mind disappears: thoughts, dreams, reality – all. Suddenly you are in emptiness; there is no object for you. In the mind there is nothing – pure emptiness. Then open your eyes and look: whatsoever is there is real.When you are a witness and the mind has completely dropped, only then that which is is known – call it God, the real, the truth, or whatsoever you like to call it. The mind will never allow you to know reality. The mind is the disturbance. If you get too caught up in it, then you will be trying to solve puzzles. You can go on solving and creating and solving and creating new ones, but it never comes to any end. Thinking will not lead you to reality – a no-thought awareness. So don’t try to distinguish. Just watch, irrespective of what you see. The mind is the unreal.For example: if you are standing before a mirror, something appears in the mirror. It may be real; it may be a reflection of something real outside the mirror, but in the mirror it is just a reflection; it may not be real at all. You may be seeing your own dream reflected. You may be projecting; that too is unreal. Whatsoever appears in the mirror is unreal because the mirror simply reflects. The mind is a mirror, it only reflects. Drop the mind, drop the mirror, and then see. Whatsoever is there is real because now the disturbing factor is no longer there.My whole effort here is to help you to become witnesses.So please don’t try to get into thinking, contemplation; otherwise you will become more and more confused. And there is no way to get out of thinking through thinking. It goes on creating itself endlessly. The only way is not to get into it. So watch, and remain alert. Whatsoever passes the mind, don’t try to decide what it is. Watch it as if everything is a dream. That is the concept of the Hindu notion of maya, illusion. Everything is unreal. So there is no need to be worried, there is no need to distinguish. Whatsoever appears in the mind because it appears in the mind, is unreal. The mind is the faculty of the unreal.So drop the mind. Be more centered in the witnessing soul. Just be a watcher. By and by silence will pervade, will permeate your soul. By and by you will come closer and closer to home. By and by everything will fall in line and you will center into yourself. Any moment the centering can happen. Suddenly the mind is not there and your eyes are clear, clear of the mind. Then whatsoever you see is real. And this world that you have seen before will not be there as you have seen it before. It will be totally new. It will be something never known before. Everything will be the same and yet not the same – because you have changed. You are no longer drunk with the mind. You are alert, aware.So, let me say it in this way: the more aware you are, the more reality you can know; the less aware, the less is the possibility of knowing reality. So the basic thing hangs on being aware. If you are totally aware, whatsoever you know is reality.The second question:Osho,We like life and its enjoyments and think that we belong to the halfhearted, yet we really don't want to go unless you kick us out.Then you must have misunderstood me. I am not against life. I am not against any enjoyment. In fact, what I am saying is that the way you are living, you are not enjoying life. The way you are living, you only dream that you enjoy. You simply suffer. You remain miserable. You simply hope.Hope is not enjoyment. Hope is just a trick of the mind to console, to somehow convince oneself that today is gone but tomorrow everything is going to be good. Today one is in misery; tomorrow one will not be in misery. One dreams, hopes, projects.A man of real enjoyment is herenow. He never thinks of the morrow, there is no need to think of the morrow. If you are really happy, you never think of the past, you never think of the future. Who bothers? For what? Your whole energy is herenow, becomes an infinite dance of bliss, happiness, celebration.I am not against life. I am not against enjoying it. If you have understood me that way, you have misunderstood me. My religion is of celebration. My religion is of delight. My religion is of dance. I don’t want you to worship any god who cannot dance; then he is no longer a god. I want to teach you how to live life so intensely, so passionately, that you live it. And yet you don’t cling to it because clinging always shows a miserable mind. You cling to things only if you are not living them well.So the first thing: as I see you, I see you miserable. You think you are enjoying life. Think again, meditate on the fact – are you really enjoying it? If you are enjoying it, then there is no problem. Enjoy it with my blessings. But I know you are not enjoying it. You simply believe you are because to see the naked fact of your misery will be too much, unbearable. So you go on pretending to yourself that you are enjoying life.You go on smiling to hide your tears. You go on dressing yourself, painting yourself, to hide your wounds. You go on somehow, deceiving others and deceiving yourself that you are happy. It is not so. If you are happy, you have attained; then there is no need to meditate. If you are happy, then there is no need for any religion for you.Religion is needed as a means; religion is not the end. It is a method for those who are not yet happy, for those who are still in misery, in darkness, who are still in anguish and anxiety.But I know: your anxiety is so much that you need a shelter, the anguish is so much that you need a dream, so that somehow you can hope – hope for the future, for tomorrow.Your heaven and your happiness is always somewhere else; it is never where you are. Real happiness is always here; it is always now. It knows no other time and no other space. If you are really happy, only happiness exists; you don’t exist. Remember: only in misery do two things exist – you and misery. In happiness, only happiness exists.Happiness is non-dual, what we call in India, advaita. Misery is dual. In misery you are always two. Misery is a division of your being; cut apart, you are not an organic unity. Something goes against you. There is something there you never wanted to be there, but it is there, a thorn in the flesh. You suffer it in the hope that tomorrow it will not be so. But remember your yesterday? Your yesterday was also the same, and you were waiting for today because this today was tomorrow then. Now it has come. Nothing has happened. In the same way your other tomorrows will go on coming, but they always come as todays, they never come as tomorrow.Tomorrow never comes. It cannot come by its very nature; it is just a dream on the horizon. You can think about it but you cannot live it. It is a falsity. You think you are enjoying it? Rethink it because I don’t see it. I look inside you and I find you miserable there – hiding it, but who are you hiding from? And what is the point of hiding it? The more you hide it, the more difficult it will be to get rid of it; because the more you hide it, the deeper it goes. The deeper it goes, the more it poisons your very being; the very source of your life becomes more and more poisoned. Misery spreads. It becomes almost a part of you and then you don’t know how to get rid of it.So the first thing: I am for life, all for life, and all for enjoyment. I am not for somber seriousness, I am not for sadness. I am against all those religions which go on teaching people to be serious. God is not serious; otherwise flowers wouldn’t exist. God is not serious; otherwise birds wouldn’t be able to sing. God is tremendously into fun – that’s why we say in India that the creation is not a creation in fact but a play, a leela.God is playing; he is like a child running hither and thither. Out of sheer energy, overflowing, enjoying, dancing a thousand and one dances, singing a thousand and one songs – never exhausted, he goes on innovating, goes on peopling the earth. Each person is his new way to dance and each person is his new effort to sing again, to love again, to live again. Each person is again a project, again an effort. He is never tired. Infinite is his play.God is not serious. God is not Christian. He does not live in a church. He is festive. Look at life: it is a constant festivity. Listen to these words – a continuous festivity. See the trees continuously flowering, the sun and the moon and the stars. From the lowest to the highest, it is the same rhythm of joy. Except for man, nobody seems to be serious. Except for man, nobody seems to be worried and anxious. Except for man, the whole of life is fun.No, I am not for seriousness. I am absolutely against it. I would like you to be playful. Listen to me well: I would even like you to pray as fun. Once seriousness enters your prayer, it is already dead. I would like you to meditate like love – a subtle delight, a continuous delight in just being here, in just being alive.I am not against enjoyment, but I don’t see that you are enjoying; hence meditation is needed. Meditation is to clean you of your seriousness. Meditation is to make you aware of your deadliness. Meditation is to help you get rid of all the hangovers of the past, and all the projections and dreams of the future, so that you can be herenow, simply, spontaneously.Meditation is to help you to enjoy so tremendously that you disappear into that enjoyment. If you remain, misery remains. Let me say it in this way: you are the misery. If you are, seriousness continues. Wherever you are, immediately you create a serious, somber climate around you; something is already dying. You are your death. You are the disease.When you are enjoying, dancing, loving, or just sitting doing nothing, you are simply happy for no reason at all. Happiness needs no reason. If you are looking for reasons, you will never be happy. Happiness needs no cause – it cannot be caused. You cannot make it part of the world of cause and effect. It is absolutely illogical. If you want to be happy, be happy! Don’t wait, don’t arrange – there is no need for any arrangement. You are capable of being happy just as you are. Nothing is lacking. If you learn this much from me, you have learnt all, my whole art.Happiness needs no cause. The cause is created by your misery. The misery says, “Today I am miserable, how can I be happy right now? First, preparations have to be made. Of course, then time will be needed, so tomorrow when everything is ready I will be happy. I have to find a beautiful wife; I have to find the perfect husband. I have to find a good house, a big car – this and that. This is only possible tomorrow. Right now, how is it possible? Time is needed.” This is a trick of the miserable mind.The miserable mind says time is needed. The miserable mind lives in time, depends on time. Happiness has nothing to do with time. Just now, just herenow, please try to see the point. It is a question of seeing it. If you become a little alert you can see it right now. It is a realization.Right now, who is barring your path?If you are thinking that before you can be happy you have to find a perfect wife, that looks logical – how can you be happy without a perfect wife? But have you ever heard of a perfect wife? Have you ever heard of a perfect husband, a perfect house or a perfect car? All illusions.I have heard about a man who was searching and searching and searching. He reached seventy, and somebody asked, “Isn’t your search over? When are you going to get settled?”He said, “I am in search of a perfect wife.”“Seventy years have passed. Death is already knocking on the door. When will you settle down?”He said, “What can I do? How can you be happy without a perfect wife?”The friend asked, “But you have been searching so long, couldn’t you find one?”He said, “Yes, once I did find one woman.”Then the man said, “Then why didn’t you marry her?”And the seventy-year-old seeker became very sad. He said, “It was difficult: she was also in search of a perfect husband!”Perfection is a mind-demand, an ego trip. Life is beautifully imperfect. Once you understand this, you start enjoying right now. And the more you enjoy, the more you become capable of enjoying.Let me tell you: happiness needs no cause – happiness needs only a habit of enjoying, just a natural quality, a capacity for enjoyment. Nothing else is needed. And that capacity comes only by enjoying; it comes by nothing else. If you enjoy, you become more capable of enjoyment. The more capable you become, the more you enjoy. This goes on and on; it reaches a higher and higher crescendo, a higher and higher peak.Every moment comes out of this moment. The next moment will come out of this moment. If you have lived this moment totally, loved, delighted, the next moment will come out of this moment, and you will be born out of this moment. The next moment will open more possibilities and it will make you more capable.Happiness is a capacity which you already have, but you have never functioned with it. It is as if a child has never been allowed to walk on his feet and he has become crippled. He has the capacity to walk, but he has never been allowed. The mother was too afraid he might fall, so now he continues walking on all fours because of fear. Every child is born to be happy as naturally as every child is born to walk. There is nothing else to it.So your question is: “We like life and enjoyments” – not as much as I do; otherwise, you would be a hundred percent in it – “and think that we belong to the halfhearted.”You belong to the halfhearted because you have not loved life totally. Never think about my meditations as something other than life; never make them the opposite of life. I am not trying to give you goals other than life itself. I am not trying to convince you of some other journey than life. Life is the journey. Life is the goal.Religion is not a separate journey. It is, really, to live life so totally that life starts revealing all its secrets; and godliness is its innermost secret. Once you love and live life, it reveals more and more. Suddenly, one day, it reveals its most secret center: godliness.Loving life, one day you love God. Living life, one day you live God.So don’t be halfhearted. Be totally in life. I am not here to distract you from your life. It has already been done. All of humanity is suffering because of that. Religions have proven a calamity because they have made goals the opposite to life, diametrically opposite to life.George Gurdjieff used to say that all religions are against God. He seems absolutely right. Just think about religions: they all seem to be against God – being against life means being against God.God is not against life, this much is certain; otherwise, life would have ceased a long time ago. Your mahatmas may be against life, but God is not. Your mahatmas go on teaching you: Renounce! And God goes on creating more and more life. He doesn’t seem to be an escapist, a renouncer; he seems to be tremendously and deeply involved and committed to life. His involvement is eternal. Just think: within a life of seventy or eighty years, you are fed up and tired, and you want to escape and go to the Himalayas – and God has been creating for eternity and is not tired yet. He does not know what tiredness is; his energy is still fresh and young. It is as if this is the beginning right now. The past is not carried. Each moment is a new creation.If you become religious in my sense of the term, you will not renounce life. You will renounce yourself, not life. You will drop yourself and be totally one with life, so no division exists. The “I,” the ego, has to be dropped, not life.The third question:Osho,Whatsoever you are telling us, from time to time it appeals to the mind, and something in me wants to follow it. But still I find myself never practicing it.Why is that so, Osho?The mind may like to follow me, but the mind is impotent. The mind is a very small part, and it has no will. It dreams well, it thinks well, it plans well, but it has no will. It cannot act. As far as action is concerned, the mind is a coward. In thinking, it is very brave; in action, it is absolutely cowardly. So when you listen to me, if you only think about me, and you think about whatsoever I say, the mind will say: Perfectly true! Very good! This is what I always wanted. But you will never practice it.So don’t listen to me from the mind. There is another way of listening. Listen to me as a total being, not only from the mind; listen to me from your very guts. Only then will you practice what I am saying; otherwise, you will remain divided. The mind will think one thing and you will go on doing just the opposite. Then you will feel guilty, and then you will repent. Then it is better not to listen to me at all because I am not here to create guilt in you. That would be a sin. To create guilt in anybody is a sin. So remember: I am not responsible for it; you are creating it yourself.Listen to me as a total organic unity – your blood also listens, your heartbeats also listen, your bones, your marrow, your guts – you listen to me as a total being. Then, only then, will you be able to practice it. In fact, to say “you will be able” is not right – you will practice it. If you have heard me as a total unitary being, you have already started practicing it. There will be no need to make a conscious effort to practice it; you will find it. It has moved into your bloodstream, it has become part of you. You cannot do other than practice it.So listen to me rightly, and when I say listen to me rightly I mean: don’t listen to me from the head. The head is the culprit because the head has found techniques of listening that don’t allow the whole being to be aware of what is happening. It does not expose your whole being to me. You listen from the head, hiding behind a narrow slit, a small hole just like a keyhole. You go on collecting whatsoever I am saying. You are not drinking and eating me, you are not digesting me; otherwise the question of practice will never arise. You just go on thinking about what I am saying; you go on interpreting, making your own theories, explanations, comments, and then you get hung up in the head. Then you come to a decision. But the head has no power to implement it; the head is not the executive force in you. The head has no will, it is impotent. It can think, but it can never implement.That’s why thinkers go on thinking. If you see their lives, you will simply be surprised. It seems unbelievable! Their thinking is very rich and their lives absolutely poor. They cannot decide about small things; their thinking remains indecisive.It happened in the life of a great German thinker, Immanuel Kant: a woman fell in love with him and she waited and waited for some day when he would ask for her hand. But he would talk of a thousand and one things, great things, philosophical speculations, but he would never ask for her hand. Finally, tired, she herself asked, “I would like to get married to you.”He became very puzzled. He said, “Let me think. I cannot do anything without thinking.”And the story goes that he started thinking. One day he knocked at the woman’s door – he had decided to get married, he had decided to say yes. When he asked the father if he could see his daughter, the father said, “But she is already married, and she has two children by now! Where have you been all this time?”Almost seven years had passed. He was thinking and thinking and thinking. His diaries still exist; he had found three hundred and fifty-four reasons for marriage and three hundred and fifty reasons against marriage. Because there were four reasons more for marriage, he decided that now something had to be done – but it was too late.The life of thinking is a bogus life; it has no substratum in it. It is a life of limbo: neither of the earth nor of the sky, just in between.If you listen to me from your head, this problem is going to haunt you your whole life. The head will say yes, and then the problem will arise: how to practice it? Your whole being has not heard about it, and the whole being will go on going its own way. Your whole being will not bother about your head – it doesn’t bother. In fact, your whole being never listens to your head. It gives your head the opportunity to think, but whenever a question of decision arises, your wholeness comes to a decision, not your head. You decide: Now, no more anger, enough is enough! It is always bad and it poisons and leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and it simply creates more trouble and solves nothing. Your head decides: No more anger, now I have made a decision! And then the next day you are angry. What happened? Your whole being had not even heard about the decision. Your bones, your blood, your guts, are not even aware of your decision.It is a luxury to think. Unless you hear me from your wholeness, not as thinking beings, but if you throb with me, if your heart beats with me, if you fall in rhythm with me, then there will be no need. This “how to practice problem” will never arise. You will practice. Suddenly you will see that you are practicing. If something goes true to your being, if something is felt by your totality as truth, it is already on the way to being practiced. You have digested it, and then it never creates guilt.This question of guilt has to be understood; otherwise, you will listen to me and you will not be able to follow. Then you will feel guilty. And I am here to make you happy, not to make you guilty. A guilty person is an ill person. A guilty person is a poisoned person. A guilty person is not in harmony; he is in an inner conflict. He wants to do something and is always doing something else, just the opposite. The rift grows bigger and bigger, and the bridge becomes more and more impossible. Guilt creates schizophrenia: you become two people, or even many people. You become a crowd; you become polypsychic – you lose unity.Listen to me from your whole heart. Absorb me. Otherwise it is better not to listen to me – forget all about me. But please don’t feel guilty.If you have listened rightly, if you have listened at all, then the question of practice never arises. You are practicing it. It is as natural as if when you want to go out, you go out through the door, not through the wall. You see the door; you simply go out by the door. You don’t even think where the door is, you don’t ask: Where is the door? You don’t make a decision like: This time I am going to go through the door, not through the wall; like: I am going to stick to my decision whatsoever happens; whatsoever the temptation, I am not going through the wall – I will go through the gate.If you think such things, that simply shows that you are mad. And you will go through the wall; you will not go through the gate. The wall is too tempting; you are fascinated, obsessed.Understanding brings its own practice. Understanding is enough. If you understand me, then there is no problem. So if the problem of practice arises, I am not going to tell you to make more forced efforts. No. Drop all efforts. Try again to understand me. You have missed in the first place; you have missed the very thing, the very seed, which brings practice spontaneously.Listen to me again. Listen to me very relaxed. When your head listens, you are very attentive, concentrated; there is a tension. Listen to me very relaxed. Allow me to surround you from everywhere. Let me be a climate surrounding you from everywhere. And just allow me in, soak me in; be like a sponge – not attentive, relaxed, like a sponge – so you can drink whatsoever I am saying. There is no need to think about it; drink it. Let it become a part of your being. And then you will see that you are never following me.If the understanding is there, you always follow yourself. Guilt is not created and the follower is not created. Guilt is not created and the conflict – how to practice it – is not created. Then you are not a follower. You become my lovers but not my followers – and that is a totally different dimension. If you find some day that there is something which the head says has to be followed and done, practiced, and you are not doing it, don’t make any effort to practice it. Try to listen to it again. Go from the very first moment of understanding again; start from the very beginning.This is a trick of the mind. First it misleads you – just verbal, intellectual understanding – and it gives you an impression that you have understood. Secondly, it says: Now practice! And you cannot practice because you have not soaked it in; it has not yet become part of you, it is not integral to you. It is something foreign, alien. How can you practice it? It becomes a load, a burden. Then the head says: You are guilty! You understand and you don’t do it. So now, whatsoever you do, you will not feel good about it. This understanding, which you think you have, cannot be practiced, so you will feel bad. That’s how so many millions of people remain in guilt, in sin, burdened, crushed under the burden.Drop it! That dimension is wrong. Start listening to me again. There is no need to understand me intellectually. I am not an intellectual, and I am not teaching you any doctrines. I am simply allowing you to participate in my being, to get in rapport with me, to get in tune with me. My whole effort is so that you can find a certain harmony between me and you, so that you can become partners with me, sharers with me of something unknown that has happened to me, and is possible to happen to you. I want to hold your hand. I want to give you courage, not intellectual understanding. I want to give you life. I want to share something which is overflowing in me.So don’t listen from the head; that is the wrong place to listen from. In Zen they say: Listen from the belly. That is better. Try it sometime: listen to me from your belly. That is better than your head. In Tao they say: listen from the bottom of your feet. That is even better – because if you listen from the bottom of your feet, to travel from the feet to the head it will pass through your whole being. If you listen from the belly, that too is very good; at least it will be heard from the middle, from the very center.I tell you: listen to me as a whole. There is no need to listen from the bottom of the feet or from the belly or from the head. Just listen to me as a whole being.For example, if you are in danger and somebody is running behind you with a sword, how will you run? Just with your head? Just with your feet? Just with your belly? No, you will run as a total unit. You will forget completely where the head is and where the feet are and where the belly is. Everything will be forgotten. You will become a total unity. You will run as one.That is the way to be here with me. Soak me in, absorb me, and then there is no problem of practicing me. It will start affecting you. It will start changing you. You will be surprised: suddenly you will see you have practiced it. Somebody was angry and there was no anger in you; you could remain calm and serene. Suddenly you have practiced it; not that you tried to practice it – it has become part of your being, it just happened.You will be surprised: if the understanding is true, rather than feeling guilty, you will feel many, many surprises – at your own behavior, at your own responses. In the same old situation, somebody will insult you, and you will not feel anything at all. As if it just goes through you, never hits anywhere; just passes through, does not leave a wound, does not even scratch you! And you can smile and look back: what just happened? A miracle! Understanding is miraculous. It is the only miracle there is.If you have understood me, you will find at every point of your life, with every step, surprises waiting for you. You will not be able to believe that “This is happening to me!” because you expect only the old, and this is new, absolutely new. You will start falling in love with yourself.A new being is arising.The fourth question:Osho,I am not always clear on the difference between leaking and overflowing.Could you give a few pointers please?Your mind is always trying to confuse you because in your confusion is the power of the mind. The more confused you are, the more you have to listen to your mind. When you attain clarity, the very function of the mind is finished. That’s why the mind never goes on holiday.I know one man who is a top officer. I was going to the Himalayas once and I asked him to come with me. He said, “That’s impossible! I cannot go on a holiday.”I said, “Why?” I had never seen him go on holiday. I asked, “What is the matter?”He said, “I am absolutely useless in the office and I don’t want anybody to know it. I have to be there continuously to create the impression that I am needed. Once I go on holiday, everybody will become aware that I am not needed at all. I cannot go on holiday.”That is the situation with the mind. The mind never leaves you even for a single moment. It goes on confusing you because once you are confused, the mind is at ease. You have to ask the mind what the way is. Then the mind becomes your guru. In fact, in simple matters when confusion seems to be impossible, it creates confusion there also.For example, this question: “I am not always clear on the difference between leaking and overflowing.” Now, the phenomena are so diametrically opposite that there cannot be any confusion. There is no possibility. But the mind can create it.When you leak, you feel tired. When you are overflowing, you feel fulfilled. Overflowing is a delight – sheer delight, just delight and nothing else. Just as trees bloom in flowers – that is overflowing. When the tree has too much, only then does it flower; otherwise it cannot flower. When it has so much it cannot contain it, it has to share. It is an unburdening. Look at the tree when it is in bloom: the whole tree seems to be relaxed, unburdened, relieved, happy.Whenever you are overflowing, whenever you share, you never feel tired afterward. In fact you feel more energetic, more in tune, more at home. Everything settles, unburdened. You grow wings; you can fly in the sky. You are so weightless, gravitation disappears. The feeling is so totally different from the feeling when you leak, dissipate, and energy is lost. It is almost impossible to confuse them. How can you confuse them? They are so totally different. But the mind can create confusion.The whole function of the mind is to create confusion. It creates doubts – where no doubts can exist, it creates doubts. It creates ghosts, imaginary, and it creates a puzzle. Then, of course, you have to ask the mind itself: What is the way out?You can take sexual orgasm an example. If you are making love to a woman or to a man mechanically, and there is no love sharing – there is no love in it, just a mechanical habit, or just because physicians say it is hygienic, it is needed for the body, or some other nonsense – then your energy will dissipate, your energy will simply leak out of you. Afterward you will feel simply tired, not fulfilled, frustrated. It will leave you weaker, not stronger. That’s why so many people feel frustrated after making love, and so many people decide to get rid of making love – because it seems so useless.When you love the person and you are overflowing, you want to share your energies with the other person. It is not sexual at all in that moment; you don’t have any idea of sex; your mind is not there at all, it happens spontaneously. You don’t plan it in your head; you don’t go through a rehearsal. In fact you don’t do it, it just happens; you are not the doer – you become vehicles. You are possessed by something greater than you, higher than you, bigger than you. Then it is not leakage. Then you are overflowing from all over. It is not local, it is not sexual, it is total. Then you attain to peace, serenity, calmness. Then you attain to fulfillment. That’s what orgasm is. Rarely do people attain to orgasm.This will not leave you weaker, this will make you stronger. You will not decide in the wake of your lovemaking that you are against sex, that the so-called saints are true and right and you should have listened to them before; that now you decide to take a vow of brahmacharya, or celibacy, and you decide to become a Catholic monk and move to a monastery – no. If there has been an orgasmic flow and your energy has been simply shared and has overflowed, you will feel grateful toward God. A prayer will arise in you. You will feel so fulfilled that you would like to give thanks. You will feel so glad, so blessed, that in that moment you can bless the whole world. Your face, your body, your mind, everything will be at a calm altitude – a new plenitude of being. A benediction will surround you.Prayer arises in such moments – gratefulness, gratitude. One becomes religious in such moments. To me, religion has arisen out of a deep love orgasm. Hence, to me, Tantra remains the ultimate in religion, the last word because that is the highest peak man has attained of attunement, the highest peak where ego disperses, disappears. One is, but one is not limited. Where one is not blocked - one is a flow; where energy is flowing and moving, and one becomes just a center of so many crisscrossing ways, pathways of energy – the ego disappears. The ego is very solid, like a stone. In love one becomes liquid, flowing all over.Leakage is frustrating – whatsoever type of leakage: sexual, non-sexual, but it is tiring. Sometimes somebody is with you and you feel tired – just being with that person, just the presence of that person. You don’t want the person, you are bored; and you start leaking, you start dissipating your energy. Then when the person is gone, you feel simply tired, shaken, as if he has taken too much out of you and he has not given anything in return. He simply leaves you weak. But if you love the person, if you are happy that the person has come to see you and meet you, you feel enhanced. Energy becomes more alive, you feel more vital. You feel rejuvenated. There can be no misunderstanding between the two.Avoid leakages, and remain available for overflows. By and by you will become capable of only overflow because leakage is an attitude of the mind. If a person is boring to you and he is saying things which you don’t want to listen to, you will feel dissipated; a leakage will happen. Just change your attitude.Right in the middle of the conversation, you were just getting bored. Just change your attitude and start listening to the person. He is also a mysterious person – maybe a little boring, but he is also God. He may be a little boring, but listen to him with a new attitude. Shake yourself, give yourself a jerk; drop your old attitude and start listening to his story. Maybe there is something in it. And immediately you will see: energy is no longer dissipating.It is your attitude. Anything can be energy-giving, and anything can be energy-destroying; it depends on your attitude. A religious person – this is my definition of a religious person – is one who is always overflowing whatsoever the situation. Even if death comes to him, death will find him in a deep orgasm.Ordinarily, even life does not find you in deep orgasm; even love has not found you in deep orgasm. But a man like Socrates, even death finds him in orgasm – ready, receptive, dancing, as if death is bringing so many mysteries. It is bringing them! That, too, is a face of God – maybe dark, but darkness is also divine. You are going to disappear, but disappearance is as mysterious as appearance.Birth and death are two aspects of the same coin.Socrates was thrilled! You are not thrilled with life, and he was thrilled with death. His disciples started crying and weeping, and he said, “Stop! You can do that when I am gone. Don’t waste these moments. These moments are momentous. Let us receive death – it only comes once in life. It is a rare guest. It is not every day that it comes. And I am fortunate that it is coming in a predictable way; otherwise it comes unpredicted and one cannot welcome it.”He was going to be poisoned; he was sentenced to death by the Greeks. At six o’clock exactly, he was to drink the poison – and he was waiting like a thrilled child. The disciples could not believe it! He took the poison and he started walking in the room, and somebody asked, “What are you doing?”He said, “I am trying to be alert, to be awake, so death does not find me asleep.” Then it became impossible to walk. His legs were giving way. So he lay down on the couch and started saying, “Now my feet are numb; it seems the feet are dead. But I am still as much as I was before. Nothing has been taken away from me – I remain whole!” And he was happy.Then he said, “Both my legs are gone – but listen to me: I still remain whole. That means only the body is being taken away. My consciousness remains untouched, unscratched. It seems that death is not going to kill me.”This is the attitude of a religious man, and it depends on your attitude. Your whole life can be an orgasmic flow. Not only love: each moment of your life can be an orgasmic flow – then you are overflowing. And remember one basic, fundamental rule: the more you overflow, the more you are given. It is as if you take water from a well: the more water you take out, the more fresh water is flowing in – constantly. If you stop taking the water out, the water will become stale, dead, and fresh sources will not be supplying more; there will be no need.Share! Share as much as you can, and the more you will be given.Jesus says: If you cling, you will lose; if you share, you will receive. Don’t be a miser – share! And feel grateful to whosoever accepts your energy; feel grateful to him because he could have rejected you. Feel grateful, and go on sharing. You will see that out of your inner springs, fresh water is continuously coming. The more you share, the younger you remain. The more you share, the more virgin you remain. The more you share, the fresher, the purer you remain.If you don’t share, then you start leaking. If you don’t share, if you are not happy in sharing, you become a miser. A miser leaks. Be a spendthrift as far as life energy is concerned. A miser starts leaking and feels frustrated and always miserable because something has been taken away from him. In his misery he shrinks; and because of his shrinking the inner sources, the inner springs cannot refill him.It depends on you.The distinction is absolutely clear. Let this be the criterion after any energy contact – and the whole of life is energy contact. When you look at a tree there is an energy contact: your eyes meet with the greenery of the tree, you have embraced the tree in a subtle way. You touch a rock and there is contact; energy has been shared. You look into the eyes of another human being, and there has been a communication. You say something, or you remain silent, but the communion continues. It is happening each moment.Now it depends on you, whether you will make it leakage. If it is leakage, you will die a thousand deaths every day. It depends. If you make it an overflow, a hearty sharing, that you always wanted to give, an unburdening of your heart – as a flower gives its fragrance to the winds, and the lamp gives its light to the night, and the clouds give their rains to the earth – if you go on sharing, your whole life becomes an immensely beautiful dance of energy. Each day, you will have a thousand and one new births.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Do you not see him,the really wise man, always at ease, unmoved?He does not get rid of illusion, nor does he seek for the (so-called) truth.Ignorance is intrinsically the buddha nature.Our illusory unreal body is the cosmic body.Getting rid of things and clinging to emptinessis an illness of the same kind;it is just like throwing oneself into a fireto avoid being drowned.When asked, “What is your religion?”I answer, “The power of the makahannya.”Sometimes affirming things, sometimes denying them,it is beyond the wisdom of man.Sometimes with common sense, sometimes against it,heaven cannot make head or tail of it.I have seen the sun rising in the evening, and since then I have been drunk with that which is. You can call it existence, you can call it nirvana, you can call it any name – it does not matter. Whether you give it a name or you don’t, it remains the same. A rose is a rose is a rose. But one thing is certain: that the sun rises in the evening.The apparent is not real; the real is just the opposite of the apparent. It is obvious that the sun rises in the morning. To deny the apparent and the obvious, I say that I have seen the sun rising in the evening.The experience of the buddhas contradicts the experience of everyone else. It is not common; it is unique, it is extraordinary. Ordinarily, whatsoever we have become accustomed to know is just a mind game, because we look at that which is with loaded eyes. Our mirrors are covered with great dust; they have become incapable of reflecting the real. The real is not far away. The real surrounds you; you are part of it, it is part of you. You are not separate from it, you have never been separate from it. You cannot be separate from it – there is no way to be separate from it, it is impossible to be separate from it. But still, the dust-covered mirror is incapable of reflecting it. Once the dust disappears, you will be surprised that all that you have been seeking did not need to be sought at all, because you had it already.The spiritual search is as illusory as any other search. The search itself is illusory because it has taken one thing for granted: that something is missing. And nothing is missing. Once you take it for granted that something is missing you start looking for it, then you go on looking for it in all directions. And the more you search the more you will miss it because the more you search, the more dust-covered the mirror becomes. The more you travel to seek it, the farther and farther you go in search of it, the more and more frustrated you become. Slowly, slowly you start thinking, “It is so far away, that’s why I am not reaching it.”The reality is just the opposite: you are not reaching it because you are it. It is not far away. It is so close by that even to call it close is not right, because even closeness is a kind of distance. It is not distant at all, it breathes in you. It is not there; it is here. It is not then; it is now. It has always been with you. From the very beginning everyone is a buddha, everyone is a mirror capable of reflecting.This is the basic message of Zen, and the greatest message that has ever been delivered to man, and the greatest liberating force that has ever been brought to the earth. But you will have to look in a totally new way. All that is needed is not search but a new way of looking at things. The common, the ordinary, the usual way has to be dropped. Hence I say again, the sun rises in the evening. By what name you call it does not matter a bit because it is wordless, it is wordlessness, it is utter silence. It is unchanging, unmoving, it is eternal; it is timeless.We are going on an immense journey with Yoka Daishi, a great Zen master. These sutras are known as shodoka, the “Song of Enlightenment.” When Yoka became enlightened he burst forth singing just like a tree in spring bursts forth: blooms and thousands of flowers were there, and great fragrance. This is a song. Remember, it has not been addressed to any audience – that is the beauty of it. If somebody has heard it, that is another thing, but Yoka has not addressed it; he was simply singing it out of the sheer joy that had happened in him. In fact, to say that he was singing it is not right; it was singing itself in him. Just as we say, “It is raining,” like that it was singing. And that is true of all the people who have become enlightened: the audience, if it is there, is secondary. It is not primarily an address, it does not take into account the people who are hearing it – they are irrelevant. Maybe they trigger the process, but there is no compromise.Just because of this many people have felt, particularly R. H. Blyth who has translated this beautiful song into English… He says, “Yoka keeps on talking when he has nothing more to say.” That is true: one roseflower is enough to say what the rosebush has to say. A thousand flowers are not needed, but the rosebush is overflowing. You don’t go to the rosebush, you don’t criticize the rosebush, you don’t ask, “Why do you go on repeating? It is enough to say it with one flower. Your message has been seen and heard. The second flower will be just like the first,” and so on and so forth.R. H. Blyth is logically right. He says, “Yoka goes on talking when he has nothing more to say.” It is not a question of whether one has to say more or less, deep down he has nothing to say at all. He is not saying anything, it is just sheer joy; hence it is called the song. It is not meant to be heard; if it is heard that is another matter. When the rosebush blooms and you see the flower and the beauty and the benediction that surrounds it and you are thrilled, that is another matter. The rosebush had never thought about you; if you had not passed by there would have been no difference, the rosebush would have continued singing its song.So is the case with me. You are just an occasion. I go on singing my song; it is unaddressed, it is a flowering. I also have nothing to say – certainly I have something to show – but I have nothing to say. So is the case with Yoka. Blyth missed the point, but I can understand why he missed it: the logical mind always misses it because Yoka goes on repeating the same thing again and again. The statements are circular – they are the same kind of flowers again and again and again – they don’t say more, they don’t add anything new. But the joy is such, the explosion is such, that one is simply overflowing with it. Yoka cannot do anything about it; he is utterly helpless, just as the rosebush is utterly helpless. In fact, the rosebush is not doing anything, Yoka is not doing anything; he is as much a witness to his song as you are. He may himself be feeling a little puzzled why this song goes on and on and on; “I have said it, I have said it many times.” But what to do if the song continues? If it is coming from the very source of existence, Yoka cannot prevent it.And this is one of the most significant things to be understood; otherwise you will misunderstand all the buddhas. Gautam the Buddha has been misunderstood because for forty years he was continuously saying the same thing. Why? He could have said it in very few words – those words can be written on a postcard. But you have missed the point, you have not seen the sheer joy of sharing, of just singing it for its own sake.Remember this is a song, “The Song of Enlightenment.” It is flowing through Yoka. Yoka is just a vehicle, a passage, a hollow bamboo; existence itself is singing through him. He cannot do anything this way or that; there is no point in criticizing poor Yoka.Once a man came to J. Krishnamurti and asked, “Why do you go on talking and at the same time you go on saying that it cannot be said?” And he said, “Ask the rose, ask the trees why they go on blooming.”There is no why to it, there is nobody doing it. The doer has disappeared; hence the song has become possible. Yoka is no more. Yoka and the song cannot both exist together; if Yoka exists then the song cannot exist. The song can exist only when the first condition has been fulfilled: that Yoka has disappeared. When he is no longer there, when he is no longer obstructing the passage, when he is absolutely empty, only then can God take possession of him. Zen people don’t use the word God, they use the words buddha nature. But it is the same: one is possessed. The song has to be sung, the dance has to be danced. It is not your dance, it is not my dance, it is nobody’s dance. Existence itself is dancing.Yoka Daishi was one of the disciples of the great Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen. When he came to the master he was just on the verge of enlightenment – as everybody is. Just on the verge. If you understand it… Only one step and you are enlightened; or not even one step – just a blink. When Yoka came to his master, the scriptures say he was just on the verge of enlightenment.And I say to you everybody else is just the same – on the verge. You can postpone it as long as you want, but the postponement is yours – that is your decision. You can postpone it forever; that is your freedom, otherwise you are always on the threshold. You have always been on the threshold: any moment you could have become enlightened, any moment you can become enlightened. Nothing is barring the path except your own decision.But he was a unique man, unique in the sense that he was not ready to postpone any longer. When he came to Huineng, only a little, just a gentle, push was enough. He had slept long; the sleep was disappearing. He was just in that state when you are not asleep and not awake, and just a small dialogue with the master, just a small exchange, a little encounter, and he became enlightened with no effort, with no method. Just looking into the eyes of the master… A few words pass between the master and Yoka, and the dialogue is of immense significance.I would like you to understand it. In fact, I would like you to have such an exchange with me.Yoka Daishi walked around the master three times without bowing and merely shook his Buddhist staff with iron rings. The master said “A shramana [a Buddhist monk], embodies the three thousand rules of deportment and the eighty thousand minute moral rules. From whence does your honor come, may I ask, with your overweening self-assurance?”When one comes to a master one has to bow three times: that has been a traditional greeting. When you face an enlightened being you have to bow three times – the body bows, the mind bows, the soul bows, you surrender utterly. That is just a gesture; it happens spontaneously. And when it happens spontaneously, only then does it happen.Just two, three nights before, Hema came to see me. She may not even be aware of the Buddhist rule that when you face a master you have to bow down three times, but she bowed three times. She was laughing all the time because she could not understand what was happening. She was puzzled, she must have felt a little ridiculous, and everybody else started laughing. Something had taken possession of her being. Now this was not a formality. What happened to Hema was a natural outpouring, spontaneous. But in this ugly world every spontaneous thing becomes reduced to a formality. It used to happen to people when they would come to see a buddha – they would bow down three times. Then people started following, imitating.In the first meeting with the Master Huineng, Yoka walked around the master three times without bowing and merely shook his Buddhist staff with iron rings.The master said, “A shramana embodies the three thousand rules of deportment and the eighty thousand minute moral rules.”Now look what happens to religion. Buddha has said, “Be a law unto yourself. Be a lamp unto yourself. There is no other law.” But Buddhist scriptures are full of rules – three thousand rules of deportment; even to remember them is very difficult. Eighty thousand minute rules, and a Buddhist monk is expected to fulfill all of them.Huineng said, “From where does your honor come, may I ask, with your overweening self-assurance?”Do you think Huineng was saying, “You have to follow all these rules”? No, not at all, he was simply provoking. This is the push. He was hitting hard, he was hitting at this new arrival, who was just on the verge – as everybody else is. You can misunderstand it, then you have postponed your enlightenment. Yoka could have retorted, “What nonsense! One has to be spontaneous. And I had never thought that a man like you would expect those stupid rules – three thousand or eighty thousand…” He could have retorted and missed.Yoka replied, “Birth and death is a problem of great moment; all changes ceaselessly.”It looks unrelated; it is not. He is saying, “Any moment I can die. Do you want me to follow all that ritual – eighty thousand rules? And if I die following those eighty thousand rules, then who will be responsible? Who will be responsible for my misery – for my rebirth into misery again – you or I?” He has not said that, he simply indicates. It is a beautiful answer: “Birth and death is a problem of great moment. And we are not certain even of the next moment – how can I go into those rules?” But he has not said so much, he has simply indicated why he is not following all those rules. “All changes ceaselessly, everything is a flux. I can die any moment. If you say so, I will bow down as many times as you say, but if I die in the middle of it without becoming enlightened you will be responsible, sir.” He has changed the label. The master has pushed and he has rightly responded.The master asked, “Why not embody the unborn and grasp the timeless?”Why be worried about death and birth? Another push, another provocation, another temptation. “Why not embody the unborn? Why don’t you yourself think that there is no death: that the soul is immortal, that life never dies? Everybody else believes that, why don’t you believe that? Embody the unborn and grasp the timeless. Why be worried with time and flux and change? Grasp the eternal!”Yoka replied, “To be unborn and deathless is to embody it; to be timeless is to grasp it.”There is no other way. How can I grasp it? How can I embody the unborn and the deathless? It is not a question of belief; it is not a question of practice either. I cannot cultivate it because all that is cultivated will be false – false because it is cultivated, it will be imposed. How can I embody it and how can I grasp the timeless? There is only one way and that is to be. And I am not yet. I have not seen it yet. I have heard all these philosophies, I can believe in them – millions of people believe in them – but belief never leads to knowing. Only being is needed. And I am not yet, sir, I am not yet deathless. I don’t know. All that I know is death. All that I know is time. And what are you saying to me? Should I believe? How can I embody the deathless unless I know that I am that? “To be unborn and deathless is to embody it…” That is the only way. “To be timeless is to grasp it.”“That is so, that is so,” assented the master.The push has worked; the master could not provoke him into any nonsense. The temptation was given; the master could not succeed in tempting him. Otherwise the easy way, the way of least resistance, would have been that he would have fallen into the trap. But he remained out of it. Huineng said, “That is so, that is so.”At this Yoka acted according to the prescribed ceremonial and prostrated himself.Now, see the beauty of it. Now it is happening spontaneously, now it is not something formal; it is of the heart, it is of the being itself. The moment the master says, “That is so, that is so,” this affirmation from the master’s side, and great reverence arose in him. Not a traditional reverence, not anything of the head and the concept, “He is enlightened” – and he has heard, so he has to bow down. In this moment when the master spoke to him with his grace – he showered his affirmation on this new arrival – the heart moved, there was a contact.This is real meeting, the master has found his disciple and the disciple has found his master. Immediately, that which had been prescribed in the scriptures happened on its own – not according to the prescription, not because of the prescription, but because of some real encounter.At this Yoka acted according to the prescribed ceremonial, and prostrated himself. See the difference; the difference is great. You go to somebody, you have heard he is a great sage and you bow down. If it is only because you have heard that he is a great sage, then you are not bowing down really. In fact you are bowing down to the people who have said that he is a sage, not to him. You are a victim of the propaganda; you have been conditioned by the public opinion. You are bowing down to the public; your bowing down has nothing to do with this person, this real person. When you look into the eyes and you find the sage there… And it is not according to your ideas because you may have certain ideas how a sage should be. If according to your ideas a person is a sage and you bow down, you are bowing down to yourself; you are paying respect to your own self, you are patting your own back, you are saying to yourself, “How true I am! Look, this is what I have always thought a sage should be, and here is a sage who is proof that my thinking is right.” It is self-enhancing, ego-enhancing.But when you really look into the eyes of a sage, you feel his energy and make yourself available to his being, something moves in the heart and suddenly you find yourself bowing down, that is a totally different matter – not of this world, not earthly; it is divine. That is the meeting of a master and a disciple – that is true initiation.At this Yoka acted according to the prescribed ceremonial, and prostrated himself, then soon after bade farewell to the master. “Aren’t you in a bit of a hurry to be off?” said the master.Immediately, he bowed down, prostrated himself, and said, “Now, thank you for all that you have done to me. I must leave now.” The master said, “Aren’t you in a bit of a hurry to be off?”Yoka replied, “Motion has no real existence, so how can there be such a thing as hurry?”Another encounter, now it starts from the side of the disciple. The master is happy; he has assented, he has said, “That is so, that is so.” One part is fulfilled but the dialogue, to be total, has to have another part too. Now the disciple provokes the master, he says, “Motion has no real existence; it is all relative.” So says modern physics. Buddhism has always been saying so. Modern physics agrees on many points with Buddha’s intuition; in fact, modern physics is almost Buddhist. If ever there is going to be any meeting between science and religion, it will happen between Buddhism and science, through Buddhism and science. Christianity lags far behind – looks almost childish. So does Judaism, so does Islam. Hinduism comes a little closer, Jainism a little closer, but Buddhism is just parallel. Whatsoever modern science has discovered was discovered by Buddha twenty-five centuries ago. Of course, it has been expressed in a different language – it is not the language of mathematics, it is the language of poetry – but the message is the same: that poetry can be translated into mathematics.“Motion has no real existence, so how can there be such a thing as hurry?”The master said, “Who knows that motion is unreal?”If motion is unreal then the knower of it cannot be real. Who knows? Who is the witness of it? If the dream is unreal, the dreamer cannot be real. When the dream is found to be unreal, the dreamer is also found to be unreal. They appear together, they disappear together – they are aspects of the same coin. “If motion is unreal,” the master says, “then who knows? Who is this declaring motion to be unreal or relative?”Yoka said, “You yourself are discriminating in asking such a question.”You ask me why I am in such a hurry. You discriminated, you created time with your question. I am simply being polite in answering you. You are the cause of it.The master was immensely happy:…and exclaimed, “You have grasped birthlessness splendidly!”Because if one can know, if one can see that time is unreal, then birth and death have both disappeared – because they exist in time, they are events of time. If time itself is unreal, then birth and death disappear. This is liberation. And that’s what happens in deep meditation: you come to see that time is unreal.The moment mind stops, time stops. They stop together. Hence Buddhists say: Mind is time. They are synonymous, they are two names for the one phenomenon. It is the movement of the mind that creates the movement of time. It is the moving mind that creates the illusion of a moving time. Once the mind stops – is in utter silence, thoughts disappear and nothing is moving – all time disappears. Each time you penetrate into meditation, time stops, the clock stops, the world stops. Then you are neither in the past nor in the future nor even in the present: you simply are. There is no time: you cannot relate yourself with time. So the best definition of meditation is “a state of no-time” or “a state of no-mind.” The master said, “You have grasped birthlessness splendidly!”But Yoka remarked again, “Has the expression birthlessness any meaning whatever?”If there is no time, there is no birth. If there is no birth, what is the meaning of birthlessness? All meanings depend on their opposites. If somebody asks you what light is, you will have to bring darkness in to define it. If somebody asks you what health is, you will have to bring disease in to define it. All words have meaning in the context of their opposites. If birth does not exist, what is the meaning of birthlessness? Yoka attacks again. He could not provoke the master the first time; he wanted to drag the master into a debate.But you cannot drag a master into a debate; he is not there to fight, he is not there to argue. That’s why he assents happily, “You have grasped birthlessness splendidly!” This is no way to argue. Argument means that even if you are not right, even if you see that you are not right, you go on insisting that you are right and the other is wrong. Argument is an ego trip, an ego number. You cannot argue with a master because there is nobody. You can have a dialogue with a master but no argument. Whenever he will see that you have come close to truth, he will immediately affirm it, he will say, “This is so, that’s so. You are right.” It is not a question of who is right; the question is always of what is right.See the difference! When you are discussing with somebody it is never a question of truth. The question is, “Who is right, you or I?” You will come across so many instances like this in Buddhist scriptures, and sometimes you will have the feeling a great dialogue, a great discussion, a great argument, is going to set in. And if you are accustomed to reading Western books, the dialogues of Plato, where Socrates goes on and on arguing and arguing, you will expect something like that. But you will be frustrated because with a master the moment anything comes close to truth, he immediately affirms. Whether it comes from you or anybody else does not matter. Truth matters; from whom it comes is irrelevant. It is not an ego conflict.Yoka wanted to drag the master… He wanted to test the master, to examine whether he has really found a sage or it is just an illusion. The man has tremendous beauty, grace, has eyes of great depth, has great love energy around him, but one should be cautious – all these things may be just cultivated. If one practices long enough, things almost start looking as if they are real. So again he says, “Has the expression birthlessness any meaning whatever?” The master countered:“If it had no meaning, how could anybody discriminate?”We can discriminate only if there is meaning in words. If there is no meaning in words then there is no possibility of discrimination. Then you cannot say, “This is day,” and you cannot say, “This is night.” How will you discriminate if there is no meaning in words? If words are just meaningless then no discrimination is possible.Yoka said, “Discrimination also has no meaning.”He goes on insisting deeper and deeper: he wants to see whether the master becomes angry, whether the master says something which shows that all this sageness is just cultivated.The master was so happy, he laughed. He pulled Yoka close to him; he blessed him…And exclaimed, “Very good indeed!”This is a strange dialogue. What do you feel in this unique dialogue? What is its uniqueness? It is unique because here are two men of infinite power facing each other without any competition; two men of truth facing each other without any argument. This only happens when the power is real. Only real power is capable of accepting the truth of the other. When the power is not real you are always defending: you are afraid, you may be exposed. When the power is not real you move cautiously, you cannot say the other is right because then you are wrong. When the power is unreal it is always ego power. Real power is not yours; real power is of the whole, of the total. This only happens when the power is real. Real power means pure power, not over others.This distinction has to be understood. There are two kinds of power in the world: one is power over others, that is what political power is. Kings have it, and the politicians and the dictators, but it is impotent, deep down it is poor. They are hiding something, their impotence, in the clamor of power. They are just creating the power around themselves so that they need not face their impotence. Religious power, spiritual power, is not power over others; it is simply power, it is just pure power. It has no reference to the other; that is why it can be so humble, so innocent. Pure power is that which the sages have preeminently, and the politicians and the dictators are most lacking in. That’s why I say again and again that politics and religion are diametrically opposite. A politician cannot be religious; it is intrinsically impossible. A religious person cannot be a politician; that too is intrinsically impossible. They move into different kinds of power. One is power over others; the other is simply emptiness inside and the power is existence’s. It descends into you and because you are empty you become full of it. The power over others is destructive. Pure power is pure creativity.Before we enter the sutras there are a few things to be noted. Hubert Benoit calls Zen “the doctrine abrupt” as opposed to all others, which he names “progressive doctrines.” For the first, for Zen, he uses the singular, and for the others the plural because “the doctrine abrupt” can only be one. But there can be as many progressive doctrines as there are people: each one has to progress in his own way. So there can be millions of progressive doctrines – he is right in using the plural – and the abrupt doctrine can only be one. It can’t be different for different people because it is abrupt. It doesn’t depend on you, who you are, it depends only on one thing: that you disappear. And the disappearance is abrupt, sudden. This point has to be understood because it is very fundamental to Zen.Yoga is a progressive doctrine, Zen “the doctrine abrupt.” That is its fundamental vision of great beauty and grandeur. It simply means one thing: that buddhahood is not something to be attained. In Yoga the samadhi has to be attained: you have to improve upon yourself, you have to go on and on working on yourself. It is a great program of improvement, of achievement, of accomplishment. In Zen all that you have to find is that you are already a buddha, that there is no accomplishment, that there is no growth, that there is no attainment, that buddhahood is everybody’s inner nature. Everybody is a buddha; whether you know it or not makes no difference. A few buddhas are fast asleep and snoring, a few buddhas have become awakened, but all are buddhas.In Zen there is no method. Not that Zen masters don’t give methods to their disciples. They do give: they give methods only to prove to you, to your heart’s desire and contentment, that all methods are useless. They give methods so that you work on the method and slowly, slowly you see the futility of it. The moment you see the futility of one method you are finished with that one, and a higher method will be given to you, and so on and so forth. Higher and higher methods will be given, and ultimately, slowly, slowly you will eliminate all the methods because you will see the futility of all.One day you will come to the point where you see that there is nothing to be attained, nowhere to go. That moment in Zen is called “the great doubt.” That moment is known in the West through Christian mystics as “the dark night of the soul.” It really is a dark night of the soul, the great doubt. Nothing to be attained, nowhere to go, all future disappears; you are in a kind of shock. Then who are you? Then what are you doing here, then why this existence? All seems meaningless if there is no attainment, if there is no way to reach and nowhere to reach and nobody to reach. Then what is all this? A great doubt arises.This doubt precedes satori. This great doubt, this dark night of the soul, always precedes satori. Either you fall back because of the doubt – you start moving again into methods, you start clinging again to methods, paths and ways and scriptures and principles and philosophies and doctrines, you fall back. Just to avoid the doubt you start clinging again to something. But if you are really courageous… And this is real courage: you remain in doubt, and you don’t fall back, and you don’t cling to anything again. You leave yourself in this dark night of the soul, helpless, lost, utterly lost – seeing no meaning and seeing no future. If this courage is there, satori happens. Suddenly, out of this great doubt, and the pain and the agony of it, you become awakened.A parallel exists in nightmares. You must have seen it happening again and again: if the nightmare is too horrible, the dream is broken. You can go on dreaming sweet dreams the whole night; there is no problem. The dream is so sweet that it is like a lullaby; it keeps you drunk, intoxicated. But if the dream is horrible – you are being chased by a tiger, and the tiger is coming closer and closer and closer; and the fear… And your heart is beating fast and your breath is no longer rhythmic and you are perspiring and you are running and running and there seems to be no escape; and then suddenly you see that the path has ended in an abyss, there is no way to go and the tiger is coming closer and closer. You can almost feel his breath on your back and then his paw, and a fountain of blood rushes from your back – can you remain asleep? The nightmare is too much; it is bound to destroy your sleep. Abruptly, suddenly you are awake. It is like a sudden jump from one state of consciousness to another. A moment before you were asleep, now you are awake. There is no tiger, just your wife and her hand on your back, and her breath. All has disappeared.The great doubt is the point where one feels the greatest nightmare, where one’s whole life turns into a nightmare with open eyes, when you see that the whole of life has lost meaning, because life has meaning only if you have goals. When you are enchanted by goals life has meaning; when there are no goals, meaning disappears. Suddenly you see that you don’t have any ground underneath your feet; you are hanging in emptiness. You are falling like a dead leaf into some unknown, bottomless pit, it is totally dark, and there is not even a ray of light.This is the work of a Zen master: to push you into this great doubt. Once this happens, satori is bound to happen, unless you fall back again and start dreaming sweet dreams. To be with a real master is to be in a fire. To be with a real master is to face your death, is to face your annihilation. That’s why Zen is known as the sudden enlightenment, the doctrine abrupt.Hubert Benoit also says that satori has two meanings. One is the satori-state in which everybody is – the birds and the trees and the mountains and you and all the buddhas – past, present, future. The whole existence is in the state of satori. This is another way of saying that godliness is everywhere, in everything, that godliness is the soul of everything. Buddhahood is everybody’s nature. And the second is the satori-event. Every man is from all eternity in the state of satori. The satori-event is only that historic, anecdotal instance when man suddenly ceases not recognizing that he has always been in the satori-state.You are a buddha. When you recognize it or when you remember it, that is the satori-event. The satori-event is only a window into the satori-state, and this satori-event has apparent reality only in the eyes of the man who has not yet experienced it. One who has experienced it recognizes that he has always been in satori. That is why we cannot speak of progress, evolution, attainment, realization, etcetera, etcetera.Yoka’s master, Huineng, says, “There is no accomplishment. There is no realization.” And then it follows as a matter of course that the efforts toward realization are all useless.Then why do the Zen people make efforts? – just to see their futility. Slowly the futility is proved, and then one is left with only a constant question. In Zen it is called “the great doubt”; this precedes the satori-event. The realization of satori consists in realizing that the idea of realization is illusory, and the idea of the way to realization is illusory, because all is realization from the very beginning – it is already the case.This is the most fundamental vision of Zen. If you understand it, then Yoka Daishi’s shodoka, the “Song of Enlightenment,” can be easily understood.Now the song:Do you not see him,the really wise man, always at ease, unmoved?He does not get rid of illusion, nor does he seek for the (so-called) truth.Ignorance is intrinsically the buddha nature.Our illusory unreal body is the cosmic body.Statements of immense significance! Statements of great rebellion against all orthodox religions, statements that can shock you, statements which never relate with religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Islam. Buddhism is the highest vision possible.Do you not see him…The buddha is within you, do you not see him?…the really wise man, always at ease, unmoved?Have you never experienced something in yourself that remains always unmoved? If you look, you will find. You are in pain, but something remains above it. That is your buddha nature. You are in great misery; just look a little deep, just search a little deep, dig a little deep, and you will find something hidden there which is untouched by the misery. There is great turmoil in your mind – thoughts and thoughts, and the traffic goes on and on, it is a mad traffic – but can’t you see that there is a witness to it all, a watcher on the hills? That is your reality. That is the buddha hiding in you. And it is already there; just recognition is needed.Do you not see him,the really wise man, always at ease, unmoved?He does not get rid of illusion…There is no need to get rid of any illusion. Illusion is illusion. Knowing it as illusion is enough; there is no need to get rid of it. That’s why the Zen master goes on living in the world, in the market place. He is not an escapist; he is not afraid of the world. He is not like the vedantins who say, “The world is illusory so we have to renounce it.” Just see the ridiculousness of it. If the world is illusory, what is there to renounce? How can you renounce an illusion? And not only that, these people renounce the world, they go to the Himalayan caves and they sit there greatly satisfied that they have renounced. What have they renounced? If it is illusory, it cannot be renounced, and if it is not illusory then you are a fool to renounce it. Either way it cannot be renounced. If it is real, there is no way to renounce it – there is no need either. If it is unreal, how can you renounce it?Seeing that it is illusory is enough. Seeing it, the gestalt changes: suddenly you are no longer concerned with the illusion around you, you are centered in the witnessing consciousness.He does not get rid of illusion, nor does he seek for the (so-called) truth.He is not a seeker, because a seeker lives in the future. To live in the future is to live in desire, and to live in desire is to live in the world. This is Zen renunciation: not to live in the future because the future is not, not to live in desire. It does not matter whether you desire money or meditation, samsara or samadhi. What you desire makes no difference. Any object of desire will do – desire will persist. Desire is the problem. So the real man of Zen does not seek the so-called truth.See the point. Yoka is calling it: …the (so-called) truth. All truths are so-called because the real truth cannot be uttered. All truths are man-made.Just two or three days ago a sannyasin wrote a letter to me. Doing “Enlightenment Intensive” he came to see that just in his belly, close to the diaphragm, there is a hard plate of steel that is dividing him into two, and because of it he cannot be one and whole. There is only a small hole in it through which he connects with the lower part of his body. And he was very puzzled because underneath the hole he saw written Made in USA. Patent applied for. Then he became very worried: “What is this?” Whether you have a steel plate made in the USA or in India it is still man-made.Your misery is man-made. Your suffering is man-made. You have used your creativity to produce it. You have misused your creative forces. And once you have created something in your mind, it is real unless you withdraw your support. All that looks real to you is real because you are supporting its reality; you go on feeding and nourishing it. Withdraw your support. You need not go out of the marketplace; you can just withdraw, wherever you are. And the way to withdraw is: just be a witness to it, just see it silently, with no judgment.He does not get rid of illusion, nor does he seek for the (so-called) truth.Ignorance is intrinsically the buddha nature.So don’t be worried. Even if you are ignorant, don’t be worried; you are still a buddha – just not aware. You are a rich man, and you are asleep and you dream that you have become a beggar. But you have not become a beggar; you are still rich. Your treasure is still yours, your bank balance is yours, and in the morning when you get up, you will not need to get rid of the beggar and you will not need to seek the treasure. You will suddenly know that it was always there, even while you were thinking you were a beggar. This whole world is our created and sustained dream.Our illusory unreal body is the cosmic body.And don’t create any distinctions that, “this is unreal” and “that is real.” All is one.Getting rid of things and clinging to emptinessis an illness of the same kind…But beware, it happens that people try to get rid of things and then they cling to emptiness. That’s what the old sannyas is: getting rid of things and then clinging to emptiness. But if you cling to emptiness, you have reduced emptiness to the biggest thing that is possible in the world. Now that is your treasure, now that is your possession; now you have to be very, very cautious to protect it. Just a dog barking can destroy it. A child playing and shouting can destroy it.Look at the so-called religious. Small things disturb them – just the children playing by the side of the road and their meditation is disturbed. The wife talking a little loudly to the neighbor, and their prayer is disturbed. If you have one religious, so-called religious, person in your house, he will drive the whole family neurotic. This is not the way to be religious, this is a way to dominate people, to torture them; it is a way of becoming powerful over them in the name of religion: daddy is meditating, and the children cannot play, the wife cannot talk loudly, you cannot put the radio on, you cannot watch TV, daddy is meditating. And he may be simply meditating to have this control; otherwise, nobody listens to him, the wife never takes any care. And children are children; they don’t bother much about the old man. But when he meditates, then the whole house is silent. That is his politics. Make a slight noise, and he is disturbed, he is annoyed, he is angry, he is in a rage, and he will take revenge.The real man of religion just becomes calm and quiet – not because the situation is calm and quiet, but just because he is no longer attached to anything whatsoever. He is not attached to the world, he is not attached to godliness; he is simply not attached. He is not hankering for worldly things and he is not hankering for otherworldly things; he is not hankering at all. He is at ease.Do you not see him,the really wise man, always at ease, unmoved?Getting rid of things and clinging to emptinessis an illness of the same kind…There is no difference. There are people who are very virtuous, but their virtue is a kind of currency, the currency of the other world. They are hoping to live in heaven with all the pleasures and gratifications that they have denied themselves here. And they are feeling very good and very piously egoistic seeing others being sinners. They know deep down that these people will have to suffer in hell, and for eternity. They are hoping that this happens.Do you call these people religious? Then who will be unreligious? It is the same kind of disease. Always remember it, the mind is so cunning that it can change the disease to the opposite disease, but the innermost reality remains the same. You were depending on money; you can renounce the money and depend on renunciation. You were thinking money is going to make you happy, now you are thinking renunciation is going to make you happy. Nothing has changed; it is the same kind of disease.It is just like throwing oneself into a fireto avoid being drowned.Fire and water look to be opposite, so if you are being drowned, you can throw yourself into a fire thinking that the fire will save you. The opposite can never save you. Or you are on fire and you jump into the water – and get drowned – thinking that the water will save you. The opposite cannot save you because the opposite only appears to be the opposite; it is not. The fire and the water are in conspiracy. The world and the otherworld are in conspiracy.See the point and don’t jump into the opposite. Just remain in the middle, a watcher, a witness, and you are out of it all.When asked, “What is your religion?”I answer, “The power of the makahannya.”Sometimes affirming things, sometimes denying them.It is beyond the wisdom of man.Sometimes with common sense, sometimes against it,heaven cannot make head or tail of it.Yoka says, “When I am asked, ‘What is your religion?’ I say makahannya.” That is the Japanese word for mahapragya; it means “the great wisdom.” A beautiful answer; he does not say Christianity, he does not even say Buddhism – not even Zen – he simply says “The great wisdom, mahapragya.” What is this mahapragya? Witnessing. Watching. Becoming more and more aware of the reality that is you, coming to grips with your innermost core.Wisdom has not to be gathered from the outside. It is inside you; it is your innermost reality. The light is already burning there, but you are keeping it at the back. Turn about! A one hundred and eighty-degree turn is needed. And the sun that used to rise in the morning starts rising in the evening.I answer, “The power of mahapragya – great wisdom.” And what is the great wisdom? …heaven cannot make head or tail of it, because it is spontaneous. The ordinary wise man has ready-made answers; he is a robot, he is a computer. You ask the question and the answer is already there, you push the button and the answer comes out – it is mechanical. It is not so with great wisdom. If you ask a Christian a certain question, immediately the answer comes. He is quoting the Bible; it is not his answer. It may have been Jesus’ answer, but who knows? Jesus may not have been rightly reported. Down the centuries his message may have been corrupted – the most likelihood is that it has been corrupted.Thousands and thousands of interpretations… And the way that he expressed it is bound to be totally different than the way we understand it, because twenty centuries have passed. Words don’t carry the same meaning any longer; a lot, a great deal, has changed. So much water has gone down the Ganges. So when a Christian answers, he is simply quoting, whatsoever he is saying is within inverted commas. Hence it is false. Anything that is within inverted commas is false; it is not yours, it is not authentic. And you can go on asking the question again and again; the answer will remain the same. That is the way to judge it, the criterion by which one should judge it. If the answer remains the same in different situations then the answer is mechanical. You ask in the morning, and the answer is one thing. You ask in the afternoon, and the answer is the same. And you ask in the evening, and the answer is the same – because the answer is ready-made. It is just a gramophone record: you push the button, it plays. It is a tape.But great wisdom is totally different; and the most distinguishing thing about it is its spontaneity. In the morning it is one thing, in the afternoon, another, and by the evening nobody knows – even heaven cannot make head or tail of it. Why? – because it is so spontaneous, so utterly of the moment. It is a response.Sometimes affirming things…You ask the Buddha, “Is there godliness?” and sometimes he says, “Yes. What else? Only godliness is.” And you ask the Buddha another day, “Is there godliness?” and he says, “No. Never heard of it. What nonsense are you talking about? Godliness?” And the third time you ask him, “Is there godliness?” and he closes his eyes and sits, silent, answering not at all. Or the fourth time you ask him about godliness, and he says something about something else. Not talking about godliness at all, he talks about something else. He responds to the question – in fact, more to the questioner than to the question. He responds to the totality: the context of the question and the questioner, the mood, the climate. It is not a ready-made phenomenon.Sometimes affirming things… So this is the criterion for judging the great wisdom: it is never mechanical, it is never repetitive.Sometimes affirming things, sometimes denying them.It is always inconsistent. It is only consistent in its inconsistencies, because life is so. It has no fixed ideas to propound. It is like a mirror: a monkey comes before the mirror, and the monkey is reflected; a donkey comes before the mirror, and the donkey is reflected. You come before the mirror in anger, and anger is reflected. You come before the mirror in great love and joy, and love and joy are reflected. The mirror has no idea how things should be; the mirror allows freedom. So whatever is, the mirror reflects.Sometimes affirming things, sometimes denying them,it is beyond the wisdom of man.The great wisdom is beyond your so-called wisdom – the wisdom of man. The wisdom of man is very consistent, it is never self-contradictory; it keeps to a particular line, it is linear, it is one-dimensional. Hence it is false because life is multi-dimensional. Life is many things together; life is all things together. Life is paradoxical. The great wisdom is paradoxical.Remember it! Whenever you come across a person who is very consistent, know well that he is a philosopher but not a wise man. He has a philosophy, a system, in which he has become obsessed, fixed, rooted. A wise man is a flux, river-like; a philosopher is frozen like ice. That’s why philosophy is cold; religion is warm. It has the warmth of love because it flows – it goes on flowing. It is a movement; it is alive.…it is beyond the wisdom of man.Sometimes with common sense, sometimes against it…The great wisdom sometimes agrees with common sense and sometimes is absolutely against it. There is no way of deciding how the really wise man will respond, there is no way of predicting; he remains unpredictable. This should be the criterion for finding a master: if you can find a man who lives in paradox and yet in poise, who lives in paradox yet utterly calm…Do you not see him, the really wise man, always at ease, unmoved? …who lives, but with no ideas how to live – who simply lives. Who innocently lives, and who is like a mirror reflecting all that passes by; who does not project anything but only reflects; who does not act on life but is only receptive.A really wise man is feminine, receptive, passive. That’s why Buddha looks so feminine: that quality of passiveness, that quality of receptivity. He is just a receptacle. He reflects life, he allows life to reflect in him, to be reflected through him. He sings the song that existence wants to sing through him. He has no ideas of his own, he does not hinder.This song is also a song of mahapragya. This is one of the most beautiful songs ever sung – because there is no singer in it, because the song has sung itself.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,A pebble falling into water ripples the far shore.A spark fanned by the breeze starts a forest fire.A master's presence spreads awarenessto the far corners of the earth.Osho, what is your work?It is not work at all. The very idea of work is irrelevant to me. It is not work because there is no will behind it. I am not here to impose anything upon anybody. I am not here to convert you to any ideology or to a certain way of life. I am not teaching a philosophy of life, I am not teaching anything at all. I am not a teacher. I am simply sharing whatsoever has happened to me.Never think in terms of work. It is not work for the flower to bloom, it is sheer joy; it is play. Think in terms of play. Work is serious, heavy; play is nonserious. This whole existence can be seen through these two words, work or play.The Western concept of God is that of a doer, hence they call him “the creator.” In the East the concept of God is not of a doer but of a player. We call his existence not his creation but his leela, his play: the way somebody sings a song without any motivation behind it, for the sheer joy of it, with no result in view; no past behind it, no future ahead of it.These birds singing – it is not work; they are just shouting that they are alive. They are simply saying, “We are here,” to the sun and to the sky and to the clouds; they are chanting. It is an outpouring. Godliness is out-pouring into existence. Because the Western concept of God is that of a doer, the whole of religion became very serious. Eastern religion is more celebrating; it is fun.I am here to share my joy with you. It is just like birds singing in the morning, or stars shining in the night, or flowers blooming in spring – it is just like that; no work is involved. You need not even feel grateful to me because I am not doing anything for you. I am just here, you are there, something is happening. Nobody is doing, it is just a pure happening.Millions of things are happening all around; if you look at them as a happening, a great joy will arise in you. You will start dancing with existence, and all fear will disappear. If you think of it as work, fear is bound to remain; you will be afraid you may miss. If it is work then you have to be hard at it, then you have to do it whatsoever the cost. Then methods, techniques, necessarily become implied in it, and you are on a mind trip again. The ego wants it to be a great work, because the ego can survive only if it is work; in play the ego simply evaporates.Hence my insistence again and again: never use the word work in relation to me, let it be pure play. I am enjoying myself; you also please enjoy yourself being here. And if it becomes possible for you to also enjoy, there will be a great communion. These two joys will meet, and out of that joy is great creativity. Out of that joy a new world, a new vision, is born. But that is not the goal; it is just a by-product. You have not to even think about it, it happens on its own. Remember the word by-product. It is not a consequence but a by-product – just by the side. It happens, it certainly happens; in fact, it never happens any other way. Whenever energies meet in joy there is transformation.This is a buddhafield or the field of joy, satchitanand. Pour your energy in joy, but forget about gaining anything out of it. Drop the profit motive and you will gain much. The more you forget about gaining, the more is the gain; the more you think about the gain, the less. If you become too obsessed with gaining, you will remain empty and you will remain in misery. Hell is greed. Heaven is non-greed. Hell is motivated work. Heaven is sheer joy – play. Sing with me, dance with me, be silent with me. Enjoy this moment – no past, no future, just this moment, and there is great benediction.Work, or action, is part of willing, it is part of will. Will is struggle: you are in conflict with existence. You want to do something, naturally you are tense; naturally you are afraid whether you are going to make it or not. And out of a hundred, ninety-nine chances are that you are not going to make it, because whenever you are in a state of will you fall apart from the whole. Then you are nourishing a private goal, then you are not part of the cosmos – you are trying to do something on your own. In that struggle, in that conflict, you are going to be a loser. You can’t win against the whole.It is as if a small wave is trying to have its own way against the whole ocean. The wave has gone completely neurotic. It exists with the ocean, in the ocean, as the ocean; it is not separate, there is no division, it can’t have its own will. If all the waves are going toward the east, it cannot go toward the west. Howsoever big and tidal the wave is, it cannot move against the whole. It is not separate, so how can it move against the whole? It is part of a great dance, an organic part. If the whole is going to the east, it is going to the east; if the whole is going to the west, it is going to the west.To have a will creates work in life, and then you are frustrated again and again. You will succeed only once in a while, and that too will not be your success. Only once in a while, it will be just coincidental that you also will to go to the east when the whole is going to the east. If it is coincidence that you meet the whole, you go to the east and you succeed. But it is always the whole that succeeds, never the part. And that’s where every man is caught: every man wants to succeed as himself. The success has to be the imprint of his ego; it has to have his signature. He is more interested in his signature than in the success itself.Play is a state of no-will. Play is not doing but being. Work is calculative thinking, cunning, clever, logical; you are trying to grab something out of existence, you are trying to cheat. And remember, in the very effort of that cheating, you will be cheated. You are committing suicide. Play is innocent; it is non-calculative. It is not worried about the future, about the outcome; it is not interested at all. Its whole interest impinges upon this moment; it is herenow.What is happening here is happening. I am not doing it. Remind yourself of that again and again. It will help you to understand me – not only to understand me, but to relate with me, to commune with me. That will help to bring you closer and closer to me, it will make you open to me. You may be here for a certain work that you have decided to do upon yourself, but that is part of your ego. I am not doing anything here; I am just being here.Share the energy, share the silence, share this satori, this samadhi, this enlightenment. It is overflowing, not for any reason at all, just for the simple reason that the whole of existence is an overflowing existence. Everything here is too much. Existence is not poor; existence is not miserly. Where one flower is needed, millions of flowers bloom. Where one star will do, millions of stars exist. This existence is so rich that it overflows. And whenever you become part of this existence, when you disappear, you also start overflowing.That’s what I said yesterday to you about Yoka, that R. H. Blyth is wrong if he says that Yoka has nothing much to say and still goes on speaking. He misunderstood the whole thing. The basic weakness of the Western approach toward life… And it is not that he is against Yoka, he loves him; he has translated Yoka’s words with great care, with great love, but still the argument is there. And it is not a question of more or less. Why does Yoka go on speaking when he has nothing more to say? It is not even a question of more or less. Yoka has nothing to say, but what can he do? Existence goes on overflowing, existence goes on singing a song – he cannot prevent it. Only this objection can be raised against him: why is he not preventing it? But how can he prevent it, because he is no more, he has become dissolved in the whole.That’s what enlightenment is: dissolution, disappearing into the whole, dropping your private will and becoming part of the cosmic will. That’s what has happened to me. Now, it is possible for you too to join hands with me. I am a witness to it as every buddha has always been, just a witness. Being with me you may be reminded of your potential, that’s all. Falling in love with me, you will start seeing how you have been undoing your life. You were thinking you were doing great things, and in that very doing you have been undoing everything. Being with me, this insight, this breakthrough, this satori one day – of how you have been unnecessarily disturbing… In that very understanding you no longer disturb, all is beautiful from the very beginning. You simply stop creating troubles for yourself. And when you stop creating troubles for yourself, the joy flows.The joy has not to be created; it is already the case. You just have to be in a silent, meditative mood so that you can see that which is there. To be with me is to taste a little bit, according to your capacity, the taste of meditation. But it is not work at all.The second question:Osho,At times I feel like I can just silently sit and wait for eternity, and other times like sobbing with the futility of sitting outside a gate I cannot even see – frozen between action and inaction. Does one miss by demanding? Is impatience a lack of trust?One misses only by demanding. Demanding means that will is still there: you would like to have things your own way, you are still deciding how things should be. Then naturally, if things are not like that, impatience arises, and if the demands are not fulfilled, frustration, anger, rage… And if it goes on and on, sooner or later you lose interest. You start thinking, “This is impossible. All this talk about enlightenment, nirvana, is impossible.” You start finding ways of escaping from it, of getting back into the world, into the meaningless trivia, the mundane, the mediocre, of getting occupied – at least when one is occupied, one has no time to think that things are futile. Sitting and waiting, again and again the idea arises, “What are you doing here?” The door has not opened yet – not only that, you don’t know whether or not the door exists. The door is there just in front of you, but because of the demanding mode of your mind you cannot see it. The demanding mode of the mind keeps you blind. The door opens only for those who are in a non-demanding mode. Demand means imposing your will on existence.Existence is not willing for that. And it is good that it is not willing for it, otherwise just as you are neurotic, the whole would go neurotic. So many wills imposing themselves upon existence, and if existence were to yield to each and everybody’s desire, just think what would happen: the whole would start falling into parts. There would be so many contradictory demands on it that those demands would drive it mad. If existence is still sane, the only reason is that nobody’s demands are ever fulfilled; nobody’s demand is ever even heard.Prayers reach only when they are nondemanding. If there is even a hidden demand somewhere, that very demand makes the prayer so heavy that it cannot leave the earth. When there is no demand it is weightless, then it can rise; then the gravitation has no effect on it, then it can go to the highest and to the deepest core of existence.Only that prayer is heard which is nothing but jubilation, alleluia, for no particular reason. Only the prayer is heard which is nothing but thanks.And remember, a mind which is entangled in thinking never comes to the point where thanking can happen. Thinking becomes a bar, a hindrance to thanking. Either you can be thinking or you can be thanking; you cannot be both together. Thanking arises out of non-thinking, and a demanding mind cannot afford to be non-thinking. It has to think, it has to work it out, it has a demand that has to be fulfilled – it is after it, it is chasing it, it is putting everything at stake. Existence is absolutely deaf to the prayers which demand, but existence is absolutely open to the prayerfulness which has no demand.You ask, “At times I feel like I can just silently sit and wait for eternity, and other times like sobbing with the futility of sitting outside a gate I cannot even see – frozen between action and inaction.” Those are the great moments, when you are frozen between action and inaction. Remain frozen. Don’t do anything; just remain in that moment. You are on the verge of a new birth.If you can wait, a new life will arise – what Taoists call wei wu wei, action without action. And that happens only when you are frozen between action and inaction. If you choose, you miss that birth. If you can, remain frozen, don’t choose – “So what?” – remain in that moment. It is arduous for the mind because the mind starts feeling suffocated, the mind says, “Do something. Something has to be done. Anything will do, but do something. Don’t remain frozen here, you will die.” You are not dying, the mind is dying, the ego is dying. The ego says, “Do something – at least meditate, chant the name of God, pray. Do something.” And if you do something, you have moved into action again.They are rare moments when there is no action and no inaction, and you are frozen. Not that you are lethargic, so there is no inaction – you have energy, but the energy is not going anywhere because there is no goal left. The energy is simply there like a reservoir rising higher and higher, becoming greater and greater. You are ready to explode into something, into something absolutely new, of which you cannot even dream. You are on the verge of a new mode of life: action in inaction. Then a new activity starts in which you are not the actor, in which you are only a vehicle, a passage.But I know those moments are hard; I have passed through those moments just as you are passing. Only one thing can I say to help you: that they pass. But great patience is a must. Don’t be impatient. The impatience comes from the mind. The mind starts saying, “Do something! Become occupied with something” – because mind cannot exist without occupation, mind is occupation. When there is no occupation there is no mind. Suddenly you are silent; suddenly you arrive at the primal awareness.That’s what Buddhists call buddha nature. There is nothing to do, nothing to think. You are, but your being is just a pure mirroring, watching, waiting. And not waiting for something in particular because you don’t know where the gate is, you don’t know what is going to happen. So it is not a question of waiting for something; if you wait for something, you wait for “Godot.”Waiting has to be pure. Enjoy waiting for itself, for its own sake. Don’t you see the beauty of just waiting – the purity of it, the benediction of it, the innocence of it – just waiting, not even capable of saying for what? See the point of it: pure waiting, not knowing what is going to happen. If you know what is going to happen that will be supplied by your past, it will be in continuity with the past; it will not be new. Maybe modified, but it will again be the same thing; it will be a repetition. How can you know what is going to happen? You did not know it before, so how can you even imagine it?Finding that there is no way to imagine the future, no way to imagine the unknown, the known ceases, all ideas in the mind disappear – ideas about truth, ideas about samadhi, enlightenment. All disappear. In that disappearance is enlightenment.Never think for a single moment that your idea of enlightenment is going to be fulfilled. How can you have any idea of enlightenment? And whatsoever idea you have is going to be wrong.When enlightenment happens you will be surprised. You had read all the scriptures and it wasn’t mentioned anywhere, it can’t be mentioned. You will be surprised. You have been hearing me year in, year out, and I have never mentioned it. I am trying, but it can’t be done in the very nature of the case. I am trying to do it in a thousand and one ways, but they are only indications. But when you arrive at the reality of it, when it explodes in you, then you will know that no buddha has ever been able to say it. And then you will know that nobody is ever going to say it. It has remained unuttered.And it is good that it has remained unuttered, otherwise it would never be a new phenomenon to anybody. Millions of buddhas have happened and they have talked about it and talked about it – you already know about it – and then it happens. It may be just something known, then it will not be a breakthrough, it will not be a discontinuity, it can’t be utterly new and radical. But it is utterly new and utterly radical.So waiting has to be with no idea for what. A real waiter cannot answer the question for what he is waiting. He can only shrug his shoulders, and say, “I don’t know.” But one thing is certain: waiting is infinitely beautiful; waiting is infinitely joyous. When all the turmoil disappears and it is all silence, it has a beauty of its own.You ask me, “Does one miss by demanding?” Certainly, absolutely, demand has to be dropped. “Is impatience a lack of trust?” Yes, certainly, absolutely. Impatience simply means you can’t trust existence; you have to do something. You can’t just sit there and trust that it will happen when you are ripe, that when spring comes, the grass will grow of its own accord. You cannot trust, you have to pull the grass from the earth. You cannot wait like a farmer who has thrown his seeds into the soil and they have disappeared, and he does not know any longer where they are, whether they are going to grow into plants, whether they are ever going to ripen.Think of a farmer: he has lost the seeds that he had. He waits, he silently waits, he trusts, he trusts nature. “Soon the clouds will be coming, soon there will be great greenery all around and the seeds will start sprouting. They will become alive, they will come out of their slumber. They would again like to see the sun and the rain – it is going to happen.” He trusts; it is just trust.A meditator is a farmer. And, of course, he has to trust the ultimate nature of existence. Wait. Waiting is like a seed. Waiting is the seed, the seed of enlightenment. If you can wait for its time – and you cannot decide the time, for its season – and you don’t know in what season, because it differs, it differs from individual to individual…Mahavira became enlightened on an absolutely dark night when there was no moon; Buddha became enlightened on a full-moon night. Once a Jaina came to me and he asked, “Why this difference? Is there something in it? Why did Mahavira become enlightened on a dark night with no moon? Why did Buddha become enlightened on a full-moon night?”They are polar opposites; it is not just accidental. Buddha and Mahavira are polar opposites – contemporaries, but polar opposites. Mahavira is a man who struggles, who goes as deeply as possible into will, by will. He surrenders only at the last moment. His whole journey is a struggle; hence he is called Mahavira. The word means “the great warrior.” He is a warrior: his path is that of sankalpa, that of struggle, will, war. He goes on refining his will, he goes on and on sophisticating his will, making it more subtle, more purified. He has to surrender it – finally one has to surrender it – but he surrenders it only at the last moment when he has done all that he can do. Buddha is a totally different person: the man who arrives through let-go, the man who arrives through relaxing, the man who arrives not by fighting but by yielding.They are totally different people; they will have different seasons of ripening, different seasons of blooming, different times. And nobody can say beforehand; it is unpredictable when your season will come, when it will be spring for you. One has to wait and one has to trust. Impatience is lack of trust.You have a subtle ego lurking somewhere in your unconscious. You have to become aware of it. That ego creates the problem, it surfaces again and again, and you start demanding and you become impatient. And that is not your true nature. If it were your true nature I would have told you to become a warrior. Your real nature, your intrinsic quality, is not that of a warrior but of a lover.But people are like that: divided, split. A part of your mind wants to fight, but the major part wants to relax. That’s why it happens. “At times,” you say, “I feel like I can just silently sit and wait for eternity.” That is your true nature. Listen to it, get more and more into it. That is your real space; that is where your kingdom is. You have to explore this region more and more, you have to go into it. And when you start going into it and you start enjoying it and you start feeling that you can wait for eternity, the other part becomes worried. It is an intruder, a foreigner in your being – it is not your true being which starts intruding, interfering – it comes and creates problems for you.“…and other times like sobbing with the futility of sitting outside a gate I cannot even see – frozen between action and inaction.” Avoid the other part. When I am saying avoid it, I am not saying repress it. If you repress it, it will become more and more powerful. By avoiding it I mean neglect it, ignore it, don’t nourish it anymore, don’t care about it. If it comes take note of it, but don’t get involved in it. Keep yourself aloof. Just know that it is an intruder.I have looked deeply into your eyes, deeply into your being. This is my reading of you: that you will come through love not through demanding, that you will come through relaxation not through willing, that you will come through waiting not through fighting. So you have to nourish that which is really your nature and you have to stop nourishing that which is not your real nature.And how to decide what is your real nature? Whenever you are moving into your real nature you will feel happy, you will feel blissful. That is the criterion; always remember it. So whatsoever gives you joy, serenity, calmness, coolness; whatsoever makes you more centered, is your true nature. It has to be nourished more and more. More care has to be taken over it; you have to pour your energies into it. Whenever you feel sad, depressed, angry, restless, that is not your real nature. You have to slowly, slowly disassociate yourself from it. Keep yourself aloof – just as when an uninvited guest comes to your home. It is an uninvited guest, and if you go on feeding both, you will get more and more into a kind of split; that’s how people become schizophrenic.Learn waiting, pure waiting.Martin Heidegger has said that pure waiting is openness, just openness – not in a particular direction, not toward a particular object, not for something special – just opening; opening to all sides, to the whole of existence, a multi-dimensional opening. No object is consciously sought; you do not desire anything. You are just waiting, open, for the unknown to happen, for the indefinable to happen. That’s godliness, the indefinable, the unknown and the unknowable. And the secret key to invite it is just to be in an open state, waiting with a throbbing heart, certainly waiting with great love, but not knowing for what, waiting with great poetry in your being, waiting with a song – but not knowing for whom, for what. This is sannyas, my sannyas. This is the space I would like all of you to enter.Openness is the absence of single-perspective perceiving and thinking. Thinking is always one-dimensional, it moves in one direction. It is concentration. Waiting is meditation, not concentration. And if you have read in books and heard the so-called religious people saying again and again that meditation is concentration, you have to de-condition yourself about it. That is utter nonsense. Concentration is thinking; it is moving systematically into a certain thought, in a certain direction. It is directed; it is addressed. Concentration can only lead you toward the known: in a more systematic way of course, in a more scientific way of course, but only to the known. It is from the known to the known, it is never a revolution; it is never a quantum leap. It is from one conclusion to another conclusion, it is a refinement of the same thing, it is continuity.Meditation is non-dimensional or multi-dimensional. It is overflowing in all directions. It is not directed toward any object; hence there is no demand, no desire. And how can there be thinking? Being is there, certainly, presence is there; you are there, very much there, but just like a sky without clouds, a mirror without dust – pulsating, alive, vital, open, waiting for the unknown. You can have no idea of it. That’s why I say if you are a Christian you will miss, because then you have an idea of God. If you are a Hindu you will miss, then you have already concluded how God is. If you are a theist or an atheist you will miss, because you have already decided without experiencing.Just wait without getting into any doctrine, any sect, any scripture. Just wait without thought and let it happen. Obviously great trust will be needed, and that is the function of being with a master: to imbibe trust. What are you doing here sitting with me? Imbibing trust, learning how to be open. Sometimes you may be surprised why I go on talking every day. This is just a device to help you become more receptive. When you are listening to me you become more receptive. Listening has to be a kind of receptivity. Listening, you become open, you become all ears.Have you seen one thing: eyes are male, ears are female – that’s why eyes can offend. Have you ever heard of anybody’s ears offending you? They cannot offend. Eyes can rape: they are male, aggressive, violent. A man can look at you in such a way that he has violated you, that he has transgressed. Eyes can be used like swords: they are not just receptive; they are projective, they project. Ears can’t project, they simply receive; they are just open.Talking to you every day is a message. The message is not in the content of my talk, the message is in the situation that it creates. The message is: become ears, become feminine, become open. Ears are just open and you cannot even close them, nature has not provided for it. Eyes can be open or closed. Even while you are asleep the ears remain open – there is no other way, nature has not provided for it. They are pure opening.You may have heard again and again in the Jewish scriptures, Christian scriptures, Mohammedan scriptures, in the Vedas, that God has “been heard.” Mohammed heard the Koran; he couldn’t see from where it was happening, who was saying it. And the prophets in ancient Israel had been hearing – they could not see, but they could hear. If you ask the psychoanalyst, he will say that these people are just neurotic, crazy; they have gone mad. But it is a symbol, and the followers have missed the meaning of it and the antagonists are missing the meaning of it. The message is only this: that godliness has entered you through the feminine part of you, the ear.The question is valid; if nothing can be said about truth, then why talk? Nothing can be said about truth – that is true, still buddhas have been talking so then there must be something else in it. That something else is this: just sitting by my side for one and a half hours, slowly, slowly a radical change happens in you. And you can see the shift. If you become a little more aware you will see the shift of your consciousness from the eyes toward the ears: from men you become women. Suddenly, the moment you start listening to me, you are no longer male. And only those who shift like that listen.For one and a half hours remaining continuously with me in a listening mode – open, receptive, non-interfering, non-projective – a great transfer is happening. It is just a device. You become open, and my energy starts flowing in you. Imbibe it! Digest it! The taste of it is trust, and more and more trust will arise. This kind of waiting is healing, stilling, strengthening.Martin Heidegger comes very close to the Zen approach. Once he was asked, “Then what in the world am I to do?” Somebody had asked him… He was talking about waiting and waiting and waiting, and naturally the question arose, “Then what am I to do?” Heidegger said, “We are to do nothing but wait.” But that is the greatest thing one can do. Waiting is the greatest art – no craft is higher than that. It needs great courage, trust, great awareness, great love. It needs many things; only then can one wait.Look into me, feel me, and learn how to wait. And one day, when the waiting has come to its optimum, it happens. That’s how it has always happened.The third question:Osho,I don't understand why it is so difficult to stay awake during your talks It is like being drugged. Yet it seems to make no difference whether I am awake or asleep as, afterward, in either case, I cannot remember what it is you have said. Yet I feel deeply affected inside. Can you explain please?Kalika, this is the way to listen to me. You have found the key. It is not a question of listening to what I am saying, that is really irrelevant; there is no need to remember it either. In fact, to remember it will be dangerous; it will become knowledge, it will be your memory, it will enhance your ego. It is perfectly right, in fact it should be always so; you need not remember it, let it slip out of the memory. Listen to it as totally as possible, but don’t try to remember it at all. You are not preparing for any examination, you are preparing for an explosion. The explosion is not going to happen in your memory; it is going to happen in your heart. And the heart knows, it has its own ways of knowing.So even if you fall asleep, the heart goes on imbibing. That’s why you say, “Yet I feel deeply affected inside.” Yes, that’s how it is. The whole thing is that you are open to me. If, in that opening you start falling asleep, there is nothing to be worried about. Only the mind is falling asleep. Because the mind is not being used, it says, “So what is the point? Let me sleep.” The mind knows only two things: either think or sleep – when you don’t have anything to think about, you start thinking of going to sleep. When you have slept enough, you start thinking again. The mind goes on moving in this wheel: thinking, sleeping, thinking, sleeping.Something else is happening here, and you are not accustomed to a third point: that you can be in a state where there is no sleep and no thought either. This is something new, the mind is not at all accustomed to it. When you start listening to me, the mind says, “I am not needed, so let me go to sleep. Why waste time?” The mind falls asleep. Don’t be worried, because the sleep of the mind can be the awakening of the heart, and the awakening of the mind can be the sleep of the heart.How to judge whether it was just sleep or the awakening of the heart? The judgment is simple because you say, “Yet I feel deeply affected inside,” so the heart is awake. And I don’t want to relate to your mind at all, I want to relate to your heart. So sometimes if you feel like falling asleep, fall asleep. But remember, if later on you feel deeply affected it is okay – otherwise it is just sleep. Then it is better to keep awake.But with Kalika it is happening. So for you I allow it. Don’t struggle, because you must be struggling. Naturally one thinks, “What is the point of sitting here and falling asleep?” One even starts feeling guilty, “I am asleep – I must be missing. And is this the place to sleep?” And if you struggle you will miss more because you will get involved in the struggle with the mind. The mind wants to go to sleep, and you want to keep it awake. There are a few people – I go on seeing them – they fall asleep and they jerk themselves and they yawn and they stretch, and somehow they bring themselves back because it doesn’t look right. That way you can keep yourself awake somehow, but you will be missing me because your whole energy will be involved in that.I allow a few people to sleep. The criterion is: if later on you feel deeply affected, that means the heart was still drinking. And it was good that the mind fell asleep, the disturbance was not there, then the mind was not creating any kind of hindrance, the passage was absolutely open.These are not just talks. Those who miss these discourses are not only missing the discourses, they are missing me. There are a few people who, when they have listened to me a lot, start thinking, “Now we know what Osho is going to say.” They stop coming, they think, “We know already. And there are tapes and there are books, so what is the point?” Even in this place there are a few stupid people who don’t come to the talks – I am aware of them, I have to be aware of them because I love them – and then, slowly, slowly they start feeling disconnected from me. Veena is one. Nearabout a year ago she asked me – and whenever you ask me such things, you ask at your own risk – she asked me, “Now that I have listened to you for so many years and I think I know what you are going to say, can I stop coming to the talks?” I said, “Perfectly right.” Now again and again she writes that she is feeling disconnected from me, disconnected from this place too.This is not only a discourse, this is your spiritual breakfast, this is your nourishment. It will keep you ticking for twenty-four hours. It keeps you connected to me, it keeps you related to me. You come every day and participate in my being; you are nourished, strengthened. This is a subtle phenomenon. On the surface I am talking and you are listening; deep underneath something else, of far greater importance and significance, is happening. I am making love to you, you are making love to me. That’s exactly what is happening: it is a kind of orgasm.So remember, if such great ideas come to your mind that now you know… And in fact, I have not many things to say, I have the same to say again and again. In fact, to listen to me every day you have to be utterly mad. If you have any sense you will stop. What is the point? You have listened; you know it already.But it is not only a listening – it has never been. Whenever a buddha walks on the earth, to be with him has two different planes. One is the superficial: you are with him, you are sitting with him; you are talking with him, listening to him, serving him. The other is the real level where two centers meet. But those centers can meet only if the surface meeting is allowed; otherwise it becomes very difficult. The surface meeting is not enough, but the surface provides a way, an approach, for the centers to meet.So, Kalika, it is perfectly okay, you can fall asleep. Just remember one thing: if after the discourse you feel strengthened, affected, thrilled, joyous, it has been good; you participated with me. And this should be the criterion for everybody. Only if later on you are not affected – it has been just a sleep and you dreamed and slept, and later on you are feeling miserable because you missed the discourse and you start feeling guilty, and there has been no benediction in it – then you have to learn how to keep awake. And when I say you have to learn how to keep awake, I don’t mean yawn and stretch, I mean that there must be something wrong in your sleep. You have to learn better ways of sleeping. Maybe you are not taking enough sleep in the night, maybe you are not sleeping long enough, maybe you are dreaming too much; maybe you are not dreaming enough. Something is wrong with your sleep. Then you can come to me. Something can be done about your sleep: it can be transformed, it can be made deeper, it can be made more healthful, and then in the morning discourse you will not feel sleepy.But this is not what I am saying to Kalika. She is enjoying perfectly well, so she can go on enjoying. In fact, if Kalika keeps awake she may not be benefited so much; her mind will create disturbances. The mind is like children: if guests have come in the house and you tell the children to keep quiet, that will be the day they will be noisiest and most mischievous; they will attract attention in every way. And that’s what happens when you come to listen to me: you want the mind to be silent, you say to the mind, “Be quiet. Then for twenty-three hours, the whole day, you can go on thinking whatsoever you want. But for one hour, please be quiet.” And the mind is very childish; if you say so then the mind will take revenge – it will create more trouble than ever, it will be mischievous. It is better to let it go to sleep.You just have to see later on if some grace has arisen in you; if you are feeling gratitude, then it has been perfectly good. You became connected to me, the flow happened.The last question:Osho,It is so. I know. But I don't know.You are coming very close. That knowing is a kind of not-knowing, that knowing is a kind of ignorance. Socrates is reported to have said, “When I was young I knew that I knew. As I became more mature I started feeling that I don’t know much – very little. As I became more and more mature and alert I came to know that I knew nothing.” The day he declared, “I know only one thing: that I know nothing,” the oracle in the temple of Delphi declared him the greatest wise man.People were puzzled because he said, “I know only one thing: that I know nothing” and the oracle in Delphi said that he is now the wisest man in the world. They went to Socrates and they told him about what the oracle had said. Socrates said, “I can’t comment on it. All that I can say is again this, that I know only one thing: that I know nothing. Now it is not my business what the oracle has said – you go and ask the oracle.” And they went back to the temple and they asked, and the oracle said, “That’s why he has been declared to be the wisest man in the world, because now he knows that he knows nothing.”To know that you don’t know is a great realization. It happened in Ramakrishna’s life…He was a simple man, very simple, extraordinarily ordinary, immensely beautiful in his simplicity. He was not like your so-called mahatmas – Mahatma Gandhi, etcetera, etcetera – he was really a sage. His fragrance spread all over Bengal. People began coming to see this mad priest of Dakshineshwar and they saw something immensely beautiful happening there. Priests and scholars and pundits gathered; there was a great congregation. They had gathered to declare him a new incarnation of the divine. All the great thinkers, scholars, and traditional priests of Bengal had gathered, and they all agreed unanimously that he was the incarnation of the divine.When they declared this, he was just sitting in between them, laughing and chewing pan. He was really a very simple man. And when they said, “We have decided to declare that you are the new incarnation of the divine,” he said, “If you say, then it must be so, but I don’t know.” And he continued chewing his pan.“If you say, it must be so, but I don’t know.” You see the beauty of it? Truth is so beautiful and so simple, so unassuming, non-pretentious.You say, “It is so. I know. But I don’t know.” If you had stopped at “I know,” then I would not have been happy with you. That is a kind of disease: when one stops on knowledge that is a great disease. Because you have also said, “But I don’t know,” it is beautiful.Remember always, not knowing is the greatest knowing, and ignorance is bliss. The sage again becomes ignorant, like a child. He unlearns all that life forces one to learn, he effaces it all, he wipes off the whole tape – he becomes clean of knowledge. And at that very moment when he is utterly clean of knowledge, knowledge happens. That knowledge is known as mahapragya, the great wisdom.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Cutting the root (of life and death) directly,this is the mark of buddhahood.If you go on plucking leaves (of creeds) and seeking branches(of abstract principles)I can do nothing for you.Do not seek for the truth;do not cut off delusions.Trying to get rid of illusion and seeking to grasp reality,this giving up and keeping is mere sophistry and lies.Truth is within ourselves; it takes no riseFrom outward things, whate’er you may believe.There is an inmost center in us all,Where truth abides in fullness; and around,Wall upon wall, the gross flesh, hems it in,This perfect, clear perception – which is truth.A baffling and perverting carnal meshBinds it, and makes all error; and to knowRather consists in opening out a wayWhence the imprisoned splendor may escape,Than in effecting entry for a lightSupposed to be without.Yes, these words of Robert Browning are right, absolutely right. Truth is not something outside. Truth is not an object that you have to find, search, seek. Truth is your subjectivity; truth is the one who is seeking. Truth is not the sought, but the seeker himself. To think of truth as something outside is to miss from the very beginning, and once you take a wrong step, you go on taking more and more wrong steps because one step leads to another. It is a chain.The first step is the most important step. In fact, it is almost half the journey. If the first step is right, you have already arrived; you have moved in the right direction.Truth is not without but within. And everybody has been seeking it without; hence everybody is missing it. And it is not only true about truth but about all search as such. Bliss is within, so is beauty, so is love, so is joy. All the values that one wants to attain to are within one’s own being.These words of Robert Browning are of immense significance:Truth is within ourselves; it takes no riseFrom outward things, whate’er you may believe.Man has believed down the ages in a truth which is somewhere far away in heaven. And one has to travel to it, and one has to go on a long, long pilgrimage. There is bound to be great effort – practicing, cultivating, preparing – and truth is all the time waiting for you within yourself.All the beliefs mislead you because all the beliefs are based on the false idea that truth is an object. People come to me and they ask, “Where is truth?” and they think that they are asking a very relevant question – as if truth can be somewhere. They have not looked into the problem deeply. First they have to search into this questioning itself: who is the one asking for truth? Who is this one searching for truth? One should start from the very start. “Who am I?” is the only significant question one can ask. And once this question is solved, all other questions are solved because truth is found.Raman Maharshi used to give only one meditation to everyone, whosoever would come to him: to go on and on pondering, observing, watching, witnessing one thing – to let this question become so utterly your existence that it persists even when you are asleep – “Who am I?” And it has not to be repeated like a mantra. If you repeat it like a mantra you will have missed the point; it is not a mantra, it is an inquiry, and the greatest inquiry there is. It is not to be used as a meditation technique; it has to become your very life. Walking, let the inquiry be there: “Who is walking?” Listening right now, let the inquiry be there: “Who is listening?” And finally the inquiry has to penetrate to such profound depths that when you ask, “Who am I?” the inquiry is there: “Who is asking this question?”Move to the innermost center of your being. This inquiry is a movement withinward. And this single question can solve all the problems. It is a master key – it unlocks all the locks.“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise from outward things, whate’er you may believe.” Your belief is not going to change the nature of things. You can believe that a roseflower is a lotus – and you can believe stubbornly, you can believe blindly and madly, but the rose remains a rose; it is not transformed into a lotus. Yes, you can remain in a kind of illusion, you can remain hallucinating, you can even start seeing it as a lotus. Belief creates dreams, but it cannot create reality. Belief cannot deliver reality to you because all belief is a hindrance. Belief basically means that you have believed before knowing; you are deceiving yourself. All believers are deceivers – they have lied to themselves. They have not known God, and they have started believing in a Christian God or a Jewish God or a Hindu God. They know nothing; they have not experienced anything.Once a man came to me. He had listened for ten days, and then he came to me. He was crying, and he was an old man. And he said, “You have destroyed all that I have believed, and now I am at a loss. For almost thirty-five years I have practiced a certain kind of life. I have done all that can possibly be done. I was living in a beautiful dream and you have shattered it all. I was thinking that I had started seeing God. I had great visions of God, and now they have all disappeared.” He was crying like a small child whose toys have been taken away, he said, “Now help me to start again!”I had to laugh even though he was crying, I said, “Start again! Then you will be getting trapped in another illusion. What do you mean by starting again?”He said, “My old beliefs are destroyed; now give me new beliefs. That’s what I mean.”People go on changing beliefs, but that never brings a radical revolution; it cannot. A Hindu can become a Mohammedan, nothing changes, you have just changed your dream. A Christian becomes a Buddhist, nothing changes, deep down everything remains the same. Unless you drop believing, nothing is going to change, because belief is deception. Belief means that you don’t know and yet you think you know. And the less you know, the more stubbornly you believe – naturally, you have to complement it. The less you know, the more arrogant, the more dogmatic, the more violent you are in your belief: ready to fight, kill and be killed because you are afraid. If somebody brings light to you, and you come to see that your belief is just a belief and nothing else, then all that you have invested in it has gone down the drain, your life has been a stupid life. The life of a believer is a stupid life; it is unintelligent.Robert Browning is right. He says: “…whate’er you may believe…” Your beliefs cannot make any change. Truth is as it is. Truth is not an object; you cannot believe in it, you cannot worship it, you cannot pray to it. Truth is your hidden reality. You are part of it; it is part of you. There is no separation between you and truth. And the first door to be opened has to open within you, then all the doors open.I am not saying that truth is not there without, but once it is known within, then you will know it without. There is no other way. Once you have seen it within yourself, then you will see it in a tree, in a mountain, in a star – in everything because now you have tasted the center; now the center is everywhere. Now you have known the inside of things. Truth is the inside of things.But the first approach, the first acquaintance, has to happen within you because that inside which exists within you, is the closest inside. How can you penetrate the inside of a tree? It is very, very far away. You have not even penetrated your own inside where you already are.It happened…Leo Tolstoy had gone for a morning walk with Chekhov. They came across a beautiful horse in the woods, and Tolstoy started talking about the horse. And he talked in such a way that Chekhov could not believe it, so he said, “What are you saying? You are talking as if you know the very inside of the horse!” – because Tolstoy was talking about this morning, these birds, these trees, this sun, this sky, these clouds and how the horse was feeling about the clouds, and how he was feeling about the trees and the smell of the wet earth; how the horse was feeling about the grass and the flowers and the sun. And he was saying it as if it were directly from the horse’s mouth.Chekhov himself was a great artist, a great novelist, a great genius, but he had never visualized how the horse would feel. And Tolstoy was saying it so deeply, profoundly, that Chekhov said, “Leo Tolstoy, I feel as if you have once been a horse in your past life!”Tolstoy started laughing, and said, “No, but the day I came across my own inside, I came across everybody’s inside. Before that, I knew myself as the body – I knew myself as if from the outside.”Have you any acquaintance with yourself from the inside, or do you only know that which the mirror says about you? That is as if you were standing outside yourself and looking from there. You know all that people say about you. Somebody says that you are beautiful, and you think you are beautiful; and somebody says that you are ugly, and you start feeling miserable; and somebody says that you are intelligent, and you are flying high; and somebody says that you are stupid, and you are shattered. Again, this is nothing but a mirror: others’ opinions cannot be more than mirrors. But have you never seen yourself from the inside? And there you are; there you have always been, you abide there. If you cannot know this space that you abide in, how can you know the inner reality of a tree or a mountain or a star? And how can you know the inner reality of the totality?Godliness is the inside of totality. But to enter into it, one has to enter within one’s own door.Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise from outward things, whate’er you may believe.There is an inmost center in us all,Where truth abides in fullness…True, absolutely true. And sometimes it happens that poets come very close to the mystics. Poetry comes closer to religion than anything else. Poetry is a glimpse into truth; mysticism is living there. Poetry is like the Himalayas seen from far away, those sunlit peaks, those virgin snows; religion is living there as those sunlit peaks, as that virgin snow. Poetry is a distant vision of truth; mysticism, or religion, is becoming one with it, knowing it as one’s innermost center. But poetry comes closest.“Where truth abides in fullness…” Nothing is lacking in you, nothing has to be added to you. You are born perfect because you are born of perfection. You are perfect because the perfect is breathing in you, living in you. You are an extension of perfection. If existence is perfect, then nothing can be imperfect because all is its expression. How can it be imperfect? So, there is no need to seek perfection, there is no need to improve upon yourself. All that is needed is to know who you are, and in that very knowing one comes to feel the completion, the perfection. One has not to become perfect, one already is. And because we are trying to become perfect we are becoming more and more ridiculous.Down the ages man has tried to become more and more perfect, and the only result is that man has become more and more ugly. The very effort is absurd. In trying to become perfect, people have become guilty. In trying to become perfect, they have become pathological.In trying to become perfect, and failing again and again… And they have to fail because they are already perfect. You cannot attain to that which you already have, so the effort is doomed to fail. And when you fail again and again and again, naturally a great sadness settles, one feels utterly depressed. All hope disappears, and all joy with it. Life becomes an ugly evil; one has to bear it somehow. Life becomes sin. If you are trying to become perfect, life will become sin because you will fail; you will condemn yourself, you will hate yourself. And a man who hates himself has gone as far away from himself as it is possible to go.There is an inmost center in us allWhere truth abides in fullness; and around,Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,This perfect, clear perception – which is truth.Truth is not a thing but the clarity of perception. It is not that you will have to see something; it is only the clarity of seeing that is truth. All objects disappear, all content disappears, only clarity remains. Everything becomes transparent: you can see, you can see totally, nothing is hidden from you. That perception is truth.Truth is not an object but an awakening in you. Let me emphasize it again and again that truth is within, not without. It is an awakening within you, it is an awareness within you, it is intelligence functioning at its optimum. You cannot see truth; it is not a thing. You cannot grasp truth; it is not a thing. You cannot give or take truth; it is not a thing. It is your inner eye, your inner perception: what the Hindus call the third eye.To be alert and awake is to be true. So, let us define: untruth is unconsciousness, and truth is consciousness. Untruth is living like a somnambulist; truth is living like a buddha – alert, watchful, witnessing.A baffling and perverting carnal meshBinds it, and makes all error; and to knowRather consists in opening out a wayWhence the imprisoned splendor may escape,Than in effecting entry for a lightSupposed to be without.The splendor is within you. It is just like a fountain hidden behind a rock, and because of the rock it cannot flow. Remove the rock and the fountain starts flowing. This insight is also of tremendous significance. And I say, “hidden behind a rock,” not “behind rocks” because there is only one rock. Somebody thinks it is because of greed that he cannot attain to truth, so one has to renounce greed. Somebody else thinks it is because of anger, violence – that he cannot attain to truth, so one has to renounce anger, violence. Somebody else thinks it is because of money, possessions, so one has to renounce all possessions. Somebody else thinks it is because of sex, love, attachment, so one has to renounce that. And people think that there are so many rocks: anger, sex, sadness, possessiveness, greed, etcetera, etcetera. No, there are not rocks, there is only one rock, and that rock is unawareness. Everything else is a by-product of that unawareness. It becomes greed, it becomes sex, it becomes anger; it can take many forms. But basically it is only one thing: forgetfulness, unawareness. We have become completely oblivious of who we are.“…and to know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, than in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.” Don’t search for any light outside. The last words of Buddha were, “Be a light unto yourself. Be a lamp unto yourself.” Don’t search for light anywhere else; the light is already there, the fire is already there. Just probe a little deeper into your being. Inquire. Maybe much ash has gathered around the fire, just probe deep inside, and you will find the spark again. And once you have found a single spark inside yourself, you will soon become a flame, you will be a fire – a fire that purifies, a fire that transforms, a fire that gives you a new birth and a new being.It is because of this that Martin Heidegger uses the word releasement instead of enlightenment. His word is beautiful. It is a releasement: something is already there, it has only to be released – just like the seed sprouting, becoming a big tree, and then comes the spring and there is great joy, and the tree bursts forth into thousands of flowers. But they were all hidden in the seed, the small seed. The seed has been carrying the blueprint for all that; the color, the shape, the fragrance, all was hidden in the seed. The tree is nothing new. The seed was unmanifest; the tree is its manifestation. It is a releasement. I like Heidegger’s word, it is beautiful; it is a releasement, enlightenment is a releasement.You are already that. You have never been other than that. Remember, remind yourself, shake yourself into awareness. Use all the opportunities of life as triggering points, as occasions, so that you can become alert and aware of who you are.These words of one of the great Greek mystics, Plotinus, will be of help: “You do not really go away from it, for it is there; you do not go anywhere but remain present to it, yet you turn your back on it.” Or as Raman Maharshi used to say, “Enlightenment is simply admitting that you are already enlightened.”Just to admit? Yes, Raman is stating the simple fact: it is only admitting. You are enlightened; you consist of it. You are made of light, light is the stuff that you are made of. Then why can’t you admit it? Why can’t you recognize it? And rather than recognizing it, you do a thousand and one other things: you search for enlightenment, you go to the Himalayas, you move to the monasteries, you torture yourselves, you become masochists in the name of religion, you destroy yourselves, you slowly, slowly commit suicide. You do everything, but just a simple thing you never do: you don’t admit. Why can’t you admit it? And nothing is being taken away from you. In recognizing the fact, all is gained; nothing is lost. But you have become too attached to your chains, you have become too attached to your misery – you have started thinking that this is you.It is like an emperor who has fallen asleep and dreams that he has become a beggar. And in his dream he has a begging bowl and rotten rags, and somebody is trying to snatch the begging bowl from him. He will fight, he will fight to the bitter end. It is a question of life and death – somebody trying to snatch his begging bowl! He will give a great fight; he is not going to give it up easily, it’s all that he has.That’s what has happened. Misery is all that you have. You cannot admit that you are enlightened because then you will not be capable of affording misery any longer. So many times you come to the brink, many times the recognition is very close by. You see the point, but you withdraw, you immediately start getting as far away from it as possible. You withdraw; you turn back. You have become too attached to your misery; it looks as if it is your kingdom.This is my observation: listening to thousands of seekers, one thing seems to be absolutely certain, that nobody wants to renounce his misery. People are even ready to renounce their little bits of happiness; they are ready. This is strange, but this is how it is. If I say to them, “Renounce your wife, renounce your children, renounce your home,” they are ready. They say, “We are ready to go with you, Osho, wherever you say. We can renounce.” But if I say, “Renounce your misery, renounce your chains,” then immediately I see that they cannot gather that much courage. They cling to it; they will fight for it.Raman is simply saying that all that is needed for enlightenment is to admit that you are enlightened. Just think of it. Just for a moment meditate over it. Can you admit that you are enlightened? Immediately you will see that it is difficult because if you admit that you are enlightened, then there will be trouble. And the trouble will be: you cannot be angry, and you cannot be sad, and you cannot fight with your wife or with your husband, and you cannot be possessive. All is lost, and that has been your whole life. Now, this is too much. You will say, “How can one become enlightened so suddenly? First I will have to practice.” That is only a way of postponing. You are saying, “I cannot deny the truth of what you say, but I cannot admit it right now either. Yes, you are right, you must be right; but I have to prepare myself for it.” And this is how you have been preparing for so many lives.You missed Buddha, you missed Yoka – you can miss me too. You are always preparing, and you are always postponing, you say, “Yes, we understand what you are saying.” Many times you are almost enlightened and then immediately you shrink back. I say “almost” because you can still shrink back. That’s why I say “almost.” Just one step more… But then fear grips you; you become so frightened. Then what will happen to your whole past and all your investments?You think that this should not be so, what investment can there be in misery? There is: people remain miserable because through misery they gain sympathy, at least sympathy. If they cannot get love, they can get sympathy, they can get attention.And you are too attached to attention. Things are complicated then. You are too attached to attention – people should pay attention to you – and you don’t know what else to do. If you are miserable, they pay attention. If you are ill, they take care of you. If you go mad, everybody is kind to you. Just see the point: why so many people go mad, and when they go mad. There is perfect timing to it. Whenever they are moving into some crisis, through some crisis and they need attention, love, sympathy, care, they immediately choose madness. It is a choice – unconscious, but still a choice. If they remain sane, everybody is hard. If they remain sane then the world is too much; then the wife is hard, the children are hard, the boss is hard, the market, everything, is hard; and they are tired. But if they are insane, if they have a certificate to say that they are mad, if the psychiatrist says that they are not in a position for anything to be expected from them, they can relax. Now nobody expects anything from them, and they can expect everything from everybody else.Thousands of people who live in madhouses have only learned a trick; this is their way of life, they have learned a style. They are not all mad. They have just found a beautiful way of life where care has to be taken of them by others – they need not worry.Just look into all the investments that you have put into your misery. You hanker for love, and your husband never sits by your side. You hanker for love, and your wife never comes and massages you. Now you have a headache, and she comes and she is all love. Just see the point: the headache has become a need because love is not freely available, so you start paying for love with your headache. Whenever you need love, when there is starvation, when you feel that love will be nourishing, suddenly your mind triggers the mechanism – the headache comes.And I am not saying that you are just pretending, I am not saying that you are pretending. A real headache comes – there is no pretension in it. I am not saying that you are just deceiving your wife, no, you are deceiving your wife and yourself too. The headache is real, but you have learned a trick. Whenever love is starved, a mechanism triggers itself; it is autonomous. It immediately brings some illness to you, and with illness, love comes. Your wife becomes your mother – you always wanted her to be your mother. You have been in search of a mother, not in search of a wife. Every man is in search of a mother. Every woman is in search of a father.It is difficult to accept it, but it must be so because people’s mental age remains hanging somewhere about thirteen – nobody grows psychologically more than that. Now, what more can you expect of a thirteen-year-old boy or girl? Psychologically that is the average age, so even a man who is seventy or eighty remains interested in the breasts of women. Why, for what? He is still childish. Those breasts symbolize the mother. They are symbols. He is still hankering for a mother, for a warm womb, somebody to encompass him. But the only way seems to be to be ill, to be miserable, to be sad. And it seems that the prize is worth it; that’s why you can’t agree with Raman Maharshi that all that is needed for enlightenment is just recognition. One has to admit, “I am enlightened.” But from that admission your life will never be the same again; you cannot afford those toys you have been playing with.Yoka’s sutras:Cutting the root (of life and death) directly,this is the mark of buddhahood.if you go on plucking leaves (of creeds) and seeking branches(of abstract principles),I can do nothing for you.First thing: Cutting the root… That is Yoka’s statement; in brackets the translator has put …of life and death. Yoka’s words have much more significance and that significance is destroyed by this addition in brackets.Listen:Cutting the root directly,This is the mark of buddhahood.If you go on plucking leaves and seeking branches,I can do nothing for you.Again the translator has added in brackets …of abstract principles… to …seeking branches. He is not wrong, but he has made Yoka’s statement very small, narrowed. The statement is very wide and big – of enormous significance. This is only one of the meanings. What is put in brackets is only one of the meanings, and that too only a secondary meaning.So, first we will think about Yoka’s own statement: Cutting the root directly… What is the root? I told you there is only one rock that is repressing the fountain of your life, of your enlightenment, of your releasement. The rock of unawareness – that is the root. The rock of forgetfulness – that is the root.Cutting the root directly… Now, don’t go on plucking leaves and cutting branches. That’s what people go on doing: a small change here and a small change there, decorating, polishing, whitewashing, renovating. “The plaster has fallen here, fix it. Something else has to be done, do it.” But the structure remains the same, the basic structure does not change. You go on adding to it, or deleting a few things from it.If you cut off the leaves of a tree, the tree is not going to be destroyed by it; in fact the foliage will become thicker. Ask any gardener. Whenever you go on pruning, the foliage becomes thicker because the tree is an alive phenomenon, it asserts itself. If you cut off one leaf, it replies by growing three leaves instead. It says, “Look, this is not the way. I have to survive. You cannot just destroy me by cutting off one leaf.” It responds. It takes the challenge. Trees are people, and very natural and spontaneous. They don’t bother much about etiquette, etcetera. You cut off one leaf, the tree replies by growing three leaves. You cut off three, and you will see many more have come. After all, the tree has to survive; it has to protect itself. By cutting off leaves you cannot destroy the tree; in fact, the tree becomes more strengthened.And exactly the same happens in the inner world of man. You cut off anger and you become angrier. In fact, the more you go on cutting off anger – cutting off anger means repressing anger here and there – one day you find that you are absolutely angry, and angry twenty-four hours a day. You are in a rage. If you go on doing it, you will soon be a raving maniac. What can you do? If you repress anger, what can you expect? Anger goes on accumulating.That’s what happens to people who force celibacy. There is a celibacy that comes of its own accord; it grows out of understanding. It grows because love becomes so deep, so profound, that sex simply melts into it; sex becomes irrelevant. But there are people who force celibacy on themselves. The more they force celibacy on themselves, the more their mind is obsessed with sex; they become sex maniacs. That’s what happens to your so-called monks, sadhus, your so-called saints and mahatmas: they become sex-obsessed. They think only of sex because that which is repressed tries to assert itself, it gives a great fight.And that is no way of transforming your energies; it is simply stupid. You can change your greed from one side; it asserts itself from another side, and with more force. You can leave the world because if you live in the world you have to be greedy, then you become greedy about heaven and paradise, and you start thinking about how much pleasure you are going to have there. This is again greed, pure greed. Call it religious but it doesn’t make any difference, it is pious greed. But a poison is poison. It may be pious poison – it makes no difference.Just watch people. Those who have been cutting off branches and leaves, you will find they become more and more deeply rooted in the world. Their heaven is nothing but an extension of this world: all the joys and gratifications that they have renounced here, they are asking for there and a millionfold. Naturally, they have renounced so much that they want to be rewarded there. All the religions of the world fantasize a heaven with beautiful women, women who never age, who remain stuck at eighteen – they have always been eighteen. They don’t perspire; they don’t need deodorants. They have golden bodies; their bodies are always full of fragrance, the fragrance of flowers, fresh. And heaven has all the comforts that the saint has renounced here, and more and more of them. This is greed asserting itself again.Yoka says: Cutting the root directly… Don’t be bothered with the branches and the leaves. One thing about the root: it is hidden, so you don’t see it. It is invisible, so whatsoever you see as your problem cannot be the root, remember. Somebody says, “Sex is my problem.” It cannot be, because he can see it. Somebody says, “Greed is my problem.” It cannot be, because he can see it. Whatsoever you see is not ordinarily your problem and cannot be. They are just leaves and branches; the roots remain hidden deep down underneath. They are not available to ordinary consciousness; they become available when you become extraordinarily conscious.That’s what meditation is all about: becoming extraordinarily conscious, going deeper and deeper into things, not being deceived by appearances – leaves and branches – looking deeper and deeper, finding a deeper problem hidden in a problem, and going on and on, just like peeling an onion. There are many layers, many layers, and if you go on deeper, deeper, you will be surprised: there are not rocks but only one rock. In the end you will find that the only problem is how to remember – what Buddha calls “right mindfulness” and Gurdjieff calls “self-remembering”; what Krishnamurti calls “awareness.” The only problem is how to become luminous at the very center of your being: alert, aware, there, with no sleep – radiantly aware. That is the root, unawareness is the root, cut the root and you are released. This very moment you can be released.And to cut the root you need not go on preparing. You cannot say, “First I will cut off the leaves, and then the branches – because how can I cut the root immediately? I have to prepare.” There is no connection. By cutting off the branches and the leaves you are not getting ready to cut the root; it helps in no way. You can go on cutting off the branches and the leaves for millions of years and you are in the same situation. Whenever you have to cut the root, you will have to cut the root.Cutting the root directly… And this word directly is very important: immediately, right now, without postponing, without bringing time in. If you bring time in, you will never be able to cut the roots, because if you say, “Tomorrow I will do it,” then your forgetfulness, your unawareness, will have lived twenty-four hours longer; your roots will become stronger. If you say, “Next life…” then meanwhile you will be nourishing your unconsciousness, nurturing, strengthening it. If it is difficult now, it is going to be more difficult tomorrow, and so on and so forth.If you see the point, do it right now – cut it! Don’t postpone; don’t bring time in. In fact, there are two kinds of time, and you have to understand them. One is the clock time, the chronological time; I am not talking about that. There is another kind of time, the psychological time, which I am talking about.What is psychological time? It is the gap between you as you are and the idea of you as you would like to be. That gap is psychological time. You are poor and you would like to be rich – that gap is psychological time. You are a sinner and you would like to be a saint – that gap is psychological time. You are angry and you would like to be full of compassion – that gap is psychological time. Ideals create psychological time, and man is caught in psychological time. You have so many ideals: you would like to be this, you would like to be that, and those ideals are preventing you from being that which you are. This should is psychological time, the ought is psychological time.Let shoulds disappear. Let there be no oughts. Forget about ideals. You are not to be anybody else. You cannot be anybody else. All that you can be, you already are. To see it is to cut the root of time. Then there is no postponement, you cannot say, “I will do it tomorrow.” Either you understand or you don’t understand. If you understand, do it right now. If you don’t understand, simply say, “I don’t understand,” but don’t say, “I will do it tomorrow.” That is tricky. You are pretending that you have understood.If you see that something is poison, and you are just going to drink, and I say, “This is poison,” will you say, “Tomorrow I will not drink it, but right now I have poured it in the cup and I am halfway.” Tomorrow…? You are really saying, “Tomorrow I will not drink it, but how can I do that right now?” If you have seen the point, if you have understood that it is poison, will you say, “I will do it tomorrow”? In fact, the cup will slip from your hand of its own accord; it will fall on the floor.This is poison, if understood, brings immediate, radical change. This is what he means by directly. Once you understand a thing, if you understand it at all, it affects you immediately. But people say, “We can understand, intellectually we have comprehended it. Now we will practice, now we will think more about it, now we will change our characters slowly, slowly. We will go gradually.”To go gradually is to go indirectly. To go abruptly, suddenly, in the moment, is to go directly. And the roots can only be cut directly; leaves can be cut off indirectly because they are indirect. Roots are direct. Once you cut the roots, the whole tree will die. They are at the source.Remember, psychological time has to disappear; it is your creation. The clock will continue, and the calendar will continue, the outside time will continue, but the inside time will disappear. When inside time disappears you don’t have any past and you don’t have any future; then this moment is all. And when this moment is all, you are direct. This is what Zen people call “transformation in one blow.”Try to understand the psychological gap: it is between what is and what should be. Understanding is immediate. It is not of time. Just listening to me, if you see the point, you see the point. Then suddenly it is there in its totality. Not that you will understand it gradually – there is no gradualness, there is no progression in it – it comes like a sword and enters your very core. Suddenly you see it.Yes, you can try to forget it because of your investments. Many times I see in your eyes sudden understanding arising, but then immediately you shrink back, you withdraw. You become afraid of understanding it – it is too much – and you start thinking, “Wait! Don’t be in a hurry. There is no hurry. We can do it tomorrow. Let us enjoy the day as we have always enjoyed.” And you have never enjoyed, you have only been miserable: “Let’s remain the same, at least for today, and tomorrow we will change.” And tomorrow never comes. When you bring tomorrow in, you have missed the point.Cutting the root directly, this is the mark of buddhahood. If you go on plucking leaves and seeking branches, I can do nothing for you. Yoka is right, and clear-cut. He says, “I cannot do anything for you if you go on plucking leaves and branches.” And that’s what I would like to say to you too: don’t go on cutting leaves and branches. The problems that you bring to me every day are problems of how to cut off this branch, how to cut off that leaf. Rarely do you come to ask about the roots. Things are not going well with your wife, and you come to me. Things are not going well with your children, and you come to me. The modern mind has been so conditioned with such ideologies, philosophies, and psychologies, that not only do you bring the present-day leaves and branches, but dead things. Somebody comes because he has read about Primal Therapy, and now he asks, “There must have been some problem, birth trauma, when I was born – how to resolve it?” Now you are digging up graves. Birth trauma! It may be fifty years since you were born, but the idea appeals to you.People are always interested in the past and the future, because in both the mind can go on living perfectly well; only in the present does it die. These are great problems – birth trauma: “Something has gone wrong between me and my mother, or me and my father. Now, what to do?” The mother may be dead. Now, you have a great problem. How to solve it? Somebody wants to know whether to give birth to a child or not. Somebody wants to become a mother, and asks, “Is it the right time to give birth to a child?” Now you are becoming interested in the future. Somebody is interested in his mother and somebody is interested in her future child. When are you going to be in the present? And these problems you bring to me – very rarely do you come with the root problem – are trivia. They look very significant when you are passing through them; they are not, they are all rubbish, superficial.I help you to understand them in the hope that slowly, slowly you will start diving deeper than the surface; slowly, slowly one day or other, you will be intelligent enough to bring the root problem. And, yes, a few people have started bringing the root problem. And only the root problem has to be solved – nothing else.Yoka is right: I can do nothing for you if you cannot understand this approach. The root has to be cut, and suddenly, and immediately. How to cut the root? Where is the sword, from where to get the sword? And what sword? You have to understand it.There are two kinds of thinking: one is positive thinking, the other, negative thinking. Negative thinking is the sword – it cuts the problem from the very root. That’s why Buddhism is called the negative way, the way of negation, via negativa. It is. Positive thinking means you are thinking about something. Positive thinking is thinking about something. Positive thinking creates beliefs. Positive thinking creates ideals. Positive thinking gives you images of the future, ideas, conclusions about how to live, how to improve. Positive thinking moves from a conclusion. You take the conclusion for granted, and then you start.For example, “God is, because Jesus has said so” – you have taken the conclusion. Now Jesus may be wrong, Jesus may be deluded – who knows? I may be wrong, I may be deluded – how can you take a conclusion from me? My conclusion is my conclusion, and it cannot be yours in any way; if you make it your conclusion, it will be false. In my hand it was a living bird, in your hand it is a corpse, and soon it will stink. In my hand it was my experience, transferred to your hand it is borrowed. It has no meaning because it has no life. And that’s what happens. Whenever a live truth is transferred, communicated, it is never the same when it reaches the other; it changes through a thousand and one forms. Jesus is now twenty centuries past; in twenty centuries man has done all kinds of mischief with his words.Just a few years back a Christian missionary came to see me. He said, “Are you Christ? If you are Christ, can you do the miracles that he did?”I was in a generous mood, so I said, “Okay. You just tell me what miracles.”He said, “First, he walked on water – can you walk on water?”I said, “I walk on nothing. That is old hat, walking on water. Underneath me the whole earth has disappeared.”He said, “With a few loaves of bread he fed thousands of people.”I said, “Without any loaf of bread I am feeding thousands of people, many are nourished. And with a loaf of bread the nourishment cannot go very deep. I am feeding with loaves of spirit.”Now he looked a little puzzled and he said, “And he turned water into wine.”I said, “What do you think I am doing? Can’t you see so many intoxicated people around? I am turning air into wine.”Then he said the last thing, “And… But he called Lazarus out of his death.”I said “That’s what every buddha has always been doing: calling people out of their graves. It is nothing special, it is not a miracle, that’s the function of a buddha. People are dead; everybody is a Lazarus. There is nothing special in Jesus calling Lazarus out of the grave, but there was something special in Lazarus that he heard it.” I said to the missionary, “I can call you back from your grave, but will you hear? The point is not with Jesus; the miracle was done by Lazarus. Jesus was calling, but only Lazarus came out of the grave, and Jesus was calling many people. I am also calling many people out of their graves – few come.”But this is how words become slowly, slowly false. They lose all beauty, all truth; they become stories, they become myth. When I say something to you, it is alive. When it reaches your hand it will be dead. To me it was truth; to you it will be a belief. Positive thinking starts with belief. Believe first. Positive thinking’s essential formula is: “Believing is seeing.” If you believe you will see. If you believe totally you will certainly see. You can believe in anything, and it will start happening to you. But that will be just a dream enhanced by your belief, created by your belief, projected by you.Buddha’s approach is negative. The negative mind, the negative thinking, does not start with any conclusion. It drops all conclusions; it simply gets rid of all beliefs, all scriptures, all doctrines, all creeds. It says: “This is not my experience, so I cannot claim truth for it. Why should I carry it? This is all junk.” Negative thinking means that you drop all the conclusions that you have taken for granted from others. A point comes when nothing is left in your mind, because all is borrowed.Just look inside. All that you think is your knowledge is borrowed knowledge, and how can the borrowed be knowledge? It is information. You are just repeating it, you are being mechanical in repeating it. Negative thinking begins with no conclusion, with no belief, with no thought.Drop all belief! Drop all thoughts! That’s why I say Yoka is right when he says: If you go on plucking leaves (of creeds) and seeking branches (of abstract principles), I can do nothing for you.That is one of the meanings: the definition of negative thinking. Just try to see the point. If you are in a negating state, when you have negated all, what will be left – only your consciousness, pure consciousness. You have eliminated all; you have dropped all that was given by the society, you have dropped all conditioning. You are no longer a Hindu or a Jaina or a Christian, you don’t know who you are, you are simply nobody.The negative mind has to come to this point of being nobody. You are just void, empty – empty of all that has been poured into you from the outside; you have emptied it out, you are a clean slate. You are just a pure mirror with not even a single particle of dust on it. In this moment the root is cut. In this moment the sword is created. How can you remain unenlightened in such a moment when your eyes are absolutely clear?This clarity, this crystalline clarity, this utter purity of vision, perception – this is truth. Create the sword of negative thinking, and negative thinking is the highest kind of thinking, the greatest. Only mediocre minds cling to positive thinking. The highest mind moves to the peaks of negativity. He drops all burdens; he simply becomes unburdened – in that unburdening is freedom, releasement.And when thinking stops, thanking begins.This negative thinking is synonymous with waiting, because there is nothing to do. You don’t have any conclusion. You cannot search for truth because you don’t know. Truth has no meaning in the world of negative thinking. You cannot search for liberation; it has no meaning. You cannot practice virtue. You don’t know what is virtue and what is sin. In the state of negativity you don’t know anything, so nothing can be done. One can wait and only wait.Just the other night, I gave sannyas to a beautiful new woman. I have given her the name Tada. It is a Japanese word, it means “just,” “only” – when there is nothing left but only you, not even the idea of I but only the essence of I, tada. Only consciousness is left. All content has been dropped, a content-less consciousness is left – what can you do now? You cannot go to the East; you cannot go to the West, because those are all beliefs. You cannot look up, you cannot look down – those are all beliefs. You cannot do this, you cannot do that, because the choice is always from a conclusion. You cannot be good; you cannot be bad. Then what is left? Then waiting is left, just waiting, tada, and that purity of waiting is immense. That is the greatest benediction that can happen to a man, the greatest joy that one can know, because in that waiting all happens. It is not a search; it is a waiting.Waiting allows the whole to take possession. You disappear, the whole appears. Waiting is vacating for the truth to be. It is void, voidness, empty of all that we have known, experienced, believed – and then from nowhere, or from everywhere, comes the feeling of being lifted up. Gratitude arises naturally and spontaneously as when we receive a loving gift. Thinking stops, thanking begins. This is prayer. It has nothing to do with your silly ideas of God, and prayer, and all that. This is prayer: when you are waiting, waiting, waiting, empty. And there is nothing to do, there is no way to do; you cannot get occupied. When you are just silent, utterly silent – a kind of absence – one is lifted up, the whole takes you. In that lifting up, gratitude arises, and prayer. This will help you to understand the miracle, or the puzzle, of a Buddhist praying. Christians have been puzzled. Hindus have remained confused about it: how a Buddhist can pray, because he does not believe in God. How can a Buddhist pray? The Buddhist can pray, but his prayer is not your so-called prayer. His prayer is a sheer feeling of gratitude. It is not addressed to anybody. He does not pray to God, he simply is prayer. What can he do? He is lifted up. The whole has taken him, possessed him; the whole has come into him, rushing from every side, from everywhere or from nowhere. He is no longer the same; all is light, all is freedom and all is love. How can you remain ungrateful? He does not bow down to anybody in particular. He simply bows down. His bowing down is pure, a gesture, unaddressed. He does not thank God because there is no God, but he thanks. He thanks the whole existence.Enlightenment has not to be actively sought, not to be brought about, because it is already there. Waiting is all that is needed – waiting, just waiting, tada, with no object. If you are waiting for something, you are not waiting. Then positive thinking has come in. If you are waiting for Krishna to come and play on his flute, then that is not waiting. If you are waiting for Christ to come and save you, that is not waiting. If you are waiting for me to come and help you, that is not waiting; positive thinking has started.Waiting is simply waiting; not waiting for somebody, not waiting for something to happen. How can you wait for something you don’t know? And all that you think should happen will be wrong, because it will come out of your past, and your past has been nothing but darkness, your past has been nothing but ignorance. Negative thinking cannot do anything – not even think about what is going to happen. This state, this silence, this utter purity, is the death and the resurrection.Waiting has no object, and that’s what meditation is. Let me define meditation: meditation is waiting without prospect, waiting for waiting’s sake. And truth is always there, pulsating at the core of being. Waiting allows it to bloom. Waiting helps you to melt. Waiting helps the innermost to express itself. Waiting releases the song that you are, the celebration that you are.That’s why Yoka says:Do not seek for the truth;do not cut off delusions.If you seek, you will miss. Seek not, because seeking is a positive effort. Wait! Jesus says, “Seek, and you shall find.” Yoka says, “Wait, and you have found.” There is no shall in it. Wait, and you have found. Jesus says, “Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.” Yoka says, “Wait, and the doors are already open; they have never been closed.” And do not cut off delusions because there is no need. Unless you know truth, you cannot know what delusion is, what illusion is. They are all beliefs: “The world is illusory” and you have not even known truth, so how can you know what is illusion? To know the false as false, you will have to know the real as real, only then can the false be understood. They both come into your understanding simultaneously. You cannot know the real without knowing the false; you cannot know the false without knowing the real. They are together; it is a single understanding. Seeing the real, you know what is false and what is real. But when you know what is false, you need not destroy it because it is false. It need not be destroyed. It is not there to be destroyed.Do not seek for the truth – wait and – do not cut off delusions. If you start cutting off delusions, you will again be cutting off leaves and branches. Create negative thinking; create the negative mind – that negates all, and negates absolutely, and leaves nothing inside, keeps you utterly void. That is the sword; it cuts the roots. In that negative state self-remembering arises – it just overflows. You are full of it; you are it.Trying to get rid of illusion, and seeking to grasp reality,this giving up and keeping is mere sophistry and lies.Yoka is very clear-cut. He says: Trying to get rid of illusion… Trying to get rid of maya, and the world, and this and that, is all nonsense. You don’t know what illusion is. The moment you know, you are already out of it. Trying to get rid of illusion is like in a dream trying to get rid of a dream. And you are in a dream. And you know perfectly well that there are dreams within dreams within dreams.You can dream, in a dream, that you are going to bed to sleep. And then you sleep, and then you can start dreaming – dream within dream – and in the dream you see that you have gone to the movie, and you see the movie. And you can go on and on in this way. In a dream you can dream also that you are renouncing the world, you have become a renunciate, and you are going to the Himalayas. To be in the market or to be in the Himalayas is all a dream. In the morning when you wake up, are you going to say, “Now I am going to destroy all those dreams because they are not”? How can you destroy them when they are not? You will simply laugh, you will say, “Ha, ha, ha! So there is nothing.”Trying to get rid of illusion, and seeking to grasp reality, this giving up and keeping is mere sophistry and lies. If you can understand this, you have the key. Do it right now! Be direct and immediate. There is no need to destroy illusions and there is no need to grasp reality, because reality is all that is, and illusion is not there and has never been there. All that is needed is to drop all lies and sophistries. In the name of philosophy, only sophistry continues: philosophy is nothing but very sophisticated sophistry – cunning, clever, calculating. Forget all about philosophies, religions, creeds, dogmas. Be alone. Wait. And wait for nothing in particular. Wait for waiting’s sake, and all is yours.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What if there are only mirrors and mirrors and mirrors reflecting each other?It is so. That’s precisely how it is, because all is consciousness.Consciousness is a mirror, a mirror reflecting mirrors. When your consciousness is clean, clear, un-obsessed by anything, unoccupied, this is how one realizes reality. All is one, the same consciousness. And this is the beatitude, the benediction, the splendor.Once it happened…Ramakrishna was drinking tea. A few disciples were sitting there, Vivekananda was also there, and Ramakrishna started saying, “This cup of tea is godliness itself.” This was too much for Vivekananda. He was a well-educated man, logical, rational. This looked like absolute nonsense. A cup of tea, and godliness! Ramakrishna must be mad. Now, this is going too far.Just to reject the whole idea he went out, just as a protest. He didn’t say anything to Ramakrishna, but the protest was there; he simply went out. A friend of his followed him, and they both started smoking outside the temple. And they were both laughing and joking about Ramakrishna and, “the absurd things he sometimes says.” “Now look, a cup of tea, and godliness! This is utter nonsense.” While they were talking, suddenly Ramakrishna came out. They were a little embarrassed because they were smoking. Ramakrishna touched Vivekananda, and suddenly everything changed with that touch, he could see even the cigarette and the smoke as godliness. And for three days that consciousness persisted.After three days he fell at Ramakrishna’s feet and said, “I’m sorry. Everything is godly. Now I know. But give me back that experience, now I don’t want to come back.” Ramakrishna said, “Given, it can’t be eternal. You will have to come back unless you rise to it. It was a gift. It is as if somebody is asleep and dreaming, and you shake him up, and he opens his eyes and looks at you. But his inner sleep is not complete: for a moment he wakes up, and then falls into sleep again.” Ramakrishna said, “It was just like that. I simply shook you up because I could see the protest, I could see that you thought, ‘This is absurd.’”And it looks absurd because we don’t know what reality is. I am reflecting you; you are reflecting me, and so on and so forth. The trees are reflecting you, and you are reflecting the trees, and so on and so forth – all mirrors, in all shapes and sizes. This is a mirror palace; it consists only of mirrors because it consists only of consciousness.The only discovery of all the buddhas is that only consciousness is real, only consciousness is. You can call it godliness, you can call it enlightenment, you can call it nirvana, or whatsoever you choose to call it you can call it, but those are only names, differences in names. The message is simple and clear and loud: that we all consist of pure consciousness.If you can stop the constant flow of thoughts even just for a moment, you will be able to see it.The second question:Osho,When the internal talking stops, is this enlightenment?When the internal talking stops, who cares? Who is there to care? Who is there to raise the question, “Is this enlightenment”? If you can still ask the question, then it is internal talking continuing. If you can still see that this is enlightenment, then nothing has happened; then the mind is back from the back door. It has jumped upon your enlightenment too, and it has destroyed it.Enlightenment is not an experience, that’s why nothing can be said about it. Enlightenment is not one of the series of experiences that you have lived through. Enlightenment is not something that happens to you like some content in the mind. When the mind is not there you don’t say, “This is enlightenment,” you don’t feel it as an experience. Rather, on the contrary, you see it as your nature. It has always been so. Just because of that internal talk you were too occupied and you could not see it. It is not a realization; it is only recognition, a remembrance. It has always been so from the very beginning, just you had got lost into thoughts, fantasies. Now the fantasy is no longer there, you are back home. It is your home.Enlightenment is not an experience; it is your interiority, it is you. One does not become enlightened; one comes to know that one is enlightenment, one is light, one is consciousness.But your question is philosophical: “When the internal talking stops,” you ask, “is this enlightenment?” Don’t be philosophical about these things – these are not philosophical things. You cannot think about them, you can only be and know. Be still and know. If I say, “Yes, this is enlightenment” I will only be giving you an idea. That will burden your mind more, and will become part of your internal talk. Then you will not talk much about money, and women, and you may start talking about enlightenment, godliness, buddhahood, but it is the same. The object of thinking does not matter much – you can take any object, and the thinking can weave and spin around it. The question is that the thinking disappears, evaporates.So, don’t make enlightenment in any way a goal. Enlightenment is the very source, the very ground of your being. You consist of enlightenment, you are made of this stuff called enlightenment. So, naturally, when you are silent and there is no distraction… Thought means distraction, thought means going away from yourself, thought means something has come between you and yourself, thought means you have moved into the future or into the past, thought means you are not here, you are not now. All this is implied in thought. When there is no distraction, you relax into your source. Slowly, slowly you rest into your being.Martin Heidegger has called this resting into yourself “the releasement.” He has also called it “the enchanted regioning.” There is a region inside you, the enchanted region, a space where you are still godly, where you have not fallen at all – where you cannot fall in the very nature of things – where you still live in the Garden of Eden, where the fall has not happened, cannot happen.One cannot fall from godliness and paradise; one can only fall asleep. This is my interpretation of the biblical story. Adam has not been driven out of the Garden of Eden; he has fallen asleep. By eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge he has fallen into dreams, he has started thinking. That is the meaning of the whole parable. That is the meaning of the symbol of the Tree of Knowledge: he has started thinking. Thinking, he has gone away – in thought only; otherwise, he lives in the same place, but he is no longer available to godliness; he has moved into fictions, imaginations.Wake up, and you have always been enlightened. Just wake up! Open your eyes. Don’t let enlightenment become an idea in you, otherwise you will think about it, and that will be a distraction.The third question:Osho,Where is the love in Buddha's teachings? I can't feel it.It is like going to a chemist’s shop and telling him, “I can see all kinds of medicines and drugs here, but I don’t see any kind of health.” Medicines bring health. They have to be absorbed, then they change your chemistry: health arises, is discovered.Buddha does not talk about love; he is simply giving you the key to inner change. If you use the key, love will arise, love will flow, love will be a consequence. What is the point of talking about health? A person goes on talking about health… You go, and you are ill, and he goes on talking about health and never gives any medicine to you. How long are you going to listen to this man? Sooner or later you will be fed up, and you will say, “I am fed up. Give me some medicine. I have not come here to listen to you talking about health; I have come here to be healthy and whole. Talking won’t help.”So, Buddha does not talk about love, he prepares the ground where love blooms. You will not find any talk about love in Buddha’s teachings – he has not even used the word love. But he is a scientist of the soul; he simply gives you medicine. Health is going to happen within you. There is no need to talk about love, there is no need to talk about godliness, there is no need to talk about the ultimate results; all that is needed is to persuade you, to seduce you into taking the medicine.You are like small children who will not take the medicine – and medicines are bitter – instead they will run and escape from the mother, they will hide. And they will say, “We are not going to take this medicine, it is too bitter.” Their whole concern is that the medicine should be a sweet thing; they are not concerned about the outcome, they are only concerned with the momentary taste. And there are many in the world who become attached to teachings which look sweet.Buddha may not look very sweet – he is not, he is bitter. He himself has said that he is a physician, that his approach is not that of a preacher but that of a physician; he treats ill people. And this whole world is a hospital, everybody is ill.What do you want? You want Buddha to talk about love? How is that going to help you? And how are you going to understand it? He will talk about love, his love, and you will understand about love, your love. And they are poles apart, diametrically opposite. His love is a state; it is not a relationship. His love does not depend upon anybody else; his love is simply his overpouring. He is so full that he has to go on overflowing, he has to go on sharing. He is supersaturated, suprabundant. There is no way he can avoid loving – he is love.When you are in love you are not love, you are only “in love.” When you are in love it is a kind of relationship, a need; you are a beggar. When you are in love you are asking for love. “Give me love” – that’s what you call love. Even if you have to give a little bit, you give it only as part of the bargain. But you want to snatch more than you have been given. That’s the conflict between all lovers, husbands and wives – constantly fighting and quarreling. What is the basis of it? Each is thinking, “I am giving more and receiving less; the other is cheating.” Both want to cheat each other. And I can understand what the problem is. When you are asking for love, one thing is certain; you don’t have any love in your being, otherwise, why would you ask? If you have, you need not ask; you will be fulfilled by it, it will be welling up in you, flowing. In fact, you will ask people to receive, to open their hearts. And you will feel grateful to people who receive your love. You will not be a beggar. You will be an emperor.Buddha is an emperor. He gives, and he is thankful to all those who receive. When you fall in love, you are just a beggar: two beggars begging each other. The outcome is misery, the outcome is ugly, the outcome is hell. Buddha’s love is not a relationship, it is relating. He simply relates, and there is no bondage in it, there is no obsession with any person in particular. Buddha talking about love will be saying one thing; you will understand something else.That’s what happened with Jesus: he talked about love, but he has not been understood at all. A church has arisen around him which is unloving, absolutely unloving; otherwise, how can you explain all the wars which have happened between Christianity and other religions, all the crusades, all the murder, the killing, and all the bloodshed? Jesus may have talked about love, which is the love of a buddha, but the followers… They understand in their own way. And when your understanding is not clear, great things can become great dangers.Buddha has not talked about love, and Buddhism is the least ugly religion in the world. He has not talked about “loving your neighbors as yourself” and he has not given you any message to serve people, but he has given medicines – his meditations are his medicines. If you go into meditation, love will arise. It is a consequence.You ask, “Where is the love in Buddha’s teachings?” There is no love in the teachings – the teachings are medicinal. Go into those teachings. Let those teachings become your heart. Let understanding arise, and you will find love following that understanding, coming as a shadow. It need not be talked about – love will come. Forget all about love, it comes of its own accord. Become silent.That’s why I can understand your question. It is relevant – many have asked it before. One expects a buddha to talk about love, but your expectations are your expectations; no buddha is obliged to fulfill them. He has to work from his vision. His vision is that you need an alchemical change of your consciousness, then love will come, it will be a flowering.Look at a gardener. When he is cleaning the ground to plant rosebushes, are there any flowers? And if you see the gardener cleaning the ground, and removing the stones and the rocks, and replacing earth, you will be puzzled: where are the roseflowers? And then he brings the rosebushes, and you will be puzzled: where are the roseflowers? And then he plants the rosebushes, and waters them, morning, evening, and takes all kinds of care, and you go on wondering where the roses are. Then one day, suddenly, you wake up in the morning and the fragrance is there. The bush is aflame with flowers.It happens just like that. Love will come on its own, you cannot bring it; and the love that you practice will be false, artificial, an artifact. Love has to descend, it has to come from above – then it is divine, and it has a totally different song to it, a different dance to it. Then it doesn’t bring misery; it creates celebration in existence.The fourth question:Osho,Do you know anything about the Radha Swami religion and its master saint, Charan Singh? I have recently read three books from the Radha Swami and would like you to comment on their beliefs.First: That there has always been at least one living master since before Buddha's time and Charan Singh is the current one.Second: That their “audible sound current” and five sacred mantras are the only valid meditation.Third: That only Charan Singh can “connect” one to the sound current.Fourth: If you become his disciple you may have to go through other incarnations, but never lower than you are now.Fifth: That there are at least seven heavens, each higher than the other, and only Charan Singh can take you up. Other saints can only take you up to the second heaven, where Jesus and Buddha live.I am not a disciple of Charan Singh and have no desire to become one, but the Radha Swami books did leave me very puzzled.It is all bullshit.First: “That there has always been at least one living master since before Buddha’s time and Charan Singh is the current one.” If all is divine, this is nonsense. These are old ego games. The whole of existence is full of godliness. And it is not that somebody is more godly and somebody else is less godly. Godliness is not a quantity. It can’t be more or less. The idea that only one or two or three or four or five masters are there, makes it appear as if godliness also has limitations. There are no limitations.The master is hiding in everybody; the real master is never outside, the real master is inside. The outside master is just to provoke the real master within you, that’s all. Somebody has awakened and you are fast asleep, but you have as much capacity to be awake as the one who has become awakened. The capacity is there, intrinsic in you. And the outer master, the person who is awakened, cannot give you awareness. He can only shake you; awareness will well up within you. He is not going to give it to you. Nobody can give anything to you. You need not have anything from anybody. Existence has given you all that you need, all that you will ever need.When you shake somebody, when you call him, and he opens his eyes and becomes awake, have you given him anything? You have not given him anything; you simply created an occasion in which his capacity to be aware started functioning. A master is just a device.There are thousands of masters around the world, and the people who claim, “I am the only one,” be certain that they at least are not, because how can someone who has arrived claim, “I am the only one”? He will know – at least this much he will know – that there are others; the earth is big. And life does not exist only on the earth, it exists on at least fifty thousand more planets. Just one master, Charan Singh! It will be too much for him to manage. Think of poor Charan Singh too; it will be too much, the world is vast. There are thousands of masters, not only on the earth, but on other planets too. Wherever there are people asleep, there are always a few people who are awake.And remember, the person who is awake cannot claim anything about his awareness, about his awakened state, because he knows that he is awake only because he is capable of falling asleep. And those who are still asleep are capable of becoming awake. You can fall asleep only because you can have awareness, otherwise how can you fall asleep? Awareness is a must. Sleep and awareness are both manifestations of awareness. In sleep, the awareness becomes a seed form; it closes itself just as you close your windows and doors in the night and go to sleep. In the morning you wake up, you open the doors and windows, and you allow the light to enter again.And people who are asleep sometimes become awake even without a master, because life itself sometimes can provoke you into awareness. The master is not a must. There are people who have become awakened without any master; just by going deeply into the misery of sleep, into the nightmares of sleep, they have become awakened. The very agony has disturbed their sleep.The master is only one situation, and nobody who has arrived can claim, “I am the only one.” If the claim is there, it shows only that this man is fast asleep and dreaming.Second: “That their ‘audible sound current’ and five sacred mantras are the only valid meditation.” There are millions of meditations in the world, invented, discovered down the centuries. And any meditation is valid if it wakes you up – the validity has nothing to do with meditation. You will be surprised to know that the English poet, Tennyson, used to use his own name as a mantra. “Tennyson, Tennyson, Tennyson…” He would repeat it a few times, and that would give him such peace and silence. Now, your own name can do it; it is not a question of any special sound, that when you repeat “Rama, Rama…” or “Om, om…” or “Allah, Allah…” then you will wake up. It is again as if somebody is asleep; create any noise around him, “Rama, Rama” or “Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola” or “Livva little hot, sippa Gold Spot” – anything, just go on repeating it, and the man will open his eyes and say, “What are you doing? Why are you disturbing my sleep? Have you gone mad?”Any sound will work because all sounds are divine. All names are godly – yes, Coca-Cola too. Remember Ramakrishna again: if a cup of tea is godliness, why not Coca-Cola? In fact Coca-Cola is the only international thing in the world – the only thing. Even in Russia, Coca-Cola… They may not love the American way of life, but they love Coca-Cola. That should be the universal symbol of brotherhood and love. You may not believe in somebody else’s god, in his church, in his temple, in his scripture, but as far as Coca-Cola is concerned nobody is a Mohammedan, nobody is a Hindu, nobody is a Christian. Coca-Cola is a Christ symbol!Any sound will do. All that is needed is a constant repetition – and with awareness. When you are repeating any sound just remain watchful. If you are not watchful then no sound will do, then you can have the best mantra in the world, given by the most enlightened person – it won’t work. It works only when you are in a witnessing state. You repeat the word and you remain a witness to it. You repeat, “Rama, Rama, Rama…” and deep inside you are watching – watching that you are repeating it, watching the sound arise, watching the sound taking form, moving, slowly disappearing, watching the gaps between two Ramas.Slowly, slowly make the sound more and more subtle. So, there are four stages of a mantra. First: repeat it loudly, so others can hear it because you are not alert enough. If you only repeat it inside without your lips moving, you may not be able to be aware. It has to be shouted, it has to be loud, as if somebody else is repeating it: “Rama, Rama, Rama…” You have to be alert; you cannot fall asleep. When you have learned that, repeat it with closed mouth, your lips not moving at all. Just repeat it inside. It will be in your throat; it has become a little more subtle than the gross loud repetition.Then go a little farther, deeper. Then don’t repeat it – at the third stage don’t repeat it – let it happen. If you have worked on the sound for long, then it repeats itself; it becomes autonomous. And you know, you know that sometimes a line of a song becomes autonomous and it goes on repeating itself. You don’t want to repeat it; you are doing something, and it suddenly comes and starts repeating. It drives you crazy too. The same happens if a person has been working for years on a sound: there is no need to repeat it, he simply sits silently and the sound comes up, it starts repeating. You are just a listener, a watcher; this is the third stage. And the fourth stage is that the sound disappears completely. There is no repetition, only the watcher is left.These four stages of sound repetition or mantra or chanting are just to learn how to be aware. You can use any sound, that’s why I say that it is all nonsense: that their ‘audible sound current’ and five sacred mantras are the only valid meditation. You can create your own meditation, and my feeling is that will be far more valid because whatsoever you like and love is going to have a deeper impact on your being than anything else.Third: “That only Charan Singh can ‘connect’ one to the sound current.” You are connected to it; you are not disconnected from it. Nobody is needed to connect you with it. These are the people who exploit you. If you are not connected with that current of life, you cannot live for a single moment. You are alive; your life is a proof that you are connected with the sound of existence, with that silence, with that music melody. You are part of it, a note of that melody. What happens when you live with a master is that he is consciously connected and you are unconsciously connected – not that he is connected and you are not connected. The difference is only of consciousness. He is consciously connected; he knows that he is connected, and you don’t know that you are connected. You are also connected; he simply helps you to become aware of the phenomenon. He makes you aware of the fact; he does not connect you. These are the people who exploit you; these are cunning people. Beware of them.Fourth: “If you become his disciple you may have to go through other incarnations, but never lower than you are now.” Have you ever heard of anybody going lower? There is no way to go lower – nobody has ever gone lower – because whatsoever you have learned, you have learned, and whatsoever you have known, you have known. You cannot fall back, there is no way of falling back, everything moves ahead. That’s why I say these are cunning people. They can make you afraid that if you don’t become a disciple you may become a dog or a crocodile. And then, naturally, fear arises. A crocodile? A dog? Then why not protect oneself, become a disciple of Charan Singh. At least you will not become a crocodile, you will not become a dog, or there are worse things also – cockroaches, and rats! You can choose your own idea. Just think of becoming a cockroach, and great fear arises. One would not like to become a cockroach.In the name of religion, people have been exploited down the ages, and these have been the trade secrets: create fear and create greed. If somebody is trying to create fear in you or is trying to create greed in you, escape from that place. That place has nothing to do with religion, because real religion has to free you from all greed and all fear. These are the symptoms of a pathological situation. The man who is creating fear or greed – which are two aspects of the same coin – will make you afraid of hell, hellfire, and he will make you greedy for heaven.But Charan Singh seems to be really clever and cunning because if you talk of only one heaven, then Jesus can lead you there, Buddha can lead you there, Kabir can lead you there, and Nanak can lead you there – anybody can do it. “There are seven heavens…” Now he has invented six more. And when people talk about such things, of course, one starts feeling, “Others talk about only one heaven, and this man says there are seven. He must know more.”Have you heard… You may not have heard the name… In Mahavira’s and Buddha’s time, there was a man – may have been a past incarnation of Charan Singh. His name was Makkhali Ghosal. He talks about seven hundred hells and seven hundred heavens. Now, he “knows,” and many people followed him. And the reason was that Mahavira talks only about one, and Makkhali Ghosal says, “Look! He only knows about one – he has only entered the first – I know about seven hundred.” Now, if you want to go a little ahead you can know seven hundred and one – nobody can prevent you.These are stories you can invent. These stories have prevailed in the name of religion; these are the stories that have destroyed the credibility of religion. These stories and these cunning people are the root cause of irreligiousness in the world. Because of these people, suspicions have arisen. Remember, let me repeat it again: a real master never makes you afraid. In fact he makes you fearless. He says there is no hell, he says there is no heaven – they are all psychological states. Hell is nothing but a projection of inner agony, and heaven a projection of inner ecstasy. The states are inner, and you can be free only when you are free of both.It happened…A mystic woman, Rabiya, was seen in Baghdad one day. People used to think she was mad. She was a real master and real masters have always been thought to be mad because they speak a language that people don’t understand. They speak the language of fearlessness, freedom, truth. They don’t talk about fear and greed, and what is understood in the marketplace.People saw Rabiya running, and they asked, “Where are you going?” She was almost creating a scene. A crowd gathered, because in one hand she had a burning torch and in the other hand she was carrying an earthen pot full of water. And she was running so fast that people thought that there must be some emergency. They asked, “Where are you going, Rabiya? What has happened?” And she said, “Unless I drown hell with my water and burn heaven with my fire, this world is going to remain irreligious.”When you come close to a real master, he gives you the taste of fearlessness. There is no way of falling back; nobody has ever fallen back, nobody can fall back. That is a stupid idea, but there are millions who become very impressed by stupid ideas; in fact, they only become impressed by stupid ideas.And fifth: “That there are at least seven heavens, each higher than the other, and only Charan Singh can take you up. Other saints can only take you up to the second heaven, where Jesus and Buddha live.” So generous of Charan Singh! At least he allowed these poor fellows, Buddha and Jesus, to live in the second – he might not have allowed it, it is his story. Generous! I am thankful. And what about Nanak and Kabir, and other saints and masters who are not as well-known as Buddha and Jesus? He has allowed Buddha and Jesus to attract only Buddhists and Christians, but what about lesser-known masters. Kabir and Nanak must be in the first group. What about poor Mohammed? If Charan Singh can allot him some place in the first, that will be too much. And what about Yoka? Or sinners like me? If we can get a place even in the seventh hell, that will be too great.This type of game is very old; it is not new. These people are mad egoists. Beware of such people – avoid them.And you say: “I am not a disciple of Charan Singh and have no desire to become one but the Radha Swami books did leave me very puzzled.” There is danger – if you are puzzled you have already become impressed. If you are puzzled you have already taken one step toward disciplehood. Why should you even be puzzled? Can’t you see that crap is crap? Why should you be puzzled? It is so simple. Please don’t be puzzled; otherwise there is danger. Once you are puzzled, you have started thinking about it. And once you start thinking about it, you will need some explanation. And these people are very clever at explanations. Because their whole idea is fictitious, explanations are possible, clever explanations are possible.Truth cannot be explained, but lies can be explained very beautifully. They are lies, man-made; you can adjust your lie to any explanation. Truth is uncompromising. So, if you become puzzled, you will read more books, you will become more puzzled, and sooner or later you will have to go to Beas, to the Punjab, to have satsang with Charan Singh. And there more fear will arise and more greed, and soon you will be trapped. So don’t be puzzled. There is no need to be puzzled. One should be intelligent enough to see crap as crap. It is nothing more.The fifth question:Osho,You say always that you're not there. Everyone else says they look into your eyes and there's no one there. How is it that I always experience the opposite: that you're there and you're the only one who's really there?Truth is always paradoxical. If it is not paradoxical it is not truth. The only way to be is not to be. Only when one is absent, presence arrives. So both are true. Those who look into my eyes and see nobody there, they are right, absolutely right. And you are also right, that when you look into my eyes you see “…the only one who’s really there.”These two experiences don’t contradict each other, they complement. If somebody is looking for an ego in me, for a personality, he will not find one. There is no personality there; the personality has disappeared. It was a dream, and I no longer entertain any dreams. It was a guest; now the only one who lives inside me is the host. Those who are looking for the guest will not find the guest – they will not see any person there, somebody who can say “I.” They will go inside, they will look all around, and they will not find any center able to say “I.” That center is no longer there. That complex has dissolved.So, what they say is true; they come out and they say, “We see inside, and there is no one there.” But if you are not looking for the person, if you are not looking for the center, if you are not looking for somebody, if you are not looking for the guest, you will see some immense presence – not a person, not a personality, but a presence. A person is gross, fictitious, a persona, a mask. A presence is just radiance.I am empty as far as the person is concerned; I am full as far as the presence is concerned, abundantly full. If you look directly into me, not looking for the guest, then you will find the host. It depends on what you are looking for. You go into a room, you are looking for somebody, and he is not there, you say, “The room is empty; he is not there.” There are a thousand other things in the room, but you are not talking about them. The furniture is there, the clock is there still ticking, the painting is on the wall; everything is there. But the room is empty because you were looking for somebody who is not there. It depends on who you are looking for. What you will find depends on you. And both outlooks are valid because both things have happened: I have disappeared, and I have come. I am no more, and only now I am.Truth functions as paradox. And to go beyond paradox is to go beyond intellect. The real understanding is always transcendental. And by transcendental is meant the paradoxical.The sixth question:Osho,Did I hear you rightly? There is nothing that can be done to stop the misery – no decoration or pruning is going to do any good.You heard me absolutely rightly. Yes, there is nothing that can be done to stop the misery. If you go on doing something to stop the misery, you go on creating it. That’s how it persists, that’s how you nourish it and feed it. If you are doing something to stop misery, you are creating it, because the doing creates the doer. The doing brings the ego, and the ego is the poison. The doing keeps you tense, and creates anxiety – whether you make it or not. The doing keeps you anxious, always trembling, and that is misery. The doing never allows you rest. How can you rest unless you have done that which you need to do? Unless you have arrived you cannot relax; you can only relax in the tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes; all that comes is today, and you still have to do something. You are sacrificing today for your tomorrow. And this is the only stupid thing that man has to be aware of.Don’t sacrifice this moment for any other moment. Don’t sacrifice this life for any heaven – first, second, fifth, seventh… Don’t sacrifice it for anything. This moment has to be lived as this moment – just this, only this. Don’t sacrifice it because the next moment may never come – in fact, it never comes. You sacrifice this for the next, and then you will sacrifice the next, and so on and so forth, and one day you will die. You will be just sacrificing and sacrificing. Sacrifice is misery. If you want to do something to stop misery, you will never be able to stop it. But if you have heard me, and not only intellectually, because I use simple words… There is nothing that can be done to stop the misery. If you have heard it, misery will stop immediately. That’s what Yoka calls cutting the root.Stop doing anything to stop the misery. And I am not saying try to stop, otherwise you move again, you start again, on the same trip – in a different name, with a different flag. That’s why Yoka says the root can be cut directly, immediately, right now. This is the moment, now or never.One day it happened…Ramakrishna was sitting under a tree, and the disciples were working. Somebody was cleaning the garden, somebody was cooking, and somebody was doing something else. Ramakrishna was sitting under a tree, swaying, singing, chanting. And then suddenly he shouted, “This is it! Now or never!”It was so sudden that the man who was cleaning the garden path stopped. The man who was cooking stopped. The people who were sitting there with closed eyes opened their eyes and stopped whatsoever they were doing. For a moment bliss descended, benediction was there. Ramakrishna laughed, he said, “You see? You go on searching for it, and it is here.”One man touched his feet and thanked him, but Ramakrishna said, “Don’t thank me, I have not done anything. I simply shouted, ‘This is it! Now or never!’ and you heard it. Thank yourself. Now keep reminding yourself. Don’t start a journey toward a goal called bliss, godliness, paradise, truth. Be here, and misery has gone. Where is the misery? Look!”Look right now. Where is the misery? If you have heard me rightly, if you have heard me at all, where is the misery? In this moment is there any misery? Look inside. All has stopped. It is so silent. The benediction is upon you. And this can be your life forever and forever. This is my life, and this is your birthright too. Claim it!If you stop doing anything to stop misery, misery stops – that’s the miracle. You are doing something just like a dog. Have you seen a dog chasing its own tail? The dog starts going crazy because the more he tries to chase his tail… It looks so close by, it is just lying there, and when he jumps the tail jumps. Naturally, the dog gets offended – a dog, after all, is a dog. He rushes more forcibly – natural logic, all dogs are logicians. The natural logic is that he is not running fast enough after it, that’s why he cannot catch it.That’s the logic in the marketplace, that’s the logic of the politicians: that if you are not getting what you want, it simply shows you are not running enough, you are not going fast enough. “Go fast, find more speedy means.” That’s the whole logic of this century: speed. If you are unhappy then you must be going very slowly toward it. “Go fast, hire a jet plane and go fast.” The faster you go the better, the greater the speed the better. This is the logic. This has nothing very special about it; dogs have the same logic.The dog jumps, and faster and faster it goes, and round and round it goes, but it cannot catch the tail. It is so close by, just by the corner, and he can see it is there. Just think of a dog. Just become a dog for a moment and think. So close, and you cannot catch it? Are you impotent or something? It is such a challenge. Then the dog is exhausted, falls on the ground, panting, and it is there; he avoids looking at it, because it is so tempting, and it is his own tail! There is no need to catch it. That is the catch: there is no need to catch it; it is already yours.That’s what is happening. If you are trying to become happy, trying to become not miserable, trying to stop misery and attain blissfulness, you are chasing a tail that looks close by, but which you will never be able to get at because it is already yours. You already possess it. Stop chasing and see the root of the tail; you will find that it is joined to you. And you don’t need any master to join your tail to you, no Charan Singh is needed to connect you. You are connected.“Did I hear you rightly? There is nothing that can be done to stop the misery – no decoration or pruning is going to do any good?” You still want something to be occupied with; you are still hoping I will say, “No, there is something. I will give you a secret initiation. Come to me. There is something, a sacred mantra, that I give only to special people, the chosen few.” There is nothing sacred and there is nothing special, because nothing has to be done; existence has done it already. The world is as perfect as it ever can be. You are as perfect as you ever can be. In fact, you are more perfect than you can imagine yourself ever to be.Just relax. No need to stop anything. If misery is there, it is there. Don’t do anything about it; leave it there. Be respectful to it and leave it there. And you will be surprised that just leaving it there is cutting the root. You are no longer feeding it; you are no longer tense, no longer anxious, no longer in anguish. Misery is there, and you are not miserable – how long can the misery remain? It is going to die; it will disappear soon. It was created by your running; it was the smoke created by your rush and speed.And if you cannot learn it here, where I have transformed the air into wine, where will you learn? Here, it is happening. You just have to be open to it; it is already happening.All is perfect in this moment. So are you. This moment, with no endeavor, with no effort, with nowhere to go, is existence. In this moment, relaxed, you are that: tattvamasi, thou art that. In this moment nothing is missed, nothing is missing. This I call intoxication, intoxication with the moment, with existence.You have to learn to breathe this air. That is satsang; that is being with a master.The seventh question:Osho,How can anyone who has not realized his true buddha nature help feeling inferior in your presence every morning?There must be something wrong in your mind to feel inferior in my presence. I go on provoking again and again that you are buddhas. Can you find anybody anywhere who will respect you more than I respect you? My whole work consists of one thing: reminding you that you are buddhas, that you are gods and goddesses, that you have fallen into a dream and you think of yourself as a beggar or a tramp, but you are not.Why should you feel inferior in my presence? In my presence you should feel at the very top of the world because I am not separate from you, I am that which you can become any moment – this moment. I am simply a representation of all that you can be. How can you feel inferior in my presence? There must be something else.It is not my presence that makes you feel inferior, it must be a very subtle ego somewhere deep down. You want to feel superior in my presence, that is creating the trouble. If you want to feel superior in my presence, then you will feel inferior. You are the cause of it, not my presence. If you want to feel superior it will be difficult; you will not be able to manage it. You will fall short, you will slip again and again, and then you will feel inferior.Inferiority is created when you want to feel superior. Inferiority is the shadow. If you love me, who is inferior and who is superior? In love all superiority, all inferiority, disappear. The master is not superior to the disciple; the disciple is not inferior to the master. The master knows, is aware of, the disciple’s perfection; the disciple is not aware. But nobody is inferior and nobody is superior. And when a disciple bows down to the master it is not because of inferiority, but because it is only in the presence of the master that for the first time all inferiority disappears.That’s why he bows down, it is out of gratitude: “It is only in your presence where I don’t feel rotten, where I don’t feel rubbish, where I don’t feel like a worm, where suddenly my reality blooms. It is only in your presence that I remember my own innermost core; it is in your presence that my innermost flame burns bright, that I am aflame with love, with presence, with awareness, hence I bow down.” It is not because of any inferiority, but because all inferiority disappears.And I am not saying that when inferiority disappears you start feeling superior. When inferiority disappears, all feeling of superiority also disappears. They live together, they are together; they cannot be separated. The man who feels superior is still feeling inferior somewhere; the man who feels inferior wants to feel superior somewhere. They come in a pair, they cannot be separated, they are always there together. The man who says, “I am humble” is simply trying to prove himself superior, wants to be superior.That’s what happens to your so-called saints: they become humble but they don’t become simple. Simple means no inferiority, no superiority. Can’t you visualize what I mean? One simply is – no comparison. Superiority, inferiority, arise out of comparison, you start comparing.It happened…A Zen master was sitting in satsang, his disciples were there, and a very proud man, a warrior, a samurai, came to see him. The samurai was a very famous one, well-known all over the country, but looking at the master, looking at the beauty of the master and the grace of the moment, he suddenly felt inferior. Maybe he had come with an unconscious desire to prove his superiority. He said to the master, “Why am I feeling inferior? Just a moment before everything was okay. As I entered your court suddenly I felt inferior. I have never felt like that. My hands are shaking. I am a warrior, I have faced death many times and I have never felt any fear. Why am I feeling frightened?”The master said, “Wait, when everybody has gone, I will answer.” People continued coming, and the man was getting more and more tired.By the evening the room was empty, there was nobody, and the samurai asked, “Now, can you answer it?”And the master answered, “Now, come outside.”A full-moon night, the moon was just rising on the horizon, and he said, “Look at these trees, this tree high in the sky and this small tree. They both have existed by the side of my window for years, and there has never been any problem, the smaller tree has never said, ‘Why do I feel inferior before you?’ to the big tree. How is it possible? This tree is small, and that tree is big, and I have never heard any whisper.”The samurai said, “Because they can’t compare.”The master said, “Then you need not ask me; you know the answer.”Comparison brings inferiority, superiority. When you don’t compare, all inferiority, all superiority, disappear. Then you are, you are simply there. A small bush or a big, high tree, it doesn’t matter, you are yourself; you are needed. A grass leaf is needed as much as the biggest star. Without the grass leaf, existence will be less than it is. This sound of the cuckoo is needed as much as any buddha; the world will be less, will be less rich if this cuckoo disappears.Just look around. All is needed, and everything fits together. It is an organic unity: nobody is higher and nobody is lower, nobody superior, nobody inferior. Everybody is incomparably unique.If you cannot feel this in my presence, where are you going to feel it? Every day, morning, evening, I bow down to you just to remind you that you are perfect, that nothing is lacking, that you are already there – not even a single step has to be taken, from the very beginning everything is as it should be. This is religious consciousness.The eighth question:Osho,Yes, yes, yes, Osho, yes.That’s what prayer is. Prayer consists of only one single word, yes. That is the meaning of amen: it means yes.If you can say yes with your total heart, you have said all that can be said, that need be said. If you can say yes with your total heart, you are in celebration. If you can say yes to existence, you have arrived.Get deeper and deeper into yes. Say yes to each and every thing. Say yes to good and bad, to day and night, to summer and winter. Say yes to success and to failure. Say yes to life and to death. Forget everything else; just remember one word, yes, and it can transform your whole being. It can become a radical change, a revolution.Yes is all that is meant by prayer. People pray in so many words – meaningless. Just one word is enough.And the last question:Osho,Why should the poor sun rise in the evening? Is the morning not enough?The morning is perfectly beautiful, but not enough. It is only half; it is only a part. The sun has to rise in the evening too, then life is total.One has to rejoice not only in life, but in death too; then life is total. One has to rejoice not only in love, but in aloneness too; then the dance is complete.That’s why I say I have seen the sun rising in the evening: the circle is complete. The evening is the other side of the morning. If the sun rises only in the morning, then you will become attached to the morning and when the evening comes you will not be able to say yes to it. And the evening is coming. If the morning has come, the evening is coming. If you were born, you will be dying. The sun has to rise in your death too. You have to die like Buddha with a song in the heart, with a yea-saying. You have to die like Krishna, still playing on his flute. You have to learn that peaks are beautiful, but so are valleys. And the darkest night also has a full moon in it.That is the meaning of the sun rising in the evening. It has an immense significance; it has a great message for you. I am saying that life in all its colors is beautiful, that nothing has to be denied, rejected, that nothing has to be destroyed, that nothing has to be renounced; that all has to be accepted in great joy, in great gratitude, and then the sun rises in the evening too. And the beauty of it is immense, because everybody knows the sun that rises in the morning, but very few know the sun that rises in the evening. The moment you can see the sun rising in the evening, you have become a buddha.Then all is good. When all is good, then all is godliness.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The moon reflected in the stream, the wind blowing through the pinesIn the cool of the evening, in the deep midnight –what is it for?When we attain reality, it is seen to be neitherpersonal nor impersonal.There is no sin, no paradise, no loss or gain;about this transcendentality, no questions!Who is thought-less? Who is birth-less?Man is a useless passion, says Jean-Paul Sartre. Why is man a useless passion? He says, “Because there is no meaning in life.” Man searches and searches, and he gains nothing but frustration. Man is doomed to fail because meaning, as such, does not exist. The message of Jean-Paul Sartre is that of despair, hopelessness, anguish. If there is no meaning, naturally, man is a useless passion. He exists for nothing, exists accidentally, arbitrarily; he goes on keeping himself occupied in useless things, but the ultimate end is nothing but emptiness. Nothing is gained. Man comes empty and goes empty. The whole effort – and the effort is great – is just pointless.The myth of Sisyphus in Greek mythology is of significance. It says that the gods were angry with Sisyphus. They condemned him to carry a big rock to the hilltop. It is a hard task, it is an almost impossible task, but Sisyphus does it – he carries the rock to the top. And then, the ultimate result is that the rock cannot remain on the top. Because of its weight, of its own accord it starts falling back into the valley again. And it happens again and again: Sisyphus carries the rock, prepares a thousand and one details, fights with the heights, and the ultimate result is always that the rock rolls back into the valley. Sisyphus goes down, starts the work again.This myth is symbolic of man’s life. From birth to death you struggle and you struggle, and it is a hard struggle and it is an uphill task, and you carry a rock… And by the time you reach, the rock starts slipping back. At the end is death, waiting for you; and death destroys all that you have done, it takes away all that you have created. And again another birth, and the whole nonsense begins again, and so on and so forth.If you look at the life of man, Jean-Paul Sartre has a point. Man is a useless passion: meaningless, all endeavor utterly of no significance. Then why does man go on living? That becomes the most important question – then why does man go on living? Maybe just because of cowardice, because he cannot commit suicide, because he is afraid!Another existentialist, Albert Camus, has said that the only metaphysical problem – the only one – is of suicide. All else is of no significance. Of course, if man is a useless passion, then suicide becomes the most important question. Everybody has to encounter it. Why not commit suicide? Why go on living?Sigmund Freud says, “Human life is more a matter of endurance than enjoyment.” Then why endure it at all, if it is only a question of endurance? Sigmund Freud also says… And when he says something it has weight because he is not a philosopher; his whole life he worked and searched into the deepest recesses of the unconscious of man. He is a psychologist; it has weight when he says something. It is not just a hypothesis; it is based on observation. He says there is no hope for man, and man can never attain bliss because there is no possibility for meaning.Down the ages, all the philosophies and all the religions have tried to supply the answer: that there is meaning, that the meaning is in God, that the meaning is in paradise, that the meaning is somewhere. They may differ about where the meaning is, but about one thing they all agree: that somewhere meaning exists. But they have all failed – all the philosophies and all the religions have failed. Meaning has not been found; man has been more and more disillusioned. He has hoped with every answer, and he has moved with every answer, and again nothing is arrived at. All answers fail.Then man started thinking of revolution: “If philosophies fail, if religions fail, then let us look somewhere else.” Revolution: a political revolution, an economic revolution, a scientific revolution – now they have also failed. It seems that man is doomed to fail. This is the situation if you look into all the questions and the answers that man has asked down the ages.The question of meaning is the most ancient question, and meaning has not been found. Many answers have been given, many philosophies propounded, but they are all consolatory; they console you. Yes, you can deceive yourself for a time, but if you are intelligent enough you always come to see the futility of it all. If you are intelligent enough, those consolations won’t help. They are helpful only for the mediocre, they are helpful only for the one who has decided to deceive himself, who wants to pretend that there is meaning: meaning in money, meaning in power, meaning in respectability, meaning in virtue, in character, meaning in being a saint. But if you are intelligent enough, if you go on probing deeper and deeper, sooner or later you come to the rock bottom of meaninglessness.Maybe because of that people don’t probe enough; they are afraid. An unconscious feeling is there that, “If we go deep enough nothing will be found, so better not to go deep. Go on swimming on the surface.”But Zen has succeeded where everybody has failed. Buddha has succeeded where everybody else has failed. And Zen is the ultimate flowering of the insight that happened to Buddha twenty-five centuries ago in Bodhgaya, sitting under a tree.What was the insight that happened? What was Buddha’s unique experience? He didn’t experience any God, he didn’t encounter… In fact, there was no spiritual experience. He didn’t see great light, he didn’t see kundalini arising, he didn’t see great vistas and golden paradises opening – nothing of the sort. What was his insight? That insight is the foundation of Zen; it has to be understood. It is one of the most important things that ever happened to human consciousness. What did he come to know? He came to know one thing: that if meaning is dropped, meaninglessness also disappears.This is a great insight – the greatest. If meaning is dropped, then meaninglessness automatically disappears. It has to be so, because how can you say life is meaningless if there is no meaning? If there is no meaning, then meaninglessness cannot be possible. To make meaninglessness possible, meaning will be needed. If you say that your statement is meaningless, that means statements are possible which will be meaningful. If all statements are meaningless then you cannot call any statement meaningless – how will you compare? What will be the criterion? Buddha’s insight that early morning was that he dropped all search for meaning. He had searched long enough – for many lives – and for six years he had been looking in this life also. He had tried all the answers, he had looked into all the available answers, and found them lacking.That early morning, when the last star was disappearing in the sky, something disappeared in his inner sky also. He came to a profound insight; he saw, “Life looks meaningless because I am searching for meaning. Life is not meaningless; it becomes meaningless, it looks meaningless because of my longing for meaning. The problem is my longing for meaning, not the meaninglessness of life. If I don’t long for meaning, then what is meaningless? Then great joy is released.”Existentialism in the West has missed, and has missed while the insight was very close by, just one more step… Courageous people, Martin Heidegger or Jean-Paul Sartre or Albert Camus, Berdyaev, courageous people, but one more step and buddhas would have bloomed in the West. They remain clinging to the idea of meaning, and then despair arises.You want some meaning in life. For example, you go to the garden and you see a roseflower, and you ask what is the meaning of it. By asking, you destroy the whole beauty of it. Now you cannot see the grace of the flower, now you cannot look into the beauty of it, you cannot see the joy of the flower, you cannot see its dance in the sun, in the rains. You cannot see what is confronting you – a tremendously significant blooming of existence. Now you are searching for meaning, you ask, “What is the meaning of this roseflower?” Naturally, there is no meaning; you cannot reduce the flower to a meaning. And when you cannot reduce the flower to a meaning, great despair arises. “There is no meaning in the flower? Life is all meaningless, futile. Man is a useless passion.” You have fallen into a dark night.One more step – meaning being dropped – and you have transformed the whole world. When you drop meaning, let meaninglessness also be dropped with it. How can you carry meaninglessness? How can you say, “Man is a useless passion,” if there is no use? If all is useless, utterly useless, then the very word useless loses meaning.This was the insight that happened to Buddha, and has developed slowly, slowly and culminated in Zen. If you understand this, you will be able to understand Zen; otherwise you will miss the whole point. Then Zen poetry will be of no meaning to you, and Zen painting will not be of any meaning to you, and these immensely beautiful sutras of Yoka will look like nonsense. If you understand this insight, then great significance arises. Meaning disappears, meaninglessness disappears, but significance arises. And that majestic significance, that magic of life and existence, is what God is all about.God is the simultaneous majesty of experience, the simultaneity of the magic that is happening: these raindrops, the sound of them, this silent morning… This simultaneous majesty, this is God.Buddha never uses the word God because it creates problems; he uses the word nirvana. Nirvana means cessation: just as you blow out a candle and the candle has disappeared, the candle has ceased to be, meaning disappears, meaninglessness disappears. And with the longing for meaning, something in you disappears. What is it? Who is desiring that there should be meaning in life? That desire creates the ego, that creates a process of “egoing.” The more you search, the more you rush for meaning, the more the ego arises. And when you die, only that ego fails.Man is not a useless passion; ego is. But if you are identified with the ego, then, of course, it looks as if you are useless.Buddha says, and the Zen masters go on resounding it, “There is no meaning, and there is no meaninglessness either. All is as it is.” Don’t ask for meaning, otherwise you will miss it. Don’t look for meaning otherwise you will create despair for yourself. Forget all about meaning. The rose is perfectly beautiful without any meaning, and so is the sun, and so are the people. The moment you raise the question of meaning, slowly, slowly you will get more and more trapped into a kind of madness. And when you do not find meaning, and you have put your whole life at stake, naturally one feels frustrated, and anguish arises.The myth of Sisyphus is significant. It was written in Greece. If it had been written by a Zen Buddhist, he would have given it a totally different flavor. He would not have bothered about the rock slipping back into the valley; he would have enjoyed the whole trip to the top and back to the valley. It is beautiful – flowers are blooming by the side, the birds are singing, and the fresh morning air – one is ecstatic. And Sisyphus is singing a song, a shodoka, a song of enlightenment. He would have defeated the gods if he had been a man of Zen. The gods would have cried and wept, because they had punished him, and he is enjoying. He would have enjoyed the trees by the side of the road, and the rocks, and the rock itself that he was carrying, the texture of it.If it were a morning like this… And the raindrops, and the smell of the freshly wet earth, he would have sung a beautiful song, he would have shouted a few haikus, he would have said, “This is it!” He would have danced with the rock, around the rock. He would have enjoyed it. And when from the top the rock slips back, the sound of it… And again a new thrill, and the adventure of going down into the valley and bringing the rock up again, and all that beautiful journey; then the whole perspective is changed.But the Greek mind was a logical mind; they created logic in the world, they are the source of all logic. It looks like a condemnation, Sisyphus is condemned; you can’t see any meaning in it. What will be the meaning? When Sisyphus reaches to the top and is awarded a Nobel Prize, then do you think there will be meaning in it? That will be another rock to carry. What meaning will there be? And the question will remain relevant: what is the meaning of getting a Nobel Prize? What do you think? If he reaches to the top and becomes a millionaire, will that be the meaning? Or he becomes world famous… Sisyphus has reached to the top, and he is talked about in all the newspapers, and his picture is on the front page of all the great newspapers of the world – will that be meaning? What meaning? Can you think of any meaning that will be real meaning?No, the whole thinking is wrong. If you think of meaning as a result, then you will miss the whole point. That is where Buddha’s insight is of tremendous importance. He says, “Meaning is not in the result but in the act.” And it can only be in the act if you are not looking for the meaning. If you are looking for the meaning you have moved into the future, you have missed this moment; you have missed the present. You have missed that which is, and the beauty of that which is – the benediction of it, the utter joy of it.This is what Zen is. Zen drops the search for meaning because it is an ego search. The gratification of the ego is thought to be the meaning. Zen drops the very search for meaning, and in that very dropping, all kinds of meaninglessness disappears. See the beauty of it. Then life is, simply is: no meaning, no meaninglessness. How can you be in despair? And when there is no search for meaning, you are no longer separate from life. When there is no search for meaning, how can you divide yourself from life? Then you are part of this organic unity, this simultaneous majesty, this magic of being, this ecstasy of being. Then you sing with the birds, and you bloom with the trees, and you dance with the stars. Then you don’t have any private world of your own – this world is your world. And then there is no idea of the future.Then this moment is all. It contains eternity.Friedrich Nietzsche has said, “To have lost God means madness; and when mankind discovers that it has lost God, universal madness will break out.” And this from a man who himself has declared that God is dead. He is afraid of what he has declared, he is afraid of it. He says that when God is lost, man will go mad. That’s exactly what happened to Nietzsche – he went mad. He could not live without meaning although he declared – he dared – that God is dead. Maybe he dared too much, maybe he dared beyond his capacities, maybe he was not able to absorb the death of God; it was such a shock. Maybe he was reacting, and was going to the other extreme, and then a wound was left in his being. He himself could not live without God. He was a very egoistic man, so he could not believe in God; he had to declare God dead. But once he declared God dead, then there was no meaning.The death of God is the death of meaning. God has remained the meaning for centuries. Since man has existed on the earth, God has been the meaning: “We can always look toward God, life is nothing but a preparation for God, life is a waiting for God, sooner or later we will arrive home” – that there is a home and there is a father figure or a mother figure waiting for you. You are not lost; maybe you have gone astray, but not lost. Any time you can decide to move back, and you will find the home, and the home will not have disappeared. God has remained the center – the center of all meaning; all meaning arises out of God.Now, it was difficult for the ego of Nietzsche to accept any meaning from outside. He wanted the meaning to come from inside him, the meaning has to be his, not God’s. He didn’t want to borrow it from anybody – he was a very proud man. He declared God dead, but once God is dead, all meaning is dead. Once God is dead, then there is no center in existence, everything starts falling apart, everything starts disintegrating. All other values are dependent values: what is good if there is no God? It is derived from God. What is virtue if there is no God? And what is morality if there is no God? And who is a sinner and who is a saint if there is no God? And why not do this and why do that if there is no God? In the same sentence when Nietzsche declared, “God is dead,” he also declared, “Now man is free.” Naturally, free of all values, free of all restrictions, free of all responsibilities. Now man is no longer answerable; nobody can ask him anything. Now there is not going to be any Judgment Day, now man is free and whatsoever he wants to do he can do.Fyodor Dostoevsky says: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” Obviously, if there is no God, all is permitted, then who is there to command you to do this or not to do this? Then disobedience or obedience are both meaningless. Then Adam cannot be turned out of the Garden of Eden – there is no God who can prohibit him, and there is no God who can say, “Don’t eat the fruit of this Tree of Knowledge,” and there is nobody who can force Adam to be obedient.And once God disappears there is no sin because sin is disobedience, sin is going against the commandments of God. The disappearance of God means the disappearance of all values; then man is purely an animal without any values. If there is no God, then man is certainly free. Jean-Paul Sartre says, “Man is condemned to be free.” Condemned? Yes, if there are no values, then freedom is going to be too much; you will not be able to live it. Life will become chaos; freedom will turn into chaos, into madness.And Nietzsche was aware that if there was no God, man was going to be mad. He himself became mad; the last years of his life were of great madness. He lost all sense of direction, all possibility of direction. There is nowhere to go if there is no God. But Nietzsche was not aware that there have been people who have said, “There is no God” and did not go mad. Buddha is one.There is no God, and still Buddha has not gone mad. In fact, Buddha says that you create God somehow to maintain your sanity. Your sanity is not true sanity – a God is needed to maintain it; without God, you will be exposed. You are mad; God is just a trick to keep you sane. All your religions are nothing but strategies to keep you sane – make-believes, consolations – otherwise, life will be too much and you will not be able to bear it, the pain of it, the anguish of it. If you understand Buddha, then to believe in God is somehow a way to protect yourself from the inner insanity that is there. A really sane man will not need God. A really healthy person, a whole person, will not need God. He will be godliness itself, why would he need God?Nietzsche is not aware that Buddha has lived without God. And Buddha is not alone – Mahavira has lived without God. And Mahavira is not alone; many, many other enlightened people have preceded them and succeeded them. In the East, the greatest traditions, Buddhist, Jaina and Tao, are all God-less, and yet they are religions. The West is incapable of understanding how they can be religions, how they can call themselves religions if there is no God. They cannot think of a religion without God; they are obsessed with the idea of God. So if God is dead, or God disappears or is no longer found, or man becomes disbelieving, then he will go mad. Nietzsche went mad. And the whole of humanity is slowly, slowly moving toward that madness. He predicted rightly. He was a very prophetic madman.But Zen has no God. From where does Zen derive its sanity, from where, from what source? Dropping the desire for meaning, God is dropped. God is nothing but a created meaning, manufactured by man. The Bible says God created man in his own image. That is not true; man has created God in his own image – that is far truer. In fact, to say God is the father of man is wrong. God is the son of man – it is man’s idea. Man cannot live without God. That is the neurosis of man; it shows man’s dependence. Man cannot live without a father figure, man needs somebody to lean on, somebody to look to; man needs a great support, man cannot stand on his own, on his own feet.And that is the beauty of Zen, and that is the message of Buddha: man can be on his own – there is no need to lean on anybody. And godliness certainly arises in you when you are not leaning on anybody, because when you lean, you lean on your own beliefs. They are dreams, projections; they are not true. Out of fear you create God. How can it be true, it is not your experience. Out of despair you create God; it is a by-product of despair. Out of misery you create God. How can your God be satchitanand? How can your God be truth, bliss, consciousness? You create your God out of your unconsciousness – how can it be consciousness? You create God out of your misery – how can God be bliss? You create God out of your lies and the greatest lie is to believe in God without knowing him – how can God be truth? No, God cannot be satchitanand.Buddha says: God has not to be created by you. You have to come to a point where you are capable of dropping all search for meaning and all longing for meaning. With that search dropped, all “Gods” disappear of their own accord; all paradises disappear. They were nothing but dreams. You are left alone, content-less.And remember again, you are not falling into despair; you cannot. A buddha cannot fall into despair, it is impossible. Hope has disappeared, so has hopelessness. The goal has disappeared – how can you be anxious now? Anxiety arises only because of the goal: whether you are going to make it or not, hence the anxiety. There can’t be any tension when there is no meaning. Then all that is left is play. All that is left is to live this moment. Then eating, eat; sleeping, sleep; then walking, walk. Each act is ultimate, and it has no reference to anything else. It does not need any reference to be meaningful. It is neither meaningful nor meaningless, it simply is.That is-ness Buddha calls tathata, suchness: is is is. Buddha calls this is-ness freedom. But the freedom is not like Sartre’s freedom, as if man is condemned to be free. It is glory; it is great splendor. It is releasement – releasement from egoing, releasement from all confinements and identities, releasement of the inner splendor. You bloom, without any future; you bloom in the present. This moment is all.Buddha started a revolution in human consciousness. His religion is not an ordinary religion; it is utterly extraordinary. It is rare; it is not the common or garden variety. It is very special – a special transmission. Buddha’s insight has penetrated the very core of existence. Zen bloomed out of that insight. What happened to Buddha in Bodhgaya on that certain morning under a Bo tree has lived and grown. It has gathered more and more energy. It has become a big river now – that is Zen.And Zen has something which is very, very essential for the survival of man in the future; otherwise suicide will become the only thing to think of. Zen can give you an alternative, that alternative is sannyas.Suicide means there is no meaning, so destroy yourself. Sannyas means there is no meaning, so you are freed from that hankering, now enjoy yourself. Because there is no meaning, there is no destiny. You are free to enjoy this moment with your totality: nothing to hinder, no God to be taken care of, no commandment. You are utterly free to be in this moment.The future is going to be more Zen-like than anything else. If man is to survive, religion has to take the shape of Zen; it will be closer and closer to Zen than to anything else, because Zen is not a religion like Christianity or Hinduism or Jainism or even Buddhism. Zen is a new kind of religiousness – not religion but religiousness. The difference between other religions is that of quantity. The difference between Zen and other religions is that of quality; it is a qualitative revolution.Zen gives you a new insight, a new vision; a life of freedom, utter freedom, a life of spontaneity, absolute spontaneity, a life of the moment, in the moment, for the moment. And there is nowhere else to go.This is going to be the future of humanity, this is the only possibility for man’s survival. Existentialism in the West has created the atmosphere for Zen to pop up. Existentialism is halfhearted Zen, unconscious Zen. Zen is conscious existentialism. Sartre and Camus and Heidegger and Berdyaev and Marcel and others are just predecessors of something that is coming, that has really already arrived for those who can see. Hence I am speaking so much on Zen, because it has the flavor of the future.Man cannot remain confined in the temples and churches and mosques any longer. Enough! And enough is enough. Man needs the whole sky now.This is the song of Yoka Daishi; these sutras are beautiful, go into them.The moon reflected in the stream, the wind blowing through the pinesin the cool of the evening, in the deep midnight –what is it for?Yoka is saying, if you ask this question, you are a fool. Can you ask this question: The moon reflected in the stream… Why is it reflected in the stream? What is the meaning of it? Is it not beautiful as it is? Has some meaning to be brought to it; will meaning add in any way to its beauty and benediction? The moon reflected in the stream… Is it not enough? In fact, it is more than enough. What else do you want? Why do you think of meaning?The search for meaning is greed, and the search for meaning is mundane. The man who is religious will enjoy this moment: The moon reflected in the stream… The beauty, the grace, the silence… Neither the moon wants to be reflected in the stream, nor does the stream want the moon to be caught in it as a reflection. There is no desiring anywhere – no desire on the part of the moon, no desire on the part of the stream. But the moon is there and the stream is there, and so the reflection… Neither the stream is worried about the meaning of the moon, nor is the moon worried about the meaning of the stream. You, sitting on the bank, are worried: “What is the meaning of all this? And if I cannot find any meaning, then why should I live at all, why not commit suicide?”Such a beautiful world, such grandeur, such a magical moment: the moon reflected in the stream – and you, Albert Camus, thinking of committing suicide, talking about suicide. Can’t you enjoy this moment in its bare nakedness? Do you have to bring some meaning to it? Do you have you to ask what is the use of it? Would you like to sell this reflection in the marketplace? And when you get a ten-rupee note, will you then say, “Yes, it has meaning”? What are you asking for? What do you mean by meaning?A child is playing and the father comes home and says, “Do your homework. What are you doing? Do something useful!” Why is the homework useful? Because it is going to bring money later on – what else is its use? Play is not useful because it is not going to bring any money.We have reduced the whole of life to utility; we have all become utilitarians, and a utilitarian is never religious. If you ask me who is religious and who is not, this is my definition. God is not the problem – whether one man believes in God or not does not make one religious or irreligious, because I have seen millions who believe in God and who are not religious, and I have seen a few people who don’t believe in God and who are religious. So that is irrelevant; we will have to find some other definition. This is my definition: the man who only thinks of utility is irreligious. Then he cannot understand beauty, he always asks for utility.You see a bird on the wing – the sky is clear and there are no clouds, just the bird silently balancing on its wings far away – and you say, “Look! Look at the bird on the wing.” And your friend answers, “So what!” This man is irreligious. He says, “So what!” The bird is on the wing, so what! What is the meaning of it? He is asking, “Can we cash it in?” He is asking, “Can it be reduced to money, economics? Can it be reduced to politics? Will it help me to win the coming election? Will it help me to have a bigger balance in the bank? Is it going to help me become more famous? If not, then what is the point? Why waste time?”Lao Tzu is passing by, he is going on a pilgrimage. You may ask, “Pilgrimage to where? Is he going to Mecca or to Kailash, or is he going to Kashi?” No. Pilgrimage to nowhere. Just enjoying, in the mountains and the rivers and the valleys, a pilgrimage to nowhere. His disciples are following him. They go into a forest where all the trees have been cut except one tree, and that one tree is so big and its branches so high and so long that one thousand bullock carts can rest under its shade. Lao Tzu sends one of his disciples who is a philosopher: “Inquire what has happened, because the whole jungle has been cut and thousands of workers are still cutting the remaining trees, but why are they not cutting this tree? Just go and inquire.”He asks the philosopher-disciple to inquire because he is always asking about the use, the meaning. The philosopher goes, comes back a little puzzled and confused, and says, “It is puzzling. I asked them and they said because that tree is useless. They say that all its branches are such that they cannot be used in making any kind of furniture – they are not straight. Its leaves are such that no animal will eat them. When you burn the wood of this tree, only smoke comes out, no fire. It is utterly useless, that’s why they have not cut it.”And Lao Tzu laughed a hearty laugh and said, “You see the use of uselessness? Now, this tree has survived because it is useless. See the beauty of the tree. Because it is useless, it is enjoying the sun and the clouds; it is still alive. The useful trees have been cut and destroyed.” Then he said to his disciples, “Be useless like this tree, then nobody will disturb you, then nobody will kill you, and you will be able to enjoy, you will be able to dance. Look at the dance of the tree.”Lao Tzu is saying that use is not all that there is in life, and to think that use is all, is to be a materialist, is to be irreligious. The man who is always asking about the use and meaning is an irreligious person. The religious person enjoys. He does not ask any questions about life. Life is so beautiful – why waste time in asking?The moon reflected in the stream, the wind blowing through the pines in the cool of the evening, in the deep midnight – what is it for? Yoka is saying: “Do you ask the question, what is it for? Then why ask about man? Why ask about existence? Why ask at all?” Asking creates a barrier to enjoying. Philosophers are the people who enjoy life the least, and it is unfortunate that they dominate people’s minds. And they are the people who enjoy least in the world, they are the most miserable; they are always asking why.A woman told Immanuel Kant – a beautiful woman – that she had fallen in love with him and she wanted to marry him. He said, “Why? Why should one fall in love? And what is the meaning of love? I will have to think over it.” And he thought and thought, and he read about love and marriage, and he thought of all the pros and cons. It took time, naturally. After three years he decided that it was worth trying, because one was not going to lose anything by it. One might not gain anything, but one was not going to lose anything. He had made many notes – it was almost a thesis – in which he had written all the pros and cons, and the pros were a little weightier than the cons, so he decided.He knocked at the woman’s door, the father opened the door, and he said, “Now I am ready, where is your daughter?”And the father laughed and said, “It is too late. She is already married. Now she has a child too. You took too long in thinking; you have missed the point.”For a philosopher, even love becomes a problem, beauty becomes a problem, joy becomes a problem: he goes on asking why.I have heard about a patient, must have been a philosopher, his psychoanalyst suggested to him that he go to the hills for rest. So he went there. After a few days a telegram came to the psychoanalyst: “I am feeling very happy. Why? Now explain!”Even happiness has first to be explained. And don’t laugh at it because so many people come to me when they start feeling happy, when they start feeling joyous, when meditation starts blooming in them, they come to me very puzzled, disturbed, very uncomfortable. They ask me, “I am feeling very joyous, why?” Misery is okay, but joy? Something unexpected is happening, something that they have never expected, something for which they are not prepared.And remember one thing: if you ask why about misery, it can be answered, but if you ask why about joy, it cannot be answered – because misery is unnatural, so it has a cause, and joy is just a natural outflow, it has no cause. If you go to the doctor and you ask, “I am feeling healthy, why?” he cannot answer you, he cannot explain why. He cannot send you for an X ray, a cardiogram, and other checks, because health cannot be checked in any way; there is no machine that can say that you are healthy and can show the cause. You are healthy because you are alive, you are healthy because you should be healthy; health is natural. But if you go to the doctor and you are ill, he can show you why you are ill: maybe it is tuberculosis or cancer or something else. Causes can be found. Causes can be found only for that which is unnatural. Joy is just natural – never ask why. Never ask why about love, about joy, about beauty, about existence, about life.The moon reflected in the stream, the wind blowing through the pines in the cool of the evening, in the deep midnight – what is it for? It is not goal-oriented, it is not a means to some other end; it is a means unto itself. If you ask why, you will create trouble, and when the question is not answered, you will feel that it is meaningless. Despair will arise if you ask why, because nature is not in any way obliged to answer you, and it doesn’t answer any foolish, silly, stupid questions. The moon will laugh and go on rushing in the sky, and the stream will laugh and go on rushing toward the ocean, and the wind will go on blowing through the pines – neither the pines will bother to ask or answer, nor will the wind. You will be left alone.The moment man asks why, he is left alone; he is cut off from the totality of existence. Drop the why, and suddenly you are one with the wind and the pines and the stream and the moon. And that oneness is godliness. It is not a theological concept; it is an existential experience. That oneness is godliness: when the moon is not separate but is bridged with you, and the stream is not separate but is bridged with you – when everything is woven into one pattern – when the leaf on the tree and the farthest distant star are both joined in you and there is no why. Ask the why, and you are cut off; you become isolated, you become an island. And then misery arises, and fear, and loneliness. Drop the why and you are not alone. You are one with existence, how can you be alone? The moon is there, the wind is there, and the pines and the stream and the mountains and the stars, and this vast, infinite existence is yours.When we attain reality, it is seen to be neitherpersonal nor impersonal.This is attaining to reality: when you don’t ask why, when you drop the longing, the neurotic longing, for meaning. That neurotic longing is driving you to such despair that life has become almost impossible; it is a miracle how you go on living. Yes, Freud may be right as far as you are concerned: “Human life is more a matter of endurance than of enjoyment.” He himself never enjoyed life; he endured.But it is ugly to endure. To endure such benediction in which you can disappear, in which you need not remain separate, in which you can become part of the dance and the song…When we attain reality… This is reality: dropping the question, the why, dropping philosophical attitudes toward life, dropping the longing for meaning, and you attain to reality.Suddenly you are one with existence, suddenly you start understanding the language of the birds and the language of the trees; suddenly you attain a primeval unity. And that unity still exists at the deepest core of your being; there you are connected with it.That’s what I was saying the other day: you are still connected with the stream, with the current of sound, or whatsoever you want to call it: existence, logos, nirvana, “current of the soundless sound,” shabad, whatsoever you call it. You are still connected there – just in the head you have become disconnected. And it is good that you have only become disconnected in the head; if you had really become disconnected at the very roots, then there would be no way to be reconnected. You are still one with the stream. That’s why when you go to the sea something starts bubbling inside you – you are still one with the sea. When you see the tidal waves of the sea, and hear the sound and the roar, something starts roaring in you; your inside-sea starts responding.Man was born in the sea, man was born as a fish, and the same story is still repeated with each child. Each child in the mother’s womb exists in the sea, a small sea, and the contents of the water in the mother’s womb are exactly those of seawater, exactly, it is as salty as seawater. That’s why pregnant women start eating more salt: they need more salt, they have to create a small ocean, a small sea, inside themselves. The child is again born as a fish. In those nine months in the mother’s womb he has to pass through millions of years. He goes fast, with jet speed, but he has to pass through all the stages.And even you, when you are out of your mother’s womb, your body contains seawater – and not a small quantity – you are eighty percent seawater, eighty percent! In your body the water has to contain the same saltiness as the sea; that’s why if you miss salt, you don’t feel any energy, you don’t feel vital, you feel weak. That’s why salt is one of the most necessary things in life, even the poorest man has to have salt. In India the poorest may only have two, three things, but if their needs are reduced to the bare minimum, then, bread and salt. Salt is a must; without salt life starts disappearing. You are still carrying a sea inside you. When you go to the sea, your inner sea starts responding, waves start arising.Have you sometimes seen a veena player, a sitar player? Or have you tried yourself? There are many strings on the sitar; just strike a note on one string, a certain note, and you will be surprised – all the other untouched strings resound with the same note. That is the unity of life. That’s what happens with a master. He goes on playing a certain note in his being, and the same note starts resounding in your being, in the being of the disciple. This is satsang. Sooner or later you start hearing the inner sound, you start hearing the inner melody.You go to the sea – the sea speaks to your inner sea. That’s why you are so affected on the full-moon night. More people go mad on a full-moon night than on any other night. More poetry is born on a full-moon night, and more love, of course. In every language of the world there are words which relate madness with the moon. In English, lunatic comes from luna, the moon. In every language there are words which show the connection with madness; something happens between the moon and the mind. Just as the sea goes mad when the moon is full, your inner sea also goes mad when the moon is full. You are connected.When you go into a deep forest and you come upon that primeval silence of the forest, something resounds in you: nostalgia, you remember. Something inside starts coming up to the surface. You carry all the experiences of all existence in you. When you go to the Himalayas, it is not that the Himalayas that make you feel so silent; the Himalayas can only make something resound in you, an inner Himalaya is there. Man has lived in the mountains. The fresh air and the virgin snows, and something virgin in you rises up. We are one. This is what Zen people call: When we attain reality, it is seen to be neither personal nor impersonal.Then, one knows it is neither personal nor impersonal – both words are useless. God is not a person, and God is not impersonal either. Then what is God? Difficult to say – God is ineffable. It is an experience of organic unity with the whole, and the whole is not personal or impersonal. All those kinds of words that depend on dualities become meaningless, they have to be dropped. That’s why Zen people are silent about God; they don’t say a word.If you make a statue of God it becomes personal. If you don’t make a statue of God like the Mohammedans, it becomes impersonal. But the reference remains the same, the person. Personal or impersonal, Hindus and Mohammedans are not very different; one makes the statues, the other one destroys them. But both believe somehow in the same thing. One worships; one destroys, but both are clinging to something deep down which is the same. One thinks God is personal, the other thinks God is impersonal.God is neither. All our words fall short. Godliness only is. Is is is. Is-ness is godliness. Now, can you call is-ness personal or impersonal? When the moon is reflected in the stream, is it personal or impersonal? And when the wind blows through the pines, is it personal or impersonal? Those words make no sense. It is. The wind blowing in the pines is blowing in the pines, and the moon reflected in the stream is reflected in the stream. It is. All that can be said is: it is. That is the meaning of the word tathata: it is.There is no sin, no paradise, no loss or gain;about this transcendentality, no questions!A great statement of immense significance: There is no sin, no paradise… All sin is created because of our idea of how things should be. We cannot accept things as they are, we want to impose our will on existence, we are continuously trying to impose our will on existence: “Things should be like this.” But when the wind is blowing in the pines, is it virtue or sin? And when the moon is reflected in the stream, is it moral or immoral?Reality simply is. There is no sin, no paradise… And if there is no sin, how can there be hell? Because if there is no sin, there can be no punishment. If there is no sin, there can be no virtue and no reward; there can be no paradise.Just the other day I was saying that what Charan Singh says is utter nonsense; seven hells, seven heavens… Just creating fictions to exploit people. There is no hell, no heaven. Hell is nothing but imagination – the imagination of pain, misery. And heaven is again imagination – the imagination of all the pleasant experiences that have happened to you, and you want them again and again and again, you want them forever.Life simply is, and life is herenow.There is no sin, no paradise, no loss or gain… I say this is a great statement; one needs a great heart to understand it. The narrow person will be confused, the narrow-minded will be very disturbed. It needs a wide opening, a sky-like open heart. There is no loss, no gain; that is all greed, loss and gain. That is what I call the irreligious person: one who always thinks in terms of loss and gain.People come to me and they ask, “We are interested in meditation, we see your people dancing and singing, but can we ask what will be the real gain?” Real gain! Singing and dancing is not enough? What do you want by real gain – something tangible, something you can carry home and show to your neighbors: “Look, I have got meditation, you don’t have,” something that you can place in your drawing-room to impress people: “Look, this is meditation”? What do you mean by “gain”? The greedy mind, the business mind, continuously thinks in those terms. And because of this greedy mind there are people who go on exploiting you. They say, “There will be great gain.”Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on saying to people that not only will there be spiritual gain, there will be economic, financial gain also. “If you meditate, you will earn more. Riches will be attracted toward you if you meditate more. If you meditate you will succeed.”What kind of rubbish is this? But that’s what people want. This has been my experience and my observation: since the so-called Indian gurus have started going to the West, no Indian guru has been able to transform the West, but the West has been able to transform all the Indian gurus. Rather than helping them to meditate, they all become businessmen. They start talking their language, “This will be the gain,” “You will not have heart attacks,” “You will have a more successful life,” “You will be more famous,” “You will get more friends,” “Your married life will be a happy life.” Meditation has nothing to do with these things. Meditation is sheer joy and meditation only happens to those people who are not asking for such things. If they are asking for such things, it can’t happen. And those who go on promising you that these things will happen… Meditation has not happened to them either, because a man who knows what meditation is cannot cheat you.There is no sin, no paradise, no loss or gain; about this transcendentality, no questions!Questions cannot be asked about it: either you experience it or you don’t. And questions can’t help you to experience it either. Just go under the sky and watch. Feel the wind blowing through the pine trees. Become the wind passing through the pine trees, and sometimes become the pine trees and feel it.Religion has to be felt. Become the stream and reflect the moon, or become the moon and be reflected by the stream. And if your meditation goes deeper you can become both together: the moon and the stream, both together. Those are the experiences of godliness. That’s why I say Zen is going to be the religion of the future, because the religion of the future will be aesthetical, it will not be ethical.The religions of the past were ethical, moralistic, puritan. The religion of the future will be aesthetical. Beauty will be its value, and all else will arise out of the feeling for beauty. The past religions have been prose; the future religion is going to be that of poetry.In the past, if somebody was fasting it was thought to be great. That is not going to be so in the future. If somebody is dancing, then he will be thought to be a saint. Fasting? What has it to do with religion? The man is a masochist, is pathological, he needs psychological treatment. He is killing himself and you are worshipping him – you are also a part of it. If he is going to hell, you too will go to hell. If there is any hell, you will both be there, because he tortured himself and you helped him to torture himself. You are violent.When you worship a man because he is fasting, you are being violent, you are inhuman – because if you go on worshipping him, he will have to torture himself more and more. That’s what happens: if he wants his ego to be fulfilled, if he wants more and more people to worship him and think of him as a saint, he will go on fasting more and more. He will find more subtle ways of torturing himself, he will lie down on a bed of thorns or he will start beating himself every morning.There was a sect, a Christian sect, and the greatest saint was one who would flog his body till bleeding every morning. People would come and watch. Just think of those people. They would watch, and the saints would be flogging their bodies, and blood would be coming, and their bodies would be tortured. And people would watch with glee, seeing who was the greatest saint, who could torture himself the most. Now, these saints were ill and the people who had come to see them were also ill. In Russia there was a Christian sect in which men would cut off their genital organs and women would cut off their breasts, and they were thought to be great saints. And when this ceremony happened, thousands would gather to see it. Now, in what kind of world have we lived in the past? What kind of people have we been thinking to be religious?The new religion is going to be aesthetic, poetic. A man will be thought religious if he paints beauty, sings beauty, dances beauty, if he has grace, if his life is a joy. And not only joy for himself but an overflowing, a superabundance of joy, not only is he blissful, but he shares his bliss. That is going to be the religion of the future. And the first hints of it have happened in Zen. It is only the Zen masters who have been painting and writing poetry. These are the first glimpses of an aesthetic revolution. And my feeling is that if a man has a sense of beauty he cannot be bad, because all badness is ugly. The man who has a sense of beauty is bound to be good – and without any cultivation of good. The goodness will be just natural; it will follow his sense of beauty.Let beauty be your godliness.There is no sin, no paradise, no loss or gain; about this transcendentality, no questions! Don’t be philosophic; be religious. Don’t speculate, experience.Who is thought-less? Who is birth-less?Don’t go on thinking about these things, these are questions: What is truth? What is soul? What is paradise? Don’t go on thinking about these things, you will never solve them, and the answers that are given will create more questions and nothing else.Who is thought-less? Who is this witness? Who meditates? Who arrives? Don’t ask these questions. Arrive, meditate, witness. Become thoughtless and see, and you will come to know who is birth-less, who is deathless.Life is birth-less, life is deathless, life continues. Forms go on changing, forms are momentary; life is eternal. But remember that eternity is expressed through moments. Don’t create a separation between the moment and the eternal, don’t start searching for the eternal, and don’t start sacrificing the momentary – because the eternal expresses itself through the momentary, the soul expresses itself through the body.God did not made the world; God became the world. If God has made the world then he remains separate, aloof. God has become the world. Declare it! Go to the housetops and declare it to the whole world: God has become the world! Now there is no longer any duality between God and the world; there is nothing like God and the world. The world is divine. The world is God-full; it is a God-fullness, it is godliness – there is no other God beyond it.It is here, it is now – in me, in you, in the birds, in the trees – this moment. Live it, experience it!Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,How do I find my way?There is no way to be found, and there is no one to find it – and there is no need either. The very idea of the way misleads, misguides. The way is possible only if truth is far away. If there is a distance between you and the truth, then the way is needed to connect, to bridge.But truth is not distant, truth is not there; truth is not even near. Truth is in you; truth is you. Truth is nearness, intimacy. That is the meaning when Jesus says, “God is love.” By love he means nearness, intimacy. Truth is already there in the innermost core of your being. The moment you start thinking of the way, you have started thinking of time, effort, will, struggle, seeking, searching, desiring, dreaming. You have created the whole world and the misery that automatically follows it. The very idea of truth being distant is false, utterly false. You have never left home. See it! Seeing it, the whole search disappears.This is the Zen approach; hence Zen is a pathless path, a gateless gate, an effortless effort. These are immensely significant words: pathless path, gateless gate, effortless effort. All that is meant is that you are not to go anywhere. Relax. Rest into your being. Rather than thinking of going, think of coming. You have already dreamed enough; you have left your home in a dream. Now, don’t prolong this dream. Asking for a way, you are trying to convert your worldly dream into an otherworldly dream, that’s all. The materialist is trying to become a spiritualist, but the greed continues.Remember one thing as a criterion: anything that creates future is bound to be against reality, because reality is always present – always and always, and forever. Reality knows no future. The mind creates the future, and creates it very cunningly, very cleverly.Now, this is a clever question: “How do I find my way?” You may not be aware what you are getting into. You are getting into a dream, and now you will be exploited because now you will find people who will supply the way. Wherever there is a demand, somebody is bound to supply. That is an economic law, the law of demand and supply. You make a demand for the way, and immediately thousands of gurus are born – you have given birth to them and they are ready to supply you all that you need. That’s how the spiritual supermarket exists: you create it by your demand. You create the false, the pseudo-prophets, because when you ask for the way, the real master cannot give it to you because he is not your enemy, he is not there to exploit you. The real master’s work is to take all the ways, all the methods from you. His whole work consists of destroying your future. Once the future is destroyed you will find yourself here now – and now is the only real time.Truth exists in real time, and you exist in unreal time; hence you never meet. It is like a person who has fallen asleep and is dreaming, fallen asleep in Pune and dreaming of Philadelphia. And you are sitting by the side of the man who has fallen asleep; he cannot see you, he cannot be aware of you, he cannot see the room, he cannot hear the birds singing outside, he cannot feel the wetness in the air. He is in Philadelphia; he is in an unreal time, in an unreal space. Because he is in an unreal time and unreal space – of his own creation and imagination and fantasy – he is missing the real. He is missing this room, this place; he is missing you who are there, alive, loving, but unavailable. You are so close and yet so far away, because he is in Philadelphia.What is needed? Does he need a way? Has he to go to some airline and book to come back? Has he to travel back? Is there any need for a way? No, all that he needs is an awakening, a shock so he can be awakened, a shaking-up. You shake him, he will open his eyes, and suddenly Philadelphia has disappeared.It happens exactly like that. In the close proximity of a master you are given constant shocks and shakings. He does not supply you with paths, ways, methods, he simply shocks you – he goes like a shiver in your spine.And the sleep is no ordinary sleep; it is metaphysical sleep. You have slept for lives together. You have slept the whole past, and you have dreamed so much and you have invested in the dream so much, that it looks almost impossible to wake up – too risky, too costly, such a gamble. You can do it only if you fall in love with a master. If you fall in love with a master, risk is possible because people risk only when they are in love. Sannyas is a love affair.When you are in love you are mad, and only the madman can come back; the clever and the cunning and the calculating will think so many things against coming back. In Philadelphia he has made a beautiful house, in Philadelphia he has found a woman, in Philadelphia he has children, in Philadelphia he has a good business, in Philadelphia he is respected, he has become the mayor; all his life consists of Philadelphia. Suddenly you wake him up and destroy it all. And the woman that he used to love and was so beautiful is no longer there, and the children… All have disappeared, and the mayor-hood and the business and the bank balance, all have gone. He will be angry with you.Unless you are in love with a master, you will not allow him to wake you up – unless the love is so great that you can risk all. Once you are awake you will thank him, but before you are awake, many times you will be angry. It is happening every day here. I go on shaking you, shocking you. I say so many things – the purpose is basically to shock you, the purpose is to somehow make it impossible for you to go on sleeping, to go on dreaming. All the methods that we use here are not methods to attain truth – no, not at all. There is no method to attain truth. All those methods are nothing but efforts to wake you up, to bring you back home, where you really are. They are only to destroy your dream.Sannyas is renouncing your dreams, renouncing your sleep. But this is possible only if you love the man, if you love the master so much that you say, “Okay, if he is going to hell, we are going with him. Hell will be heaven with him. Without him we are not going to heaven.” Only then can you be awakened. Don’t ask for any way.That’s why Jesus says a very strange statement: “I am the way.” And Christians have missed the point; they have interpreted it in such a way that the whole thing has gone wrong. When Jesus says, “I am the way,” he is simply saying, “Meet a master and fall in love. Follow a master.” He is not saying anything about Jesus, he is simply saying to his disciples, “I am the way. Fall in love with me so that I can awaken you, because you will be able to bear awareness only if you are in tremendous love; otherwise, you will not be able to forgive the man, and you will want to fall asleep again and you will start dreaming again.” When Jesus says “I am the way,” his “I” contains all the masters of the world – past, present, future. That “I” has nothing to do with Jesus as such, that “I” is the “I” of all the masters.It is exactly what Krishna said to Arjuna, his disciple, “Leave all aside. Come to my feet – surrender to me.” That’s all. One starts thinking, “How can it be so easy?” It is easy because you have never left the place. It is easy because you are already there.The master is not giving anything. He is simply taking away that which you don’t have and he is giving you that which you already have. The work of the master is almost like magic. That’s why in the old days the master was thought to be a magician. He takes away things which you don’t have and he gives you things which you already have – this is magic.Don’t ask for a way. I am the way. Look into my eyes. Get into this enchanted space that I am. Yes, it is an enchanted space. Martin Heidegger calls it “enchanted regioning,” not just region but “regioning,” because region makes it look static and it is dynamic. He does not call it space because space seems static. And it is not a noun; it is a verb, a living verb.A master is a dynamo. A master is a flow, an overflow, a river. Get into it! And you need not even swim, the river is already moving. You can just relax with the river, and one day you will find that you have arrived. That day can be this moment – it all depends on your courage, on the intensity of your love.There is no need for any way. And if you try to find a way, you will find not one, you will find many and you will be distracted by all those ways for millions of lives. You try one way and it fails, then you try another way and that fails, and you try another… They are all bound to fail, they are doomed to fail because you are trying to do something which is absolutely absurd.It is like searching for the horse on which you are riding. You can rush in all directions – and you can have a very beautiful horse, a very powerful horse, and he can take you to the farthest corners of the earth – but still you will not find the horse because you are already riding on it.Let me awaken you. Allow me to take your dreams away. What more way do you need? I am the way.The second question:Osho,Sometimes running here and there, talking, laughing, working, reading, writing, and dreaming, the fact is, when the door closes behind and the eyes are shut, it is dark. Thoughts or no thoughts, feelings or no feelings, it is dark. Morning or night, any time inside, it is dark.Looking inside for the looker, it is dark. Is “I” darkness?Who is writing this question?Yes, “I” is darkness, the ego is darkness, and if you look within and the looker is there, it will remain dark. Morning or evening won’t make any difference; thoughts or no thoughts won’t make any difference because the “I” itself is the essential thought, the fundamental thought – the looker. It contains all thoughts and all feelings. You can look, but you have already divided yourself in two: the looker and the looked-upon. And this division is darkness, this duality is darkness, this split is darkness.Oneness is luminous, oneness is light; twoness is darkness. So, whenever a meditator goes in, first he always encounters darkness, and that darkness is frightening. Who wants to go into that darkness? One becomes afraid, one wants to escape from it. In the beginning it is always so, but if you go on and go on and go on, and you even stop asking for light… Why should you ask? If it is dark, it is dark. And darkness is perfectly right – and when darkness is perfectly right, darkness is absolutely bright.Accept it. Love it. Embrace it. Feel one with it. And the moment the split disappears – when there is no looker and the looked-upon, no observer and the observed – then suddenly there will be light, and a light which needs no fuel, a light which is eternal.But if you are divided, that light won’t happen to you. So what is to be done? You have to love this darkness, you have to fall into this darkness and disappear. Don’t search for the light. The search for the light will keep you distant, unloving, unavailable to the darkness, and that will be a barrier to light. Don’t search for light. If it is dark, it is dark. This is what Buddha calls tathata. If it is dark, it is dark. Don’t ask for something else, let it be dark, enjoy it. What is wrong with darkness?But we are conditioned in such a way that we cannot enjoy a few things. We have been brought up in such a way that we can enjoy only light, not darkness. Now this is missing something tremendously beautiful and something tremendously alive.Darkness has its own joy, light has its own joy, and the person who understands will enjoy both. He will not create any conflict and he will not choose. Darkness has silence in it, which no light can ever have. Darkness has stillness in it, utter stillness, which no light can ever have. And darkness has infinity: it is unbounded; it knows no boundaries. Light always has boundaries to it, it is never infinite; it is finite. Light comes and goes; darkness abides, darkness is eternal. It is because of this experience that in India we have painted Krishna as dark – his other name, Shyam, means dark, “the black one.”Darkness has depth. Whiteness is shallow; whiteness always looks superficial. Start enjoying darkness. Feel its infinity, feel its spaciousness, feel its eternity. Be touched by it and be moved by it – it is so velvety it has a beauty of its own. And unless you are capable of loving darkness, you have not earned the right to know light.The light that you know is the outside light; it is against darkness. And the light that you will know when you transcend inner darkness will not be against darkness. It will contain all that darkness has – and something more, and plus. Remember it, the light outside is not the true light. The true light will have all the qualities of this light and all the qualities of this darkness and still will be more than the sum total of them. It is a great splendor where dualities meet and merge into each other, where dualities pour all their beauty into each other and a new beauty arises – the beauty of unity, integration.So, remember, whatsoever you know about light and darkness, both have to be left behind. When you close your eyes, you have left the light outside; now you enter darkness. Love it! Sing a song with it. Have a dance with it. Don’t fight with it, don’t be afraid of it, don’t keep a distance from it. And don’t go on looking for light. Forget about light. This darkness is there; it has to be enjoyed. One has to be grateful to existence for this darkness, this silence, this stillness, this velvety expanse. And then one day, the observer and the observed are no longer two.When you love something, the duality disappears. If you love darkness you become darkness. And when there is no duality, there comes a luminousness of a totally different quality: it is not the light that comes from the sun, and it is not the light that comes from electricity, and it is not the light that comes from the moon. You have come to the very source of all light and all darkness, then you have come to the very root, the very ground, of being.It is beautiful that the darkness is arising in you. You have taken a great step. Now, don’t go on fighting with it, otherwise the next step will be hindered. That’s what I was saying the other day: if the myth of Sisyphus were written by a Zen master it would have been totally different – the gods would have been defeated. You cannot punish a Zen master. Sisyphus would have enjoyed, would have danced, would have been ecstatic – because there is no goal so there is no failure. When the rock starts slipping back toward the valley, he would have listened to the sound echoing, re-echoing, in the valleys. He would have enjoyed it, and he would have started the downward journey with great joy because he knows the beauty of the valley also.Yes, there is beauty in the hilltop, the sunlit hilltop, and the openness of the sky, but there is beauty in the valley too: the shelter, the security, the beautiful birds, and the rivers, and the friends, and the pub. Sisyphus would have come back dancing from the hill, thinking of the pub and his friends and beloved. His children must have been waiting, and his woman – and it was time. He would have had a beautiful, restful night, and in the morning he would have begun again, he would have taken the rock back to the top – another day, another challenge, another day, another adventure. And in the morning he would have started again, whistling a song. The story would have been totally different.The Greeks could not envision it. The logical mind cannot envision it; an illogical mind is needed to envision that beauty. Yes, when you go in and there is darkness, don’t become the Greek Sisyphus, remember what I am telling you. Love the darkness; it is a gift, all is a gift from existence. Feel grateful to existence that it has given you such a beautiful darkness of your own – so virgin, so pure, uncontaminated. Relax into it, and as you relax, it disappears. When you have relaxed totally, it is no longer found. Then you have arrived at the very source of all darkness and all light, but that source has a totally different quality of light. It is not this light – it has something of it. It is not this darkness – it has something of it, but it is immensely vast. That’s why the mystics have always felt it difficult to say what it is.It is ineffable, inexpressible, indefinable.But you have taken a great step: going into darkness is a great step. Zen people call it “the great doubt,” and the Christian mystics call it “the dark night of the soul.” But the morning is arriving, just following; the dark night of the soul has the morning following just on its heels, just following like a shadow. Don’t be too worried about the darkness, don’t become too obsessed by it, otherwise, you will miss the morning that is following it, coming just on its heels.This is the way to look at life. And then thorns are no longer thorns – they also have a beauty of their own. Then the cactus is as beautiful as any rose, and your heart expands when you can see the beauty of a thorn. To see the beauty of a rose is not much – anybody can see it; nothing is required of you. The rose is so obviously there, even a stupid person can see the beauty of it. But to see the beauty of the thorn, great intelligence is needed; much is required of you. It is a challenge. Unless you have found beauty everywhere, you will not find truth. Unless you are at home everywhere, you will never be at home.So, in darkness be at home. Whatsoever arises in you has to be accepted with joy, as a gift. And I know it is difficult sometimes to think that this is a gift when you are ill, when it is all dark, when you are miserable, when love is broken. How can you see the beauty of it when a beloved dies? Death has happened – it is difficult to see the beauty. That only shows that you have a very, very narrow definition of beauty, that you have imposed some definition on reality. Drop that imposition. Let reality be freed.Just the other day I was reading about a Hasid mystic, Zusia, one of the most beautiful Hasid mystics. He was going into the hills and he saw many birds, caught by a man, in a cage. Zusia opened the cage because birds are meant to fly and all the birds flew away. And the man came rushing out of his house and asked, “What have you done?”Zusia said, “Birds are meant to fly. Look how beautiful they look on the wing.”But the man thought otherwise; he gave Zusia a good beating. His whole day’s work had been destroyed, and he had been hoping to go to the market and sell the birds, and there were many, many things to be done – and now Zusia had destroyed the whole thing. He gave him a really good beating, but Zusia was laughing, and Zusia was enjoying, and the man was beating him. Then he thought that Zusia must be mad.Zusia started moving… When the man had finished, Zusia asked, “Have you done it, or would you like to do a little more? Are you finished? Because now I have to go.” The man could not answer. What to answer? This man was simply mad. Zusia started singing a song. He was very happy – happy that the birds were flying in the sky and happy that he was beaten and yet it didn’t hurt, happy that he could receive it as a gift, happy that he could still thank life. There was no complaint. Now, he had transformed the whole quality of the situation.This has to be learned. Slowly, slowly a man has to become so wide that all is accepted, yes, even death. Only then does the song burst forth. Yes, even the darkness, only then does the light arrive. The moment you have accepted the night totally and there is no seeking and hankering for the morning, the morning has come. This is how it comes, this is the way of its coming.The third question:Osho,The more I look into myself, the more I find that I'm such a narcissist, and my only and real concern is not enlightenment, liberation and all that, but beauty. I want to make myself and the world as beautiful as possible. And the beauty of beauties seems not to be. Am I an okay student of your aesthetics?Yes, that’s what others have called enlightenment, liberation, moksha. Not to be is the most beautiful thing. To be is to be limited, and all limitations have ugliness. Limitation is ugliness; it is poor, it is poverty. Not to be means unlimited, infinite; it is richness, it is superabundance.And remember, these three centers have always been the centers of the religions: satyam, shivam, sundaram. Satyam means truth, shivam means good, sundaram means beauty.There are religions which have been centered on the concept of truth. There are religions which are centered on the concept of good. And there have to be religions now that will be centered on the concept of beauty – and beauty is the highest. Satyam is the first center, shivam is the second, sundaram is the third and the highest.Truth is the first, the lowest. You will be surprised that truth is the lowest step. Why? Because truth is a logical concept – dry, heady, it smells of logic chopping. Truth makes a person dry, desert-like, and the religions which have depended on truth, have become very, very dry. Jainism is very dry: the Jaina scriptures look more like books of mathematics, logic. You will not find any oasis there, it is all desert, as if the idea of beauty had not been heard of at all.The second step, a little better, is that of good. It is not only a question of a logical confusion, but of living it. It is not only philosophy, but life. The West has not got rid of the first step yet. The Greek mind was very much rooted in the idea of truth, and the Western mind has remained rooted there, it has not moved from there. All Western philosophies think of truth, and naturally they become just logic chopping, argumentative. In the West the philosopher need not live his truth; all that is needed is that he should be consistent in his statements, but not that he should be consistent in his life.There was a philosopher in Greece who lived long, he lived for ninety years, and he was teaching suicide and telling people that suicide is the only logical thing to do. This was possible in Greece because you don’t ask the philosopher to live it himself; all that you inquire and all that you require of him is that whatsoever he says he should prove logically. And he was proving it logically: it is very simple to prove that life is meaningless, what else can be simpler? To prove that life has any meaning is almost impossible. To prove that life is meaningless is obvious.But when the philosopher had become very old and was on his deathbed, somebody asked, “Sir, you lived a really long life, and your whole life you have been teaching that suicide is the right, logical conclusion. Why didn’t you commit suicide?”He said, “How could I? I had to teach my philosophy, I had to spread my message. How could I? If I could live a little longer I would try to live a little longer, because the message, the word, has to be spread.”In India, religions have centered on the second concept: good. In India this is a basic question: if somebody is saying something, the first thing that people ask is, “Are you living it?” Unless you give a proof by your life, it is all meaningless; it is all gibberish. If you say something, then live it. If you say, “God is,” then live life as if “God is.” If you say bad karma, bad action, will bring bad consequences and you are caught doing some bad thing, you have refuted your philosophy. Then nobody will listen to you. You may be as logical as possible, but nobody is going to follow you. Your life has to be consistent with your logic; what you say has to be lived. That is the second state.Religions of the past have either been of the first or of the second. The third, the highest stage, is evolving: the religion of beauty. That’s why I say the first is logical, the second is ethical, and the third is aesthetical. The third is nothing but aesthetics. The man who is trying to be good has to impose goodness on himself, he has to practice and cultivate it. Deep down there is a split, and that split will remain.You think celibacy is good: logically you have arrived at the point that celibacy is good, that sexuality is just a waste of life energy, and that it is also stupid, and that it is also animal-like, and that unless you transcend sexuality, you will not be able to transcend your body, because the body is the body of sex. It consists of sex, it is made of sex cells; it has been produced through sex and it wants to reproduce through sex. The body is the field of sex – you will never know the soul, the nonsexual part of you. Logically you arrive at the conclusion that celibacy is good. Now, what are you going to do? If you are a Greek then this is enough, you have done all that you can do. You go on living in sexuality and you go on talking about celibacy. But if you are a Hindu this is not enough. You start trying to be celibate. You impose patterns, you do exercises, you cultivate a certain structure around yourself so that celibacy is supported and sex is destroyed. This can be done, one can cultivate oneself; one can condition oneself so deeply that on the surface sex disappears. But what about the unconscious, what about the deeper stream of your life energies? Sex reappears there, and contaminates your sources.The third, the religion of beauty, will have a totally different grounding. It will not believe in cultivation, because cultivation brings hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is ugly. It will not believe in creating a character, because when you create a character it is never true character – because it has not arisen out of your innermost sources. It has been put there from the outside; it is nothing but a conditioning, hypnosis or autohypnosis, but it has not bloomed in your being. It is not your fragrance; it is ugly.To see a person who is boiling inside with anger and on the surface showing that he is a sage, is the ugliest thing in the world because this duality, this schizophrenia, this split makes him continually struggle within himself. He is never at ease, never at rest. He cannot be, he cannot afford to be. If he rests, all that he has repressed will start raising its head. If he relaxes, immediately the character disappears, and whatsoever he has condemned as characterlessness takes possession of him. This type of man cannot even go for a holiday. He has to continuously guard himself, he becomes his own prisoner and his own jailer. His life is a life of misery.That’s why your so-called saints who live in the second kind of religion are so sad. You don’t know their misery; their misery is far deeper than your misery. Your misery is superficial; their misery is very deep. Their misery is the constant fight with themselves. They have divided themselves in two: the controller and the controlled. And the fight is unending, sometimes one part will win and sometimes another part will win. And it will always remain inconclusive because both are you. It is like making your right hand fight with your left hand. You can go on, you will be exhausted by it, but there is going to be no conclusive victory. And it is all a game. You can give a little more energy to the right, and the right wins, and you can give a little more energy to the left, and the left wins. When you want the right to win, you make the left pretend to be weak; when you want to let the left win, you let the right pretend to be weak. It is all pretension; it is all hypocrisy.The first kind of religion creates heady people – just verbal, logical. The second kind of religion creates people who are hypocrites – divided, split, neurotic. The world has suffered from these two kinds of people too much.In the third there is a totally different perspective. The religion is of beauty. If the religion is of beauty, it cannot allow any split in you because all beauty is organic beauty – it arises out of unity. One has to be one: no repression, no character, no morality. That’s what religion is. That’s why Zen people go on saying there is no morality, no good, no bad, no paradise, no hell.You become afraid. Many questions have come today asking: “If there is no morality then what will happen? People will become very immoral.” Do you think they are moral now? Have your morality and the preaching of the ages helped in any way? Somebody has asked, “There are murderers in the world, killers in the world. If there is no morality, and morality is not taught, what will happen then?”And the morality has been here for ten thousand years or longer. What has happened? Are there fewer murderers? Are they on the decrease? They are on the increase. And the morality has been here, from Moses to Mahatma Gandhi. The morality has been here and the moral teachers have been here. Where is morality? There are more and more crimes every day. More and more jails, more and more police, more and more armies are needed every day. And morality has been there. Do you think it has helped? It has not helped; in fact it has aggravated the situation. It has not helped people to become moral; it has only helped them to become hypocrites.The hypocrite is the most immoral person there is, because he pretends one thing and he is something else. He has a face to show to people and hides behind a different reality. He lives through masks. He lives in misery, and he creates misery around himself. He has destroyed the natural, the spontaneous in man because he believes in cultivation, in civilizing. He believes that people should be forced to be good.Now, there is no way to force anybody to be good. In fact if you force somebody to be good, you are forcing him to be bad. If he has any guts he will rebel against you. If he has any intelligence he will react against you, he will become just the opposite of what you wanted him to be.Your morality, and the religions that preach it, have only created rebellions in the world. They have created reactions in people; people have gone to just the opposite end. If a person has any strength, power, dignity, he will go against them because it is so humiliating to follow orders, to be obedient. Unless obedience comes from your inner being out of love and trust, it is ugly. But when it comes from within your heart it is not obedience at all, because you are not following anybody else, you are following yourself.If you fall in love with Christ and then there is obedience, it is a totally different kind of thing. You are in love; it is coming out of love. Christ is not forcing it on you. He is not saying, “Do this, and if you don’t you will suffer in hell.” He is not manipulating you. He loves you, and whatsoever he has gained, attained, whatsoever he has known, experienced, he shares with you. It is for you to choose or not to choose.That’s what I am doing here. No morality is taught here. No character is imposed here. I simply share my joy with you. If that joy becomes infectious – you start feeling enchanted by it, you are attracted by it, it becomes a magnetic force in you and you start living it – that is your business. You have chosen it; nobody was in any way manipulating you.When your life blooms from your sources, it is beautiful, it has beauty, sundaram, it is aesthetic. Then there is no possibility of hypocrisy.The world has become too false because of moral teachings. That falsity has to be taken away. I said to you that if you have any guts you will rebel against all commandments. A true master cannot command. His presence commands – that is a totally different thing – but he never commands directly. He will never give you things like the Ten Commandments. He gives his love, and out of love things start happening.Love is such a potential force.There are people who are weak, who have no guts, and there are people who are mediocre. They will not rebel; they will yield to the pressure of society, the preacher, the priest, the religion, the church. They will yield. In their yielding they will be cowards, by yielding they will become even more cowardly. In their yielding they will become ugly. See the point: if you yield out of fear you become ugly, because how can fear be beautiful? And if you rebel you become angry, and how can anger be beautiful? In both ways the preachings of the moralists and the puritans have been destructive to humanity.No more of it! The future belongs to a totally different quality of religion. Zen is just a herald – much more will be coming – it is just the first ray, a first insight. People need not be in anger, and people need not live out of fear. People have to live out of their natural, spontaneous being. People have to be themselves; then there is beauty.Why are trees so beautiful? Have you ever seen an ugly tree? You will be surprised, ponder over it: have you ever seen an ugly tree? Have you ever seen an ugly peacock or an ugly dove or an ugly deer? Have you ever seen an ugly tiger? Then why do you come across ugly men and ugly women? Why? Something has gone wrong with man; something has been done to man’s naturalness.The whole of nature is beautiful because it is natural, because there are no priests and no churches and no moralists going around teaching trees to be of character, to be good, or teaching birds to be this way or that, giving disciplines and commandments. Man has to come back to his innocence. That is the message of Zen.You say: “The more I look into myself the more I find that I’m such a narcissist. My only and real concern is not enlightenment, liberation and all that, but beauty.” But that’s what enlightenment is. You are not a narcissist. Don’t use such words because they can become condemnatory, and once a condemnation enters in your being you start becoming ugly. Don’t label yourself, and don’t be labeled by others. Remain free of labels because labels are dangerous. Once you use a certain word about yourself you tend to think that you are that. Avoid words and look into reality. Now, to use the word narcissist is dangerous. You have already condemned, you have already accepted that something is wrong with you. Once you accept that something is wrong with you, you cannot be at ease with yourself. Nothing is wrong.This concern for beauty is concern for enlightenment. Enlightenment makes people beautiful. Have you ever conceived of any person more beautiful than Buddha or Yoka or Bodhidharma or Huineng? Just think of Buddha for a moment. Such beauty has never walked on the earth, such grace…H. G. Wells used to say that Buddha is the greatest godless man of human history, and the godliest. And he was true – the most godless and the godliest. Never has such a beauty walked, never has such a beauty been found residing in anybody. From where did it come? It came from his enlightenment; from his insight that all is good, from his insight that there is no need to go anywhere as all is here, from his insight that one has to drop all longing for truth, meaning… That longing makes one ugly, that longing makes one tense, that longing creates anguish. That insight happened and he became godly, he immediately became godly. Then there was infinite beauty, then there was splendor, he became part of the trees and the birds and the mountains and the stars and the rivers. He became again natural; he became again innocent.You say: “I want to make myself and the world as beautiful as possible.” Now beauty is not a thing that you can do anything about. If you start doing anything about it you will make it ugly. That’s how the world has become so ugly. Don’t try to make the world beautiful. And don’t try to make yourself beautiful, because if you try to make yourself beautiful that beauty will be false. What will you do? Will you search for cosmetics, beautiful clothes? Is that going to help? You can have a certain haircut, you can have beautifully manufactured clothes, you can have a beautiful house decorated aesthetically, but is it going to make you beautiful? Is it going to help you in any way?Beauty is not of the outside, beauty is of the inner; it is within you. Let me remind you again, Martin Heidegger is right when he says it is a releasement, it has to be released. You have to open up, and the fragrance will be released. You are a bud and you have to become a flower, that’s all. Don’t think in terms of making the world beautiful otherwise you will become a missionary, and a missionary is one of the ugliest things in the world. And don’t think of making yourself beautiful. It is not a question of making or doing at all. It is a question of being.Be! In your stillness, in your silence, in your meditativeness – when you simply are – there, and only there, is beauty. In that ecstasy of simple being, of pure being, is beauty. In that silence beauty takes form. The song becomes audible, the form becomes visible; the unknown becomes known.Don’t say that you are not interested in enlightenment, because if you are not interested in enlightenment you will never be beautiful. Watch the words that you use because words have become very, very important; people live by them, and live according to them.Beauty is there – that is the persistent message of Zen. Release it! You are not to become beautiful, you are beautiful; all that is needed is to remove the rocks. Who is hindering the path? This constant chattering in the mind makes you a cripple, this constant effort to be something – to be richer, to be more beautiful, to be more enlightened – this constant search for more makes you ugly, makes you greedy. Forget about more, enjoy that which you have. In that contentment is beauty. That contentment is beauty. Enjoy that which is available; don’t hanker for that which is not available. Mind is always hankering for that which you don’t have, and mind is never interested in that which you have. You can only enjoy that which you have. Nobody can enjoy that which one has not.Now, look at the dilemma. Mind always says, “Have that because that is beautiful. To be there will be good, it will be great, fantastic.” But when you reach there, the mind has already moved ahead. Now it says, “Go there. That woman is beautiful, not this.” This is never beautiful – always that, the faraway, the distant, the unavailable. Search for it. By the time you arrive there, you are finished. The mind has no interest in that which is. It starts hankering again for something more, something else. Mind keeps you in constant misery, constant discontent, in a feverish state, hungry, thirsty, and for no reason at all. You have all that can give you contentment. You have all that can make you supersaturated.Be here. Enjoy this moment and all that is contained in this moment, and suddenly you will find that beauty is released. And not only will you find that beauty is released, others will become aware that something has happened: “Something has happened in the deepest being of this man.” He has become luminous, transparent. Even an ordinary homely face becomes utterly beautiful when there is silence inside. And even a very, very shapely face becomes ugly when there is only anxiety and anguish and anger and frustration inside – because the face continuously shows that which is hidden in you, your eyes go on reflecting that which is in your heart.Be still, and be beautiful – there is no other way.The fourth question:Osho,For quite a long while now, I feel as if I am sitting between two chairs; between the reality of my mind and your reality. With patience and acceptance, I wait. But what is this “cutting the root” of all misery? I do not understand. Where is the root? What is it?Those two chairs… They have to disappear; the duality has to disappear. The duality is the root of all misery.You say: “For quite a long while now, I feel as if I am sitting between two chairs; between the reality of my mind and your reality.” Now these two realities will drag you in two opposite directions, even if you are sitting in the middle there will be a subtle drag. And you cannot know my reality if your mind is still there. Then my reality is just your idea about my reality, not my reality. My reality is possible only when your mind has disappeared. But then it is not my reality; it is as much yours as mine or anybody else’s. It is the reality – neither mine, nor yours. That is the root.Now you are sitting patiently, but look deep down; you are waiting, waiting for something to happen. Patiently, but still in that patience impatience is hidden. Patience may be on the surface, but look inside and you will find some impatience. Maybe you have repressed it, you have silenced it, but it is there. It will assert itself. Whenever it can assert itself, it will. It will disturb your surface again and again.Drop the mind. Cut the root. Duality is the root, because in the duality you are always in tension: to be this or to be that? Your mind will say, “What are you doing? You are disappearing; you are losing your individuality. This is suicide; this is not surrender. What are you doing here? It is called surrender. Surrender is only good as a word – it is suicide, you are committing suicide.” The mind will go on harping on the same thing again and again, and it will try to pull you. And I will go on saying to you, “Drop the mind. Surrender totally. Wait, and don’t wait for anything, simply wait.”Patience should mean the absence of impatience, not patience which has silenced impatience. I will go on saying these things, and I will go on shouting as loudly as possible so that you can hear it in your dreams, so it can go on vibrating inside you even in your sleep: “Cut the root of all misery.” You will continuously be in trouble.The duality has to go. Let those two chairs disappear. And remember, your mind is creating the other thing that you call, “my reality.” That too is your mind creating. My reality and your reality are not two. My reality is your reality. It is the same reality as that of the rock and the river; it is not different at all.When Buddha got the insight sitting under the Bo tree, he said, “This very moment, it is not only that I have become enlightened but the whole of existence has. This rock I am sitting on and this tree I am sitting under – all have become enlightened.” What does he mean? He is saying, “Now the reality is indivisible. Now it is one, it is all one.”Cut the root of misery. The root of misery is in “I” and “thou,” the root of misery is in “me” and “you.” The root of misery is that we go on always and always dividing, and it is all one. See the oneness, disappear in this oneness, and you have cut the root.The last question:Osho,While I was listening to your reply to Kalika's question (which I too was experiencing for the last few days) and looking at the sky, I saw the clouds of unhappiness vanishing. In that moment of happiness, for the first time I experienced depth and clarity in the sky. Similarly, yesterday while offering my pranams, I closed my eyes and found the window of my heart opening – full of bright sunlight pouring in. I felt that through the window of the heart one can see unto you, and also that through you truth reveals. Is that so?It is so, but the mind immediately raises questions. It is not only you who had seen the window opening. When I passed you I also saw the window opening. You were in a transformed state, you were not in an ordinary kind of mind; your eyes had a different shine. I also saw something happening to you, something of immense importance. For a moment you had fallen in tune with my heart, for a moment you vibrated with my vibe, your beat was rhythmic with my beat. For a moment you breathed through me and I breathed through you. That moment was immense. That moment was great.But mind immediately jumps over it; hence the question, “Is that so?” The mind cannot believe it, the mind cannot trust it, the mind will say, “You must be imagining. What are you talking about? What nonsense! ‘The window of the heart,’ have you ever heard of anything like that? There is nothing; no window in the heart. In fact there is no heart, but just a pumping system inside, just a blood purifying mechanism. What heart are you talking about, and what window? You must have fallen in a trance; you must have been hypnotized. Otherwise, you see the sky every day – it is the same sky. What clarity and what depth? You must have dreamed, you must have hallucinated.”The mind cannot trust – it is against the mind’s existence to trust such phenomena, so the mind immediately raises questions. Many times, many of you come very close to me. Sometimes it happens on a mass scale. Sometimes there are moments when all of you – almost all of you – are in a transformed state, in samadhi, just being one with me. But that moment slips. You cannot contain it; it is too much; you have to spill it. It is frightening too, because you see yourself disappearing and evaporating. And you cling…back to your old reality, and you raise a thousand and one questions. You raise great dust, great clouds of smoke so that you can feel settled again. The sky is no longer clear, there is no depth, the luminosity is lost, you are back into your old self and the mind is at ease. And the mind says, “Look, this is reality, that one cannot be real. And that one happens only for moments, and happens with this man. Maybe he is a magician, maybe he is a hypnotist; maybe he is doing something. The real is that which remains.” Mind says, “The real is that which remains forever. The ordinary sky is the real sky, and the ordinary beating of the heart is the real heart. You must have hallucinated.”The mind will say these things again and again, and the window will open again and again. If you don’t listen to the mind it will open more often, you will see the light pouring in more often. Slowly, slowly the gestalt changes; that reality which happens for only moments becomes abiding, and this reality which looks very real because you have lived it this way for so many lives, slowly, slowly becomes unreal.That is the meaning when Shankara says: “This world is illusory.” Not that these trees are illusory or these walls are illusory, or these rocks are illusory, what he means is that the way you have perceived it up to now is illusory because you are asleep.That moment you were awake was a small mini satori, very small. Just for a moment, a split moment, the window opened. But even that is enough proof that there is a window, that there is a different kind of opening, that there is a way of knowing reality which is totally different, qualitatively different. You are fortunate; you are blessed. Let it come more and more. Allow it more and more. Even if it sometimes frightens you, take the challenge; risk all. Go into this adventure, this adventure is life.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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He always walks by himself, saunters by himself.From the time I recognized the road,I realized I had nothing to do with birth and death.Walking is Zen; sitting is Zen.Talking or silent, moving, unmoving –the essence is at ease.Entering the deep mountainsI live in quiet solitude.The hills are high, the valleys deep,when one lives beneath an old pine tree.There are three ordinary states of consciousness. One is waking, jagrut, the second is swapna, dreaming, and the third is sushupti, dreamless, deep sleep.Man ordinarily lives in these three states: sometimes waking, sometimes dreaming, sometimes fast asleep. This is the wheel that man moves in. And because of these three states of mind, many things have arisen in human consciousness and in human culture, civilization.The first kind of consciousness, waking, creates its own culture, its own civilization. The West represents it. The second kind of culture is created by the second consciousness, dreaming The East represents it. That’s why you find it very difficult to communicate; the Western mind finds it almost impossible to communicate with the Eastern mind. It is not only a question of language. You may understand the language – the question is of the orientation.The waking consciousness is objective; it thinks of the object, of the reality there outside. It is a kind of concentration. The Western mind has evolved powers of concentration, hence the birth of science. Out of the powers of concentration science is born. The East could not give birth to science, and the reason is that the East has not paid much attention to the first kind of consciousness.The East thinks in terms of dreams, the East thinks in terms of the inner, the East thinks in terms of the subjective. The East thinks with closed eyes, the West thinks with open eyes. The West concentrates, the Eastern mind meditates – that’s why in the East you will find visionaries, poets, people who have experienced great revelations inside. But they cannot prove it; the experiences remain individual, private. The Western emphasis is on the objective, the public: when you are wakeful, whatever you see, others can also see. You are seeing me here, everybody can see me – anyone who has eyes can see – there is no need for any proof. The sun rises, and you know it: in the very experience the proof exists. And everybody is experiencing it; there can be a collective consensus about it. But when I say I have seen the sun rise in the evening it is no longer collective experience, it is no longer objective; it becomes subjective.In the East you will find people who have experienced kundalini rising in them, great light exploding as if thousands and thousands of suns have suddenly risen on the horizon. You will find people who have seen lotuses blooming inside. And to the Western mind it looks all nonsense. The Western mind has developed technology, science – objectivity. It lives in the first, the waking state. The visionary is rejected. In the West the visionary is a marginal phenomenon; he exists only on the outskirts of civilization. He is at most tolerated – he is harmless, he can be tolerated. But he has no roots in the culture at large, he is not the main current. In the East the scientist lives in the same way – on the margin. He is not the main current. He can be tolerated, he can be used – but the respect goes to the visionary, to the dreamer, to the poet who dreams great dreams.These are the two ordinary states. The third state happens to both, but you cannot catch hold of it – the mind dissolves. In sushupti, in dreamless sleep, you disappear as an ego, and you disappear so utterly that you cannot even remember in the morning what happened. You can remember your dreams, you cannot remember your dreamless sleep, at most it can be remembered as gaps. You can say, “I slept so deeply that there were not even dreams.” But that is guesswork; there is no direct experience of sushupti.No culture has evolved out of sushupti because there is no possibility to directly catch hold of it. But that is the deepest ordinary state of mind. It is out of sushupti, dreamless sleep, that you get rejuvenated every day. You go to the source, you move to the source, you are again in contact with the primal consciousness, you are again in contact with your ground. You are no longer human, you are no longer Hindu, no longer Christian; you are no longer a man or a woman, black or white, you are no longer Eastern, Western – all disappears, all distinctions. You are, but there is no identity. That’s why out of dreamless sleep great peace is felt.If you move into deeper meditation, you will come to the third state where one can become aware of dreamless sleep too. And many have stopped there because it is so blissful. Many religions have stopped there. They don’t go beyond it.There is a fourth state also, and until you reach to the fourth, go on remembering that the third is very alluring, the third is very beautiful, very blissful, but still you have not arrived home. The fourth is home. The Eastern mystics have called it turiya; turiya means the fourth.Waking is objective, outer; it is a kind of concentration. Dreaming is between the outer and the inner, a link between waking and deep sleep, and deep sleep is the inner. Then what is the fourth, turiya? It is both and neither. It is both inner and outer, and because it is both, that’s why it is neither. It transcends both, it is non-dual; it is total. Now nothing is outer; nothing is inner. Objects disappear and simultaneously the subject too; there is no experience and no experiencer. This fourth state is called samadhi, satori. And the beauty of the fourth is that you can live in the world and yet be not of it.Zen believes in the fourth. Those who believe in the third have to leave the world, they have to go to the Himalayan caves; only there is it possible that they can fall into continuous deep, dreamless sleep. It is falling into a beautiful coma. Its spiritual worth is nothing – although there is no misery, no anxiety, because the mind is put aside. But it is a state of coma; it is escapist. And the man has not known yet what the truth is. He has chosen one thing: escaping.The Western mind moves deeper and deeper into the world, into activity, and the Eastern mind moves out of activity, more and more out of the world. Now here both kinds of people have gathered. When the Western mind comes to me he always asks how to relate with people – that is his basic question – how to be more loving, caring, how to grow deeper in relationship. No Indian, no Easterner, ever asks this. That is not his question at all. His question is how to get out of relationship, how to forget all this misery – birth and death, and reincarnation, and the whole wheel – how to stop it, how to jump out of it. You can watch it, it is very apparent. The Western mind is clear-cut, logical, rational, mathematical, alert. The Eastern mind is dreaming and, according to Western standards, lousy, sloppy, messy – because in a dream you cannot be very clear-cut, otherwise the dream will disappear. To the Eastern mind the Western mind is worldly, calculating, cunning, clever.The third kind has happened in the East, but the West, very rarely. In the West monasteries have existed, and people have renounced the world and moved there – in the East too. One who becomes interested in dreamless sleep… And it is greatly satisfying, no doubt about it, there is great pleasure in it, it is very tranquil, undisturbed, but it is a kind of death, not life. And there is fear that it can be disturbed, any small thing can disturb it – a small thought can move, and all is lost. A small dream is enough to destroy it.Zen people have worked for the fourth. The fourth means: live in the world like a lotus leaf in water, be awake and yet remain centered. Do all that is needed to be done, be in the cyclone but remain the center of it, unaffected by it. Naturally, the Zen man creates the most alive, living, streaming, pulsating life. The Zen man creates action through inaction, or inaction through action. Polarities meet and merge, and wherever polarities meet and merge there is godliness.The fourth is the primal state, the very basic and fundamental state out of which these three have arisen. These three are branches; the fourth is the root.You will be able to understand the sutras of today only if you understand this approach: the approach through the fourth, through totality. One has not to escape, one has to go into the deepest world but is not to be lost there. One has to remain conscious, one has to remain alert, and one has to go deep into the world. The meeting of the extremes will bring you the richest crop of life.It happened…Vivekananda once told his master Ramakrishna, that his highest spiritual aspiration was to remain immersed for days on end in nirvikalpa samadhi, the disappearance of all forms into absolute Godhead. He sincerely longed for what he then considered to be the ultimate spiritual experience.But Ramakrishna, who had once spent six months in unbroken nirvikalpa, his body kept alive only by force-feeding, replied, “You are a fool. There is a realization higher than nirvikalpa samadhi.” Vivekananda was at that time dedicated to what we have called the third dimension of contemplation, and Ramakrishna was attempting to turn him toward the fourth dimension, or turiya.Nirvikalpa samadhi is a state of deep sleep. All has disappeared; it is absent, it is negative. The cup is empty, utterly empty – ready to be filled, but not yet filled. The empty cup is not the goal, cannot be the goal. Emptying is only the method so that one day the cup can be filled with the presence of godliness. But godliness exists as the world – there is no other. It has appeared as the world; it is not somewhere else. The world is godliness manifest. One has to empty oneself to prepare, but one has to remain in close contact with the world otherwise one becomes disconnected.This is my approach to sannyas too. That’s why I don’t say to leave the world, I say live in the world, accept the challenge of it because behind it, behind the screen of it, is godliness itself. If you accept the challenge and if you live the challenge totally, you will find that all that is needed is here. It has to be discovered. Become more and more alert and conscious.So don’t get too much into objects – don’t become a Westerner, and don’t get too much into dreams – don’t become an Easterner. Don’t get too obsessed with kundalini and experiences like that because those are all mind things. Remain alert while moving with people, while moving in the world; remain alert while moving in dreams. And there are beautiful dreams too, spiritual dreams too – remain alert, don’t get distracted by them. And when you are able to be alert in the objective world and then alert in the dreaming world, slowly, slowly you will become alert in dreamless deep sleep too. Then you are at the gate of the fourth. And when you enter the fourth you are back in the world; the circle is complete. But now you are the center of the cyclone.He always walks by himself, saunters by himself.The first sutra of Yoka: he is talking about the man who has attained the fourth – how he lives, how he walks, how he talks, how he listens. There is no greater subject than that. Try to understand how he walks.He always walks by himself, saunters by himself. That does not mean that he moves into loneliness, no, but wherever he is, he is alone, in the crowd, but he is alone. You will find him standing in the crowd but not part of it, there and yet not there. That has to be understood.The man of Zen walks by himself. He is so utterly centered, rooted, in himself that nothing can distract him. You are distracted by each and every thing that passes by. You are walking and you see a beautiful house; you are distracted. And dreams start arising: you would like to possess this house. You come across a beautiful woman, and you lose your center; you have moved into fantasy. Anything can distract you. Somebody insults you, you are distracted and anger arises. Somebody says something beautiful about you and your ego is puffed up; you have lost your center. This is getting distracted.The man of Zen remains by himself. You can insult him, but you do not insult him. On your part, from your side, you can insult him but he will not take it; he will laugh and will say good-bye to you. Remember Zusia – just the other day I was talking about him. He is beaten and he laughs, and he sings a song and goes into the mountains utterly happy – happy that he has made the birds free, and happy that he was not distracted by the beating.Once a Sufi mystic was being beaten by an emperor and he started laughing. He exploded into mad laughter.Even the emperor was puzzled, and he asked, “Why are you laughing?”He said, “Because I am the wrong man! You think you are beating somebody else, that’s why I am laughing at the ridiculousness of it.”He always walks by himself… There is no way to push him here and there, you cannot manipulate him; he remains there, utterly himself, so centered is he, so rooted is he in his being. When one has known the fourth, turiya, then there is no distraction, and one can live anywhere.Once it happened in the days of Buddha that a beautiful prostitute fell in deep love with a Buddhist monk who had gone to beg. The woman had seen many beautiful people – she was one of the most famous prostitutes of those days, even kings used to queue at her door – and she fell in love with a monk, with a bhikku, a beggar.Sannyasins have a beauty that only sannyasins can have: that beauty when one walks by himself, that grace – the grace of the centered one, the dignity, the elegance. Just visualize the monk walking. And, the whole teaching of Buddhist monks consists of one thing: be alert, be watchful. Not even a single breath has to pass your nostrils without your being aware of it.So absolutely watchful, meditative, he must have passed by the woman. She had seen many beautiful people, but never a man who walked by himself like this – and in the marketplace in all the noise, so silently as if the market did not exist. She immediately fell in love with the man. She touched his feet and asked him to come to her home and stay for the rainy season, for four months. Buddhist monks stop moving for four months in the rainy season. The rains were just about to come, and the clouds were gathering, and it was time for them to stop and find shelter for four months.So she invited him: “Come to my home. Be my guest for four months.”The monk said, “I will have to ask the master. Tomorrow I will come and reply. If he allows it, I will come.”There were also other monks begging in the town, they saw the whole thing and they became very jealous. When the young man came back to Buddha, he stood in the assembly and made the request, “A woman, a prostitute” – Amrapali was her name – “has asked me to stay with her for the coming rainy season. I will do whatsoever you say.”Many heard it. They all stood up and said, “This is wrong. Even to have allowed that woman to touch your feet was wrong because Buddha has said, ‘Don’t touch a woman, don’t allow a woman to touch you.’ You have broken the rule, and now this is something, that you are asking to stay with the woman for four months!”Buddha said, “I have told you not to touch a woman, not to be touched by a woman because you are not centered. For this man that rule is no longer applicable. I can see that he can walk alone by himself. I have been watching him – he is no longer part of the crowd. You are still part of the crowd. When you go to the market, you go to the market; he simply passes by there as if he had never gone.” And to the bhikku Buddha said, “Yes, you are allowed.”Now, this was too much; never had it been done before, there was no precedent. All were angry, and for four months, thousands of gossips went around exaggerating what was happening there. Everybody was interested, and many rumors were coming that the monk was no longer a monk, that he had fallen.After four months the monk came back, followed by Amrapali. Buddha looked at the monk, looked at Amrapali, and said, “Woman have you something to say to me?”She said, “I have come to be initiated by you. I tried to distract your disciple. I failed; this is my first defeat. I have always succeeded with men. This is the first man whom I could not distract – not even an inch. A great desire has arisen in me too: how I can attain this centering. And the more he has been with me these days, the more I have seen how far away he is from the world. He lived with me, I danced before him, I sang before him, I played on musical instruments before him, I tried to allure him in every way, but he always remained silent. He always remained himself. Not for a single moment have I seen any cloud in his mind or any desire in his eyes. I tried to convert him but he has converted me – and by not saying a single word. He has not brought me here; I have come on my own. I have known for the first time what dignity is; I would like to learn the art.”She became a disciple of Buddha. She became a nun.He always walks by himself… Remember, it does not mean that he remains lonely; it only means that he remains alone. If you want to be lonely you have to move away from the world, but if you want to be alone there is no need to go anywhere, you can be alone here. Aloneness needs awareness. Loneliness is an outer thing; you simply have to move away from people. But moving away from people you remain the same, your mind has not changed; and the mind is the problem, not the people. Sitting in a Himalayan cave you will think of the people, of your wife, of your children, of all those friends you have left behind, because the mind cannot be left here, it will go with you – it is you.Don’t try to change the circumstances of your life, try to change the psychology. Try to change your attitudes toward life; don’t try to change the outer situation. Use the outer situation and change the inner state. The false religion consists of changing the situation: if a woman creates desire in you, escape from the woman. This is changing the situation; it is not much of a change, you are befooling yourself and befooling the world. Real religion consists of changing the state of the mind. If a woman attracts you, then look into your desires, watch those desires. Somewhere there, you have not known anything better than sex. Somewhere there, you have not known anything higher than sex. Somewhere there, you have not known anything ecstatic. Because you have not known anything higher, you are attracted toward the lower. Search for the higher. Once you have known higher reaches of your energy, sex starts withering of its own accord. That is real religion.He always walks by himself, saunters by himself. And his walk is a sauntering – that has also to be remembered. It is not work; it is play. Whatsoever he is doing he does it very sincerely, he does it with totality, he does it with all his being, with all his capacity. He becomes fully available to the work – but it is not work, it is play. He is nonserious, sincere certainly but never serious. His walk is not goal-oriented; it is a sauntering. He lives the life because he finds himself here. He lives because life has been given; he dies because life has been taken away. But all his action is unmotivated. There is no motivation in it. He is not going anywhere in particular.First, he remains alone in the crowd; he remains by himself. Secondly, all that he is doing, he does in a playful mood. He is nonpurposive, nonserious; work is not his world but play. He does not leave the work; he changes the quality of it.I am talking to you; this is not work, this is play. There is no motivation behind it – not even the motivation to convince you. If you are convinced, that is your business. I am not trying to convince you, I am not trying to convert you. I am not a missionary; I have no mission to fulfill. I am just singing my song, my shodoka; you have decided to listen. If something happens in you, it is your decision to allow it to happen in you or not to allow it to happen in you, but from my part there is no motivation.A cuckoo starts calling and you are thrilled, and you are changed, and you are convinced of the beauty of the song, but that is absolutely yours – the cuckoo was not after you. A tree has bloomed, if your nostrils are filled with its fragrance that is for you to accept or reject. The sun has risen; it is for you to open your eyes and see the sunlit world or not to open your eyes. But the sun is not motivated; he has knocked on your door without any motivation. If you don’t listen he will not be offended, if you listen he will not be gratified either.That is sauntering, and once you know the beauty of sauntering, then all goal-oriented actions disappear because they bring miseries. Those goals are your goals, and they are always against the goal of the whole. They clash with the cosmic and naturally you are defeated – you cannot defeat the cosmos. Then there is frustration. If your goals are not fulfilled, there is frustration and you will be in misery. If your goals are fulfilled your ego is puffed up, that will create misery. Either you succeed or fail – there are only two possibilities – but in both ways you will be miserable.Forget all goals. Live in the moment. Enjoy the moment to its fullest possibility; squeeze it as much as you can, the whole juice of it, but that’s all – there is no future in it. When a person starts living moment to moment, he has learned how to live. Never sacrifice the present for the future: that is the meaning of sauntering by himself.The Zen man is like a child collecting pebbles on the seashore: just enjoying the sunshine and the brisk salty air and the roar of the waves and the vastness, just the joy of running here and there, and collecting seashells and colored stones for no purpose at all. They are of no use – they cannot be sold in the marketplace as commodities. Just watch a child playing on the seashore making sandcastles. Nobody is going to live in them, the whole activity is just play. The joy is in making the castle, and then the same child will destroy the castle. And see the child when he destroys the castle – how he jumps, shrieks in joy, shouts in joy. He has made it; he has destroyed it.Learn from children how to live, learn from children how to transform the quality of your work. Once it becomes play, you are a religious man.But look at the unfortunate state of the world. The religious person becomes very, very motivated. The so-called religious person cannot play at all, becomes very serious.It happened once that a great political leader came to attend one of my camps in Mahabaleshwar. He was known in India as the father of the Indian parliament because he remained an MP for fifty years. The first day he watched. By the evening he came to me and said, “Everything is okay, but a few things offend me – I have seen four of your sannyasins playing cards. How can a sannyasin play cards? What kind of sannyas is this?”He was really offended, and I can understand his discomfort, his uneasiness. Sannyasins are not expected to be playful; they have to be serious, they have to have long faces. They are not expected to laugh – they are certainly not expected to play cards. And when I said, “But what is wrong in it? If they are enjoying playing cards, it is perfectly right, it is meditative,” he immediately left the camp. He became so angry; he could not conceive of card playing as meditation. And all meditation is nothing but card playing.Meditation means playfulness, meditation is not a serious phenomenon. But he had come seriously – he was getting very old, he was seventy-five and death was coming close, and he wanted to have some security beyond death. He had lived a very, very successful life here, now he wanted to succeed in the other life; he could not afford to be playful. Time is short and time is money; time is fleeting fast. He had come there to learn some way to have a successful life in the other world. He could not understand that the other world is not a separate world.The other world is intrinsic to this world. It becomes available to nonserious minds. Nonseriousness is the door to the other world. It is here; if you are serious you miss it, if you are nonserious it suddenly opens its doors. All the mysteries are available to the nonserious, that’s why Jesus goes on repeating again and again, “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my Kingdom of God.”What does he mean? What is the beauty of small children? They are playful; they don’t know what work is. Work is yet unknown to them. They have not yet fallen, they have not yet committed the original sin. The original sin is seriousness. The moment you can regain, recover, reclaim your childhood, you have become a religious person.He always walks by himself, saunters by himself.From the time I recognized the road,I realized I had nothing to do with birth and death.Yoka says: from the time I recognized the road… What road is he talking about? The road to oneself, the road from dream to reality, the road from sleep to awakening, the road from work to play, the road from seriousness to nonseriousness. It is only metaphorically called a road; in fact, it is not a road.Just the other day, I was saying to you that you can sleep in Pune and dream about Philadelphia, and I know there are a few people who sleep in Philadelphia and dream of Pune too. This is how the mind of man functions: it is always somewhere else. Your reality is here, your mind is somewhere else.What road is Yoka talking about? Coming back to your reality, where you are. Listen to your body and that will give you the clue. The mind always dreams, the body cannot dream; the body is simply here; the body cannot deceive, only mind deceives. Listen to the body; get into your senses, get into your body.And that is one of the greatest harms the so-called religions have done to humanity: they have helped people to become more and more mental, they have helped people to become more and more minds. When a man lives in the mind he is mental. They have taught people to be against their bodies. And bodies are real. Bodies exist in existence, breathe in existence; they are already there, part of existence, they pulsate in existence. The mind is not part of existence, it is your private journey although it never takes you anywhere, it cannot – it is impotent. But it can dream, it can create beautiful dreams. It can allure you and you can start following those dream tracks so you go farther and farther away from your reality.The road is only metaphorical. I said to you that if you are in Philadelphia and dreaming, and suddenly I call to you, “Come back home” will you ask me where to go, which train to catch, or what airline? Will you go to Krishna Mohammed to ask about Air India? Anyway he no longer works for Air India, he works for Air Osho, but that is metaphorical – no airplanes here, no airlines. One just has to awaken. One just has to come back where one’s body is. Listen to your body; the body is the secret of finding the road.From the time I recognized the road, I realized I had nothing to do with birth and death. There are two kinds of people in the world: one who is very interested in birth, in life, in the world, and very afraid of death. Now that’s a very stupid type of mind; if you cling to birth, how can you avoid death? Birth implies it. It is the necessity of birth that brings death. There can be no beginning without the end. If the beginning is there, the end is bound to be there: the end is implied in the beginning, the alpha contains the omega. People are too interested in birth and life and, naturally, very much afraid of death. The more obsessed they become with life, the more afraid they become of death. But life brings death, birth brings death, birth is a continuous movement toward death. You cannot avoid it so you live in a kind of trembling, in fear, in a kind of dread. Søren Kierkegaard used to say that man lives in dread. Man need not live in dread, but he chooses to live in dread. If you cling to birth, you will be afraid of death.And there are people who are very obsessed with death too – the other type, the religious type. They are not concerned with life, their whole concern is death: how to enter the realms that are beyond death, heaven and paradise, and how to avoid hell, and all that. Their whole concern is death.A man once came to me and he asked, “I would like to know something about the afterlife.”I asked him, “Have you known anything about life? If you don’t know anything about life, how can you know anything about afterlife?”He tried to explain – he thought I had not understood his question, he said, “I mean, what happens after death?”I said, “I would also like to say to you that my insistence is: first try to see what happens before death. You have not even looked into that which is happening already and you are concerned with what will happen after death. Your concern is abstract, philosophical, metaphysical.”You can spin and weave theories, you can get caught up in your ideas and thoughts or into somebody else’s ideas and thoughts.Yoka says: From the time I recognized the road, I realized I had nothing to do with birth and death. The moment I awoke to reality, the moment I saw the fourth state of consciousness, turiya, I suddenly saw there is no birth and there is no death. Life continues – it only changes forms. Forms are born and forms die, but the essential life is eternal. And you are that essential life – only clothes change, garments change, houses change, but the essential core goes on and on.Just the other day there was a question. Somebody asked: “Who are you? From where have you come? What is your purpose here? Are you the messiah?” I have not come from anywhere. I have always been here just as you have always been here, and we are always going to be here.Raman Maharshi was dying, and a disciple asked, “Where are you going? Why are you leaving us?”And he opened his eyes, and he laughed and said, “Where can I go? There is nowhere to go. I will always be here.” He laughed, closed his eyes and died.Where can I go? There is nowhere to go. I will be here. We are not coming from anywhere, we are not going anywhere, we have always been here – we are this existence. Yes, forms change, waves change; the ocean remains. And you asked: “What is your purpose?” No purpose at all. What purpose can there be? Trees are green, and roses are red – what purpose can there be?And you had asked: “Are you the messiah?” Now, that word has to be understood; it is a device. The Jews have missed the whole point, and so have the Christians. It is a device, a device to create waiting, nothing else. It is one of the most ancient devices. Judaism used it, but somehow the language was forgotten – as always happens. Try to understand the device, then a new vision will open up to you. The messiah is nothing but an excuse to wait. “The messiah is coming!” It is always urgent, “The messiah is coming! Any day he will be here.” You have to be ready, you have to learn how to wait, and you have to learn how to be patient.Remember all that I have been saying to you about waiting. Waiting is prayer. If you can wait, and if you are not in a hurry; if you don’t demand and you simply wait – not even waiting for something in particular, just waiting – something is going to happen. It is just on the brink, always on the brink. That state of waking and waiting will help you remain open, alert, watchful, looking.Remember the day when a guest is to come, and the postman comes and you rush to the door – you are so alert. Every day the postman comes, he knocks and nobody listens. When you are waiting for a guest, just the breeze blowing through the pines, and you rush to the door, “Maybe he has come. Maybe this is the sound of his footsteps.” Anything provokes the vision.Judaism has contributed a few things to the world. This is one of the most beautiful things: that the messiah is coming. But always remember, because it is a device, the Jews cannot believe it when a messiah declares, “I have come.” They cannot believe him because the man is trying to destroy their whole device. So, when Jesus came and said, “I have come,” they had to crucify him, they had to save their device, they had to deny Jesus. The messiah has always to be coming, but can’t be allowed to arrive. See the point. If the messiah comes then all is finished, then how will you wait? Messiahs have been coming but they cannot be accepted. “They are not the messiah we are waiting for.” He has always to remain coming, only then can we remain waiting.Then the Christians took the device: the second coming of Christ. Do you think they will believe me if I declare, “I am the second Christ. I have come.” No, they will say, “How can you be the second Christ?” They will find a thousand and one faults. Just as the Jews found faults with Jesus they will find faults with me. The reason is that the second coming is the same device by another name. It cannot be allowed. Messiahs will come, but they will not be accepted as the messiah; he has to remain always there in the future so that you keep alert. And if the device catches hold of your heart it is of immense value – more value than any messiah, because the device can create thousands and thousands and thousands of enlightened people.I have heard…In the Hasidic tradition, simultaneously with the mystical appreciation of the messiah-nature transmitted through the master, there continues to exist the expectation of the powerful, kingly messiah. When he appears, the entire planet will be transformed in a flash of illumination, not just inwardly, as is already occurring, but outwardly and openly. No matter how many centuries pass according to human reckoning, this universal revelation remains always an imminent future. The Hasid lives with this future event so intimately that it pervades the present. Rabbi Menachem Mendel, like all Hasidic masters, lived wholly in his expectation of the messiah’s coming. Mornings he would go to the window, look outside, and sadly remark, “He has not yet come, for the world is still the same.”Every morning… The whole night he would wait and pray, and in his sleep he would dream and wait and watch. And early in the morning he would rush to the window and open the window and see outside, and say, “He has not come yet, for the world is still the same.”Jesus came, but the world was still the same. That’s why the Jews refused him. Jesus transformed a few people’s lives, but that is not the point. When the messiah comes, “The entire planet will be transformed in a flash of illumination.” The world has remained the same. Jesus has come and gone, and the world is not saved, so he was not the messiah.Who was the messiah? Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu? Nobody – because the world remains the same. Yes, they transformed a few people’s lives, but that is not the point. The messiah is an impossible ideal. It has to be impossible. If it is made possible then anybody can declare, “I am the messiah,” and it is finished. And there have been messiahs… Buddha is, Jesus is. There have been messiahs, but the messiah, the ultimate, never comes. He is always imminent, just coming; you have to wait for it. That waiting transforms you; it is a meditation device.So I cannot declare that I am the messiah. And I am. But I cannot declare it because I would not like to destroy that beautiful device. It has immense value; it is worth preserving. But I am not coming from anywhere, neither are you coming from anywhere. And I am not going anywhere, neither are you going anywhere. We have always been here; we will always be here.And this is just a game that we have decided to play: I am the master and you are the disciple, just a game, a play. You have to follow the rules of the disciple and I have to follow the rules of the master, but it is a game of cards, playing cards. Be nonserious. Be playful.And not only am I the messiah, you are too, because the messiah is nothing but the awakening in you. It is a quality in you, and that quality redeems. Nothing else, nobody else can redeem you from the outside. That quality, that awareness, that turiya, the fourth, when it takes possession of you, it redeems. It is the salvation.Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen.Talking or silent, moving, unmoving –the essence is at ease.When you have understood the fourth, when you have gone into the fourth, then …walking is Zen… Then you need not practice any kind of meditation. Then all that you do is meditation; then walking is meditation, then sitting is meditation. Meditation is a quality of being that you bring to the act. It is not a particular act, it is not that you do this then it is meditation – that you sit in a certain posture, siddhasana, and you keep your spine erect, and you keep your eyes closed or you look at the tip of your nose or you watch your breath, then it is meditation – no, these are just devices for the beginners.Just the other day Vidya wrote me a beautiful letter. She said she tried meditation one day and had a great migraine and half her body became paralyzed. That cured her of meditation. I liked it. I would like all of you to be cured of meditation; it has to happen to everybody. One has not only to be cured of diseases, one has to be cured of medicines too; otherwise, sometimes medicines become more dangerous than the diseases themselves – one can become obsessed with the medicine.Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation.Walking is Zen; sitting is Zen. Then what will be the quality? Watchfully, alert, joyously, unmotivated, centered, loving, flowing, one walks. And the walking is sauntering. Loving, alert, watchful, one sits unmotivated – not sitting for anything in particular, enjoying how beautiful just sitting doing nothing is, how relaxing, how restful. After a long walk, you sit under a tree, and the breeze comes and cools you.Each moment one has to be at ease with oneself – not trying to improve, not cultivating anything, not practicing anything. Walking is Zen; sitting is Zen. Talking or silent, moving, unmoving – the essence is at ease.The essence is at ease – that is the key word. The essence is at ease – that is the key statement. Do whatsoever you are doing, but at the deepest core remain at ease: cool, calm, centered. Then you can be in a crowd and you will not be the crowd, then you can be in the marketplace and the marketplace will not enter you. Then you can be anywhere and you will remain unpolluted; your purity will remain intact, your innocence undisturbed. The essence is at ease – that is the quality one has to bring into each act; no act has to be excluded from it. If you are afraid of any act and you exclude it, that will remain a barrier; it will remain a pitfall for you, and any day you will fall into it.Let this quality penetrate all that you do: eating, sleeping, making love, walking, talking, being silent. Let this quality permeate your existence, pervade your existence. Let this quality surround you always and always, even when falling asleep, feel surrounded by it. And soon you will see that meditation is not your act, is not activity; it is a certain nuance, a certain musical quality in your being, a certain harmony, a melody that you bring to every act, whatsoever you are doing.That’s why Zen people say, “Carrying water from the well, chopping wood, and one is at home” – there is no problem. One can do any kind of work and still meditation persists; it becomes your very life.Chuang Tzu says: “The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning, once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words, so I can have a word with him?”Meditation is a trap; once the quality is caught hold of – the essence is at ease – the trap can be forgotten.Entering the deep mountainsI live in quiet solitude.The hills are high, the valleys deep,when one lives beneath an old pine tree.The essence is at ease. Then you have entered the deep mountains. You need not go to the Himalayas, the Himalayas come to you. There are already Himalayas inside you; nothing is missing there. The Himalayas are there, the high peaks; the Pacific is there, the depth. All heights and all depths are there, infinite heights and infinite depths are there. And the primeval silence reigns there undisturbed. There in your innermost core you are a virgin, and you cannot lose it, there is no way to lose it; there your innocence is absolute, not even a particle of dust has entered. The mirror is utter transparency. When you can walk in Zen, when you can sit in Zen, when …walking is Zen and sitting is Zen… Talking or silent, moving or unmoving – it makes no difference, it is all the same – the essence is at ease. You are entering a new world, a new territory – the inner sky.Entering the deep mountains I live in quiet solitude. Again remember, solitude does not mean solitariness, just as aloneness never means loneliness. Loneliness simply says the other is being missed, aloneness says one is enjoying oneself. Loneliness is in reference to the other that you are missing; aloneness is the presence of yourself.He always walks by himself, saunters by himself. This is aloneness, and so is solitude. Solitude is aloneness. You can be in solitude anywhere, but you cannot be solitary anywhere. Solitariness means there is nobody, you are alone; you have to move, you have to move away from people. Solitariness is against the world, solitude is not against the world. Solitude is something great, solitariness is something very ordinary, mundane. Entering the deep mountains I live in quiet solitude. The hills are high, the valleys deep when one lives beneath an old pine tree.Chuang Tzu says: Everything has its that, everything has its this. That comes out of this, and this depends on that – which is to say that this and that give birth to each other. But where there is birth, there must be death. The sage’s this is also that, his that is also this. A state in which this and that no longer find their opposites is called “the hinge of the Way.” Where this and that become one, where this world and that world become one, where matter and mind become one, that is called “the hinge of the Way.”Yoka says: From the time I recognized the road… This is the road he is talking about. The moment you recognize that all is one; death and life, this and that, all is one. …I realized I had nothing to do with birth and death. Then I knew that I never had any beginning and I will never have any end, this whole belongs to me and I belong to this whole. And there is no need to make any distinctions, there is no need to make any categories: this is lower and that is higher, this is sacred and that is profane. If you have entered the road – the road that brings you from dreams to reality, from divisions to the non-dual, from many to one – then you will see that all the beauty that you have been searching for outside is inside you, and all the heights that you have been trying to soar to outside are within you.Man trying to reach the planets, man trying reach to the moon and Mars and then to the stars, is on a false journey. The urge is not for the outer moon, there is an inner moon too and the urge is for it. You can reach the outer moon and nothing is going to happen through it. Man has already reached the moon – what has happened? Man has reached Everest, the highest peak in the world – what has happened? It seems these are substitutes. The real height is something else; the real journey is somewhere else.An ancient parable…Once upon a time there was a country that encompassed all the countries of the world. And in that country there was a town that incorporated all the towns of that country; and in that town there was a street in which were gathered all the streets of the town; and on that street there was a house which sheltered all the houses of the street; and in that house there was a room and in that room there was a man, and that man personified all men of all countries, and that man laughed and laughed.No one had ever laughed like that before.Why was he laughing? He was laughing because he had understood that he is all. He was laughing because he had understood the stupidity of searching. There was no need to search; all was given from the very beginning. This is a persistent Zen note: everybody is a buddha from the very beginning, you just have to come out of your dreams and see the reality of your being.This man was laughing, this man of the parable. This is the clear laughter of enlightenment that perceives all countries, towns, streets, and beings as original mind. When many disappear and one is realized, one has seen, one has come home. And coming home is all that matters, then one laughs. All the enlightened people have laughed, laughed at the whole absurdity of it all, laughed at the whole effort of so many, many lives for something that was already inside them, and they were looking out and they were running and running, and chasing, and driving themselves crazy.I have heard…A Zen master writes about his first satori experience:“At midnight I abruptly awakened. At first my mind was foggy, then suddenly that question flashed into my consciousness…”What question? – the question which must have been given by the master: the koan, the puzzle.“…that question flashed into my consciousness. I came to realize clearly that Mind is no other than mountains, rivers, and the great wide earth, the sun, and the moon, and the stars.”Maybe he was meditating on the sound of one hand, because only one is, so all sound is the sound of one hand. It is not a dialogue, existence is a monologue because there is only one: existence talking to existence. That’s why I said I have chosen to be the master and you have chosen to be the disciples; this is a game. Existence is the master and existence is the disciple. It is a monologue: existence talks, it listens, it dances, it appreciates. It is the actor and it is the audience.“I came to realize…” The Zen master remembers. “I came to realize clearly that Mind is no other than mountains, rivers, and the great wide earth, the sun, and the moon, and the stars. The jewel of original mind, the treasure of divine nature, is discovered at home in the realm of primal awareness, which appears as rivers, mountains, stars and persons.“The transcendent humor of this discovery is overwhelming, continues the Zen master, “Instantaneously, like surging waves, a tremendous delight welled up in me, a veritable hurricane of delight, as I laughed loudly and wildly, ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!’ There’s no reasoning here, no reasoning at all! ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ The empty sky split into two, then opened its enormous mouth and began to laugh uproariously, ‘Ha, ha, ha!’”You are chasing your own tail, and you can go on chasing it forever and you will not be able to catch it. Stop, and it is yours. Stopping is the road; not moving is the road, not going anywhere is the road. Stop. Stop all dreaming, stop all desiring, stop all asking, and if even for a single moment you can do it you will see the transcendental laughter arising in you. You will laugh at yourself. You will laugh at the whole ridiculousness of the search. And once it has been seen and the laughter has welled up in you, then: Walking is Zen; sitting is Zen. Talking or silent, moving, unmoving – the essence is at ease.Because there is nowhere to go, nothing to seek, nothing to search for, no goal, no seriousness: …the essence is at ease. And in that essence: Entering the deep mountains I live in quiet solitude. One enters one’s own Himalayas of being, and lives there in utter solitude.The hills are high, the valleys deep, when one lives beneath an old pine tree. The old pine tree is a metaphor. Zen people always use it; sometimes they say, “the old man,” sometimes they say, “the original man,” sometimes they say, “the original face.” Yoka is being more poetic, he says, sitting …beneath an old pine tree. The primeval consciousness is the …old pine tree; it has always been here, it is the very nature of existence. When you sit under the old pine tree of primal awareness, all is silent and all is joy, and all is utter bliss.Do not search and find. Do not seek, stop! And in that stopping is the secret, the secret of all secrets. Stop – a single moment of stopping and time disappears. See that in this moment there is no time; you have stopped, all is silent, and all is one. That is the meaning of the word alone; all-one-ness means aloneness. Stop, and see. And just a small experience of …the essence is at ease, and your whole life is transformed.The alchemy of stopping is what Zen is all about. If I can impart to you this stopping – if looking into my eyes, if feeling my vibe, sometimes you can stop and drop all searching – existence will come rushing to you. You need not go to search for it. It is waiting for you to stop; it simply rushes into you from all sides.Man never reaches existence. Whenever it happens, it happens the other way: man stops searching and existence comes to him. That has always been so, and it is always going to be so.Search not. Seek not, because all seeking is dreaming and all searching is desiring. And when there is no desire, one has arrived.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Please help me to be happy, to be ordinary. I find that all my upsets, conflicts, turmoils, have to do with this desire to be special and nothing else.Sudha, it is impossible to help because you are not ordinary – nobody is, nobody can be. Everybody is unique and extraordinary. The problem arises when you start trying to be that which you already are, then you fail. If you were ordinary, there would be no difficulty in attaining to extraordinariness; there would be every possibility. But the fish is in the ocean and is trying to be in the ocean; failure is absolute – it is doomed.How can you be ordinary? This whole existence is extraordinary. Each pebble on the shore is extraordinary; each grass leaf is extraordinary. And I am not only talking about lotuses and roses – of course, they too are extraordinary – but an ordinary grass flower is not ordinary. All that exists is divine, how can it be ordinary?Don’t try to be ordinary, otherwise you will go on failing and you will create misery for yourself. Even I cannot help; even I cannot go against the Tao, against the fundamental law of life. Existence only creates the extraordinary; this whole existence is special. These raindrops, this morning, the people around you, this moment, is extraordinary; it can’t be repeated. No, never, not even in the whole of eternity can it be repeated. You will never again find these raindrops falling, this sound, this morning, these people. This whole situation is extraordinary; it only happens once.You will not find another Sudha all around the world. You can go on searching, and not only in the present time but even in the past or in the future, and no Sudha will ever be repeated. This is how we are. Once you start trying to be extraordinary you will get into difficulty. To accept yourself as you are, and to accept the whole as it is, if you can understand the extraordinariness of everything that is, you have become ordinary.It is not that you want to be extraordinary; you want to be special, compared to other people. That too is absurdity – no comparison is possible, how can you be compared with anybody? Nobody is like you. You don’t compare a dog with a parrot, or do you? There is no similarity; there is no likeness. How can you compare a dog with a parrot, or a tree with a man, or a rock with a river? In fact, no two individuals are alike; hence they are incomparable. You are you, and the other is the other.To understand this is to be both extraordinary and ordinary: extraordinary in the sense that existence only creates unique people, and ordinary in the sense that everybody is extraordinary. There is nothing extraordinary in being extraordinary; everybody is so. The comparison disappears; and when there is no comparison, there is no possibility of the ego.You ask me: “Please help me to be happy…” I can only help you not to be miserable; I cannot help you to be happy. But if you are not miserable, you will be happy. No direct way to make you happy is possible. If it were possible, I would have made you happy long ago. I am not a miser. I would have given it to you if it were possible to give at all – but there is no possibility.Happiness is not something that is going to happen to you from the outside. Once you stop being miserable, happiness is. Happiness wells up within your being. It simply arises out of you; you start blooming – the hindrances have been removed.And this seems to be your greatest obstacle: you want to be extraordinary. I declare it: you are. But remember, everybody else is too. So now there is no need to be worried, I certify you; you need not prove it. Let this obstacle disappear. Accept your extraordinariness, rejoice in it, celebrate it. Walt Whitman says, “I celebrate myself, I sing myself.” Celebrate and sing! You are extraordinary; existence has not made another person like you, will never make another person like you. It is only once that life exists as you, in you, in this form. This form is unrepeatable.Now, what is lacking? All your misery is arising because you are trying to become it. It is your being; becoming is irrelevant. And then suddenly you will see… If you can see the point – don’t think about it, just see the point – it is so crystal clear, and a great burden will disappear from your chest. So, you are extraordinary. You will take a deep breath, you will relax, and suddenly happiness is there.Happiness is not something that we have to produce or do anything for. It is natural; it is spontaneous. I can help you not to be in misery. Misery is your creation; happiness is existence’s creation. Misery is the gift that you have given to yourself; happiness is the gift that existence has given to you. But you cling to misery and when you cling, you feed it by your clinging. Drop it! Start dancing and singing and celebrating. End it right now. And don’t say, “Tomorrow,” because tomorrow never comes. And don’t say, “I will think it over”; either you have understood or you have missed. Thinking is not going to help – it is a simple fact.Let me repeat it again: everybody is extraordinary, so nobody needs to try. Don’t suffer with this unnecessary inferiority. And if you suffer from it, you can go on suffering for ages; you can go on creating it, and you can go on finding new ways and means. Somebody has a longer nose than you – you are inferior. Somebody has blond hair – you are inferior. Somebody has those beautiful eyes – and you are inferior. Somebody is more intelligent – and you are inferior. Somebody is a little taller – and you are inferior. If you go on looking and searching for misery, it is available. You can find it in every person that passes by – you will find that something or other is missing in you. It is your way of looking at things that creates misery.Forget everybody, just look into the gifts that existence has given to you, and gratitude arises. In fact, there is no reason, no raison d’etre for this existence to be, no reason for this rain this morning, for this melody, this beautiful song that clouds are singing around you. If it were not there we could not have complained. If it were not there, we could not have asked that it should be. It is simply there without our asking. It is there. We have not even knocked at the door, and the door is open. And millions of gifts are showering on you; just look at those gifts, and you will be surprised. You will be surprised at how you have been missing them. Just the joy of breathing is enough to be grateful for, just the joy of meeting a friend is enough to be grateful for, just the joy of sitting silently doing nothing, the joy of a morning or an evening, the joy of the night. Just go on looking for the joyous, and you will find it.You only find that which you look for. You have been looking for misery. You can create misery; today it is raining and tomorrow it will not be raining, then tomorrow you can be miserable: “Why is it not raining today?” And when it is raining you are not grateful.Start feeling grateful. Happiness comes closer and closer the more you become grateful. Gratitude functions like magnetism; the complaining mind repels happiness, it closes doors. It all depends on you. I can show you the way, but you will have to walk on it. Buddha has said: “Buddhas can only point the way; they cannot walk for you.” You will have to walk. I am showing you the way.You have become very clever, efficient, in creating misery for yourself. Change the direction of your energies; channel them toward the joy, the beauty – this cuckoo calling from far away – and, slowly, slowly you will see that so many things were there but you were not seeing them. Your eyes were full of misery; hence you were missing. Your eyes were clouded; they were hazy, foggy. That’s why you were missing.And one can miss by a small margin, one can miss by only a small thought. A small thought can become a barrier and you can miss the whole beauty of the vast Himalayas. You can be there – watching the beautiful peaks of the Himalayas, and the sun falling on the Himalayan snow, showering gold all around – and a thought comes into your mind, and the Himalayas have disappeared, the thought clouds you. You remember something – the other day somebody had insulted you – and that’s enough. Or you start planning for the future: “Tomorrow I have to leave,” and the Himalayas have disappeared. And the thought is so small, and the Himalayas are so big, but even a small thought can hinder because the thought is so close to you, and it can stand in between. Just a small particle of dust can fall in your eye, and just a small particle, almost invisible, can make you blind, and you cannot open your eyes, and you cannot see the sun shining.Do only one thing: start dropping the very concept of inferiority, the very concept that you have to be extraordinary. Even this question contains it. She has signed the question “your ordinary buddha, Sudha.” Even in that, the ego is claiming, “I am no ordinary buddha. I am an ordinary buddha.” You follow me? “Buddhas are extraordinary people; I am not like them; I am an ordinary buddha.” This is claiming extraordinariness.“Help me to be ordinary.” You want to be extraordinarily ordinary? The ego can go on playing games, subtle games. You will have to look through and through. Just remember two things. One: you are already that which you want to be, hence there is no need to do anything for it. You can call it ordinariness, you can call it extraordinariness, it makes no difference, you are already that and you can never be anything other than that. What you call it does not matter. If you are in love with the word ordinary then everybody is ordinary. If you love the word extraordinary then everybody is extraordinary. Only remember one thing, that whatsoever you claim for yourself, you have claimed for the whole. And that is the trouble – you would like to be special, not just like everybody else.There is a beautiful parable: it happened…A man worshipped God for many years and was always asking, “Fulfill only one of my desires.”God must have got tired, bored. One day he appeared and he said, “Okay, you won’t leave me alone. Morning, evening, you continuously go on harping on the same note, ‘Fulfill one of my desires.’ Okay, I am here, what is your desire?”And the man said, “Whatsoever I ask should be immediately given to me, that is my desire.” A very cunning man! God must have thought out of his innocence that he would ask for one thing; he asked for it all. He said that he had only one desire, “Whatsoever I ask should be given immediately to me.” But you cannot defeat God, because cunningness never defeats innocence. God said, “Perfectly okay. This will be so – but remember one thing: whatsoever you ask for, your neighbors will get double.”Now, the man was finished. Months passed, and God would come again and again: “You have not asked anything.” He stopped praying, and God would come again and again, morning, evening, and he would say, “What, you have not asked yet?”And the man became very bored with God. He thought and thought, but whatsoever he gets, his neighbors will get double. “It is pointless.” He always wanted to have a beautiful palace, but what is the point now? The neighbors will have doubly big palaces. The very idea was crushing him, killing him; he lost all joy in life. Now there was no possibility of ever being happy, and this God would come morning and evening and torture him.So one day he said, “Okay, give me a beautiful golden palace.” Immediately his hut became a golden palace. He came out and he saw that the whole town had golden palaces – bigger palaces, doubly bigger, all golden – only his was the poorest one.He went to a lawyer – because where else can you go when such legal problems arise? The lawyer said, “Don’t be worried” – and of course God cannot win with a lawyer – the lawyer said, “Ask, ‘Make a big well in front of my house without a wall.’” So a big well appeared before his palace and two wells appeared before everybody else’s. The lawyer said, “Now ask, ‘Make me one-eyed, let one eye disappear.’”The man asked, “What are you saying?” and the lawyer said, “Just wait. The law is the law.” One of his eyes disappeared, and both of his neighbors’ eyes disappeared. Now, the whole town was blind, and two wells in each palace garden… People started falling into the wells, people started dying. And the man was utterly happy. He said, “Now, my desires are fulfilled.”So, I know you will be in difficulty: I declare you extraordinary, but everybody else, all your neighbors are doubly extraordinary.And please, don’t go to a lawyer.The second question:Osho,Can I know a question the answer of which you do not know?In fact, I don’t know the answer to any question. All that I go on doing is destroying the questioner, and the question. It is not answering. Just look at what happened to Sudha – destroyed, murdered. Is this an answer? I don’t know a single answer, but once you ask a question, you are in my hands. Then I push you this way and that, then I hit you this way and that. Ask the question and you are trapped; first I try to destroy the question, and then the questioner.But that is the whole function of a master. The master is not there to answer your stupid questions; he has to destroy your stupidity so that no questions arise again. So you cannot ask a question without being trapped in it. The questioner is a new person, it seems. He must be a new arrival, unacquainted with the way things are dealt with here.I am reminded of a story…Mulla Nasruddin was made a justice of the peace, a JP. The first day he was in court a man came rushing in, and the man was only wearing underwear, almost naked, and was shouting, “I have been robbed! Catch the people who have cheated me and robbed me.”And Mulla Nasruddin asked, “Where have you been robbed? In this town?”He said, “Yes, in this town, just on the outskirts. I was going to Mecca on a religious pilgrimage. My money has been taken away, my clothes have been taken away, my wife also! I have been utterly robbed. You have to save me, and you are the magistrate here, so do something!”Mulla said, “No, this case does not come under my jurisdiction. It is not under my rule. Go to the neighboring villages.”He asked, “Why? I have been robbed here.” And the Mulla said, “No, because those people who have robbed you can’t belong to this town, they must belong to the neighboring villages.”The man asked, “How can you be so certain?”He said, “I am absolutely certain. Things are done totally here. If they were of this village, they would have taken your underwear too. We don’t do things so partially. Go to some other village; these people must belong to some other place. They can’t belong to my village, that much is certain. I know my people – they do things in a total way, in an absolute way. Your underwear is enough proof that you have not been robbed by my people.”When you ask a question you are giving your head to me. That’s why a disciple asks a question. He is saying, “Cut off my head.” The question is just an excuse. He is saying, “Destroy this mind.” I am not answering you because the answer is not going to help; the answer will make you more knowledgeable. I am not here to make you more knowledgeable. All the knowledge that you have has to be taken away. You have to be robbed of it, and totally robbed of it – not even underwear has to be left.If I can destroy all that you have been carrying all along as knowledge, if I can help you to unlearn all that you have learned, if I can decondition you of all your conditionings, then knowing will arise in you. Knowing is your inner capacity, it is your intuition.The question is arising in you because your knowing is obstructed, because your knowing eye is not functioning, hence the question. Otherwise, you would solve it yourself, you would not go and ask anybody.Who can solve your question if you cannot solve it? And how can anybody else solve it? Your question implies your whole life in it; it is not just a question, it is an indicator of a thousand and one things. When you ask a question, nobody else can ask that question, only you can ask it. It is specific because to ask that question you had to live a certain kind of life, you had to be conditioned in a certain way; you had to pass through certain experiences. Nobody else has passed through those experiences except you. The question arises in you; it is the flowering of all the nonsense that has been taught to you, all the scriptures that have been fed into your biocomputer, all the books that you have read, the churches, the priests, parents – all are implied in it.A question is not a simple thing. It is a very complex phenomenon and I am not here to answer it. If I answer it, you will gather a little bit more knowledge, you will go home knowing a little bit more than when you had come. I will not have helped you; I will have burdened you more. Your knowledge is the rock that is hindering you from knowing. Knowledge is the poison that doesn’t allow you to know. The knowledge has to be utterly destroyed so that you can be left alone and naked.One can move toward godliness only when one is utterly naked. That nakedness is innocence, that nakedness is childlike, that nakedness is the purity of the heart, that nakedness is the heart. The mind is full of knowledge; the heart is absolutely empty.The work of a master is to help you unburden. So I don’t answer your questions, I destroy them. And if the situation is right, I not only destroy the question, I destroy the questioner too. And if you are not, then you will know what is. When you are not, godliness is.You ask me: “Can I know a question the answer of which you do not know?” Now, why have you asked this question? It must be coming out of a great ego, as if you are in an argument with me, as if you would like to defeat me. You would like to ask a question the answer of which I don’t know – why? So that you can have the feeling that you are the person who has such a question that not even an enlightened person can answer.You are not interested in solving the problems of your life; you are more interested in showing your knowledge. But you cannot defeat me because I don’t answer questions at all. If I were answering questions, there are thousands of questions I could not answer. But I am not answering questions at all – that is not what is going on here. This is not a place of discussion, argument. This is a place of love. You are not here to debate with me. If you are here to debate with me you are wasting your time. If you are here to be with me – not to debate, but to feel, but to be – if you are here to feel my presence, only then should you be here, otherwise not.If I were only answering questions, then you could ask thousands of questions, and they would not have to be very great. You could ask simple questions: “Where is Timbuktu?” – and I might not be able to pinpoint exactly where it is; I have only heard the name. Timbuktu is a small place – sometimes I cannot even figure out where a certain country is. My geography is weak, my mathematics too. About history I am absolutely absurd; everything is topsy-turvy. Then you could ask a thousand and one questions: “When was Socrates married to Xanthippe?” I would not be able to answer you. You can find millions of questions, that is not the problem at all, and it is not the purpose of your being here or my being here. It is not a kind of competition between the questioner and the answerer; we are not debating anything. We are just here to be together, we are learning the ways of togetherness.You are here to soak the energy that I am. You are here to drink the alcohol that I am. This is a place for drunkards.Now sir, you have come into wrong company. This is not the place for you unless you are ready to move in a totally different dimension: the dimension where the question is not answered but destroyed.When a mind comes to a state where no question is left because all questions have been destroyed, when a mind is in a non-questioning state, that is the clarity, that is the transparency, that is where satori happens, that is where one comes in contact with existence. It is not by becoming knowledgeable that you will know, it is by becoming innocent that you will know.The third question:Osho,Why are methods needed when releasement can happen instantly, herenow? I am so tired of trips. How many more must I try, only to find they don't work either? I know the problem is in me and I know there is no problem. So now what?Celebrate now! Sing, dance, love, be.You say: “Why are methods needed when releasement can happen instantly, herenow?” Because you cannot trust me, that’s why. You cannot trust me. I go on declaring that you are buddhas, already enlightened, but you are skeptical about it. You can believe – that too very grudgingly – that a Gautam Buddha may have become enlightened, maybe, perhaps. A Jesus became enlightened, maybe. You can grudgingly concede that much, but to concede that you are enlightened is too much. You cannot give such a gift to yourself; you are so against yourself, so condemnatory toward yourself. You can immediately accept it if somebody says that you are a sinner. Just think of it; if somebody says you are a sinner you are ready to bow down. Even if on the surface you deny it, deep down you know that he is right, because from the very beginning you have been taught, you have been poisoned, that you are a sinner. The teaching has gone into your very blood and bones and marrow, it has become a part of you that you are a sinner. All the religions of the world have been teaching this for centuries. Generations upon generations have been doing one work only: condemning man.You are not even aware of the self-condemnation that you have for yourself, the hate that you have for yourself. You don’t love yourself, so how can you allow yourself to be a buddha? Releasement can happen this moment, but you won’t allow it, hence the methods are needed. If people can trust me, then there is no need for any method. The method is not going to help the releasement. Let me remind you: the method is only going to help you trust me. So I send you into therapy groups and these people will work on you. They will only help one thing; they will help you to trust me.The whole function of therapy groups here is totally different than it is in the West; it has a totally different meaning and significance. It is to create trust, it is to create a little love for yourself; it is to create acceptance. Then I send you into meditations; those meditations are cathartic. A cathartic meditation is just throwing off all the repressed energy that is boiling in you that won’t allow you to trust. Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini Meditation and others, will take away much energy that hinders – it will be released. Slowly, slowly you will become capable of trusting. It is only because of lack of trust that methods have to be invented. If you trust already there is no need for any method.You ask me: “Why are methods needed when releasement can happen instantly?” Releasement will always happen instantly. Whether it happens today or tomorrow it will always happen instantly, suddenly. It is a sudden experience, lightning, and the whole past disappears and you are abruptly cut from the past, you become discontinuous with it. The old disappears and the new is born. And the new is not a modification of the old. It has no relationship with the old, it is simply unrelated with the old. The old has not caused it either, it is not an effect of the old; it is utterly unrelated to the old.Krishnamurti has been saying the same thing for at least fifty years, but nothing much has happened. He goes on saying that just now it is possible – be aware, be awake. And people go on listening because the fact is that they cannot trust Krishnamurti that it can be just now. Their minds are spinning and weaving inside: “It is not possible; how can it be possible? What will happen to my past karmas? I have to undo them. And what about all the crimes and the sins I have committed? I have to be punished for them. And what about the Judgment Day? How can it happen right now?” Deep inside these unconscious rumblings go on and on and you go on listening.Seeing the failure of Krishnamurti, I have invented methods. I am saying essentially the same thing, because the message cannot be different. But I had to invent methods so that they can destroy your mistrust. Methods will help you to become unblocked; they will help you to become more flowing, they will help you to be less frozen, they will melt you, they will warm up the process of your being.Releasement is going to happen instantly, any moment it is going to happen. If you are ready, it is possible this very moment – not even a single moment more do you have to wait.“Why are methods needed when releasement can happen instantly, herenow?” – because of you; not because of me. From my side I am very puzzled why it is not happening to you. It should happen, why is it not happening? Why do you go on listening without understanding? Why do you listen only intellectually? Why can’t you listen from the heart, from your totality? It is a constant wonder to me, a miracle that people can go on listening every day and can remain the same – hence the methods.The methods are not for the releasement, you are not going to become enlightened through any meditation. No, nobody has ever become enlightened through any meditation, but the meditations help. They help in a negative way: they remove the rocks and the stream starts flowing. They don’t create the stream – they can’t create it. How can rocks create the stream? They have nothing to do with the nature of the stream. But they can prevent it.Because there are things which are preventing you from trusting the moment, trusting life, trusting existence, you are shrunk in fear, in doubt. You have armored yourself in doubt and fear just to be secure, safe; you have created a great armor around yourself. Your body is no longer an opening to existence; it has become closed. Your windows, your doors, are all closed. The sun rises – yes, the sun rises in the evening – but it cannot penetrate you. It goes on rising, it goes on knocking on your door, but the knock is subtle – so subtle, so silent, that you cannot hear it in your noisy mind, in that constant chatter that goes on inside you.These methods are negative methods. They will not give you enlightenment, but they will remove the barriers. And once the barriers are removed, once all the barriers are removed, enlightenment happens. It is nothing that you have to achieve; when you are available, the release, the liberation…You say: “I am so tired of trips.” Really? I don’t think so. If one is really tired, then one’s trips are finished. You are still hoping maybe there is still some trip, some way of tripping so that you can attain. You are still hoping, you are looking out of the corner of your eye. “Maybe I have failed ninety-nine times, but who knows, I may succeed the hundredth time. I have failed up to now, but who knows? I may be trying the wrong methods, and there may be some right method. I have failed because I may have been with wrong masters, and there may be some right master. I have failed because I have not put all of my energy into it. If I put all of my energy into it I may succeed. I have failed because the time was not ripe for it and now the time may be ripe.” A thousand and one excuses you can always find when you want to go on a new trip. If you are really tired, then who is preventing you? Then forget all about trips. Relax, celebrate, be!“I am so tired of trips. How many more must I try, only to find they don’t work either?” Nothing ever works; nothing has ever worked, because nothing is needed for it to work. Life is going perfectly well – there is no need to do anything whatsoever. But this vision comes slowly, slowly when you have failed again and again and again. It sinks in very slowly. Our minds are very stubborn, hard, rock-like; they are not soft soil – they don’t allow anything to sink in easily. Hence sometimes it takes lives for a person to realize that nothing ever works. And that is a great moment, when one realizes that nothing ever works, nothing can work: “My whole effort to attain was absolutely wrong from the very beginning. It was wrong because what I am trying to achieve is already the case. It is wrong because I am searching and it is already there inside me.”All efforts are meaningless. If a person is intelligent, he will soon understand it. If he is not intelligent, he will take a little longer. It depends on your intelligence. A very intelligent person, attentive, alert, aware, will see the point in a single moment. With a single blow his head will disappear. He will see the point and all is finished: all misery, all hell, all search.“I am so tired of trips,” you say. “How many more must I try, only to find they don’t work either?” It all depends on you. You can make a trip out of me. Now, the question is from Hal Duggan, and he is taking sannyas on the twentieth. It depends on you – that too can become a trip. From my side it is not, it is the end of all trips. It is just a declaration that enough is enough. Sannyas is a declaration that “I am not going into any more trips,” that all methods have failed and all paths have failed, that all paths lead astray, that “I am not going to be caught into any method, into any path, any longer.” Sannyas is a renunciation of all methods, all paths, all trips – psychedelic or otherwise.But you can also make sannyas a trip, it depends on you, and then you will again miss. Sannyas is not a trip. It is the realization that all trips are bound to fail. It is coming out of all trips; it is coming home. It is realizing the fact that you don’t need to waste your energy and time in searching for anything any longer, you don’t need to go on waiting for anything to happen in the future because it is already happening. It has always been happening. Dance, sing, celebrate, be.Existence is, it has not to be searched for. Existence already is, you are not to discover it. All that you have to do is dance a mad dance. You have to dance in such a mad way that all the doors are thrown open. You have to sing with such totality that the ego dissolves into that totality. You have to be in prayerfulness, in gratitude, with such passion and intensity that the whole starts flowing toward you – your waiting becomes a magnetic field.Sannyas is not a trip. So remember it, it is not a trip. Don’t reduce sannyas to a trip. I am not a trip. I am not here to create new bondages for you. I am here to make you free, totally free. That’s why I don’t give you any discipline; I give you only awareness. That’s why I don’t give you any character; I give you only alertness. And out of alertness if a character arises – good. And out of awareness a character certainly arises, but a very fluid and flowing character. It is not a fixed mode of life, because all modes are dead, stagnant. A character arises out of consciousness, but the consciousness goes on changing, so the character goes on changing. The consciousness goes on reflecting each moment the new reality that is happening, and the character goes on corresponding to the new reality that is happening. There is continuous adjustment, spontaneous adjustment, between you and the whole.The people who have fixed characters are always maladjusted because they have a fixed character and life has no fixed character. Existence is characterless, and if you have a character you will never meet existence because your character will confine you into a certain straitjacket, you will become a stereotype, you will not be a living being any longer. You will be a noun not a verb, and existence is a verb not a noun.Existence is a process, a dynamism; and a man of character, the so-called man of character, is dull, dead. He has to be dull and dead, because if he was aware he would have to see the changes that are happening around him, and he would have to change accordingly. He has to remain drugged in his unconsciousness, he has to remain fixed with his character because he is always afraid that something may happen and he may have to change his character. He does not want to change his character so he goes on remaining unaware of all that is changing. He also creates a society which is unchanging. That’s why in the East the society has remained unchanging, it is because of the so-called “character-obsession.” If a man has to have a fixed character, then society has also to be a fixed pattern; only then will he be adjusted, otherwise there will be difficulty.In the East, thousands of years have passed and things have remained almost the same. They have not changed, they have not been allowed to change because then there is fear. And that’s what is happening in the West now: because things are changing people are losing character, and the Western religious leaders are very worried. Life is changing fast, science has released so many energies that life goes on changing. And one has to change with it, one has to keep pace with life. If one has to keep pace with life, one cannot stay in a fixed mode. It is very easy to live in an Indian village and remain in a fixed mode; it is very difficult to live in New York with a fixed mode of life. You have to be more fluid.So the Eastern people think that Western people don’t have any character. The reality is in fact is that the West has become more alive, more changing, and the East is still dull and dead, fixated, obsessed and afraid: “If anything changes on the outside then I will have to change inside too, because my inside has to correspond with the outside.”Small changes bring difficulties. For example, since electricity came to India many Jainas have started eating in the night. For centuries they have not eaten in the night, they had a fixed mode, but when electricity came suspicions arose, doubts arose. Now what is the problem? Electricity is there, light is there; there is no fear of an insect or an ant getting into your food, you will not be killing anything. Now in the night you can have more light than you have in the day, so what is the problem? Many Jainas started eating in the night. And when one thing falls, other things start falling because everything is connected. Everything is connected with every other thing: if you can eat in the night and if Mahavira is wrong about it, maybe he is wrong about other things too.That’s why the church has been fighting against science, because it creates suspicion. The church has believed that the earth is flat, and then science started saying it is not flat, it is a globe. Now if Jesus is wrong about one thing, why can’t he be wrong about other things? Then he is no longer infallible. Suspicion will arise: he may be wrong about God too, he may be wrong about the Judgment Day, he may be absolutely wrong, who knows – because he is fallible.Religions have always insisted that nothing should change; these religions are all in the service of death. I am giving you a totally new vision: a religion of life and not of death, a religion of intelligence not of stupidity, a religion of dynamism not of stagnancy, a religion which will keep you flowing with the flow of the total, and will not in any way hold you back from the movement of the total. It will keep you in tune with the whole. I don’t give you a character; I only give consciousness. My whole emphasis is on consciousness.Sitting is Zen, walking is Zen, talking is Zen, being silent is Zen. All should be only awareness. Awareness should be your truth. Let awareness be the only fundamental law and then you will be out of all trips, otherwise it is difficult. You can go on changing from one trip to another. A Christian can become a Hindu; this is just changing the train – the trip remains. A Hindu can become a Christian and nothing changes, only words; he will not go to the temple, he will go to the church.And the same can be done with me too, but remember that will be your responsibility. I can also become a trip to you. I don’t want to become a trip to you; I want to become a liberation for you. From my side I want you to be liberated, but still your cooperation is needed. The very idea of liberation, and you can catch hold of it and make a trip out of it. And your mind is very, very efficient at making trips out of everything. Beware!On the twentieth you are going to become a sannyasin. Remember, this is not a trip; this is the end of all trips. Let it be the end of all trips; for how long are you going to journey and journey and journey? Now come home, now come to rest; enough of the trips. Learn from me how to rest, how to relax, how to be.The fourth question:Osho,Last night I had this dream: in the middle of the night the sun appeared, completely out of its place. This filled me with a sacred terror, which was outside of any dream. But at the center of the terror came the remembrance of you and the state you represent, which is beyond all fear, and it vanished, leaving me in emptiness for some moments. I felt I understood a little of how loving you madly can enable me to go anywhere.This is a beautiful experience. Modern researchers, particularly dream researchers, have just recently stumbled upon a new kind of dream; they call it the breakthrough dream. This is a breakthrough dream.The normal dream, the ordinary dream, and the breakthrough dream are totally different. This is the difference; this is of great importance to you, to you all. If you can bring this quality into the dream, you will be able to go beyond dreaming. A breakthrough dream is a dream in which some kind of awareness arises in you. The ordinary dream is unconscious, passive: you simply go on watching, no awareness arises in you; you are simply identified with the dream. You don’t remember a thing, you don’t remember yourself, you are not aware at all; you are lost in the dream. The ordinary dream possesses you. The breakthrough dream is different: it is not passive, it is active; it is not just possessing you, you remain in some way alert in it.Gurdjieff used to teach his disciples about such dreaming. This is a key to work deeper into your consciousness. He used to say to his disciples, “Try to remember yourself in the dream, and the only way to do it is if you remember the whole day, only then can you remember.” So the method was that the person who was given this kind of work had to remember continuously the whole day. Walking on the street he remembers, “This is a dream. All these shops, these people, this man passing by, this noise, all this is a dream. This woman who looks so beautiful is a dream. This tree is a dream.” The whole day the man continues thinking: “This is a dream, this is a dream.” He repeats it millions of times: “This is a dream.” Naturally this idea that “This is a dream” penetrates more and more into his unconscious, and soon it is transferred to the conscious. Then, one day, suddenly – it takes three to six months of constant repeating: “This is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream” – one day, suddenly, in a dream he remembers, “This is a dream” and that very moment a new energy has entered his dreaming. He is alert, aware.And this is not a new method. In the East, we have used it for centuries. In fact, the whole idea that the world is maya is nothing but a philosophic statement of this technique. “The world is maya,” means the world is a dream. You have to remember it: “This is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream,” and then one day, in a dream, you remember it is a dream. And then suddenly there is a gap between you and the dream. The dream is there, you are here, and there is a gap: you have awakened in the dream. And the moment you awaken in the dream, the dream loses all vitality, it disappears; it starts disappearing and great emptiness arises.This is what has happened to you. You have stumbled upon a breakthrough dream.Just the other day I was talking about four stages of consciousness: waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and turiya, the fourth. Ordinarily you remain in the waking because you can’t even remember in waking, your waking is almost asleep. You are only awake in name’s sake. Very rarely are you awake even when you are in a wakeful state, very rarely. If somebody comes suddenly with a revolver in his hand and puts the revolver on your chest, maybe for a moment you will become alert. Those moments in your whole life can be counted on your fingers.Once I was traveling with a friend and the car fell into a river. The friend was driving. When the car fell, just for a few seconds before, everybody in the car became alert that it was going to fall. Somehow the brakes were not working, and the speed was such that on a particular turn it became absolutely clear that now… Everybody in the car became alert that it was finished.And the next moment we were all in the dry bed – it was summertime – and the car was upside down. The moment we came out, nobody was hurt but everybody was transformed. The man who was driving told me, “You have been talking about awareness, awareness, awareness, and I have been listening to you for years. Now, for the first time, I had what you mean by awareness. For a moment, just on the verge of falling, I became aware, now I know what it is. All became silent. Although death was so close all was utter bliss.”Very rarely do you become aware. But if you start trying to become aware – that is what vipassana is: an effort to be aware, watching; watching each act that you are doing – slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, very slowly, you start feeling a new kind of awareness, a new kind of presence. That presence makes you a different kind of individual, more integrated, more centered.Just the other day I told you the story of the Buddhist monk who was invited by the prostitute to live with her for four months in the rainy season. Now, Prabuddha has asked a question, and he says the story was ugly: “Why couldn’t the Buddhist monk move into lovemaking with the prostitute? Why was he afraid?”He was not afraid. And the story is not ugly. Maybe Prabuddha became too interested in Amrapali and her beauty. Prabuddha must have started thinking, “If I had been there, I would not have missed! This foolish monk… And what was wrong in it?” It is not a question of wrong or right. But the monk was so centered, the monk was so present in himself, that all that the prostitute was doing to attract him must have looked to him very juvenile, foolish, silly. What the prostitute was doing to enchant him was great from the side of the prostitute. She was an artist in the art of alluring people, of hypnotizing people, and she was a beautiful woman. It is said that she was the next most famous person in Buddha’s time – the first was Buddha and Amrapali was the second.But if the monk is centered and has no feeling arising in him to go into lovemaking, why should he go? If he has transcended, why should he go? It is not that he was resisting; if he were resisting or repressing then it is ugly. But why should he indulge if there is no desire in him? Just because of the prostitute? Why does the story look ugly to Prabuddha? No, he was very kind to the woman, infinitely kind, infinitely loving. But, of course the love of a centered man is totally different from the love of an uncentered man. He was a buddha, that’s why Buddha had allowed him to go. He had arrived; all desiring had disappeared from him. Now it was just a toy.The story is immensely beautiful because by remaining centered, he helped the woman. He really must have loved her because that is the greatest gift he could have given to her. If he had become involved, the woman would have thrown him out sooner or later. If he had become involved, the woman would have never gone to Buddha to become a disciple. This was the greatest gift that the monk could have given to her: the gift of Buddha, the gift of disciplehood. He made himself absolutely available to the woman, to watch, to see, in every possible way. He made his presence felt, and the woman came to know that this was something to be achieved; this was something worthwhile. All that she had been doing up to now was worthless, insignificant, nonessential. This man had essential richness, the richness of the essence. She fell in love with the monk on a higher plane. She fell in love not only with the monk, but with samadhi, with enlightenment.In fact, that was the reason for the beauty of the monk. She had not gone into love because of the monk; the monk was just a vehicle, the energy was that of enlightenment, he was luminous. She had fallen in love with that luminousness. The body of the monk was just like a lamp and the luminousness inside was the flame. You don’t fall in love with the lamp; you fall in love with the flame. If the monk had moved, the flame would have disappeared and the woman would have found an ordinary man – very ordinary, nothing special about him, nothing valuable about him.The more the monk remained centered… And when I say remained centered I am not saying he was making any effort to remain centered. He was centered, it was effortless, it was spontaneous; it was natural. If there were any effort involved, the monk himself would have been afraid to go. He was not afraid; he slept in the same room as the woman. And she danced naked around him, and he sat in silence and meditated. He remained alone. The woman must have tried in every possible way. It was a challenge, a great challenge to her beauty. It was humiliating in a way, insulting in a way; she must have felt hurt, her ego must have felt hurt. She tried in every way to seduce the monk but failed again and again and again. Then she must have realized that he had some other kind of beauty, he had some other kind of presence. And she became enchanted with that space; she followed him, and became a disciple of Buddha. She soon became enlightened. Amrapali was one of the enlightened disciples of Buddha.The monk loved the woman, that’s why with great kindness and compassion he made his presence available. There is nothing ugly in it; it is absolutely beautiful. The monk was a benediction, a blessing.But you go on moving in life, attracted by this thing and that, you are unaware. If you become aware, your attractions will start dropping, disappearing. And when you become aware in a dream, the dream disappears immediately, and there arises great silence. That silence is the third state, sushupti: deep sleep. A breakthrough dream means that you have moved into the third, and with a little bit of consciousness. That is a great experience; it is the first approach into the deepest layer of your being. Beyond that there is only one more state, turiya.Patanjali has said that deep sleep is closest to samadhi. It is. If you take one step more, you are a buddha. Samadhi is the center, turiya is the center; around that center the first layer is of sleep, the second layer is of dreaming, the third layer is of your so-called waking. You have to go deeper and deeper. Waking is the farthest from turiya, dreaming is a little closer. That’s why psychoanalysis goes into your dreaming. Rather than thinking about your waking experiences, psychoanalysis goes into your dreaming because there you are truer, more honest, simpler, more natural. Yoga goes a little deeper; it goes into sushupti, deep sleep.A breakthrough dream is a dream which takes you to sushupti. And after sushupti there is only a single step more. Zen and Tantra take you into that single step.It was a beautiful dream. I will read it again: “Last night I had this dream: in the middle of the night the sun appeared, completely out of its place. This filled me with a sacred terror, which was outside of any dream. But at the center of this terror came the remembrance of you and the state you represent, which is beyond all fear…”It is beautiful that you could remember in your dream, you could remember me. Every disciple has to learn that I have to be with you not only in your waking, but in your dreaming too. And if I am there, dreaming will disappear. The very remembrance will disconnect you with the dreaming layer. “But at the center of this terror came the remembrance of you and the state you represent, which is beyond all fear, and it vanished, leaving me in an emptiness for some moments.”Those moments of emptiness are of the third state, sushupti: deep sleep. Now, try to do it again and again. Every night when you go to sleep, go with this thought vibrating in you, pulsating in you: “If there is a dream, I will remember.” Remember me. While you are falling asleep go on remembering, so that it soaks into your sleep. While you are changing from waking to dreaming let it be there, a subtle presence, and then slowly, slowly you can transform all your normal dreams into breakthrough dreams, and each dream will lead you into the third state, deep sleep. When you can be aware in deep sleep, even for a few moments, you are coming closer to home. And one day you will be able to remember me even in that emptiness, and that very day the sky opens up, that very moment the sun really rises in the evening.It is very symbolic that you saw the sun rising in the middle of the night; it was in the dream state. Soon it will happen if you can remember me in the deep sleep beyond which nothing can be said, but beyond which all is, godliness is.The last question:Osho,Oooh, the whole life waterfalling on me! Heaven and earth, work and play, everything I have ever been and done, all things I have ever wanted to will be, past and future swelling, swelling in balloon dancing now! This enlightenment is some crazy business!Crazy baby, crazy, absolutely crazy! But don’t be afraid. Go into it, and soon you will see the sanity of insanity, soon you will see that it is not crazy; before you have been crazy all along. It looks crazy compared to your life that has happened up to now. People are living in madness, so when they come closer and closer to some inner light, compared to their life, it looks crazy. Once it settles, the whole of life looks crazy and only this light, this awareness, looks sane.Buddha is sane although he himself was worried many times that he had gone crazy. Others were also saying that he had gone crazy. Naturally, when all are competing in the world, and everybody is rushing toward money, power, and prestige, and you start moving away from all this nonsense; when everybody is going extrovert, and you start moving inward; when everybody is going in one direction and you start moving in the polar opposite direction, diametrically opposite direction, it looks crazy.Once it happened…A drunkard was driving on a one-way street and was going in the wrong direction. He was puzzled because everybody was going the other way. The policeman stopped him and asked him, “Where are you going?”He said, “That I don’t know. One thing is certain, that wherever I am going I am late because everybody is coming back!”When you start moving toward meditation, suddenly the whole world, everybody, is going one way and you are going in the opposite direction. And everybody looks at you with suspicion, “Where are you going?” You will also look with suspicion at yourself, and the idea will arise again and again: “Have I gone crazy?”But one has to learn one thing: if you are feeling happy, don’t be worried because craziness cannot give you happiness. If you are feeling less tense, don’t be worried because craziness will give you more tension, more anxiety. If you are feeling more together, don’t be worried; you are on the right track, you are moving toward well-being, you are moving toward wholeness.And that is what is happening. You say: “…the whole life waterfalling on me! Heaven and earth, work and play, everything I have ever been and done, all things I have ever wanted to will be, past and future swelling, swelling in balloon dancing now!” Look at the beauty of the dance. Look at the benediction of nature falling like a waterfall on you. Look at the expanding consciousness swelling, swelling; it will fill the whole sky soon – even the sky is not the limit.“This enlightenment is some crazy business!” It is, but the people who become involved in this crazy business are the only sane people, because theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are the mad, for theirs is the kingdom of God.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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We get rid of illusion and acquire the truth,but this is discrimination; our mind is cleverly false.All principles are no principles;they have no relation to spiritual perception.It never leaves this place, and is always perfect.When you look for it, you find you can’t see it.You can’t get at it; you can’t be rid of it.When you do neither, there it is!When you are silent, it speaks;when you speak, it is silent.What is religion? This is the most baffling question of all. The definition of religion seems to be impossible, and yet it has to be defined. Without definition a word becomes meaningless.Religion is a strange word; it has meaning but it is very elusive, you cannot catch hold of it. The moment you succeed in defining it, you have killed it. It remains indefinable – the very nature of it is such. Millions of definitions have been given, but no definition has yet been able to do justice to religion. It is vast, and definitions necessarily have to be definite, that’s why they are definitions. The vastness is such that it contains vagueness; the moment you have made it definite, it is something else, it is no longer the same vast infinity.I have heard about an artist…He had gone to the forest. It was a beautiful day; the birds were singing songs, and in the background the noise of the insects was like a continuous melody. The earth was wet, and the freshness of the air, and the smell of the wet earth…He was infinitely enchanted. And the trees and the greenery, and then the sudden appearance of the sun out of the clouds, and then a cuckoo started calling from a distant valley, and then a rainbow… He was so happy, he was in such a delirium of joy, that he wanted to make this moment eternal. He wanted to paint it or carve it on wood or do something, write a poem, sing a song or compose music. But nothing was available there, and he did not want to miss the moment and the beatitude of it, so he started carving on wood. He had a knife so he started carving. But how do you carve the constant melody of the insects? How do you carve the singing of the birds? And how do you carve the sudden burst of the sun? And how do you carve a bird on the wing balancing itself in the sky? And how do you carve the smell of the wet earth? And how do you carve the sharpness, the freshness, of the air? Soon he was disappointed. He tried hard, but there was no way to carve it, and whatsoever he carved looked silly.That’s what has been happening to all the definitions of religion. Each definition, once you have carved it, looks silly. First, because religion is vast; second, it is an inner experience. It is a taste on the tongue or a smell in your nostrils or a feeling in your heart. By its very nature it cannot be reduced to words, to doctrines and creeds. It is a simple experience, very simple, but the very simplicity creates the problem. If it were a complex experience there would be a possibility of defining it. Complex things are easy to define; simple things are impossible to define. How do you define the color yellow? You can say yellow is yellow – what else is there to say? But to say yellow is yellow is not a definition, it is a tautology; you have not said a single thing more than was not already said in the word yellow itself. What have you added to it by saying that yellow is yellow?That’s why to the logicians, the statements of the mystics look absurd: they are saying yellow is yellow, religion is religion, love is love, truth is truth. But these are not definitions; a definition is supposed to say something about the defined phenomenon. It is supposed to help those who don’t know the phenomenon itself, it is supposed to help those who have not experienced it. But there is no way; you cannot explain it.In the past it was not so baffling, because the Christian believed that the only real religion is Christianity, so his definition was the only true definition, whatsoever it was: XYZ. And the Buddhist thought his religion is the religion; all others were false religions, so their definitions were false. And so was the case with the Hindu and the Mohammedan and the Jaina and the Parsi. It was simple: the Mohammedan thought God was a Mohammedan, and the Hindu thought God was a Hindu – just as when a small girl was asked about God, she said: “God is a Baptist.” She was a Baptist, she had been brought up in that sect. It was simple in a way. People believed in Mahavira or in Buddha or in Krishna or in Zarathustra – their definition was the only definition; all other definitions were false.But the problem has become more and more complex today because now people are not so stupid, not so stubborn, not so orthodox, not so dogmatic. Man’s tolerance has grown, man’s heart has become more open, man has allowed himself to become acquainted with the attitudes of others. Now you can read the Koran, you may not be a Mohammedan; you can read the Gita, you may not be a Hindu. You can read the Talmud and you may not be a Jew. All has become available; that has created a great complexity, a great confusion. What is religion now? So many definitions contradicting each other… And they have to contradict each other – not that religion has not been understood by these people, not that one definition is right and others are wrong – no, all are right, but religion is vast and everybody experiences it in his own way, in his individual way.When you come to godliness, you will experience it in your own way. You can’t experience it in my way, because you have a totally different personality, a different perspective, a different way of looking at things. When a painter comes into the forest, he sees one thing, when a poet comes, he sees something else, when a scientist comes, he sees still something else. And the woodcutter… He may not see the beauty at all, he may simply be seeing which wood he can cut and sell in the market. He may not be concerned with the greenery and the flowers and the birds and the songs.It depends on you. Godliness is infinite, but each person has to look through his window. All visions are right, but they are bound to be contradictory because individuals are contradictory. When a woman comes to godliness, she will have a totally different experience than a man. She is a woman – her ways of knowing things are more intuitive and less intellectual, her ways of knowing are of the heart and not of the head. When a man comes to godliness, his ways of knowing are not so much of the heart, are not so intuitive; it is going to be a different kind of definition.So, millions of definitions are now available, and people have become acquainted with all of them. Now they are puzzled, they are so puzzled that they are paralyzed. Religion has disappeared from the world because of this confusion. And it cannot be helped; this confusion has to happen. Man has come closer, and it is a good thing that man has come closer. Now we need a totally different approach. Old definitions have become invalid – because of their very contradictions they have become invalid.We are living in a very different world than the world which existed five thousand years ago, or two thousand years ago. Jesus moved in a small world of Jews; he knew their language, he knew their ways of expression, and he used those words. Buddha lived in a totally different world. Jesus calls God, “father” – abba; Buddha cannot call him abba, or father – in fact, Buddha simply says nothing about God. He talks about nirvana, where all disappears, even God. To Buddha, Jesus’ expression will look childish, just as calling God, father appears as a father fixation to the psychoanalyst. It is not. Jesus was simply using the language that was available to him, and that language was the language of love. Buddha’s language was the language of intelligence, not of love, not of the heart, but of awareness, of meditation – a different language.But to the modern mind all these languages have become available. In the past, many believed, few doubted; now nobody believes and obviously nobody doubts, but everybody wonders what religion is, what godliness is. Now it is no longer a question of belief or doubt, but everybody is wondering what it is all about.The old ground has disappeared; a totally different orientation is needed. The future will not know anything of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity – their days are over; they can linger on a little while longer just out of people’s old habits, but their days are over. They have lost life, they are dead corpses – corpses of loved ones, corpses of beautiful people, but corpses still. The life has left; the spirit has left; now the temples are empty. You are going to mass just as a formality; the churches are just a social ritual, they don’t mean a thing. Now, you don’t have a passionate affair with God, you don’t have any intensity, it is not a question of life and death.And many new definitions have appeared because men ask for definitions, so even people who don’t know anything of religion go on defining it; the philosophers define it, the theologians define it, the professors define it. Even stupid politicians define it – those who have nothing to do with religion, those who are basically irreligious, because a politician can never be religious, his whole endeavor is anti-religious. Ambition can never be religious, a search for power can never be religious; it is violent, it is ugly, how can it be religious? But they go on defining – so many nonsense definitions have also come in.Just the other day I was reading a few definitions. Matthew Arnold’s definition of religion is: morality touched by emotion. Now, neither has morality anything to do with religion nor has emotion. Remember the words of Yoka again and again: that it is not moral, it is not immoral either; it is beyond. And Professor Taylor’s definition: the belief in unseen things. It is not a belief at all. Religion is not a belief at all; those who believe in religion have not known anything of it. It is a trust but not a belief, a faith but not a belief. And the difference between faith and belief is great. Faith is out of experience, belief is borrowed: somebody else has experienced, and you believe, but that is not religion. Religion is one’s own experience, and out of that experience great faith arises.A great atheist went to Ramakrishna, and he argued for hours against God. And Ramakrishna finally laughed and said, “You argue beautifully, and I am not a logician but still I can appreciate your logical acumen. I appreciate your intelligence; you have a beautiful intelligence. You are clever, and I cannot refute whatsoever you have said because I am not educated at all. But one thing I would like to say: whatsoever you are saying is pointless because God is not a question of proof or disproof. I know him. Nobody can disprove it. Even if I cannot answer you and your arguments, still I know that he is. I have tasted, I know the taste of godliness. What can your proofs or disproofs do to it? Even if the whole world comes and says there is no God, I will still know he is, because I have known.”This is faith. You cannot unhinge the man of faith. But the man of belief is a poor man; you can create doubt in him very easily – just a single word and doubt can be created. That’s why believers are always afraid, afraid that their belief may be broken. They live in a glass house, not even a glass house but a dream house – very fragile.So religion is not a belief and not in unseen things at all, because when you enter samadhi, godliness is the only thing that is seen there; everything else becomes unseen, godliness is the only tangible experience. Godliness is the only reality when you enter samadhi. It is not a question of the unseen.In fact, the man of religion feels very puzzled with you because you continue believing in things that you have not seen. You believe in matter, and nobody has seen matter. Now scientists say there is no matter. The mystics have always been saying that the world is illusory – there is no world, no matter – but nobody has bothered about them. But now scientists say there is no matter, it only appears so. It is an appearance just as in a desert, thirsty and dying, far away you can see an oasis. It only appears; when you reach there, it has disappeared. Or when it is becoming dark in the evening, you can see a snake in a rope, but if you come close and you bring light, the snake disappears. The matter that we believe in is not really there. The belief is utilitarian. And has anybody ever seen anything? All that happens to you is inside you.I am sitting here, but can you be certain that I am really sitting here and you are not dreaming – because the same thing happens in your dreams? I have spoken in your dreams too, and then too it is almost real, as real as it is now. How will you make a difference between the two experiences? When in the dream you see an elephant passing by, it looks real; in the day you see an elephant passing by, it looks real. What is the difference between the two?Whatsoever you see looks real, but many times you have found that that which appeared as real is proved later on not to be real. So what do you mean by “the seen” – this world? Then godliness is unseen. But ask the awakened, and they tell a totally different story, they say that only godliness is seen, everything else is unseen; everything else has never been seen, only believed in.And godliness is not an experience like matter, because it is not outside. When it happens, it happens inside you. Just think of one thing: can you suspect, can you doubt, your own existence? It is impossible; you can doubt everything, but you cannot doubt the doubter. You cannot doubt your own existence. How can you doubt it? Even to doubt it, you will be needed; even the doubt will prove that you are, otherwise who will doubt? One’s own existence cannot be doubted; that is the only indubitable fact in life, that is the only reality and that’s what godliness is.But such definitions continue. George Bernard Shaw defines it as, “that which binds man together.” That looks prima facie absurd because religion, the so-called religion, has been the cause of keeping people separate. A Mohammedan, a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist, how are they kept separate in watertight compartments? Who is keeping them separate? It is the so-called religion. Maybe George Bernard Shaw is wishing that religion should be that which binds people. In fact, the word religion itself means that which binds together, but that is a very difficult definition; if you go into it, it will create more problems than it will solve. In fact, people are bound to each other more by common hatred than by love.If China attacks India, the whole of India becomes united; the common enemy, the common hatred, the common object of hatred, makes people join hands together. They forget all their small quarrels. When there is no enemy, they start their small quarrels again. People seem to be together only because of hatred; it keeps them together because they have a common object of hatred. Then is hate religion? Up to now man has not been together because of love but because of hate. Love has not yet become a reality in the world.And an even stranger definition: Havelock Ellis says, “Now and again, we must draw a deep breath of relief, and that is religion.” Now people are guessing, and anything goes. Now you are living in a very confused world; the confusion is becoming greater and greater. People’s minds have lost all clarity, all certainty; it is very difficult to make any sense out of this salmagundi, this kedgeree, this potpourri. Everything seems to be utterly confused.How am I going to define religion? I am not going to define it at all – that is the first thing I would like to tell you. We have to be courageous enough to experience it rather than try to define it. All definitions have failed, now the time has come to experience it. Religion is an experience, an ineffable experience, inexpressible experience. And these are not definitions, because I am not saying anything about religion. I am only saying what it is not. We have to move through the negative; all positive definitions have failed.And that is the approach of Yoka. He is trying to bring the truth home through negation; he is eliminating, he is saying: “This is not religion, this is not religion, this is not religion,” but he is not saying what it is. That, he is leaving to you. He will simply eliminate that which is not, and then you have to go into that which is left behind, the indefinable. If you go into it, only then will you know it. And each man has to go into it because it is not something accidental. Religion is such an intrinsic necessity that you cannot avoid it. If you try to avoid it, you will become part of some kind of false, pseudo-religion. The appetite is so intrinsic, there is a real hunger for religion, and because people have denied their real hunger they are eating things which are not worth eating – they are eating synthetic food. Even communism has become religion to a few people because the hunger is such that communism, which is anti-religion par excellence, has become religion to many people.I have heard an anecdote:Krushchev was talking to Nasser of Egypt and, as he was always prone to, he became very passionately involved in the discussion, and said, “I swear that communism is sacred!”Communism sacred? How can communism be sacred? And if communism can be sacred, then what will there be left which is not sacred? The sacred is the basic ingredient of religion, but communism has become sacred to many people, fascism became sacred to many people.The hunger is such that if the real is not found, you are going to be caught by something unreal. If you don’t find a true master, you are bound to fall into the trap of some untrue master, but you can’t avoid it. Religion is not such a thing that can be avoided. Nobody can avoid it. It is better to consciously search so that you can find the right source of nourishment.Now, to call communism sacred is a contradiction in terms. How could Krushchev call it sacred? Deep down in this man there must have also been a hunger for religion. Now the Kremlin has become almost a Kaaba, and the mausoleum of Lenin has become as sacred and holy a place as Bodhgaya. But to go and bow down to the Bo tree in Bodhgaya is one thing; you will find some nourishment there. To go to Kaaba is far better than to go to the Kremlin because still you will find some nourishment there – there is a possibility a door may open. But what door can open in the Kremlin? And at the grave of a communist leader, Marx, Engels, Lenin or anybody else, what can you find there? These people were empty. Certainly, if you go to Bodhgaya and sit under the same tree, because the tree still exists … The tree must be carrying some memory of this man Gautam Buddha, because the explosion of light was such that it is impossible that the tree would have missed it. And trees are not cunning; they are simple people, innocent people. When Buddha became enlightened, something of his enlightenment must have touched the very heart of the tree. When you bow down to that tree, or when you sit under the tree and meditate, you can fall in tune with Buddha again; there is a possibility. But what are you going to get sitting by the side of the mausoleum of Lenin? That man had nothing in him.But it happens. It is contradictory but it happens. It happens because of a real desire, and if you are caught up with the unreal, you will become contradictory.Listen to this anecdote…The Yiddish word for crap is tinneff.Cohen was eating in a restaurant. The manager came over and asked him how he liked it.“I don’t like it at all,” said Cohen, “for two reasons: the food you serve here is absolute tinneff. You should be ashamed serving such food!”“And what’s the second reason?” asked the manager.“The second reason is,” said Cohen, “why do the portions have to be so small?”Watch the contradictions of your mind; everybody is carrying contradictions in the mind. The man may be denying religion, and may still be searching for religion. The man may deny godliness, but his denial may only be coming out of a great desire to search for godliness. He may be afraid that if he accepts godliness, he will have to go into the search; he may not be willing to sacrifice all his investments for the search.And another story about Cohen:Jews spend the Sabbath, known in Yiddish as shabbat, at the synagogue, chanting, praying, and reading religious books like the Talmud.It was the middle of the week when Levi met Cohen in the red light area of the city. Cohen was carrying religious books – the Talmud, Mishna, Zohar, and so on.“Goodness, Cohen,” exclaimed Levi, “is it a religious holy day?”“Not at all,” said Cohen, “my wife is out of town and I thought I would try out the local whore house.”“But, Cohen,” asked Levi, “then why are you carrying all these religious books – the Mishna, the Zohar and the Talmud?”“Well, you never know.” said Cohen. “If I like it, I might stay till shabbat!”Man is capable of contradictions, very capable, and if one is not conscious, it is bound to happen that you will be caught in a contradiction. The contradiction kills the spirit, and the contradiction destroys all growth, because one hand goes on creating and the other hand goes on destroying. Half of your energy moves in one direction, and the other half moves the opposite way, and then there is no movement possible, that’s how paralysis happens.I see millions of people psychologically, spiritually, paralyzed. Beware of it. Religion is inevitable; nobody can avoid it. You can become an atheist, then atheism becomes your religion, and that’s very stupid. Then there is no God – that becomes your creed, then that becomes your dogma, that becomes your church, your religion. Never be caught in a contradiction. That’s what is meant by simplicity: a man who is not in contradictions is simple. And godliness is available only to those who are simple.Religion cannot be defined; it is an experience of innocence, childlike innocence.The last sutra, Yoka says:We get rid of illusion and acquire the truth,but this is discrimination; our mind is cleverly false.Meditate over it, go deep into it; he is saying immensely important things. We get rid of illusion… Now, how do you get rid of illusion? Isn’t it enough to know that something is illusory? Have you to get rid of it? Isn’t it enough to know that it is illusory? Isn’t this getting rid of it, or have you to get rid of it, too?A man renounces the world, and says, “This world is maya, illusory. I am going to the Himalayas.” If it is unreal how can you renounce it? How can the unreal be renounced? Your very renunciation shows that you think it is real, you are still afraid of it. If you have seen the rope as the rope, will you declare to the world, “Now I am renouncing this snake, and I am going away from here, from this snake, because this snake is illusory”? Will you still run away from the snake saying, “I have seen the rope”? If you are running away from the snake, you have not seen the rope as rope; the snake is still there – maybe you have learned a theory about the snake, and maya, and illusion. The people who renounce the world believe in the world. They are worldly. You will find these worldly people sitting in the Himalayas sitting in the caves, but they are worldly; they have escaped.I remind my sannyasins again and again, never escape because it is illusory. Where can you escape to? And what is the point of escaping? There is no need to escape anywhere: see it, encounter it, confront it. If you have not seen the rope as rope and the snake still appears, go deeply into it, search as deeply as possible, bring more light to the search. That’s what meditation is all about: bringing more light into the world so you can see clearly. In that clarity, the snake disappears; it was never there, it was imaginary. You had projected it, it was out of your mind; it was not there. When the light comes you suddenly see the rope; the rope functioned as a screen. Now you laugh. You don’t escape anywhere.Yoka says: We get rid of illusion and acquire the truth… Now both are absolutely absurd: first getting rid of illusion, and then acquiring the truth. The truth is that which is already there inside you. You cannot acquire it. The truth is your being alive, your life is the truth, your being is the truth, your consciousness is the truth – there is no other truth. Truth is not an object; you cannot catch hold of it. It is not a goal; you cannot arrive at it.Truth is where you have always been. Truth is your innermost reality. Truth is your immortal reality. You have never lost it – there is no way to lose it. So what do you mean when you say, acquiring the truth?Yoka says: We get rid of illusion and acquire the truth, but this is discrimination; our mind is cleverly false. In fact, even to discriminate that this is untrue and that is true is still to be in the same trap. When you see the rope, where is the snake? How can you compare? One has simply disappeared, has not been found. And the rope that you have found has always been there, whether you have found it or not makes no difference; it has always been rope and rope and rope, the snake has not existed for a single moment. Now, when you come across the rope and you know it as it is, where is the snake to compare it with? How can you even call the snake illusory? It was not at all, not even illusory. For something even to be illusory, it has to exist. And it never existed; it was just a projection, a dream. It had happened only in the mind, it was a ripple in the mind. The mind played a game, tricked you.And the mind is very clever and can go on tricking you. The mind can say, “Renounce the world, it is unreal.” This is again a new trick. First the mind was greedy and wanted to have all the riches of the world, now the mind says, “Here is nothing; this is all illusion. Go to the Himalayas, meditate there, and acquire the riches of the other world – real riches. This is all false, now search for the real.” But the search continues and the search in itself is false. Searching says that you have not seen reality yet. Searching says that you have not realized the fact of your innermost being. And discrimination is very clever. We go on discriminating; we say, “This is bad, that is good. This is sin, and that is virtue. This should be done and that should not be done.” We are continuously discriminating, and through discrimination we go on feeding the mind, the mind becomes stronger and stronger. All discrimination is of the mind and helps the mind. When discrimination disappears, mind disappears.And to be in a state of no-mind is meditation.We get rid of illusion and acquire the truth, but this is discrimination; our mind is cleverly false. All your cleverness will lead you into falsities, new falsities, again and again. One has to drop being clever. See the point, that’s what Jesus means when he says, “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my Kingdom of God.” He is saying, drop your cleverness, don’t be cunning and calculating, don’t try to be clever; the cleverer you are, the more miserable you will be. This existence can be contacted only in innocence, childlike innocence. Your knowledge is not going to help, only your innocence – function from the state of not knowing, never function from the state of knowing. If you start functioning from the state of not knowing, you will know what godliness is; you will know what religion is. You will not need any definition. You will have your own experience of it.But we function from the state of knowing; everybody functions from there, and that’s how we go on and on in the same direction. You can ask a question out of innocence, you can ask the same question out of knowledge. If you ask the question out of knowledge, you are being clever; you will miss the answer. If you ask the question out of innocence, you will receive the answer because you will be innocent, ready to receive. You will be open.The knowledgeable man is the closed man and you have all become knowledgeable. You have read books, scriptures, you have been taught in the church, in the college, school, university; you have accumulated much knowledge. Now you go functioning from this knowledge that you have accumulated, and it is all borrowed, it has no roots in you. It is all rubbish, tinneff. But you go on sitting on top of it. It gives you ego, certainly: the bigger heap you have of knowledge, the higher the peak of it you sit on. You go on showing, exhibiting, your degrees, you go on throwing your knowledge all around, you are continuously making others feel that they don’t know as much as you know. Now, this is the way to miss truth. With truth you cannot be knowledgeable. With truth you have to be utterly silent, unknowledgeable.The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it. The stupid person is one who has become very stubborn about borrowed things – very stubborn about his Christianity, about his Hinduism, about this and that, very stubborn. The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it. Stubbornness is an indication of the stupid mind. He is closed. He may be a great pundit, a great scholar, but that doesn’t make any difference; he is closed. He is surrounded by his knowledge, not even a small aperture is left for existence to enter in him; his heart becomes unavailable. He lives surrounded by a wall; he walls people out. And the wall is of knowledge, very subtle, the bricks almost invisible.The more you understand, the less you realize that you know. When understanding grows, knowledge starts disappearing, in the same proportion. The more understanding a man becomes, the less knowledgeable he is. And the ultimate in knowing is absolute ignorance, innocence, childlike purity. Yes, Socrates is right when he says, “I know only one thing: that I don’t know anything at all.” This is the state where you enter godliness.…our mind is cleverly false. Beware of it. In the old scriptures, this mind has been metaphorically spoken of as the Devil. There is no other Devil; it is your own cleverness, it is your mind that tempts you, that goes on playing new games, new egoistic trips. Unless one is constantly aware, it is very difficult to get out of this trap. It is a long vicious circle; you have lived in it so long it has become autonomous, it has become unconscious, it goes on by itself, it is a tape that goes on playing itself. You are almost a victim now; you are no longer a master in your own house. But to drop knowledge, to drop cleverness, makes people frightened. They start feeling that if they are not clever they will be cheated; if they are not clever, they will be deceived, if they are not clever how are they going to survive? This is the mind, the Devil, which says, “If you are not clever, you will not be able to survive.”But just to survive is not a value at all. Even if you survive but don’t know who you are, what is the point? Even if you survive and you accumulate much wealth, and you are very clever and nobody can deceive you and you go on deceiving others, what is the ultimate point? Death will be coming soon, and will take all away. And you will not be able to deceive death.Don’t waste your life on that which is going to be taken away. Trust life. If you trust, only then can you drop your knowledge, only then can you put your mind aside. And with trust, something immense opens up. Then this life is no longer ordinary life, it becomes full of godliness, overflowing. When the heart is innocent and the walls have disappeared, you are bridged with infinity. And you are not deceived; there is nothing that can be taken away from you. That which can be taken away from you is not worth keeping, and that which cannot be taken away from you – why should one be afraid of its being taken away? It cannot be taken away; there is no possibility. You cannot lose your real treasure. And with that real treasure you become an emperor; otherwise you remain a beggar.All principles are no principles;they have no relation to spiritual perception.A great statement, a great statement of fact, of simple fact: All principles are no principles… Forget all Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, because they are not real principles, they are clever devices of cunning people. They are guesswork.Man is in a constant need to know. The need is true, but very few people are ready to risk for it, so they settle for plastic things. To grow real flowers seems to be difficult, hard, an uphill task. And with real flowers, real roses, thorns also come, and sometimes it hurts. With plastic flowers there is no problem; no thorns, no growth pains, no risk. Real flowers bloom in the morning and by the evening they are gone, and when they are gone you feel pain, their departure takes something from you, it hurts. Unreal flowers, plastic flowers, have a kind of false eternity; they are always there, they never leave you. They always look fresh, they always look new; they are always blooming. That’s what principles are, philosophies are, doctrines are: plastic flowers.All principles are no principles; they have no relation to spiritual perception. Remember it, spiritual perception opens up only when you have dropped all principles. This is the essential message of Zen: get rid of principles. Don’t be confined by any philosophy, by any guesswork, howsoever clever it is. Remember only one thing: unless something is your experience, it is not worth keeping. Drop it. Don’t gather rubbish, don’t gather unnecessary luggage.This is my observation of thousands of people. I see them carrying such great psychological luggage, and for no reason at all. They go on gathering anything they come across. They read the newspaper and they will gather some crap from it. They will talk to people and they will gather some crap. And they go on gathering, and if they start stinking, no wonder.I lived with a man for a few years. His house was so full of unnecessary luggage that I had to ask him, “Now, where are you going to live?” And he would go on collecting any kind of thing. Somebody would be selling his old furniture, and he would purchase it – and he already had enough. He had no time to use that furniture, and he had no friends to call. His whole house was full of furniture, old radio sets, and all kinds of things. And I said, “But I don’t see why you collect all this.”He said, “Who knows, any time it may be useful.”One day we went for a walk and on the road, by the side of the road, somebody had thrown a cycle handle. He picked it up. I asked, “What are you doing?”He said, “But it must be worth twenty rupees at least, and I have picked up a few other things also… Sooner or later I am going to make a bicycle.” He showed me; he had one wheel, one pedal that he had picked up from the roads, and he said, “What are you saying? Soon you will see.”This man died. The cycle remained incomplete. And when he died, everybody who came to look was puzzled by what he was doing in the house: there was no space even to move.But this is the situation of your head. I see cycle handles, and pedals, and strange things that you have gathered from everywhere: such a small head and no space to live in it. And that rubbish goes on moving in your head; your head goes on spinning and weaving, it keeps you occupied. Just think what kind of thoughts go on inside your mind.One day just sit, close your door and write down for half an hour whatsoever is passing in your mind, and you will understand what I mean when I say cycle-handles and… You may be surprised. I promise you the cycle-handle will come – just try it – it is bound to come, not only once but many times. You go on, and the cycle-handle… Just write for half an hour, and you will be surprised what goes on inside your mind. It remains in the background, it is constantly there, it surrounds you like a cloud. With this cloud you cannot know reality, you cannot attain to spiritual perception. This cloud has to be dropped. And it is just with your decision to drop it that it will disappear. You are clinging to it; the cloud is not interested in you, remember it.There is a Sufi story:Junnaid was going through the marketplace of the town with his disciples. And it was his way to take any situation and use it. A man was dragging his cow by a rope, and Junnaid said to the man, “Wait!” and told his disciples, “Surround this man and the cow. I am going to teach you something.”The man stopped – Junnaid was a famous mystic – and he was also interested in what he was going to teach these disciples and how he was going to use him and the cow. And Junnaid asked his disciples, “I ask you one thing: who is bound to whom? Is the cow bound to this man or is this man bound to this cow?”Of course, the disciples said, “The cow is bound to the man. The man is the master, he is holding the rope; the cow has to follow him wherever he goes. He is the master and the cow is the slave.”And Junnaid said, “Now, look.” He took out his scissors, cut the rope and the cow escaped. The man ran after the cow, and Junnaid said, “Now look what is happening! Now you see who is the master; the cow is not interested at all in this man – in fact, she is escaping.”And the man was very angry. He asked, “What kind of experiment is this?”But Junnaid said to his disciples, “This is the case with your mind. All the nonsense that you are carrying inside is not interested in you. You are interested in it, you are keeping it together somehow; you are going mad in keeping it together somehow. But you are interested in it. The moment you lose interest, the moment you understand the futility of it, it will start disappearing; like the cow it will escape.”People come to me and ask, “How to stop this mad mind?” I say, “There is no need to stop it, all that is needed is that you become disinterested in it, and the rope is cut.” That is the meaning of sannyas: become disinterested in the mind. That is the meaning of real vairagya, detachment. It has nothing to do with renouncing the world, but it certainly has something to do with cutting the rope to the mind. Just become disinterested in the rubbish and slowly, slowly you will see a gap arising. The cloud that always used to surround you, is getting farther and farther away and, one day, suddenly it is no longer there. And when you are left without mind, that is the state of spiritual perception, that is the state of darshan, that is the state when you can see, you have eyes; otherwise your eyes are so full of smoke that you cannot see.All principles are no principles;they have no relation to spiritual perception.It never leaves this place…These are the ultimate words you can ever come across. Be alert while you listen to them. This is the lion’s roar Buddha used to talk about.It never leaves this place, and is always perfect.Where are you going? What are you seeking? Whom you are searching for? It never leaves this place… It is always herenow. Where are you rushing to? Why this hurry? Just sit silently and be and know. Be still and know. You are not expected to go anywhere. Existence is not somewhere else; it is sitting in the deepest core of your being. Just be still, be silent, be in no hurry, be unmotivated, forget all goals and the future, be herenow.It never leaves this place… Whenever it happens, it always happens now and here, because that is the only time and the only space. Now is the only time and this is the only space. It never leaves this place, and is always perfect.And what are you trying to do? Trying to become perfect? Then you will be miserable, you will fail; you can’t be more perfect than you are. Perfection is already there; it has not to be attained, it has only to be celebrated. The gift has been given to you. You come perfect because you come from perfection. You remain perfect, but you have become so cowardly that you cannot accept your perfection. You have been forced and fed such nonsense from your very childhood that you have become self-condemnatory, that you cannot accept the idea that you are already perfect.Raman Maharshi used to say all that is needed is permission from you to yourself to be enlightened, that’s all – permission from you to yourself to be enlightened. But that permission seems to be difficult: you cannot permit, you cannot allow. You have been told that you are worthless. You have been told that you are nothing but dust. You have been told to improve yourself, continuously improve yourself. “Work on yourself. You can become perfect only in many, many lives if you work. If you work for many lives, only in the end will you become perfect. Right now you are not perfect.”This has created tension in you; the future has become more important than the present, and the present has to be sacrificed for the future. You have been taught this nonsense of sacrifice.I teach you that you are not to sacrifice a single moment for the future. Live it now, enjoy it now, celebrate it now. Dance – existence has given you all. This is religion; celebration is religion – alleluia. Dance, and sing, and say amen. Say yes.But you go on making small changes in yourself. You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to think that, you have not to think this. And you go on making these minute changes, and they don’t bring you any joy. They make you more and more miserable because you fail again and again.It never leaves this place, and is always perfect.When you look for it, you find you can’t see it.See the beauty of these statements: When you look for it, you find you can’t see it. How can you look for it? You are it. It is in the very look that godliness is hiding, in the very looker that godliness is hiding. It is not there to be sought; it is in the seeker. You are riding a horse and searching for the horse. You will never find it. You can go on rushing to the four corners of the earth, and you are riding the horse. How can you find it anywhere else?Stop! Settle again. Let your heart become calm and quiet and collected, and suddenly you find that the horse has always been there underneath you; you never missed it. In fact, it was because of the horse that you were running and searching and seeking.When you look for it, you find you can’t see it.You can’t get at it; you can’t be rid of it.It is not an object, it is your subjectivity; it is your existence, your being. You can’t get at it and you can’t be rid of it. There is no way to get it, and there is no way to get rid of it. It is your nature. Krishna says: “Swadharme nidhanam shreyah par dharmo bhaya vaha – to die in one’s self-nature is all, to disappear into one’s self-nature is all.” Even in death there is resurrection and new life. And to live according to somebody else, par dharmo bhaya vaha, is very frightening. To think of following somebody else’s religion, to follow somebody else, is very frightening. But that’s what everybody is doing.Your parents have given you ideas; your teachers, your priests, your politicians, they have given you ideas. You are trying to work them out, and you are missing all. Swadharme nidhanam shreyah – it is good to die into one’s own self-nature, because it is there that truth is hidden. Be yourself.It never leaves this place, and is always perfect.When you look for it, you find you can’t see it.You can’t get at it; you can’t be rid of it.When you do neither, there it is!When you do neither… Neither are you trying to get rid of it. That’s what the communist is trying to do, the atheist is trying to do: to get rid of religion. It comes from the back door; communism becomes sacred, the Kremlin becomes the Kaaba. You cannot get rid of it. Atheism becomes a religion; one is ready to die for atheism. Anything becomes religion, money becomes religion; power becomes religion. Whatsoever you are ready to die for is your religion.If you don’t relax into your real being, you are going to find something or other to substitute for it. But you cannot get rid of it. It will come from the back door in new guises, in new masks, but it will come. The atheist, the communist, the irreligious man, is trying to get rid of it. The theist, the Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, is trying to get at it. But both agree on one thing: that it is something apart from you.Yoka says do neither: neither try to get at it, nor try to get rid of it. Do neither, and there it is. When you are not doing anything this way or that, not moving at all in any direction, when all directions have disappeared, when the pilgrimage has stopped utterly, when the world has stopped utterly, when the mind moves no longer and there is absolute silence, there it is. Then you find it: not by seeking, but by disappearing as a seeker; not by search, but by rest; not by running – and with speed – but by not running at all.Sitting silently, doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself.The benediction is suddenly there when all effort disappears. When you are in an effortless rest – the benediction. Just now, this very moment, be alert, behold it is here. It is surrounding you, it is in and out – only it is: the beatitude of it.Beatitude means be-attitude, “in a state of being.” There is beatitude and great beauty and great grace, the releasement that Heidegger talks about. The buddhahood, the enlightenment – names for the same reality, different names.You can’t get at it; you can’t be rid of it. When you do neither, there it is! So simple, so easy, not complex at all! No guidance is needed really, no path has to be followed and no method has to be used. All methods dropped, all paths forgotten, all guidebooks burned, and suddenly you are there and it is there and you are it.When you are silent, it speaks;when you speak, it is silent.When you are not, it is; when you are, it is not. Your absence is its presence; your presence is its absence. You are like darkness; it is like light. You cannot meet existence. Let me repeat it again: you cannot meet existence. The meeting happens, but you cannot meet existence because you cannot exist in that meeting as a separate entity; you disappear like a dewdrop in the ocean. Yes, the meeting happens, but a very strange meeting: the dewdrop no longer exists, it has become one with the ocean.It has become the ocean. It is not a loser. It has disappeared only as a small dewdrop; its boundaries have grown infinite, now it is unbounded. But man never meets existence because while man exists there is no spiritual perception; his very existence remains like a block. When man disappears, existence is. This is the paradox: the sun rises in the evening. The meeting happens, but man never meets existence, existence never meets man. Have you ever seen light and darkness meeting? It is impossible. How can absence and presence meet? Of necessity, one has to disappear.Because one does not want to disappear, one goes on seeking and searching for existence. If you search, you remain. The search is not going to give you existence; it only keeps you separate. The search is not a way to existence; it is a way to keep your entity intact. It will look strange that the seeker keeps himself intact by seeking, that the seeker remains the ego by seeking. He becomes a very pious ego of course, because he is no longer seeking and searching for money, he searches for existence, and moksha and nirvana. His search is of great ideals, great values – super values. With super values, super-ego arises. That’s why your so-called mahatmas, saints, are very pious egoists. And when the ego is pious it is more dangerous, because one cannot see it. It becomes very, very invisible. And when the enemy is invisible, it is more powerful.The ordinary man’s ego is gross, the saint’s ego is very, very subtle, refined, sophisticated. When the poison is pure, it is more poisonous. Such is the case with the ego. The saint’s ego is a pure ego, hence more poisonous. The sinner’s ego is nothing compared with the saint’s ego.Never be a sinner and never be a saint. Just be. Drop all definitions and confinements. Celebrate being. Never think of yourself as a saint or a sinner. Never feel guilty, and never feel gratified because you are virtuous. And then you are a sage; when you are neither, you are a sage, a siddha. Then you are a sage; you have arrived.Remember, existence has not to be sought; nothing has to be sought. Never lose the quality of herenow. Bring yourself back again and again whenever you start on a journey. Whenever the mind starts a journey remember, come back.And small methods can be of help, just of help. For example, down the centuries Buddhist Zen people have been using the small but very useful method of watching the breath. What is the significance of it? This is all that there is in it: it brings you back herenow. You cannot breathe in the future can you? You cannot breathe in the past, can you? You can breathe only herenow. So if you watch your breath, it stops you from going into journeys. Then you cannot go anywhere – the breathing is herenow. It is really a great discovery of Buddha’s, the greatest meditation that has ever been discovered: just watching the breath.If you watch anything else, there is a difficulty. If you are watching a flower, you may start thinking, “By the evening it will disappear.” You may start thinking of other flowers that you have seen in the past, you may start thinking of the color and the beauty, you may start thinking of the size, how big it is, you may start thinking of all those poems you have heard about flowers and roses. There is danger; you can roam about, you can wander about, you can wander around, you can go for small trips. If you have started thinking of the beauty, you have moved. If you start thinking of the color, you have moved.Breath is really great; there is no color, there is no beauty, no ugliness either. You cannot roam about, and you have to watch each breath as it comes in and goes out. You have to remain constantly with it, your consciousness constantly moving with the coming breath and the going breath – inhaling, exhaling. There is no time left. When you inhale, you cannot think about the exhalation; if you think, you cannot watch inhalation, you have moved. When you see exhalation, you cannot think of inhalation; if you think, you have missed. So the breath will keep you tethered to the herenow. Breath is just an excuse to keep you herenow. If you can remain herenow, no need to use the method, but if you cannot, then it is a beautiful method of immense value.The only thing that is needed, all that is needed, is not to go anywhere. Be in a passive, alert state, and you will see the sun rising in the evening, you will see the impossible becoming possible. You will see mysteries opening up; you will see all paradoxes dissolving. You will know, yet you cannot reduce it to knowledge. You will know, but you will become dumb. You will know, but you will not be able to say anything about it. Nobody has ever said anything about it.I am also not saying anything about it. All that I am saying is how it can become possible, how you can create the occasion in which it becomes recognized by you, how you can remove a few rocks around you of words, principles, doctrines, so that the stream starts flowing. That flow is the flow of existence, of life itself. It knows no death, it knows no fear; it knows no greed. Its purity, its grandeur, its beatitude, its benediction, is infinite.I have seen the sun rising in the evening. Come with me, so that you can also see the sun rising in the evening. Once you have seen it rising in the evening, darkness disappears and your night is full of the day. Death disappears; your death is full of life.Enough for today.

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The Sun Rises in Evening 01-10Category: ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS

The Sun Rises in Evening 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,The West has given birth to Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus, Berdyaev, Marcel and Sartre. Is it going to give birth to buddhas by itself or is a communion with the Eastern consciousness needed?Chinmaya, the buddha consciousness is neither Eastern nor Western. It has nothing to do with geography or history and it has nothing to do with mind as such. Mind is Eastern, Western, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, German, but the innermost pure consciousness is simply the pure sky. You cannot identify it with anything because it is unconditioned.What is East and what is West? – ways of conditioning, different ways of conditioning. What is a Hindu and what is a Jew? – different ways of conditioning. These are names of diseases. Health is neither Eastern nor Western.A child is born and immediately the conditioning starts. Very subtle are the ways of conditioning, directly or indirectly we start pressing the child into a certain mold. He will speak a certain language, and each language has its ways of thinking, each language has its emphasis, its particular direction. That’s why sometimes it becomes impossible to translate from one language into another; the other language may not even have words which correspond, the other language may not have looked at reality and life in that way. Life is infinite, the way you look at it is finite; there can be infinite ways of looking at it.And then the child starts getting colored by the family, by the school, the church, the priest, the parents, and silently it goes on. Slowly, slowly the whole sky of consciousness is closed, only a small window, an aperture, is left open. That aperture is Indian, English, American. That aperture is Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist. That aperture is Eastern, Western.Buddhahood is regaining the consciousness that you brought with your birth. That uncontaminated purity, that original face without any masks, that innocence is buddhahood. So buddhahood cannot be Eastern and Western; it is transcendental.You may be surprised: when a child grows up in a family – and each child has to grow in a family, it is almost a must, there is no other way, some kind of family is needed. Even if it is a commune it will have its own limitations, it may be a kibbutz but it will have its own limitations. And there is no way to bring up a child without a certain nourishing surrounding. That nourishing surrounding is a must; without it the child cannot survive. The child has to be looked after, but the child has to pay for it. It is not simple; it is very complex. The child has to continuously adjust himself to the family because the family is right, the father is right, the mother is right. They are powerful people. The child is helpless; he has to depend on them, he has to look up to them, he has to follow them. Right or wrong is not the question; the child has to become a shadow, an imitator.That’s what Hinduism is, Christianity is; that’s what the Eastern and Western mind is. It is very subtle; the child may never become aware of it because it is not done in one day, it goes on so slowly, just like the water falling from the mountain, falling and falling and falling, it destroys the rocks, and the stones disappear.The child has to adjust in many ways. That adjustment makes him false, inauthentic, makes him untrue, untrue to his own being. Now psychologists have discovered that if a certain child proves to be stupid, it may not be so, because no child is born stupid. It may be just the whole surrounding, the family that he had to adjust to. If the father is too intellectual, the child will have to behave in a stupid way to keep a balance. If the child behaves in an intelligent way, the father is, in a subtle way, angry. He cannot tolerate an intelligent child; he never tolerates anybody who is trying to be more intelligent than him. He will force the child to remain inferior, notwithstanding what he goes on saying. And the child will learn the trip of behaving like a fool, because when he behaves like a fool, everything goes okay, everything is perfectly okay. The father may show his displeasure on the surface, but deep down he is satisfied. He always likes fools around him; surrounded by fools, he is the most intelligent person.Because of this, for hundreds of years women have learned a trick: they never try to be intellectuals – the husband won’t like it. Not that they are not intelligent; they are as intelligent as men, but they have to learn. Have you not watched it? If the wife is more educated, the husband feels a little bad about it. No man wants to marry a woman who is more educated than him, more famous than him. Not only that, but in small things too: if the woman is taller, no man wants to marry her. Maybe it is just because of this that women have decided biologically also not to become too tall. There may be some kind of psychological reason in it – otherwise you will not get a husband. If you are too intelligent, you will not get a husband. The woman has to pretend that she always remains a baby, childish, so that the husband can feel good that the woman leans on him.In a family, the child comes into a ready-made situation. Everything is already there; he has to fit himself into it, he has to adjust to it. He cannot be himself. If he tries to be himself, he always gets into trouble and he starts feeling guilty. He has to adjust, whatsoever the cost. Survival is the most important thing, the first thing. Other things are secondary. So each child has to adjust with the family, with the parent, with geography, with history, with the idiosyncrasies of the people around him, with all kinds of prejudices, stupid beliefs, superstitions. By the time you become aware or you become a little bit independent, you are so conditioned, the conditioning has gone so deep in the blood and the bones and the marrow that you cannot get out of it.What is buddhahood? Buddhahood is getting out of this whole conditioning. This is cutting the root.You can go into the garden and look. One thing you will be surprised about: when a new tree is planted, naturally the tree has to adjust to the other trees which are already in existence. It has to find ways. It can grow its branches only where there is a space. If other trees are already occupying that space, it cannot grow in those directions. It has to find a way in the existing situation, it has to adjust. Maybe it cannot grow branches on all sides, it cannot be balanced – it can grow branches only to the north because there is some space there, the other three sides are already occupied. It becomes lopsided, it grows a branch too much toward the north and the other sides remain un-grown; it is lopsided. And this is on the surface. If you go deep, the same is happening with the roots. There are already roots of other trees; they have already taken possession of the earth. The new tree has to find ways; it has to avoid the places that have been already occupied, it has to find new sources of water if it can. It cannot grow its roots as they would have grown naturally if there had been no other trees around.And that is also not possible for a child. The same happens to humanity: the child grows branches in whatever directions are available. The child grows roots; those roots become entangled with the roots of the parents. And they remain entangled if you don’t cut them. It is very difficult to find a really grown-up person. People only grow old, they never grow up. And growing old is not growing up, they are not synonymous. Growing old is moving toward death, growing up is moving toward more life, more abundant life.Great decisiveness is needed on your part. People remain entangled. A man may be fifty, but he still behaves with his wife as if he were with his mother. He still expects the same from his wife as he used to expect from the mother. He is a child. The woman may be fifty, but she still expects from the husband the same kind of behavior as she expected from the father. This is not growing up. And because it cannot be met – the husband is not your father and the wife is not your mother – there is frustration. This is entanglement with the roots.You are still entangled. The father may be dead, the mother may be dead, but your roots still go on moving in the same direction they learned to move during your childhood. Now the space is available, but you have forgotten how to grow in those spaces which have become newly available. Space becomes available every day, but you have forgotten, completely forgotten, or a few parts of you have died, they have simply disappeared. It is very difficult to find a man who is whole. Somebody’s hands are too big, and the brain too small. Somebody’s brain is too big, and the heart is almost nonexisting, zero. People are living only in parts, and to live in parts is to live in misery. A buddha is one who lives as a whole, as an organic whole.East and West are irrelevant to buddha consciousness. If buddhas can happen in the East without the help of the West, why can’t they happen in the West without the help of the East? And who has told you that they have not happened in the West already? Just the names are different there; they don’t call it buddha consciousness, they call it christ consciousness. It is the same. Meister Eckhart or Jacob Boehme or Gurdjieff – these are buddhas. They have been happening in the West as much as they have been happening in the East, only the names differ.No support of the East is needed, no communion. A buddha is not a communion of East and West. A buddha is a transcendence of all that is East and West – a transcendence of all divisions, not a communion; not a meeting but a transcendence; not a synthesis of the opposites but going beyond the opposites. A buddha is a pure sky, knows no boundaries. It can happen anywhere, in any time.But the Eastern ego feels very good to think that buddhas can only happen in the East. And when Indians use the word East, they simply mean India; they don’t mean China, they don’t mean Japan, they can’t mean Pakistan. Their East simply means India. And if you insist in India too, “Where,” then it never means South India; it means North India. If you go on insisting, you will find finally that the Indian simply means that he himself is the person who can become the buddha, nobody else. If you go on insisting, finally you will find that he is declaring himself, that’s all – that he can become the buddha, nobody else. Deep down it is nothing but an ego game. Forget all these ego games. Get out of these egoistic assertions.Just as happens in space, the same has happened again and again in time also. India is a certain space in time also, the same happens… Now, there are people who say, “Buddhas only used to happen in the past; they cannot happen now. They are not going to happen in the future, this is a kali yuga, this is the worst time.” Why is this the worst time? Time is always the same. The birds sing the same songs that they used to sing in Buddha’s time, the trees still bloom the same way, and the rivers flow the same way, the stars move in the same way. This is the same dance; time cannot make any difference. Why only in the past? Again the ego is involved. We are too attached to the past: “our past,” “our heritage.” We think of our past in glorious terms that gives us great satisfaction, and it helps us and consoles us that we have been at the top. Nobody has ever been at that height where we have been. It helps us to feel good – because when we look around and the real situation is so ugly, we need some dreams to help us.And there are two kinds of dreams possible: either you dream of the past – that’s what religions have been doing. Or you dream of the future – that’s what materialistic religions are doing. Communism, Fascism, Nazism, dream of the future; they say in the future will be the utopia, the golden age. Old religions used to say, in the past was the golden age. Nobody says that right now is the golden age.And I would like to declare it to you right now: now is the only golden time. Buddhas happen now because there is no other time, and buddhas happen here. And the here contains all, the whole space, and the now contains the whole time. But they happen only when somebody takes the decision to go beyond all boundaries, when somebody risks going out of the herd and the herd psychology, when one decides not be a part of the mob.That’s what you are: when you are a Hindu you are part of a mob, when you are a Jaina you are part of a mob, you are a Christian you are part of a mob. When you drop out of the mob and you become free and you start to live life the way you want to live it; when you accept yourself totally, when there is no self-condemnation, when you don’t compare yourself with anybody or with any ideal and you don’t put yourself down again and again, when you start living your life joyously the way existence wants you to live…Existence has not given you birth to live somebody else’s life. If it had wanted a Krishna, it would have created a Krishna, if it had wanted a Christ, it would have created a Christ. Why Chinmaya? Now it wants a Chinmaya.The Hasid mystic, Zusia, was dying and he started praying, and he was trembling, and tears were flowing from his eyes.Somebody asked, “What is the matter? Why are you trembling?”He said, “I am trembling for a certain reason. This is my last moment, I am dying. Soon I will be facing my God, and I am certain he is not going to ask me, ‘Zusia, why were you not a Moses?’ If he asks I will say, ‘Lord, because you didn’t give me the qualities of a Moses,’ there will be no problem. He will not ask me, ‘Why were you not the Rabbi Akiba?’ I will tell him, ‘Sir, you never gave me the qualities of being an Akiba, that’s why.’ But I am trembling because if he asks, ‘Zusia, why were you not a Zusia?’ then I will have nothing to answer, then I will have to look down in shame. That’s why I am trembling and these tears are flowing. My whole life I tried to become Moses or Akiba or somebody else, and I completely forgot that he wanted me to be just Zusia and nobody else. Now I am trembling, now I am afraid. If he asks this question, what am I going to answer? How will I be able to raise my eyes when he asks, ‘Why were you not Zusia? You were given all the qualities of being a Zusia, how did you miss?’ And I have missed in imitating others.”Remember, always remember Zusia. It is one of the most significant incidents in any mystic’s life. If you remember it, it will help. You have to be your own self, utterly your own self. Don’t imitate. Don’t follow the past. Don’t follow any ideals because they are all herd psychology. Slip out of them, be a lion and move out of the mob. And start living your life as truly as possible, because if you cannot be true to your own life, how can you be true to others? And by being true to your own self, you will transcend all limitations of countries, religions, political dogmas, East, West; you will transcend all limitations by being yourself. Just think of it: will you be a German, will you be a Japanese, or a Burmese? Just being yourself, who will you be? A Christian? A Hindu? A Mohammedan? You will not be; you will not find yourself in any of these definitions, you will start growing beyond definitions. Buddha-consciousness is transcendental consciousness. It has nothing to do with East or West.The second question:Osho,I have always dreamed of becoming a world-famous man, rich and successful. Can you help me in the fulfillment of my desire?No sir, not at all, never, because your desire is suicidal. I cannot help you to commit suicide. I can help you to grow and be, but I cannot help you to commit suicide, I cannot help you to destroy yourself for nothing.Ambition is poison. If you want to be a better musician I can help you, but don’t think in terms of becoming world-famous. If you want to be a better poet I can help you, but don’t think in terms of Nobel Prizes. If you want to be a good painter I can help you – I help creativity. But creativity has nothing to do with name and fame, success and money. I am not saying that if they come you have to renounce them. If they come it is okay, enjoy them. But don’t let them become your motivation, because when a person is trying to be successful, how can he really be a poet? His energy is political, how can he be poetic? If a person is trying to be rich, how can he be a real painter? His whole energy is concerned with being rich. A painter needs his whole energy in the painting, and the painting is herenow. Riches will come somewhere in the future – may come, may not come, there is no necessity, it is all accidental. Success is accidental; fame is accidental.But bliss is not accidental. I can help you to be blissful; you can paint and be blissful. Whether the painting becomes famous or not, whether you become a Picasso or not, is not the point at all, but I can help you to paint in such a way that while you are painting even Picasso may feel jealous of you. You can be utterly lost in your painting, and that is the real joy. Those are the moments of love and meditation; those are the moments which are divine. A divine moment is one in which you are utterly lost, when your boundaries disappear, when for a moment you are not and godliness is.But I cannot help you to be successful. I am not against success – let me remind you again – I am not saying don’t be successful. I have nothing against it; it is perfectly good. What I am saying is don’t be motivated by it, otherwise you will miss painting, you will miss poetry, you will miss the song that you are singing right now; and when success comes, you will have only empty hands because nobody can be fulfilled by success. Success cannot nourish; it has no nutrients in it. Success is just hot air.Just the other night I was reading a book on Somerset Maugham, Conversations with Willie. The book is written by Somerset Maugham’s nephew, Robin Maugham. Now, Somerset Maugham was one of the most famous, successful, rich persons of this age, but the memoirs are revealing. Listen to these words that Robin Maugham writes about his famous and successful uncle, Somerset Maugham:He was certainly the most famous author alive, and the saddest. “You know,” he said to me, “I shall be dead very soon, and I don’t like the idea of it at all.” (this statement was made when he was ninety-one.) “I am a very old party,” he said, “but that does not make it any easier for me.”He was rich, world-famous and all that, and at the age of ninety-one he was still making a fortune, even though he had not written a single word for ages. The royalties from his books still literally flowed in from all over the world, and so did the fan letters. At this moment four of his plays were running in Germany. His play, “The Circle” had been brilliantly revived in England and “The Constant Wife” had just been turned into a musical. One of his most famous novels, Of Human Bondage, was soon to be made into a film, which might bring him as many millions of dollars as did Rain, The Moon and Sixpence and The Razor’s Edge. Unfortunately, the one reward all his talent and success had not given him was happiness.He was the saddest man in the world.“What is the happiest memory of your life?” I asked him. He said, “I can’t think of a single moment.” I looked around, says the nephew, the drawing room and its immensely valuable furniture and pictures and art objects that his success had enabled him to acquire. His villa itself and the wonderful garden – a fabulous setting on the edge of the Mediterranean – were worth six hundred thousand pounds. He had eleven personal servants, but he was not happy.The next day he was looking into his Bible and said, “I have come across the quotation: What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” He clasped and unclasped his hands in agony and said again, “I must tell you, my dear Robin, that the text used to hang opposite my bed when I was a child.” And then I took him for a walk in the garden and he said, “You know, when I die, they will take it all away from me – every tree, the whole house, and every stick of furniture. I shall not even be able to take a single table with me.”He was very sad, and he was trembling.For a while he was silent as we walked through a grove of orange trees, and then he said, “I have been a failure the whole way through my life.” I tried to comfort him. “You are the most famous writer alive. I asked, “Surely that means something?” “I wish I had never written a single word,” he answered. “What has it brought to me? My whole life has been a failure, and now it is too late to change. It is too late.” And tears came into his eyes.What can success bring to you? Now, this man, Somerset Maugham, lived in vain. He lived long, ninety-one years, could have been a very, very contented man, fulfilled. But if success can give it, only then; if riches can give it, only then; if a big villa and servants can give it, only then.In the ultimate analysis of life, name and fame are just irrelevant; all that matters in the final reckoning is how you lived each moment of your life. Was it a joy? Was it a celebration? And in small things were you happy? Taking a bath, sipping tea, cleaning the floor, roaming around the garden, planting trees, talking to a friend, or sitting silently with your beloved, or looking at the moon, or just listening to the birds – were you happy in all these moments? Was each moment a transformed moment of luminous happiness? Was it radiant with joy? That’s what matters.You ask me whether I can help you in the fulfillment of your desire. No, not at all, because that desire is your enemy, it will destroy you. And one day when you come across the sentence in the Bible: What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Then you will weep in frustration, and then you will say, “And now it is too late to change. It is too late.”I say to you, right now it is not too late, something can be done; you can change your life totally from the very roots. I can help you go through an alchemical change, but I cannot guarantee in the worldly sense. I guarantee every success in the inner world; I can make you rich, as rich as any buddha – and only buddhas are rich. The people who only have worldly things around them are not really rich – they are poor people befooling themselves and others that they are rich. Deep down is the beggar; they are not the real emperors.Buddha came to a city, and the king was a little hesitant to go and receive him. His own prime minister said, “If you don’t go and receive him, take my resignation, I cannot serve you any longer.”The king asked, “But why?” The man was indispensable, without him the king would have been lost, he was the real key to his power. He asked, “But why? Why do you insist? Why should I go to receive a beggar?”And the prime minister, the old man, said, “You are the beggar and he is the emperor, that’s why. Go to receive him, otherwise you are not worth serving.”The king had to go. Reluctantly, he went. But after he had seen Buddha, he touched the feet of the old man, his prime minister, and he said, “You were right, he is the king, I am a beggar.”Life is strange. Here, sometimes kings are beggars and beggars are kings. Don’t be deceived by the appearance. Look in. The heart is rich when it throbs with joy; the heart is rich when it falls in harmony with Tao, with nature, with the ultimate law of life, with dhamma. The heart is rich when you fall in harmony with the whole. That is the only richness there is. Otherwise, one day you will weep and you will say, “It is too late.”I cannot help you destroy your life, I am here to enhance your life, I am here to give you life abundant.The third question:Osho,Is the ego still working when I feel joy and contentment?When the joy is there, there is no ego. But when the joy has gone the ego comes back, and when the ego comes back it turns the joy into an experience. Otherwise when the joy is there, there is no experiencer and no experience, there is no division. It is not that you feel joy, you are joy; when the joy is there, you are not there, joy is, just joy. But sooner or later… You are still not capable of containing that joy forever: the window closes, the doors shut, the fragrance disappears; the music becomes distant and distant, and disappears. The ego is back, and the ego says, “Boy, what a beautiful experience. It was great, fantastic!” And now that which was not an experience has been reduced to an experience.You ask me: “Is the ego still working when I feel joy and contentment?” When you are really in joy and contentment the ego is not, cannot be, because contentment cannot be with the ego – it is impossible. They cannot exist together, it has never been heard of. Their coexistence is impossible. When joy and contentment are there, only godliness is.But I can understand your question. The question arises later on when the ego comes back and the moment of joy has disappeared, and the ego takes possession. It is very greedy, it takes possession of everything, it hoards everything. It reduces every living thing into a dead thing, because only dead things can be accumulated. Now it says, “Keep it as a memory, it was a great thing.” Now it is reduced into a memory, and the ego says, “Have this kind of joy more and more, create it more.” And you know you were not the creator of it; it had come when you were not, it had come unasked, it had come on its own, it had appeared out of the blue. You were not the creator of it, you were not the manufacturer of it, you had not put it together; it was something from the beyond that suddenly took possession of you, shook you up, bathed you. And in a moment you were sunlit, you had forgotten all misery and all anguish and all pain. You were not a man in that moment; it was a glimpse of buddhahood, just a lightning experience.But the ego cannot miss out. Once the moment has gone, the ego immediately jumps and takes possession of it, stores it in the memory, and goads you to have more of it. Now you are in trouble. You don’t know what to do, how to bring that joy again.This happens here every day. When new people come to me and they start meditating, suddenly one day it is there, the benediction, and they are thrilled, they are ecstatic. But the ego takes possession of it, and then it becomes more and more difficult for it to happen. Then they are worried: “It happened, now why is it not happening?”It happened because you were unaware of it, it happened because you were not asking for it. You could not have asked because you had no previous experience. It happened because there was no search for it, it happened because you were not seeking it; you could not have sought it, it was unknown. Now you know something of it, and because you know, you are searching for it. And because you are searching, you are. In the search the seeker persists, remains, and the seeker is the barrier.That is the whole message of Yoka and his shodoka, the whole message: that the seeker is the barrier. Godliness cannot be sought. Godliness comes; you just have to be receptive, available, that’s all.When in meditation you feel ecstasy arising for the first time, it is not your doing – beware! You are not doing anything; it is happening to you, it is a sheer gift. Feel grateful. Don’t think in terms that you are the doer, don’t pat yourself on the back, don’t say, “Look, I have done it.” If you have done it, you will be in trouble; it will not come again. You have become cunning, clever; your innocence has been lost.So whenever beautiful experiences of joy, contentment, love, beautitude and benediction happen, remember one thing: always remember that you are not the manipulator of them, they come. Feel thankful, grateful, and forget all about them. Don’t store them in the memory and don’t become greedy about them. If you become greedy, ego has come in, with revenge. The ego has started poisoning you again.Ego disappears many times, in ordinary life too it disappears many times, but people don’t know how to keep those moments of purity intact, unpolluted by the ego that will come later on, that is bound to come. It has nothing to do with meditation as such. Meditation is only one of the ways to make you available, to help you become passive, receptive, feminine. But it happens; just seeing a bird on the wing, and it can happen.Ramakrishna’s first samadhi happened that way. He was only thirteen. He was coming home from his farm, passing by a village pond, and a few swans suddenly flew from the pond. The sky was dark, full of dark clouds. Against the backdrop of those dark clouds, those white swans flashed like lightning. The moment was so pure, of such utter beauty. Ramakrishna fell then and there to the ground in great prayerfulness; he was struck by the truth.He remained unconscious for a few hours. Somebody discovered him and people carried him home. That was his first samadhi. When he opened his eyes after a few hours, he was a totally different man. Those eyes were no longer the old ones; they had a new shine. The face was no longer the old one; it had a new glory. The boy was transformed. People started worshipping the boy, people started to come from far and wide just to see what had happened. Something divine had penetrated him. And he had not been doing anything; he was just passing by the pond. But he never allowed his ego to take possession of it.When people asked, “What did you do?” he said, “I have not done anything; it happened.” And he was never greedy for it to happen again; otherwise he would have missed. And it started happening again and again – small things started triggering it.You cannot find swans flying against the dark clouds every day. But that is not the point; that was just the beginning. Then small things… Somebody would smile, and it would happen. A flower by the side of the road, and Ramakrishna would look at it and go into ecstasy; he would no longer be there. Or somebody would say something, just the sound… Somebody chanting a mantra – just the sound, or somebody playing on a veena – just the sound, and he would go into ecstasy.Later on it was so difficult for his disciples; to take him anywhere was a problem. Walking on the road, and suddenly he would be gone, he would disappear. Wherever he would go, anything…In fact, slowly, slowly all is divine; slowly, slowly everything… That must have happened to Basho, the Zen mystic and poet:The ancient pondA frog jumps in.Plop!Basho must have gone into a deep ecstasy: just the plop, the sound of the frog jumping into the ancient pond, was enough, more than enough – the door opens.It opens to you too. Existence is generous, but you miss the point because you misinterpret it. Sometimes it happens while you are making love, more often when you make love because that is your deepest experience. Ramakrishna must have been a very aesthetic soul, otherwise who goes into such orgasm seeing a few swans flying by against the black clouds? He must have been of immense aesthetic sensibility. It was enough – he went into an orgasmic state.Ordinarily people are not so sensitive; they have become very hard. Just to survive they have gathered armor around themselves, just to protect themselves, they are afraid of being vulnerable. But while making love one becomes vulnerable. In that intimacy the glimpse comes; you are lost, you are possessed by some energy which is not your own. You are tiny compared to it; it is huge, enormous. But don’t take possession of it later on – the ego is cunning. When it comes, thank existence, when it goes, thank existence, but don’t become in any way a doer. Remain a non-doer.The fourth question:Osho,You say we need only declare our own enlightenment to ourselves, but what about the gap, the discontinuity, the quantum leap, the death and the rebirth? Is the declaration a device – a way of creating the effect for the cause to follow? Is this an acceptance of enlightenment with a small e, knowing that one day the big E will come in a sudden flash of lightning? Confused, confused!What are you talking about? What gap? What discontinuity? What quantum leap? You are it. The gap is just in your dream, the gap exists not; you have never been other than enlightened – enlightenment is the stuff you are made of.You say: “You say we need only declare our own enlightenment to ourselves, but what about the gap, the discontinuity, the quantum leap, the death and the rebirth?” Nothing ever dies; nothing is ever reborn. How can there be rebirth when nothing ever dies? It is all one process, all one continuum. Life has never known death. You are dreaming.I have heard a Taoist story:A great emperor was sitting by the side of his dying son – the only son. All his hopes were shattered: he had only one child, he was old, and the child was dying. And the physicians had failed and they said, “Now, this is the last night.” He was sitting crying and weeping, he could not sleep. The whole night he sat by the side of the bed. By the morning, tired, exhausted, he fell asleep in the chair.He dreamed that he had a very, very big kingdom on some other planet. He had huge golden palaces; he had twelve sons, all beautiful, intelligent. You could not think of any improvement in the situation; it was perfect.And then the boy died. The wife screamed in pain. The king’s dream was disturbed, and he opened his eyes and started laughing. The wife thought he had gone mad. People gathered. The wife asked, “What are you doing? Why are you laughing? You loved the boy so much, why are you laughing?”He said, “I am laughing because now what to believe? Just a moment before I was dreaming that I had twelve sons, so beautiful, so strong, supermen, so intelligent, incomparable, and I had a big kingdom with golden palaces; this palace looks just like a poor man’s hut. And the moment you screamed the dream disappeared, and with it my twelve sons and the golden palace, and the kingdom and all. And when I was dreaming about those twelve sons and the kingdom and the palace, it was so real that I had forgotten you, and the dying son, and this kingdom, and this me. Now I am laughing: for whom to weep, for those twelve sons, which have disappeared or this one who has disappeared? That’s why I am laughing.”If the gap exists only in a dream there is no way to bridge it, because the bridge that you make will be a dream bridge. All that is needed is that you wake up. Wake up! Open your eyes, just see: all is dream. Sometimes you dream with open eyes, and sometimes with closed eyes. Sometimes you have nightmares and sometimes you have “daymares,” but that is the only difference – they are all “mares.” Wake up! Only the witnessing self is reality, all else that you see is a projected film. Turn in, and see that you are enlightened. It is not a question of bridging the gap, it is only a question of recognizing, remembering.So it can happen any moment. The moment you allow it to happen, the moment you permit it to happen, it can happen. All that I go on saying to you is just to help you to permit it. It is not going to create enlightenment; it is just helping you to permit it, to accept it.“Is the declaration a device: a way of creating the effect for the cause to follow?” Enlightenment is not the effect of any cause; enlightenment is already there, it has not to follow any cause. It is your very ground, nothing need be done to attain it. See the emphasis: the emphasis is not on doing anything, the emphasis is only on remembering.You have a purse somewhere in your pocket, but you have forgotten it and you are feeling miserable. And you are thinking that now you are in a strange city, nobody knows you, where are you going to eat? You don’t have any money. And the money is there, you have just forgotten the purse. Or you may have misplaced it; you go on looking in the left-side pocket and it may be in the right-side pocket. And again and again you look, and again and again you feel more and more afraid, insecure; what is going to happen, who is going to give you food today? But nothing has to be done really; all that is needed is remembering where you have put it.Doing is not the thing, only awareness. That is the emphasis of Zen. Yoga emphasizes doing: “Do this, do that.” That’s why Yoga satisfies people’s egos very much, because it gives you infinite possibilities to evolve in the world of the ego. So many postures, so many rules, so much discipline, pranayama, and exercises… It goes on and on, and you feel, “I have done so much. Now I am coming home, now I am coming closer, closer, closer.” But you never come; you never arrive.Zen is a sudden phenomenon; it is not a gradual process. The whole approach is that you have never been otherwise; you are enlightened. From the very beginning you are a buddha.I am repeating it day after day so that this constant hammering on your head may some day break the forgetfulness, the layer of forgetfulness. And any day that the forgetfulness is gone, it will come, it will come like an upsurge, it will well up in you.You say: “Is this an acceptance of enlightenment with a small e, knowing that one day the big E will come in a sudden flash of lightning?” Enlightenment is enlightenment, whether with a big E or a small e makes no difference. It will not be different with a capital E; it is the same phenomenon. When I go on talking to you, it is not creating enlightenment with a small e, no; it cannot create enlightenment at all. That’s what I am saying, that’s what Yoka is singing: nothing can create enlightenment. You have fallen asleep, I am shouting. And sometimes I have to really shout.Just the other day, Vivek was saying, “You were shouting so much this morning that I am shaken, jarred, my nerves are on edge.” Good, so I will have to do a little more shouting. Sooner or later how can you avoid waking up? How long can you avoid waking up?Jesus says: “Go on the housetops and shout.” The Hasid mystic, Akiba, actually used to do it. He would go on the housetops and shout. In the marketplace he would go on somebody’s housetop and shout and say, “People, what are you doing? Awake! Remember your godliness!” And, of course, the people who were in the marketplace would become very afraid when he shouted: “Remember what you are doing. Again? Again the same stupid thing?” He was constantly moving in the marketplace and he would hold people and shake them and shout, “Remember!”He must have been a nuisance. All masters are: when they become too much, people have to get rid of them. They crucified Jesus because he must have become too much – too much shouting – and he wouldn’t even allow them a night’s sleep. They had to poison Socrates; he must have been a nuisance around Athens. He was. It is said that people were even afraid to meet him on the streets, because if he saw you, he would catch hold of you. People were so afraid that they would not even say hello, because he would say, “What do you mean? Wait, let us discuss it, let us go deeply into it.” Now, even “hello,” and you are caught. It is said that people would see him and escape into some side streets or they would hide somewhere and let him pass. It must have become unbearable. Then they decided that it was better to finish with this man.A master is a constant shouting in your sleep, but he has to go on doing it whether you listen or not, whether it becomes unbearable, whether you feel jarred, shaken, on the edge of nerves. He has to go on and on, he has to stir you; he has to penetrate your sleep. And the sleep is long; for centuries you have slept, you have completely forgotten how to open your eyes. A master has to virtually hammer you into wakefulness.Friedrich Nietzsche used to say, “I philosophize with a hammer.” I don’t know about him, but I certainly teach with a hammer, I preach with a hammer. And the closer you come, the more I will shout at you. Only then is there a possibility that some day you may open your eyes in spite of yourself. There is no difference between the small e and the capital E; enlightenment is simply enlightenment.The fifth question:Osho,In surrendering to you, am I surrendering to myself?Nirvesh, in asking it you have lost the way. Just a few days before, Nirvesh was in darshan and was saying to me, “Now it is enough. Enough is enough. For one year I have been wandering. Now I surrender everything to you. Now take possession of me and lead me wherever you want.”Now, this question: “In surrendering to you, am I surrendering to myself?” Yes, if you really surrender to me, you have surrendered to your real self, because I am one with the real self of all. That is the meaning of godliness. I am no longer separate from the whole; I am where you also should be. I am just a reflection of your innermost core. You cannot see within it yourself, because you are not yet able to go into those deeper realms of your being, but you can see it in me. The master is nothing but an outer reflection of the innermost core. Bowing to a master is bowing to your real self. So, yes, if you really surrender to me, you are surrendering to yourself. But if you are surrendering to me in order to surrender to yourself, you have not surrendered to me at all, and then you miss the whole point. Do you get it? If you are surrendering to me only in order to surrender to yourself, then you have not surrendered to me. When surrendering to me you forget all about yourself – that is surrender.Surrender means you efface yourself. You say, “I am no more, master. Now, you be. I am no more. From this moment I cease to be.” If you can do that, you will attain to yourself.The last question:Osho,You have said that all the meditations should be dropped. Because of your blessings, so many beautiful experiences have been attained. Meditating on that inner blue-green flame, even in that flame I see your eyes, your face, your whole being. It feels as if the whole of existence is pouring into me. Then again it becomes meditation on you. These blissful moments come and go on their own, I have no control over them. Even so, should I try to drop this? Is this also a meditation? Please explain.How can you drop it? If these moments come on their own, how can you drop them? And when I say all meditations have to be dropped, I mean all meditations that you do. I am not talking about those meditations that happen, they are gifts from existence; receive them with great joy, celebration, receive them into your heart. You cannot stop them, and there is no need either. When I say drop all meditations, I mean the meditations that you have been doing on your own.They have to be done in the beginning; otherwise you will never be able to drop them. The effort has to be made so that it can be dropped. But the real beauty is in dropping. You can drop only if you have been doing it – remember it.There may be a few new people who have not done meditations, and they may feel very good, they will say, “Okay, so why do them? There is no need to if one has to drop.” No, you can drop only if you do. Only a rich man can distribute his riches, can renounce his riches, the poor man cannot do it. First you have to have, only then can you drop. So I am not saying don’t start meditation. When one starts meditation one has to be a doer; in the beginning, meditation is a kind of effort. That has to be so, in the beginning you cannot expect more.But don’t be caught in that. There is another quality of meditation – prepare for that. Slowly, slowly doing meditation, a few moments will come which are not of your doing. Then shift from doing to those moments which are not of your doing. Slowly, slowly go on dropping the effort, and let the effortless spontaneity arise in you.And that’s what is happening. You need not drop anything.You say: “These blissful moments come and go on their own, I have no control over them.” That’s how it should be. If you have control over them, then they cannot be very beautiful and they cannot be divine. Your control means ego control. And if you control, they will be smaller than you; when they are beyond your control, they are bigger than you. They come – suddenly are there – they overwhelm you; for a moment you are not part of this world. You walk on the earth, and yet your feet don’t touch the earth. For a moment you are transported to another reality, a separate reality, a timeless reality, a spaceless space. These moments have to be cherished, allowed, welcomed. With great reverence open yourself up for these moments. This is the way godliness comes.And the really, really last question:Osho,This morning, I sit tall before you. A kind of defiance rushes through my veins and throbs with a rumbling rivering of fire. The words courage and dignity well up in me congealing into a silently exploding, roaring cry! Tears stream down my face and my chest heaves under the piercing painfulness of centuries of sobs. I keep looking at you directly, with a kind of will, willing beyond its own willfulness. A crescendo of undreamed-of intensity possesses me with every sort of emotion all at once soaring into an imploring prayer. I imagine raising my empty fists at the winds above a mountaintop, at thunder, and at the blackness of the dark. A desire so great that it cannot find an object, an urging so strong that I cannot deny it, reverberates within the masses of my soul, and I keep on looking, without anger, without fear, proud but not proud, knowing but not-knowing, and I know you know. My naked soul faces the enormity of your being with the power of its own helplessness. Your eyes understanding, emanate volts of light into my heart making the painful burning yearning even more… And then you enter without sound, with the softness of a petal dropping through a brilliant summer sky.This is the way the sun rises in the evening. Allow it more and more; celebrate it more and more. This is the way godliness comes in.Enough for today.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Many contemporaries and enlightened ones – Raman Maharshi, Meher Baba, George Gurdjieff and J. Krishnamurti – have worked with people, but people get more offended by you than by anybody else.Osho, where does your technique differ from that of other enlightened ones?The question is very fundamental.It arises in many people’s minds, and it needs a very deep insight into the workings of different masters.We will take each of the masters named in the question separately.Raman Maharshi is a mystic of the highest quality, but a master of the lowest quality. And you have to understand that to be a mystic is one thing; to be a master is totally different.Out of a thousand mystics, perhaps one is a master.Nine hundred and ninety-nine decide to remain silent – seeing the difficulty, that whatever they have realized is impossible to convey in any possible way to others; seeing that not only is it difficult to convey, it is bound to be misunderstood too.Naturally, one who has arrived to the ultimate peak of consciousness will most probably decide not to bother with the world anymore. He has suffered for hundreds of lives living with these miserable people, living with all kinds of misunderstandings, groping in the dark and finding nothing. And these blind people who have never seen the light all believe they know what light is.From ancient days, a philosopher has been defined as a man who is blind, in a house that is completely dark, searching for a black cat which is not there.And the search goes on….After a long, long, tedious journey, someone has come to the sunlit peak of relaxation, for the first time is at ease with existence, and decides not to get involved with all kinds of blind people, prejudiced people, deaf people who are going to misunderstand you, who are going to misinterpret you, who are going to crucify you, who are going to poison you, who are going to do every nonsense that is possible against you. Why bother?You cannot blame those nine hundred and ninety-nine mystics who decide to remain silent. It is not their responsibility, it is not their commitment. They owe nothing to the world; why should they get unnecessarily into the mess, into the madhouse the world is?Raman Maharshi remained in his cave in the mountains of Arunachal his whole life, unconcerned with the world. He simply tired of it. Naturally, nobody is against him.He never says anything against any superstition, against any belief that is based on lies. He never criticizes any religion, any politics. He is not a revolutionary. He is not interested in transforming human beings, creating a better society.He is not even a little bit interested to share his experience. He is just like a well – if you are thirsty, you will have to find the way, you will have to find a bucket, you will have to find a rope, you will have to reach the water. The water is not interested in you or in your thirst.Naturally there is nobody who will criticize Raman Maharshi. He lived silently, peacefully – not against any vested interest, not in any way proposing a new man, a new humanity. He is fulfilled and contented; he is finished with the world.Meher Baba is not finished with the world in the same sense as Raman Maharshi. But he is interested only in your spiritual growth – as if spiritual growth is something separate from the whole structure of society, religion, education, past, all the traditions, conventions.So he remains interested in your spiritual growth, but spiritual growth is a complex phenomenon – it is connected with many other things. Unless your conditionings are changed, unless your belief systems are changed, unless your mind is unburdened of the past – there are so many things to be cleaned – only then can the still small voice of your being be heard.Meher Baba takes spiritual growth out of context. Naturally nobody is against it. In fact, all the vested interests are tremendously respectful of such people, because they are continuously giving – without any intention on their part – opium to the people. They are giving the idea – which is false – that your spiritual growth is possible without going through a deep psychological revolution.Secondly, Meher Baba remained silent his whole life; he never spoke. All that is written in the name of Meher Baba is written by his secretary. Now, there is no way to know whether the secretary is writing from his own mind.He had come to see me, and I looked directly into his eyes when I asked, “Are you certain that whatever you have written is not from your mind? Can you give me any evidence that these messages have been telepathically given to you by Meher Baba?”He felt a little embarrassed and he said, “I cannot say it with absolute certainty, but this is how I felt – that these were messages given by Meher Baba.”“But your feeling…. Have you ever tried in some way to get the consent of Meher Baba, his signature? He was not speaking, that is true, but he used to give his autograph. You could have taken your book…. He was not speaking, but he could hear. You could have asked him: ‘I have written this book in your name, and my feeling is that this is your message. Just give it your signature so that I can tell world that Meher Baba agrees with me.’ This would have been a simple method.”Meher Baba used to have a small board with the whole alphabet on it just for small messages and things. You would ask for his blessings, and he would put his finger on the letters, “b-l-e-s-s-i-n-g” – blessings are given.If he could give blessings on the board, he could have said yes or no on the same board, but he was never asked. In fact, the secretary may have been afraid he might say no.Now, who will be against this man? – who has not spoken, who is not against anything, anybody. His whole business is to help you spiritually – and that too only in silence; you can sit with him in silence.Now, there are very few people in the world who can understand silence. A master first needs to teach you how to be silent, and unless he is satisfied that now you are capable of listening in silence, listening to that which is not being said vocally, verbally, but only telepathically….Meher Baba had never prepared anybody for telepathic transference of ideas. And to me it seems to be absurd. What is the need? – because even in telepathy you will have to use the same language. If I want to say something to you – whether I say it aloud so that you can hear or I say it silently so that you can hear only telepathically, it makes no difference. Unless I am trying to give messages which are secret, unless there is a certain conspiracy….But around Meher Baba, nothing has happened.The man himself was of great importance, but he remained silent for the same reason as Raman Maharshi.But he could not stay in one place. He did not abandon the world completely. He was still thinking that some way could be found to approach seekers. He moved around the world in search of seekers, but I don’t think he found any. He found only worshippers who sang devotional songs to him, because they had their desires.And in the East it is believed that if the person who is enlightened blesses you, any desire is bound to be fulfilled. Existence can never say no to the enlightened consciousness. For the enlightened man, existence is always “yes”; there is a deep synchronicity.So the people who gathered around Meher Baba were not seekers, they were people who wanted position, power, money, prestige – all the wrong kinds of people. And because he was engaging people in wishful dreaming and not saying anything, he was not against the vested interests. Why should any government be against him? Why should any religion be against him?There was no question – these people were harmless people.The third man on your list is George Gurdjieff. He is the most unique master the world has ever seen, but his uniqueness created a distance between him and the normal humanity. All his methods were valid methods, but the journey was long and he made it even longer by the way he propounded it.In fact, that was one of his devices to find the real seekers.Are you ready to go to the very end of the world, or are you just a curiosity monger? – you will go a little way to know what this man is all about, waste his time, and then you will be back in the world. He would choose only those who are ready even to die if that is the only way to find the truth.Naturally he was surrounded by only a very small group of people.And he was also not interested in any social revolution.His whole interest was to crystallize a few individuals who were courageous enough, to give them their original face, to help them to know the ultimate ecstasy that existence makes available. But it is only for the chosen few. Not that somebody chooses them – but because only very few people are courageous enough to risk everything to find themselves, they become the chosen few by their own courage and their own daring.And Gurdjieff was not interested at all in the fast asleep humanity.Raman Maharshi was not interested.Gurdjieff was not only not interested, he had all the condemnation possible for those who have been sleeping for lives together. He is the only man in the whole of history who said, “These sleeping people don’t have souls, and unless a man becomes enlightened he cannot have a soul. A soul is a reward: you don’t come with a soul at birth, you achieve it by your effort.”Naturally, no government was offended, no church was offended. If a man has collected two dozen people, the pope is not worried, the shankaracharya is not worried – he is not a competitor. And he worked personally with each individual – naturally he could not work with millions of people.So these people were just in the margin; their names can appear only in the footnotes. They don’t belong to the vast humanity – just on the fringes. Having small groups, they were not a danger to anybody.And the fourth man, J. Krishnamurti, could have been a danger, could have been crucified – he had a far higher intelligence than any Jesus Christ, and far more intellectual genius than any Socrates – but because of a certain obsession, he became very much against organization. He was against all organizations.Naturally you would think that if he was against all organizations then all organizations would have been annoyed by him. But this was not the case, because he never created any organization of his own.A single individual for ninety years continuously went around the world. Who cares?Seven hundred million Catholics are going to bother about a single individual who is talking against organizations? And who is listening to him?In India he used to speak in New Delhi, Bombay and Adyar Madras. This is not India. Nine hundred million people don’t live in these three cities. And how many people in Bombay were listening to him? – never more than three thousand. And these three thousand were almost always the same people who had been listening to him for forty years, fifty years. He was saying the same thing all through his life, and the same people were listening.In fact, nobody was listening.He became a sort of entertainment, and that’s what he said to one of my friends who went to see him just before his death: “The thing that hurts me most is that I became just an entertainment for a few people and nothing more. A few people enjoyed my logic, and that was all.”And now that he is dead, ninety years’ effort has simply disappeared into the air.Governments are against me because I am against them.Religions are against me because I am against religions.Political leaders are annoyed with me because I say they are mediocre, because I say only psychologically sick people become interested in power politics. People who suffer from an inferiority complex are the people who seek power, prime ministership, presidency.These people need to be in psychiatric hospitals, and they are running the world.I am against all religions because I am for religiousness, and religions are barriers to creating a humanity with a quality of religiousness.A Christian is not needed, nor a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan. These are the barriers to religious progress.What is needed is truthfulness, sincerity, silence, lovingness…a life of joy, playfulness…a life of deep search, inquiry into one’s consciousness. And these qualities have nothing to do with Christianity or Judaism or Jainism or Buddhism.Meditation is needed, but meditation is nobody’s monopoly.Naturally, all religions are against me, annoyed. Because I am the first man in the whole of history who is saying that religions are the barriers preventing humanity from becoming religious. They are not the vehicles of God, they are the enemies of God. Popes and Ayatollah Khomeinis and shankaracharyas – these are not the representatives of God; they may be representatives of the devil. Because these are the people who have divided humanity, and who for centuries have been continuously creating conflicts, bloodshed, wars, crusades, jihad, holy war, and all kinds of nonsense.In the name of religion, these people are oppressing humanity.I am against nations because I don’t see any need for there to be nations. Why can’t the whole planet earth be one single humanity? – which would be saner, more scientific, more easily controllable.Right now things are such that you can only say we are living in an insane world.Every three months the common market in Europe is dumping so much food in the ocean…mountains of butter! Last time they had to destroy so much food that the destruction cost was two hundred million dollars – it is not the cost of the food, it is the cost of destroying it. And just nearby in Ethiopia, one thousand people were dying every day.What kind of humanity are we living in?Half of humanity is dying in poverty.Every six months, America goes on throwing billions of dollars worth of food into the ocean, but they will not give that food to Ethiopia or to India or to any other country where people are starving and dying.Nobody cares about human beings; everybody cares about money.These money-minded people cannot be called sane: that food has to be destroyed; otherwise the market prices will fall, and they don’t want their prices to fall. They want their prices to remain stable, so the food has to be destroyed.If the whole world is one, things can be very simple.At one time Russia was burning wheat in its trains instead of coal because coal in Russia is costlier, and they had an overproduction of wheat. In India, people were dying because wheat was not available. Coal we have enough of, but you cannot eat coal. If the world were one, then the coal from India could go to Russia and the wheat from Russia could move toward India.There is no need to destroy mountains, exactly mountains of butter.And why did they have to destroy it? Before, they had been selling it to Libya. In Libya, butter was available at half the price of butter in Europe. The butter was coming from Europe, but they were selling it at a throw-away price, just to get rid of it. Otherwise they would have to arrange dumping it and that takes money. Just to save that money, they were giving it to Libya.But President Ronald Reagan started going insane against Libya for no reason at all, bombed the poor country, bombed Kadaffi’s three houses, killed one of his daughters – for no reason at all – and pressured Europe so that all the supplies that they were giving to Libya would be stopped. Mountains of butter collected in Europe.Now you need space, cold storage…so the old butter had to be thrown into the ocean for the new butter to come in.There is no need of nations.These are the hang-ups of the past.And if there are no nations, there is no need for armies. Right now, seventy percent of the budget of every country goes to the military; seventy percent to the military which does nothing except left, right, left, right, polishing their guns, their shoes, their buttons – that’s all they do. And all over the world, seventy percent of the budget goes to the military and whole countries have to live on thirty percent of their budget.If the nations disappear, one hundred percent of the budget is available for the whole country – because the armies are useless. Right now there is no problem of there being any war with any planet. With whom are you going to fight? So what is the need to polish your guns every day? to polish your boots, and morning and evening, left and right? All these idiots who are doing this can be put into creative work.I don’t want any nations in the world.The world is one single humanity.I don’t want religions in the world.Religiousness is enough, more than enough. As religions disappear, millions of monks and nuns who are just parasites…. They do nothing.That is another army that is sitting on the chest of humanity. They should disappear. They have renounced the world, but for their food, for their clothes, for their housing, the world has to work. It is a very strange thing: they will earn the virtue of having renounced the world; they will enter paradise. You will go to hell, because you provided food, clothes, shelter to these saints. And they have been simply condemning you!Strange logic.These people should go to hell – who have not been doing anything except condemning, calling everybody a sinner, creating guilt in everybody, destroying everybody’s integrity and self-respect. But these people will go to paradise.With religions disappearing, all these people can be put into creative work. There is no need of monasteries, there is no need of churches, temples, mosques. All these houses of God – and there are millions of men who don’t have any houses, who live their whole life on the street. The houses of God are empty – there is no God. All these houses of God can be made available to the homeless. All these monks can be put into creative work, all the armies can be put into creative work.And when there are no more nations, all dirty politics will have to disappear.Different arrangements can be made for managing the whole world – a world government based on merit, not dependent on votes. In the whole world there are thousands of universities. The world government can be left in the hands of the universities, and all the universities should choose their best people for the world government. An education minister should be a man who really understands education and who can bring new forms of education into the world.Many departments of government will have to disappear, there will be no need. For example, the defense ministry – defense against whom?The universities could choose the most meritorious people – the Nobel Prize winners, the great vice-chancellors, the great artists, the painters, the poets. There could be a different kind of government which is not dependent on the vote of a sleepy humanity, of those who don’t know what they are doing.And we can make this world really a Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve will not have to go back to the Garden of Eden. And one day you will hear a knock on the door – God wants to come in! Because you have managed to create a far better garden than his old one. But we can keep that garden too, as a museum piece.Naturally, Raman Maharshi, Meher Baba, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti belong to a different category.I belong to my own category. There is no category to which I can belong; I have to create my category.Naturally they are all against me because I am going to take away all their powers, all their conspiracies against humanity. Naturally, they are together against me.And they are a little puzzled: what to do with a single man? It looks awkward to them also. All the governments of the world, all the religions of the world have to decide against a single individual. Certainly that single individual must have something significant; otherwise there would be no need of so much fear, paranoia.I am for man’s spiritual growth, but I understand spiritual growth in its whole context. It is not something separate, one-dimensional; it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It needs a revolution in society. It needs a revolution in society’s economic, political structures; it needs a tremendous and radical change in everything that has been dominating us up to now.We have to create a discontinuity with the past.Only then a new man – a really spiritual man, a man of cosmic dimensions – can be born.I am certainly blessed because I am the first who is opposed by all. This situation has never happened before, and will never happen again.And you are also blessed because you are fellow travelers with a man who is not just an old dead saint, a goody-goody.I want you to be the very salt of the earth.Too many goody-goody saints have created so much diabetes.We need a different kind of saintliness.I have called that different kind of saint Zorba the Buddha.Osho,You have mentioned in the past that the witches burned by the Christians knew, among other skills, how to hypnotize. It seems that in ancient Egypt too, hypnosis was practiced. It has even been suggested that Jesus was a skilled hypnotist.Was hypnosis once a respected form of healing? How did it evolve, and how did it fall into disrepute?The science of hypnosis – and remember, I am calling it science of hypnosis, not art of hypnosis – is one of the most ancient sciences.It was practiced in the lost continent of Atlantis. Its literature was saved in Alexandria in Egypt.Pythagoras, a great seeker and searcher from Greece, visited the library in Alexandria and he refers to great literature on the science of hypnosis that has come from the lost continent of Atlantis, which sank into the Atlantic Ocean in some natural calamity.The name “Atlantic” comes from “Atlantis”.Perhaps Atlantis had the greatest and the most ancient civilization. And Egypt tried to learn as much from the teachers and the universities of Atlantis as was possible, because the pharaohs – the kings of Egypt – were tremendously interested in collecting all possible sources of knowledge.The library of Alexandria was perhaps the greatest library that has ever existed. Even the library of the British Museum is just a small library in comparison to the library of Alexandria.The library of the British Museum is a big library. If we put books on the ground just as we put them on the shelf, they would make three rounds of the earth – that many books are in the British Museum library. But the library of Alexandria was many, many times bigger than the British Museum library.It was burned by Mohammedans, by Khalif Omar. It took six months to put the fire out. That can give you an idea of the bigness and the vastness of the collection.And why did the Mohammedans burn it?I am mentioning it knowingly because it refers to your question.The library contained many things side by side with the science of hypnosis. If they had remained, Mohammedanism would not have survived.Christianity burned living women in thousands, calling them witches.The word witch is not a bad word; it simply means a wise woman. But Christianity converted the word, gave it a wrong connotation, created courts all over Europe, a great investigation to destroy witches, because witches are directly connected with the devil. This was the strategy to destroy those wise women.The real fact was that if those women had remained alive, Christianity would have looked very poor as a religion. They knew far deeper truths than Christianity, far more refined religious flights, methods of hypnosis and meditation – which always go together.By destroying the witches, Christianity was trying to destroy hypnosis and meditation both. It was a question of survival.Mohammedans destroyed the library in Egypt which contained literature of immense value, and Christianity destroyed living human women. And the courts tortured those women, forced them to confess before the court that yes, they had a sexual relationship with the devil.There is no devil anywhere. After those witches, the devil has not approached any woman. And strangely enough, it was only in Christian countries that the devil was having sexual relationships with women – in no other country.And they tortured them so much that they had to confess – knowing perfectly well that once they had confessed then they would be burned. Before confession there was torture, and once they confessed before the court then the court would declare that this woman was a witch and she should be burned in the central place in the town so the whole village can see what happens if you are in a sexual relationship with the devil.Thousands of women were burned. Their only fault was that they were still carrying the science of hypnosis and the science of meditation.And they were teaching in small, hidden schools.It was a great danger to Christianity, because Christianity has nothing comparable to hypnosis or to meditation. Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism – these three religions are very poor. They don’t deserve even the name of “religion”. They don’t have anything of what you will find in Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, Nagarjuna, Shankara. You will not find anything of any fundamental value in them.The science of hypnosis and the science of meditation are two sides of one coin.Meditation you have to do alone – because there are two types of people, just as there are men and women. The science of meditation is more suitable for men, and the science of hypnosis is more suitable for women; hence the witches – they were all deeply into the science of hypnosis.Hypnosis needs somebody else to take you into your inner center.The meditator goes alone. He goes to the same center, but he goes alone. That is something…part of the man’s psychology.Hypnosis also takes you to the same place, but it needs a hypnotizer. A woman going alone feels afraid. That is against the feminine nature. She needs someone she loves, trusts; she needs someone to be with her on the deepest journey to herself.The hypnotist was a master or a great friend or a great lover, someone with whom the woman was able to relax without holding anything, with no fear, knowing that she is protected by someone better than she can protect herself.This is a general division, but there are men who may have a more feminine nature, the qualities of a woman – for them hypnosis will be more helpful than meditation. And there may be a few women who have characteristics of men – like Joan of Arc or the queen of Jhansi, Laxmi Bai, women who can fight with a sword in a war – for them meditation will be easier than hypnosis.But both are exactly the same processes.In meditation, you simply relax yourself. It is autosuggestion.In hypnosis, it is hetero-suggestion – it is suggestion by somebody else who is sitting by your side. And just his closeness – if you love, if you trust – is enough for you to relax.And if meditation and hypnosis can both be joined together…. And that is my effort, that’s what I have been doing. If they both can be joined together…. Just as my effort is that men and women should not remain separate because they are halves of one whole, they should come closer and become one. Love should be nothing but a deep merger with your other part, so deep that there are two bodies but only one soul.Meditation and hypnosis also can be together, one. In fact, they are halves of one whole.And the moment you try the whole process – either beginning with hypnosis or beginning with meditation, that is simply your preference – you are moving into the same space from two doors toward one center.That center is your being.And all the religions have been trying to prevent you from reaching your center because that is the only way to keep you miserable and to keep you enslaved, to exploit you, and not to give you any chance of revolt.This mystery school will try its best to bring all opposites together as complementaries. And if they can be made complementaries, the progress happens in leaps and bounds. Then you are not moving with only one leg, you are not flying with only one wing. You have both wings, you have both legs; you have a totality.Osho,Modern scientists like Karl Pribram, David Bohm and others, have been stumbling on religion. They have been stating that our brains may be holograms, interpreting a holographic universe; that certain circuits in the brain are the trigger of consciousness without a content, that it is the analytical, the thinking part of the mind, that creates separation and fragmentation while the intuitive part experiences reality in a holistic way; that energy is a limited term needing to be replaced by a wave concept.They are proposing “resonance” and “synchronicity” as more appropriate terms.Osho, when you are talking about the mind do you mostly mean the thinking part – the one which creates our belief systems and personalities?Is it enough to totally disidentify with the thinking, or does the mind altogether – including the conscious and the superconscious – need to be transcended?Is the universe, is existence made of mind stuff?Are these scientists contributing to a science of enlightenment, and can one do so without being enlightened?No, that’s impossible; nobody can create a science of enlightenment without being enlightened himself.That would be just like blind people creating a science of light, or people who have never known love creating a science of love.Enlightenment is absolutely necessary for any understanding of what it is.Listening to your question…the scientists are trying something which is beyond their field.Enlightenment is not of the mind.Enlightenment is freedom from the mind; it is transcending mind, it is going beyond mind. And all these scientists you mention are talking about mind.Enlightenment has nothing to do with mind; it has something to do with awareness of the mind. It does not go into the details of the mind, what it consists of, how it functions, all its mechanics.Awareness is simply disidentification with the mind; mind is left behind as a mechanism. The moment the mind is completely left behind and there is only pure awareness, just a luminosity, it is enlightenment.And existence is not made of the stuff mind is made of, no.Existence is made of the stuff called God; to be more exact, of godliness, which is even beyond enlightenment.Enlightenment is beyond mind.Mind is beyond matter.Godliness is beyond enlightenment, and godliness is simply beyondness. Then this beyondness goes on and on with no end to it.Any scientist who is trying to understand enlightenment without becoming enlightened is proving himself a laughingstock. It is not an object that you can study from the outside. You can study a roseflower from the outside without becoming a roseflower. Of course, it is simple – if you yourself become the roseflower, who is going to study it?The scientist studies objects, but enlightenment is not an object – it is your subjectivity, it is the scientist’s very soul. He cannot put it on the table and dissect it and try to find out what it consists of – who will do it?Science has a limitation. The limitation is that the objective world is its world. Beyond it, any scientist trying to approach the subjective world is just being a Don Quixote. He needs his nuts and bolts tightened – or maybe loosened.Science has no way beyond objects. Beyond objects is the world of religion, or more exactly – of religiousness.Osho,A constant comparison with you, with enlightenment, has made my life very difficult. Deep down, I have a nearly constant guilt feeling for not being enlightened.My closest friends have pointed out to me that in a way I am always comparing myself to you. Then my intelligence doesn't look so intelligent, my happiness seems shallow and false, my love a pretension, and my understanding just a joke.For years I have had this standpoint that I and everybody else is an idiot – except for you and perhaps a handful of others, the blessed ones.Have I simply found a new way to torture myself? Is this comparison with you a strategy to suffer and remain unenlightened?For tomorrow….

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,“You are the world.” This is one of the confusing statements of Krishnamurti.We don't think there is anybody else present on the earth except you who could help us to understand it, so we request you to say something on it.Yesterday, there was a question left, left for tomorrow; but just now I realized that tomorrow never comes. Unless tomorrow comes sometime, that question will have to wait.J. Krishnamurti’s statement that “You are the world” is not confusing at all. It is very simple; just a little intelligence is needed to understand it.We can try to approach the statement from a few different directions.The world is only a name; the individual is the reality. You can go on trying to find the world all over the world, and you will not find it; you will always find the individual.Words like the world, the society, the religion, the nation, are mere words with no content behind them – empty containers.Except you, there is no world.This is one way of understanding the statement: that the individual is the only reality. And the world is nothing but the collectivity of individuals, so whatever it is, it is a contribution of individuals. If it is ugly, you have contributed to its ugliness. If it is full of hate, jealousy, anger, greed, ambition, you have contributed to this whole hell in which we are living. You cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else; you have to accept the responsibility on your own shoulders.That is another way of understanding the statement, “You are the world.”We are continuously shifting the responsibility. If there is war, if there is an Adolf Hitler, a Ronald Reagan, it becomes easy for us to point to these people and say that they are responsible. But who creates them?Adolf Hitler is our contribution. Without us, he is nobody.Ronald Reagan is nothing but our opinion. It is our vote, it is our support.So the moment you condemn anybody, remember: you are condemning yourself. However indirect your contribution may be, your contribution is there.It is possible to live like a Jaina monk or a Buddhist monk or a Catholic monk in a monastery, completely closed as far as the world is concerned.There are monasteries in Tibet…there used to be many in China before the communist revolution. There are a few in Europe with a strange and long history.The monastery at Athos in Europe is one thousand years old. In one thousand years, whoever has entered the monastery has not come out living. You only enter: once a monk, forever a monk. And the monastery does not allow its inmates to come out into the world; they are brought out only when they are dead.Do you think they are not responsible for Adolf Hitler? they are not responsible for world wars?Apparently it looks…How can you make these people responsible? – who have left the world, who have never looked back, who have disconnected themselves with the world.But still I say to you they are responsible. They are responsible by escaping – they escaped their responsibility. It does not make any difference.The Buddhist monks, the Jaina monks, the Hindu monks are not participating in worldly activities. But you can contribute in a positive way or you can contribute in a negative way.You can set fire to this house – that is the positive way, the active way. You can stand by the side of the road and not do anything to put the fire out – that is the negative way. But both are responsible.The negative person does not look so responsible, but his responsibility is absolutely equal – because in life there is a balance.You may be against war, you may be a pacifist, you may be a chronic Protestant – always with a flag protesting against war, against violence. Naturally you can say, “How can I be held responsible?” But life is a complex phenomenon.Your protests, your pacifism, your fight against warmongers is still part of war; you are not a man of peace. And you can see it when people protest – their anger, their violence is so obvious that one wonders why these people are protesting against war. They should join some camp in the war – they are full of anger, rage. They have just chosen to have a third camp behind a beautiful name – “peace”. A good mask, but inside is the same anger, the same rage, the same violence, the same destructiveness against anybody who does not agree with them.They are contributing as much violence to the atmosphere as anybody else.They may be talking about love, but they are also saying that you have to fight for love.Hazrat Mohammed had words written on his sword meaning “peace is my message.” He could find only a sword to write on, that “peace is my message”! And he gave birth to a religion he called Islam. Islam means peace, and Islam has done more violence in the world than any other religion has done. In the name of peace, at the point of a sword, Islam has been killing, converting millions of people.You can choose beautiful words, but you cannot hide the reality.J. Krishnamurti’s statement that “You are the world” simply emphasizes the fact that every individual, wherever he is, whatever he is, should accept the responsibility of creating this world that exists around us.If it is insane, you have contributed to that insanity in your own way. If it is sick, you are also a partner in making it sick.And the emphasis is important – because unless you understand that “I am also responsible for this miserable and insane world,” there is no possibility of change. Who is going to change? Everybody thinks somebody else is responsible.One of India’s great emperors was Akbar. There is an incident in his life recorded in Akbar Mamaz – “the biography of Akbar.”One day he was just chit-chatting with his friends…. And he had around him the very best, wisest, most creative people chosen from every part of the country.His court jester was standing just by his side.By the way, you should understand it: in all the courts of all great emperors there used to be a jester, whose whole function was to keep the court from becoming too serious, to keep the court light, playful – once in a while, an explosion of laughter.It was a great insight to have a court jester, and he used to be one of the wisest men of those days – because it was not an easy phenomenon.Birbal was Akbar’s court jester. And as they were discussing, Akbar slapped Birbal – for no reason at all.Now you cannot slap the emperor back, but the slap has to go somewhere – so he slapped the person who was standing next to him.Everybody thought, “This is strange!” There was no reason in the first place. Suddenly, as if a madness had got hold of Akbar, he slapped poor Birbal. And that man is also strange. Rather than asking, “Why have you slapped me?” he simply slapped the man who was standing by his side!And that man, thinking perhaps this was the rule of the court, slapped the next person. In a chain, it went all over the court.And you will be surprised: that night, Akbar’s wife slapped him! And he said, “Why are slapping me?”She said, “That is not the question; a game is a game.”He said, “Who told you that this is a game?”She said, “We have been hearing the whole day long that a great game has started in the court. The only rule is you cannot hit the person back, you have to find somebody else to hit. And somebody has hit me – so your slap has come back to you, the game is complete!”In this big world, thousands of insane games are going on, and you are all participants – of course in very small measures, according to your capacity. But remember, the slap is going to come back to you sooner or later. Where else will it go?Whatever comes to you, remember, it is your doing.Perhaps you have forgotten when you started it. The world is big, it takes time. But everything comes back to its source – that is one of the fundamental rules of life, not a rule of a game.So if you are suffering, if you are miserable, if you are tense, full of anxieties, anguish, don’t just console yourself that this whole world is ugly, that everybody else is ugly, that you are a victim.J. Krishnamurti is saying you are not a victim, you are a creator of this insane world; and naturally, you have to participate in the outcome of whatever you have contributed to it. You are participating in sowing the seeds, you will have to participate in reaping the crop too; you cannot escape.To make the individual aware so that he stops throwing responsibilities on others – on the contrary, he starts looking inward to see in what way he is contributing to this whole madness – there is a possibility he may stop contributing. Because he has to suffer too. If he comes to know that the whole world is nothing but his projection on a wider scale….Because millions of individuals have contributed the same anger, the same hatred, the same competitiveness, the same violence, it has become mountainous. You cannot conceive that you can be responsible for it: “I may have contributed just a small piece…” But an ocean is nothing except millions and millions of dewdrops. A dewdrop cannot think that it is responsible for the ocean – but the dewdrop is responsible. Without the dewdrop there is going to be no ocean at all. The ocean is only a name; the reality is in the dewdrop.To accept your responsibility will change you, and your change is the beginning of the change of the world – because you are the world. However small, a miniature world, but you carry all the seeds.If revolution comes to you, it heralds the revolution for the whole world.And when J. Krishnamurti says “You are the world” he is not saying it only to you; he is saying it to everybody:You are the world.If you want to change the world, don’t start by changing the world – that is the wrong way humanity has followed up to now:Change the society, change the economic structure.Change this, change that.But don’t change the individual.That’s why all revolutions have failed. Only one revolution can succeed, which has not been tried up to now – and that is the revolution of the individual.You change yourself.Be alert not to contribute anything that makes the world a hell. And remember to contribute to the world something that makes it a paradise.This is the whole secret of a religious man.And if every individual starts doing it, there will be a revolution without any bloodshed.In Akbar’s life there is another incident.He had built a very beautiful marble pond. He was bringing swans from Mansarovar, from the Himalayas. And he decided that in the pond there should not be water. This is the emperor’s pond – instead of water, there should be milk. Everybody in the capital was to be informed that just one bucket of milk, not much, from every house had to reach the palace early the next morning, before sunrise.Birbal told Akbar, “You don’t understand human mind at all. Your pond will be full of water.”He said, “What nonsense…? It is my order!”Birbal said, “Your order, or anybody’s order – I understand human mind.”Akbar said, “Let us wait; tomorrow morning it will be decided who is right.”And the next morning both went to the garden, and the pond was full of water.Akbar said, “This is strange. How did it happen? Catch a few people from the street, whoever is available, and ask how it happened.” And the people were threatened: if they spoke any lie, their life would be at risk; if they said the truth, they would be set free.They said, “The truth is, we thought the whole capital would bring buckets of milk. One bucket of water would be completely overlooked, nobody would ever know. But now I see that the pond is full of water; it seems that everybody had the same thought – the whole capital! Not a single man was different.”The human mind functions exactly the same.So if the world is such a tragedy, it is our human minds which are creating it; we are contributing our bucketful of misery.No revolution can be successful unless the human mind is understood by human beings and they start behaving in a different way – not hoping that “My bucketful of water is not going to be noticed at all.” If everybody understands that this idea is what will come to every human mind, and decides, “At least I should bring a bucketful of milk. I should not behave in such an unconscious way as all human beings are behaving….”It is possible to have the pond full of milk.“You are the world” simply means: whatever it is, we cannot save ourselves from responsibility.Our monks, our saints have tried only this. What they were trying to do, if you go deep into their psychology, was to say that, “We are no longer responsible for all this nonsense that is going on in the world.” But they depended on the same world. For their food they were dependent on the same people; for their clothes they were dependent on the same people. They were not in any way separate from the world; they had only stopped being active in the world. They were silent partners in the whole insanity that is going on.And they should be condemned more, because they were more intelligent people, wiser people. Still they could not see the point that just standing aside is not enough; you have to do something against the normal human mind.Escaping to the Himalayas is not going to help, because even in the Himalayas your mind will remain the same, just you will not have the opportunity to know it. And it is better to know the enemy than not to know it, because by knowing there is a possibility to change.Not knowing is very dangerous.When a disease is diagnosed, it is half cured. When a disease is not diagnosed, then comes the real problem. Medicine is not the problem; diagnosis is the problem.One man lived for thirty years in the Himalayas. His problem was anger, and he wanted to get rid of it. In the Himalayas for thirty years he was not angry for a single moment – there was no reason. The wife was not there, the children were not there, the parents were not there, the society was not there – there was no provocation.His name became famous by and by, and people started coming to worship him. Now it was even more difficult to be aware that the anger was still there. When people are worshipping you, there is no question of anger.Then came the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad. People said, “You are such a great saint. Without you, the Kumbha Mela, the greatest gathering of people on the earth in one place, will be missing something. You have to go.”And by now he was convinced that he had become a great saint. People were coming from far away to make the difficult, arduous journey through the mountains just to pay respects to him.He went to Kumbha Mela, but there were millions of people – nobody knew him. Somebody stepped on his foot, and immediately he slapped the man, took hold of his neck and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”Suddenly he remembered that he was a saint. He said, “My God, what am I doing? What happened to thirty years? The anger came in such a flash, so instantaneously, not even a single moment of thought.” He was going to kill the man.That was the reason he had gone to the Himalayas – because he was afraid he would murder somebody and would be crucified or have to live for his whole life in jail.Even his family had said, “It will be good if you go to the Himalayas because you will kill somebody, and that means you have killed yourself too. This way two lives are saved. You go.”But thirty years…What happened?It is simple fact: the people who have escaped from the world are not to think that they are not responsible for this world. By escaping, they have not changed the world. By escaping, they have not contributed anything to make it more beautiful, more human, more intelligent, more meditative. Neither have they changed the world nor have they gone through any inner change themselves.Hence I am against renouncing the world.Be in the world, however difficult it is – because it is only in the world that you will be reminded on every step what kind of mind you are carrying within.And that mind is projected on the outside, and it becomes huge because so many minds are projecting in the same way.“You are the world” is not a mathematical statement.“You are the world” is a psychological insight.And it can become the very key for the only revolution that can succeed.Osho,Have you anything to say about “channeling”? Supposedly a spirit being speaks through a willing human host. This is a growing phenomenon that is happening right now, particularly in California and New York.There are famous ones – Seth, Ramtha and Lazarus. But now they are springing up everywhere – people claiming to channel Kwan Yin, beings from other galaxies, etc., etc. A common theme seems to be that they have come to help the planet evolve right now.The word channeling is about as common as coca cola. Even some sannyasins are claiming to channel this one or that one. There is almost an attitude that if one is not channeling someone, one is not open to spiritual possibilities.Is channeling a real phenomenon? Why is this springing up right now, and why are people so attracted to channeled beings and information? Is there anything for our spiritual growth in this?California needs all kinds of idiotic ideas.It seems all the idiots of the world are born in California.It is the land of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Everything is possible in California. But it remains only for a few years – three years, four years at the most; then the fashion changes.In California everything is a fashion – and when something is in fashion everybody is involved in it, because not to be involved in it means you are out of date, lagging behind, not belonging to the contemporary world.Channeling is simply a new name for an old disease.In the past they used to call it “being possessed by a ghost”.Channeling is the new name for being possessed. Then the ghost speaks – but that is a very old idea, not very appealing. In old countries, it still continues to happen. There are people in villages in India who become possessed, and when they are possessed you can ask questions and they answer – and they answer in such a way that you can make anything out of it. It is never a certain, meaningful statement.Channeling is an American translation of the old idea of being possessed.There are many people in America – particularly in California and New York – who become possessed and start talking to you, answering you. And certainly their language is different from the old; it is more scientific. The very word channeling has come from television – channel number one, channel number two…. Now, the poor old countries cannot think of channeling, that word is not yet meaningful to them.And the idea of channeling has given a scope…you are channeling to a certain planet, a certain galaxy – and you can say any nonsense, there is no way to prove it right or wrong. Even scientists know nothing about galaxies.There are at least fifty million galaxies. Scientists are still working with very refined instruments to count how many galaxies there are.And one galaxy means…One sun and the planets that are attached to the sun is one solar system. A galaxy means millions of suns, millions of solar systems – which are moving around a certain unknown center of gravity. Each galaxy is so huge…. Science has not been able to find out all the facts about even one galaxy, the galaxy in which we live.Now there are the cunning and there are the stupid, and there are idiots who are channeling to other galaxies and bringing messages to humanity. Books are printed with their messages.But the whole thing is that a person goes into a deep hypnotic sleep – if it is authentic. Out of ten, nine are not authentic. If somebody is authentic, then all that happens in reality is that he relaxes, his conscious mind goes to sleep, and from his unconscious mind, collective unconscious mind, cosmic unconscious mind, things start coming up.You can say they are coming from ghosts. You can talk about them in psychological terms and say they are coming from the unconscious. Or you can talk about them in Californian terms: they are coming from channel number one, channel number two. But they are all coming from your own unconscious mind. This is about the authentic cases.And when so many people are channeling, it becomes a competition. If somebody else is channeling, why can’t you channel? No talent is needed, no intelligence is needed; all that is needed is insincerity, cunningness, fraud.Every year in India, Mohammedans have their holy festival, Muharram. And during Muharram, holy spirits possess people. Those holy spirits – because Mohammedans, just like Christians and Jews, believe only in one life – those holy spirits will always be around until the last judgment day, which goes on being postponed, and I don’t think it is going to happen ever.I had a center in Jabalpur near a Mohammedan graveyard. And they reported to the collector that because of our meditations, the spirits in their graves were very much disturbed.The collector called me: “Why are you disturbing their spirits?”I said, “This is strange. What report have you received? Who has come?”He said, “Mohammedans – and it may create a riot unnecessarily.”Jabalpur was one of the most vulnerable cities in India for Mohammedan and Hindu riots, any excuse….And their excuse was that because when we were doing our meditation we would use the Sufi mantra “hoo.”So the Mohammedans had said, “Because they say, ‘Hoo, hoo, hoo’ the Mohammedan souls lying in their graves wake up. These are dangerous people – because nobody has ever heard of such a meditation. And after one hour these people are gone, but those spirits roam about and torture Mohammedans, and many are becoming possessed.”The collector said, “You stop. At least this ‘hoo’ mantra should be stopped because it can create trouble. And in your own book you have explained that ‘hoo’ is part of ‘allah-hoo’, it is a Sufi mantra. So they have certain grounds against you, that you are disturbing the souls. They are sleeping well, and you ‘hoo, hoo’ every morning, and they get so disturbed that they start torturing Mohammedans.”So I had to close that center.In my childhood, in the village, each time the Mohammedans celebrated the holidays of Muharram, some people were “possessed by the holy spirit.” The holy spirit is called wali. There are a few people who are thought to be very saintly – they are possessed by walis – and they dance and they shout, scream, and you can ask questions.And so that they could not run away, their hands are tied with ropes, and two people kept them under control. There are many walis, and each wali has his own crowd, and people come with sweets and fruits – somebody has received a blessing the previous year and has got a boy, a child; somebody has got married, and somebody has come to get a blessing for the future.Only Mohammedans participate in it, but I always enjoyed every kind of entertainment. My parents used to tell me, “Listen, that is the Mohammedans’ festival, and you are not supposed to be there.”I said, “I am neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Jaina nor anybody. What do you mean – that I cannot enjoy anything? All festivals belong to some religion. In fact, I belong to no religion so I can participate in all festivals.” So I would go there.Once I managed to hold the rope of one wali who was just an ordinary man and a fraud. I had told him before, “I will expose you if you don’t allow me to hold your rope.”He said, “You can hold my rope, and you can share a few sweets also, but don’t say anything to anybody.”We both used to go to the same gymnasium – that’s how we became friends, and he himself told me that it was all fake. So I said, “That means I am coming; if it is fake, you have to share it.”I went there with a long needle, so I could make him jump. He became the most famous wali because no other wali was jumping so high.He could not say anything about what was happening – because he was possessed by the wali and the wali cannot be afraid of a needle. So he could not say anything, and I went on sticking him with the needle. He managed to get almost four times more sweets, more fruit, more rupees. More people came to get his blessing.He said, “That is great, but you tortured me so much!”I was in such demand from that day – every wali wanted his rope to be given to me because whoever got me as his assistant would become the greatest wali – immediately, the very same day.The function continued for ten days, but no wali wanted me again the next day.They would say, “I will escape from town if you come again!”I said, “There is no need. I am in so much demand by other fools who don’t know what is happening. Just give me half your share – because you will still have double.”And I found that almost everybody was a fraud because I could make everybody jump with my needle. Not a single one in the whole town was an authentic person who was possessed or anything. They were just pretending – shouting, screaming, saying things that you couldn’t understand, but you had to make sense out of.And the maulvis, the Mohammedan scholars, would explain to you what the meaning of it was: “You have been blessed, your desire will be fulfilled.” And who bothers about whose desire is fulfilled or not? If a hundred people come, at least fifty people’s desires are going to be fulfilled. These fifty will come back, and will spread the idea. The other fifty will also come back – not to the same wali, but to other walis who are there, because the first wali they went to doesn’t seem to work: “Perhaps he was not powerful enough.”And my walis were the most powerful, and their power was decided by how high they jumped, how much they screamed, how much they shouted.Everybody asked me why my walis were making such gestures toward me. I said, “That is a spiritual language – you will not understand.”In California, you can start a new game. Don’t bother about this channeling – within two years it will be past.California is good. It has money, it has the young generation, unemployed, and it has a tradition of changing everything – changing the job, changing the wife, changing the town, changing the house. In two or three years they become bored. So rather than being worried about their channeling…It is absolute fraud.And if there is someone sincere, that means he is relaxing to the point where the unconscious mind starts throwing up its repressed contents.It has no spiritual value.But it will be good to check. Go to any person who is channeling with the galaxies, but keep a good needle with you! With the needle, the person will start dancing, jumping, and his galaxies will start going higher – from one channel to nine channels. You can check: if your needle does not work, that means the person is at least not a fraud, but is simply falling into unconsciousness and allowing his unconscious to reveal its contents.But they have no spiritual value.But before you leave, try the needle – particularly on the famous ones!Osho,Do you really say yes to me totally just the way I am?Yes, I say yes totally to you as you are because that is the only way I can transform you.My acceptance does not mean that you have to remain what you are; my acceptance means that whatever you are I respect you, I love you.But at the same time, my acceptance means that you can be much more, that this is not the end of your journey. In fact, you have not even begun yet, but I can see the potential.For centuries, this has been the way to challenge you to seek and search: you have been condemned; whatever you are, you are wrong. The emphasis has been that if you are proved to be wrong, a sinner, then you will start changing. But that whole technique has failed. People have accepted that they are wrong, they are sinners, and it is beyond them to be saints. So relax and be sinners – of course not in a joyous way, but with sadness. Their whole life becomes unworthy in their own eyes: guilty, sinful, sad…a long, dark story…useless, futile.The past has condemned you with the hope that it would change you, but their hope has proved wrong.I am going to try a totally different method.I accept you as you are, but that does not mean that I want you to remain as you are. I love you as you are, but I love you because you have so much potential in you, such a great possibility of growth, that with just a little effort you can become a light unto yourself.Whatever you are, enjoy it. But there is much more, so don’t stop at it. You are on the first rung of the ladder – it is perfectly good, because without being on the first rung, how can you be on the second and how can you be on the final, the ultimate?Nobody is a sinner.Yes, there are people who commit mistakes, but nobody is a sinner. And everybody has a right to commit mistakes – because that is the only way to learn. And everybody has to stumble in the dark. That is nothing special to you; everybody falls once in a while, and it is good training.To me, whatever existence makes available to you is for your good. Just use it, and keep your eyes on the faraway stars – they belong to you. However far they are, they are not beyond your reach.Osho,In recent years, science has been discovering more and more the element of subjectivity in experiments in physics. Also, in medicine today, we talk about the subjectivity of therapy; the same medicine has different results with different doctors.Please can you comment about the subjectivity of a science that claims to be an objective one?Anything that has to do with human beings can never be totally objective; it will have to allow a certain space for subjectivity.It is not only true that the same medicine from different doctors has different effects; it is also true that the same medicine has different effects on different patients from the same doctor.Man is not an object.First you have to understand the word subject.A piece of stone is just an object. There is no interiority, there is no innerness to it. You can cut it in two; then there are two objects. You can cut it in four, and there are four objects. But you will not find any interiority.Subjectivity means that from the outside a man is just as objective as any other object – a statue, a dead body, a living body, what is the difference? The statue is simply an object, it has no subjectivity. The dead body has once been a house for a subjective phenomenon, but now it is empty. Now it is an empty house; the person who used to live in it has left it.The living man has all the objectivity of the statue, the dead body, and something more – an interior dimension – which can change many things because it is the most powerful thing in existence.For example, it has been noted that three persons can be suffering the same disease, but the same medicine will not work. On one person it is working; on another it is just fifty-fifty, working and not working; but on the third it is not working at all. The disease is the same, but the interiorities are different. And if you take the interiority into consideration, then perhaps the doctor will make a different impact on different people for different reasons.One of my friends was a great surgeon in Nagpur – a great surgeon but not a good man. He never failed in his surgery, and he charged five times more than any other surgeon would charge.I was staying with him and I told him, “This is too much. When other surgeons are charging a certain amount for the same disease, you charge five times as much.”He said to me, “My success in many other things also has this basis: when a person gives me five times more, he is determined to survive. It is not only because of money that I am greedy. If he is willing to give me five times more – when he could get the operation at cheaper rates – he is determined to survive whatsoever the cost. And his determination is almost fifty percent of my success.”There are people who don’t want to survive; they are not willing to cooperate with the doctor. They are taking the medicine, but there is no will to survive; on the contrary, they are hoping that the medicine does not work so they will not be blamed for suicide, yet they can get rid of life. Now, from the inside that person has withdrawn already. Medicine cannot help his interiority, and without his interior support, the doctor is almost helpless – the medicine is not enough.I came to know from this surgeon…. He said, “You don’t know. Sometimes I do things which are absolutely immoral, but to help the patient I have to do them.”I said, “What do you mean?”He said, “I am condemned by my profession….”And all the doctors of Nagpur condemned him – “We have never seen such a cheat.”He would put the patient on the table in the operating theater – doctors are ready, nurses are ready, students are watching from the gallery above. And he would whisper in the patient’s ear, “We had agreed on a fee of ten thousand – that will not do. Your problem is more serious. If you are ready to give me twenty thousand, I am going to take the instruments in my hands; otherwise, you get up and get out. You can find cheaper people.”Now, in such a situation…. And the person has money; otherwise, how can he say yes? And he accepts it: “I will give twenty thousand, but save me.”And he told me, “Any surgeon could have saved him, but not with such certainty. Now that he is paying twenty thousand, he is absolutely with me; his whole interior being is supportive. People condemn me because they don’t understand me. Certainly it is immoral to agree on ten thousand and then put the person in the operating theater and whisper in his ear, ‘Twenty thousand, thirty thousand…Otherwise get up and get out – because I had not realized that the disease had gone so deep. I am taking a risk, and I am putting my whole reputation on the line. For ten thousand I will not do that. And I have never failed in my life; success is my rule. I operate only when I am absolutely certain to succeed. So you decide. And I don’t have much time, because there are other patients waiting. You just decide within two minutes: either agree, or get up and get lost.’”“Naturally the person will say, ‘I will give you anything you want, but please do the operation.’ It is illegal, it is immoral, but I cannot say that it is unpsychological.”Anything to do with man cannot be purely objective.I used to have another friend, a doctor who is now in jail because he was not qualified at all. He had never been to any medical college; all the degrees that he had written on his sign were bogus.But still I am of the opinion that an injustice has been done to the man – because it does not matter whether he had degrees or not. He helped thousands of people, and particularly those who were becoming hopeless, going from one doctor to another – who all had degrees – and getting tired. And this man was able to save them.He had a certain charisma – no degree. And he made his hospital almost a magic land. The moment a patient would enter his office, immediately he would be surprised. He had been everywhere…because people used to go to him only as a last resort. Everybody knew that the man was bogus, it was not something hidden. It was an open secret.But if you are going to die, what is the harm in trying?And as you entered his garden – he had a beautiful garden – and then his office…He had beautiful women as his receptionists, and it was all part of his medical treatment – because even if a person is dying, looking at a beautiful woman his will to live takes a jump; he wants to live.After the reception, the person would pass through his lab. It was absolutely unnecessary to take him through the lab, but he wanted the person to see that he was not an ordinary doctor. And the lab was a miracle – absolutely useless, there was nothing significant, but so many tubes, flasks, colored water moving from one tube into another tube, as if great experiments were going on.Then you would reach the doctor. And he never used the ordinary methods of checking your pulse, no. You would have to lie down on an electric bed with a remote control. The bed would move far up into the air, and you are lying there looking up and hanging over you there are big tubes. And wires would be attached to your pulse and the pulse would make the water in the tubes jump.The heart would be checked in the same way – not by ordinary stethoscope. He had made all his arrangements visual for the patient – so that he could see he had come to some genius, an expert.And the man had no degrees, nothing at all. His pharmacist had all the degrees, and he used to prescribe the medicines because the man had no idea about medicine.In fact, he never did any criminal thing. He never prescribed medicines, he never signed for them. This was done by a man who had degrees, who was absolutely qualified to do it. But because he arranged all this, and because he had written strange degrees on his sign…and since those degrees don’t exist I don’t think they can be illegal. He was not claiming any legal degrees, he was not claiming that they were from any university that exists. It was all fiction – but the fiction was helpful.I have seen patients half cured just in the examination. Coming out, they said, “We feel almost cured, and we have not taken the medicine yet. The prescription is here – now we will go and purchase the medicine.”But because he had done all this…. This is when I saw that the law is blind. He had not done anything illegal, he had not harmed anybody – but he is in jail because he was “cheating people.” He has not cheated anybody.To help somebody to live longer, if that is cheating, then what is medical help?Because of human beings, medicine can never become an absolutely solid, hundred-percent objective science. That’s why there are so many medical schools – ayurveda, homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture, and many more – and they all help.Now homeopathy is simply sugar pills, but it helps.The question is whether the person believes.There are people who are fanatic naturopaths – nothing else can help them, only naturopathy can help them. And it has no connection with the disease.One of my professors was madly into naturopathy. Any problem…and a mud pack on your stomach. I used to go to him to enjoy, because it was very relaxing, and he had a very good arrangement – a beautiful bath and showers…. And without any difficulty I used to go and say, “I have a very bad migraine.”He said, “Don’t be worried. Just a mud pack on your stomach.”Now a mud pack on the stomach is not going to help a migraine. But it used to help me, because I had no migraine! A mud bath, the full bathtub, and you are drowned in the mud, just your head is out – it is very comfortable and very cool.Soon he realized that, “You come again and again with new diseases.”I said, “That’s true. Because I have got a book on naturopathy – from the book I get the disease, and then I come to you. First I read it, to see what you will do. If I want it to be done to me, I bring that disease; otherwise, unnecessarily lying down in the mud for half an hour….”He said, “So you have been cheating me?”I said, “I am not cheating you. I am your most prominent patient. In the university everybody else laughs at you, I am the only one who supports you. And the others who come here, come here because of me – because I say that my migraine disappeared.”He said, “My God, now I am suffering from migraine. Go!”People used to become angry with me. They would tell me, “My migraine, instead of going, has become more intense – because a cold stomach does not help migraine!”I would say, “Then your system must work differently. With my system, it helps me!”There are homeopaths, fanatics who believe that homeopathy is the only right medicine and all other medicines are dangerous – particularly allopathy is poison. If you go to a homeopath, the first thing he will do is inquire about your whole history from your birth up to now. And you are suffering from a headache.One of the homeopathic doctors used to live near me. Whenever my father came to see me, I would take him to the homeopath. The homeopath told me, “I pray you don’t bring your father because he starts back three generations, that his grandfather had a disease….”I said, “He is also a homeopath. He goes deeper into the roots.”He said, “But he wastes so much time, and I have to listen – and he just has a headache! About his grandfather and all his diseases, then his father and all his diseases…then himself. By the time he comes, almost the whole day is finished. My other patients are gone, and I am listening to him telling what kind of diseases he has suffered from his childhood, and finally it comes out that he has a headache.”“I say, ‘My God, why didn’t you tell me before?’ and he says, ‘Just as you are a homeopath, I am also a homeopath. And I want to give you a complete picture.’”The first thing they will ask is about all your diseases because they believe that all diseases are connected, your whole life is one single whole. It does not matter whether you had something in your leg or your head – they are part of one body, and for the doctor to understand, he has to know everything.The homeopath will ask you what kind of allopathic medicines you have been taking – because that is the root cause of all your diseases; all allopathic medicines are poison.That is the attitude of naturopathy too, that allopathy is poison. So first you have to do fasting, enemas…just to clean you of all allopathy. Once you are clean of allopathy….One of my relatives was very much interested in naturopathy. His wife had a small problem and that was that her hands once in a while would get what you call “pins and needles.” It was not much of a problem, because for two, three minutes the sensation would remain, and then it would be gone. I told her many times, “Don’t make much fuss about it. Enjoy it when it happens – it is not a pain, you just feel pins and needles. So enjoy it!”But the husband was a naturopath, so he brought a bigger naturopath and they started working on her. I tried hard to stop them: “There is no need, it is not much of a disease, and it happens only once in a while. She is almost fifty – twenty years more she will live. In twenty years it will happen maybe sixty times, not more than that – just drop the idea and enjoy it.”But they were going to the very roots. They started putting her on a fast, enema, vomiting…they cleaned her completely. And when she was completely clean, she became mad.And I told the husband, “I was afraid you would kill the woman! You cleaned her so much, she is just a skeleton. And because she is just a skeleton, all is cleaned, those pins and needles are now happening all over her body. You have succeeded!”But they insisted that it was not naturopathy that was responsible for it; it was allopathy, she had been taking allopathic medicines for years.Finally she became mad.The last time I went to see her…. She used to love me very much. I had been chosen by my university to go with a delegation to Saudi Arabia. She was not in her senses, but when I told her that I had been chosen to go to Saudi Arabia with a cultural delegation, she heard it, she understood it, and she said, “Only two things you have to remember – don’t forget.”I said, “I will not forget. You just tell me what those two things are.”“First, don’t use wooden sandals” – because I used to wear wooden sandals in the university just to torture the whole university. I would be at one corner of the campus, and the whole university would know that I had entered, I was in the university. Wherever I was, I could be found just by the sound.I said, “Why are you worried about my wooden sandals?”She said, “It won’t look right in a foreign country. What will they think of wooden sandals? No, you don’t do that.”I said, “Okay, I will not use wooden sandals. What is your second advice?”She said, “Second advice: You are going to a Mohammedan country. Don’t speak against the Koran.”And the same night she died.And for perhaps three months those had been the only words of sanity from her.My own explanation is that she loved me so much that even in this insane state her love took over her madness to give me suggestions – don’t speak against Mohammedans, against the Koran, and don’t use the wooden sandals.Man is a subjective being. If the patient loves the doctor, then water can function as medicine. And if the patient hates the doctor, then no medicine can help. If the patient feels the doctor is indifferent – which is ordinarily the case with doctors, because they are also human beings, the whole day long seeing patients, the whole day long somebody is dying…they slowly, slowly become hard, they create a barrier to their emotions, sentiments, humanity. But this prevents their medicine from being effective. It is given almost in a robot-like way, as if a machine is giving you medicine.With love, the patient is not only getting medicine; around the medicine something invisible is also coming to him.Medicine will have to understand man’s subjectivity, his love, and will have to create some kind of synthesis in which love and medicine together are used to help people.But one thing is absolutely certain: that medicine can never become entirely objective. That has been the effort of medical science up to now, to make it absolutely objective.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Something feels drastically wrong about the way society looks after – or fails to look after – the elderly.You have spoken of the legalization of euthanasia for those who are so mentally or physically debilitated that they can hardly be said to be living at all. But what can be done for those who are not physically or mentally incapacitated, but are retired from their professions, and whose families have grown up?In the past, families often felt obliged to have one or both parents live with them – often with disastrous results. Abuse of the elderly, called “granny-bashing” is an epidemic problem in America. Alternatively, the elderly are put into homes, where they are visited at weekends out of guilt and a sense of duty; or they are entirely neglected. The housing complexes provided for the elderly are often depressing and lonely, like a state of limbo between life and death.It feels so ungracious and inhuman that society uses people and then casts them off into anonymity. Would you please comment?The problem of the elderly has arisen because man is living longer than he used to live before.All the old skeletons found in India, in China and other ancient countries prove one thing: that nobody used to live more than forty years, hence the problem of the elderly never arose in those societies.It is because of this fact that the scriptures go on saying that in our country people never became old. It was not something great, it was simply that before old age they were dead. Death came before old age; now it comes after.And as a country is more advanced, people are living longer – ninety years, a hundred years. In a few countries, there are thousands of people who have crossed the boundary line of one hundred and fifty. And in a few special places, because of their food, their climate and their genetics, a few people have reached the age of one hundred and eighty. And they are still young, they are working just like anybody else.But the problem for the society is that employment is limited. The population growth is tremendous. New people are coming in such great numbers that we have to vacate places for them, we have to retire people. And as time passes, we will have to retire people even earlier than we are retiring them now. Now in a few countries it is sixty years, in a few countries fifty-five years, but soon this will not be possible. People will have to retire by the age of around forty-five – because the pressure of the new people coming will be so great that if you don’t give them opportunities they will create chaos.But to retire somebody at the age of forty-five is dangerous, it creates many psychological problems.First, a person needs some work, some creativity, to feel that he is needed. This is one of the most essential psychological needs of man – to be needed. The moment you feel you are no more needed, suddenly something starts dying within you, shrinking within you – as if the will to live has lost all its power, energy, hope. Tomorrow is nothing but darkness.And the person who has become useless to the society – that’s what retirement is…. We make it as beautiful as we can by giving a beautiful pocket watch, celebrating it – it is just a cover-up. The reality is, we are throwing the person in the junkyard: “You are no longer needed, your work is finished. Now younger people, more educated, better educated, who know the latest scientific developments, are going to replace you. You are out of date.”Suddenly, you have become a posthumous person.You will go on living, breathing, eating, but it will be just like an appendix to a book – the book is finished, and nobody reads the appendix. One starts losing dignity, self-respect; one starts feeling out of place everywhere – one is no longer connected with the society, with who is now in power; a great gap has arisen.These people are going through a tremendous inner turmoil and crisis.To keep them in the family, as has always been done in the past, is to create a nuisance for the new ones – because these people have nothing to do except criticize. They are ready to get angry, easily annoyed, irritated, ready to fight.In fact, these are their ways of making the society and the family feel that they are alive, that you cannot just ignore them. They are doing it in a wrong way, but whatever they are doing should be understood with great compassion: they are simply asking for a little attention. For their whole life they have been paid attention to – in the offices, in the shops, in the government, wherever they were they were somebody. And now they are nobody – not even to their own children.And the problem becomes more complex because the children have no obligation to be bothered with these old people. They have a small life span of their own; soon they will be retired. Before retirement they want to enjoy life – to eat, drink and be merry.And these old people are sitting there, continuously watching what you are doing; they suddenly become very spiritual, moralistic disciplinarians; they start finding loopholes in everybody’s life – and nobody likes it. Nobody wants to be interfered with. Their independence to live their life in their own way is their birthright.And these old people, to the younger generation, look like idiots for the simple reason that the younger generation knows more, it is better educated. Science is progressing in leaps and bounds. Every generation comes with the latest developments, canceling all old knowledge as false, as mistaken.It was not so in the past. Things have changed so dramatically that unless we take the whole into account, we will not be able to solve the problem.In the past the situation was totally different, diametrically different. There was no gap between the younger and the older generation.The gap has only been created in this century. In the past, by the time he was six or seven the young child would start following his father – if the father was a carpenter, he would start carrying his wood, his instruments. If the father was a woodcutter, he would go with him to the forest – whatever small help he could give, and whatever small amount he could learn…because profession came by birth. You were going to do the same thing your father did and your forefathers had been doing for centuries, there was no mobility.It was not that a shoemaker’s son would become a carpenter, or a carpenter’s son would become a goldsmith – the profession came by birth. So from the very beginning the child knew what he was going to become: he was going to become exactly a replica of his father.The question of a gap did not arise. And the father always knew more, and the child always knew less – because the only way of knowing was by experience. A carpenter’s son had to learn by doing carpentry. Naturally the father was much more knowledgeable about the art, the craftsmanship, and at no time could the son say, “You are out of date.”This is why all the old civilizations respect old people, because the old people always knew more than the young people. Old people expect the same today also, but it is not possible – they have forgotten that the basic root was that the older knew more than the younger. Now the situation is just the reverse: the younger know more than the older.Your father may have come out of the university thirty years ago. In thirty years, everything has changed. And when you come out of the university, the father cannot expect – should not expect the same respect that was always given to him in the past. The situation is completely reversed. Now the son knows more; the father has to ask the son for his advice because he is coming fresh from the university, bringing the latest research on any subject.Now, experience is not the only way of learning.We have created schools, colleges, universities – an alternative way of learning, far quicker.The way of experience is slower. Now, how quickly you can learn depends on your intelligence. Libraries are available, books are available, teachers are available. If you are just ready to learn, you can learn so much by the time you come out of the university that it is natural at many points to think: “My father is behaving stupidly, my father is doing things which are out of date – they should not be done.”Your father may be a doctor – he is giving medicines which you know, because you have come from the university, have been abandoned; they are not to be given, they are dangerous. And he is still prescribing them because in his time he learned that those were the right medicines. Such drastic changes have happened.The younger generation has come for the first time to a higher knowledge level than the older.If he is considerate, a young person may respect old age – but it is going to be just formal, not real. In the past it was a real phenomenon, not formal – he really felt it. Now he cannot feel it.I know from my own experience.My teachers in the university had passed their examinations, their post graduation, their PhD’s twenty years before. In those twenty years everything had changed.It does not change for the mediocre – because they never go to the university, they are not bothered. But what has happened in the world of knowledge is that people still go on listening to a man who is teaching everything wrong.Because I have been interested in books from my very childhood, it was a constant problem and conflict in every class. I could not pay them respect; I said to my teachers, “Formally, I can pay respect to you, but don’t expect it in a realistic way – because what you are saying is no longer true. And to give real respect to you means to accept what you are saying as true.”“I respect truth – that’s why I cannot respect you. For twenty years you have not been in contact with the developing knowledge. Once you came out of the university, you never read anything about what has happened in your subject.”And the rate of research in all subjects is such that now big books – particularly in physics, in chemistry, in biochemistry – are not written, because by the time you write a big book of a thousand pages most of it will have been proved wrong. So only periodicals, papers are published. And in that too you have to be very quick because you are not working on the subject alone.Albert Einstein was asked once, “If you had not discovered the theory of relativity, do you think it would have ever been discovered?”He said, “Within three weeks – at the most.” It was very shocking because people thought that you had to be an Albert Einstein.He said, “That is true, but there are many Albert Einsteins around the world who are working along the same lines. It is only a question of who comes first, it is a race.”And it was found that another German physicist had already discovered everything about the theory of relativity, but he was late in publishing his paper; otherwise, Albert Einstein would not have been the first man to bring light to the whole subject. This man had discovered everything, he was just a little lazy about writing his paper – but his discovery was earlier than Albert Einstein’s.People are researching small details – not big subjects, because big subjects take a longer time. People are taking very small pieces of subjects so that they can finish them quickly before anybody else does, and then they can give the paper to the university, or to whoever publishes the paper.Now there are thousands of universities around the world working on the same subjects, thousands of scholars.And I found that my teachers, without exception, were twenty or thirty years behind the times. And because I said so, it became a constant trouble. Colleges, universities would not accept me, would not give me admission, and they would not give the reasons. Somehow I had to convince a principal.I still remember the scene….This principal was a little crazy. He was a devotee of the mother goddess Kali of Calcutta, and every morning from four o’clock he would start….He was a very big man. He was a wrestler in his youth, and the rumor was that in the early days the famous wrestler Gama was defeated by him – but by that time Gama was no longer famous. And this principal had the body of a great wrestler; he was black, looked dangerous. And from four o’clock the whole neighborhood was tortured by him – “Jai Kali.” And he had a real loud voice, no loudspeakers needed.When I was refused from a few places, I thought perhaps this crazy person could be persuaded. So I went early in the morning, five o’clock. He was in his temple – in his beautiful bungalow, he had a small temple, and the whole area was sounding, resounding, “Jai Kali” – victory to Kali.I went into the temple. He was alone. I also started shouting, “Victory to Kali.”He looked at me. He said, “You are a believer in Kali?”I said, “Anybody who has any intelligence has to be a believer in Kali. And you are the greatest man I have come across.”He said, “Everybody thinks I am crazy.”I said, “They are all crazy.”He invited me for breakfast. And he said, “What are you doing?”I said I was studying in a certain college, although I had been expelled from that college.He said, “You leave all those colleges and come to my college. I will give you all the scholarships, every kind of help, because you are the first person who has recognized me.”In that way I got entry into his college. But once I was in, he was in trouble – professors started coming to him…. He called me, and he said, “This is not good. It seems you bluffed me.”I said, “This is true, I bluffed you – because there was no other way.”He said, “Then you will have to do one thing: you should not come to the college at all; just come to take your examinations.”I said, “What about my percentage for being present in the lectures?”He said, “I will take care of it. You will get ninety percent for attendance, but don’t come to the college! Because every professor is complaining – it is not a question of one professor; you are torturing everybody. They all say, ‘Now we cannot compete with this young man. He has read the latest – and we can see that we are twenty years behind, but we cannot manage to read all that has happened in twenty years. We have to take care of the children and the wife and the whole family. And he makes us so embarrassed. He brings facts and we know that he is right, but we cannot tolerate this constant embarrassment. And because of him, other students are losing respect. They are all thinking that we know nothing. He has created the atmosphere in the college that all the professors are idiots.’”I said, “It is true, you have got first-class idiots.”He said, “Listen, I am giving you all the facilities for not coming to the college.”I said, “That’s a perfectly good arrangement, but once in a while can I come to your temple just to participate in the worship?”He said, “Now there is no need to bluff me. I was also surprised that nobody in my whole life had said that I was a great man. Only this young man has recognized my spirituality. You bluffed me once, that’s enough.”For two years I did not go to the college, but I was going to the university library, getting ready for my post graduation so I could torture the post-graduate professors.Today, every young person coming from the university is ahead of the older generation. His lifestyle has changed, his thinking about the world has changed, his values have changed – and the old people are constantly poking their noses into it. So the only way that has been found is to put these old people in houses for the old.Out of duty, out of guilt, the children go to meet their parents there, but not for love, not for joy. And most often they are neglected; nobody ever goes there.Their lives are certainly very miserable.They have lost their jobs, and with their jobs their respect, with their jobs their worth, with their jobs the feeling that they are somebody. Their ego is punctured. They have lost their family.Their children are grown up and don’t want to live with them – because they would like their children to listen to the music of Mozart, and the children are interested in the Beatles. The old people think, “Beatles? – this is not music. This is simply madness, this is not dance!”The gap is so big that it is unbridgeable.The solution is sad.The children are gone, the family is gone.These old people’s houses look sad; they seem to be waiting rooms for the graveyard – dull, depressed, dark.Certainly there is a great problem, and this problem is going to become bigger every day.My suggestion is: first, the moment old people retire and their families send them to the houses for the old, their marriages should also be canceled – because love can bring a new spring again. It doesn’t matter whether you are fifty or sixty.They have produced children, they have lived together; now it is time. They are departing from the family, they have departed from the job; they should depart from the marriage also – because their sadness has much to do with the situation of the husband and wife left alone. No friends, no children, no job – and they are tired of each other, they don’t seem to take any interest in each other.It should be optional: if some couple wants to live together, that is up to them, but if couples want to separate they should be respectfully separated so they can start their lives anew – and for the first time without worries. They have their pensions, money is no longer a problem; they can find new partners, new lovers.And it has been psychologically established that if even an old man falls in love with a woman, his life is lengthened at least by ten years – because love gives juice to your roots, you again become young, you again start looking at flowers, thinking of poetry, thinking of painting, writing love letters.So the first thing is that love should be given another chance.And what is the harm? – if you can have two springs in your life….And now you are more experienced. You will not reproduce children again – that phase is over, you have tortured yourself enough. You will take every care that children are not produced.And it is a strange phenomenon: the moment somebody falls in love, many things change – his face has a different glow, his eyes become more shiny, he smiles more. He may go and dye his hair – life is taking a new beginning – get a beautiful set of teeth. He has to become a little younger.To me, love is a kind of chemistry – it is chemistry. Your body starts functioning in a different way.He will start thinking, if he is a man, to go for morning walks, jogging, swimming, to keep his body fit because now there is a woman. For himself he was not caring about his body, but the woman….And the woman is going to care about her body at least twenty times more. It will be a beautiful place because then in those old people’s houses, people will paint their rooms in lighter colors, not dark and sad, gloomy. They will bring flowers, they will start gardening, may go for a world tour, may go for a long trip in a boat.Life can be joy.They can meditate, they can study. Much that they always wanted to do and had no time to do…now they have time, they have money. They can paint, they can sculpt.My own idea is that special classes should be opened in every university for these old people who want to learn painting, who want to learn sculpture, who want to learn music, who want to learn dancing. They should enter the university again, a second phase of education.I have always had the idea that the first phase of education is the preparation for life and the second phase of education should be the preparation for death.You don’t have any preparation for death, no education for death. This is a lopsided situation. A person has lived half his life, and you trained him, educated him. Now the other half should not be left barren like a desert. He should begin again, with the second part of his education. He meditates, he learns creative arts, he dances. He writes poetry, novels.Whatever he wanted to do in life…now life has respectfully given him time to do everything that has been just a desire in his mind, just a dream. Now it can be turned into a reality.And he should be freed from all old bondage – marriage, or any other kind of bondages – so he can start new adventures in every direction.We can make the second part so beautiful that people who are still in the first part will feel jealous, will feel, “How long will it take for me to be retired? – because those old guys are really enjoying it. We are working, earning; they are simply relaxing, taking sunbaths on different beaches around the world, with different women.”The old people have to defeat the young – there is no need to be defeated. Right now they have taken a very defeatist attitude. They should take it as a challenge: “Now we will prove that old age is not a misery, that it can become a tremendously beautiful experience.”In fact, it has to be more beautiful than the first phase, because the first phase was only a preparation for the second.And the second is the preparation for the eternal.Osho,When you talk about the “art” of something, and the “science” of something else, what is the essential difference? Is it that an art can only be approached and appreciated intuitively, subjectively, while a science is approached and appreciated with the help of the mind and objectively?The scientific approach and the approach of art certainly have that difference.Art is intuitive, more of the heart, more subjective, more intimate.Science is objective, not intimate at all; it has nothing to do with your intuition or your feeling, nothing to do with your heart. In fact, it has nothing to do with you at all.If you heat water, it will evaporate at one hundred degrees. Who heats the water does not matter – whether it is a man or a woman, whether it is a boy or an old man, a Tibetan lama or a Catholic monk. Water simply follows an objective rule; it is not concerned with the person who is boiling it. There may not be any person at all; it can be boiled just by pressing a button, a machine can do it.So that is certainly one of the differences.Art is a totally different matter.First, it is not objective; it is something that is born within you. Then you project it onto something outside – it may be a painting.Vincent Van Gogh painted a single painting for one year continuously. He rejected it hundreds of times. He was painting the sun, and every day he would reject it. And his friends were tired; they said, “Nobody has painted the sun so much – and you have painted so many paintings so beautifully but you go on rejecting them.”I am bringing him in because I want to tell you that he had a certain inner criterion, he had a certain inner painting of the sun. And it was not being projected exactly as he had it in him – that was the rejection; otherwise, there was no question.That is the difference between a painting and photograph.A photograph is part of science, a painting is not.One very rich woman asked Picasso how much he would take to make a portrait of her.He said, “What do you want – a photograph or a painting?”She said, “I don’t understand the difference. What do you mean?”He said, “A photograph is a simple thing. You will be sitting there, and I will make a drawing of your face, of your body, on the canvas. I will be simply functioning like a camera. It will be a photograph – although everybody will say it is a painting.”“But if you want a painting then you have to be ready, because in the painting I will not be a camera; in the painting I will be subjectively involved. So the outcome will not be just your picture; it will be a picture processed through my subjectivity. It may not even look similar to you.”The woman said, “I would like a painting because photographs can be done by cameras very easily and cheaply. You are asking one million dollars, so let it be a painting.”It was a painting.And when the woman looked at it she could not believe what it was…. She said, “Just one thing I want to ask: just tell me where my nose is?”Picasso said, “I don’t know anything about it. Do you ever ask a camera? You just look at the picture and find out. I have processed you through my subjectivity and this is what happens. I will try to find out where your nose has gone, where other things are – they must be somewhere. But I refuse to sell it.”The woman was shocked. She said, “Why?”He said, “You cannot appreciate a painting. Your question was so stupid. And I have worked so hard on your painting, I have put my whole soul into it, and you are worried about your nose! I am not going to sell it. You need only a photograph, which you can recognize.”A photograph is prose.A painting is poetry. It becomes mysterious because it passes through man’s innermost feelings. It takes a new birth. It is not a reproduction. Another incident….A man purchased a Picasso painting, and paid a million dollars. But when you pay a million dollars, you want to be certain that it is an authentic Picasso.One critic said, “Don’t be worried, it is an authentic Picasso because I was staying with him when he painted this. I am a witness. You can purchase it without any fear.”He purchased it, but he said, “You will have to come with me to see Picasso because I want to hear it from him that it is an original, authentic.”The critic said, “There is no problem.” They went.The critic was a friend of Picasso, and he said, “You must remember, I was staying with you when you did this painting.”He said, “I remember it perfectly well, but this is not authentic, this is not original. I have done it.”The critic said, “Are you going mad? On one hand you say you have done it, and on the other hand you say it is not authentic, not original. What do you mean?”Picasso said, “I have painted the same painting before, and it is hanging in a museum. You can go and see – that was authentic, that was original. This painting…I was not getting any new ideas, and there was a customer who wanted a painting. So I simply copied my own painting – but it is a copy. It does not matter who copies it, whether Picasso copies it or somebody else does, it is a copy. It is not authentic, it is not original. I am not involved in it at all, it is not part of my subjectivity. The first painting is. They are exactly alike, you cannot find any difference – but I made the difference, and the difference is significant.”The scientific approach is about objects, which are common.Because art is personal, subjective, it can never be common. You may not agree on one painting – two persons may not agree at all that it is beautiful. To somebody it may be ugly, to somebody else it may be beautiful. It is a personal phenomenon.But I was talking about more fundamental differences.When I say the science of hypnosis is not the art of hypnosis, my meaning is that the art is always invented, it has no reality in existence. It is invented by the artist.You can find statues of horses with flying wings. Nowhere in reality are there horses with flying wings – there are wings and there are horses, you can combine them. But that is your invention, not a discovery.Art is invention. Science is discovery.Science only discovers that which is already there, and art creates.Science is never creative; it only finds out whatever is the case. Art creates out of nothing.Hypnosis is not an art. It is a science; you can discover the principles – they are exactly the same anywhere on the earth. In any age, at any time, in any culture, in any society; those principles are there to be discovered. They are already there; you only have to discover them.A painting by Picasso or the poetry of Rabindranath or a musical composition by Yehudi Menuhin are not already there. It is Yehudi Menuhin who creates it, it is Rabindranath who composes it – because it is subjective, personal and invented.You can have different opinions about art, but you cannot have different opinions about science. Opinions don’t matter; science is factual.Art is fictional. Art has beauty, and tremendous genius is needed to create it. The artist is almost like a god creating the world.If the story is true that God created the world, then it is an art, then God is an artist, not a scientist – because to be a scientist he will have to discover the world…the world is already there, and then he discovers it.I want hypnosis to be understood as a science and not as an art for this basic reason: discovery and invention.Osho,This is an excerpt from a conversation with Gurdjieff; these are his words: With ordinary love goes hate: I love this, I hate that. Today I love you; next week, or next hour, or next minute, I hate you. He who can really love, can be; he who can be, can do; he who can do, is. To know about real love, one must forget all about love and must look for direction. As we are, we cannot love. We love something because something in ourselves combines with another's emanations. We allow ourselves to be influenced. We project our feelings upon others. Anger begets anger. We receive what we give. Everything attracts or repels. There is the love of sex, which is ordinarily known as “love” between man and woman – when sex disappears a man and a woman no longer “love” each other. There is love of feeling, which evokes the opposite, and makes people suffer. Later we will talk about conscious love. Osho, can you please talk about conscious love, both in a man-woman relationship and in the master-disciple relationship?The question is not only about conscious love.The basic thing is consciousness.A conscious person does everything consciously – love or painting or dancing or making a cup of tea; it does not matter what. Consciousness prevails over all your actions, just as unconsciousness prevails over all your actions. You love unconsciously, you hate unconsciously, you do everything unconsciously.So the whole problem has to be reduced to these two words: consciousness and unconsciousness.Love can be a good example.People say they love, but they don’t know what they are saying, they don’t know what they mean – because they love a car, they love a woman, they love a certain brand of cigarette, they love the football matches. It is difficult to figure out what they mean by love.Unconscious love is simply a magnetic pull toward something, irresistible. But you are not going toward the object of love, you are being pulled. You are fast asleep. In your whole life, you are behaving like a somnambulist. There are many people who wake up in the night without waking up; they get up, not wake up. And they will do things, and they will go back to sleep and in the morning they will not remember what they have done.Many times when people think that their houses are haunted by ghosts, it is just that somebody in the house is a somnambulist who does things in sleep – sets fire to things, throws things away, and goes to his bed and sleeps well. And in the morning he is as puzzled as everybody else – not that he is deceiving anybody, just he has no remembrance.Your life – which one minute is full of love, the next minute all the love disappears…. Not only that, it can turn into hate; you were ready to die for the person and the next moment you can kill the person.According to Gurdjieff, and according to those who have awakened, the whole of humanity is asleep, sleepwalkers. Things are happening but you are not the doers because you are not conscious enough to do something.You fall in love. You cannot say that it is a conscious decision on your part. Perhaps the woman’s hair is just like your mother’s hair. Every male child loves his mother, that is his first love object. The baby girl loves her father, that is her first love object. And slowly, slowly the father and mother become imprints – the mother becomes imprinted on the boy, the father becomes imprinted on the girl.And when the boy falls in love with a woman, his unconscious mind signals him, “Here comes your mother.” You don’t hear it. And nobody can be exactly like your mother, so there can only be some similarity – the way the woman walks, the face of the woman, the eyes of the woman, the way she talks. Anything can trigger in you the old figure waiting in your unconscious, deep in the well inside you.The same happens to the girl – the way the man walks, just the sound of his boots, may remind her of her father. Any small thing can trigger it, and suddenly you feel a great love arising in you. But because it is only fragmentary, it cannot be very lasting. It can be lasting if you don’t ever meet – then you will never come to know about the other fragments. So the most successful lovers in the world are those who never meet. They make the most romantic, beautiful stories – no quarrel, no nagging, no fighting. And they never come to find out that “This is not the woman made for me and I am not the man made for this woman” – they never come close enough to know this.But unfortunately, most lovers get married.That is the most unfortunate accident in life.That destroys the whole beauty; otherwise they would have been Laila and Majnu, Shiri and Farhad, Soni and Mahival – great lovers of history. But all those great lovers never met, never lived in a one-room apartment in Bombay.Once two persons are together, then other fragments of their lives are bound to surface. You have to become acquainted with the whole woman you have got; the woman has to become acquainted with the whole man she has got – and there is the trouble, because then slowly you find that the fragment you love is very small in comparison to the fragments you hate. Now just the color of the hair does not help, nor the face nor the eyes nor the nose – nothing helps.In the West, women have been asking me – -because their love lives are not going well…. Nobody’s love life is going well, it simply does not happen. So those poor women were asking if they should get their nose fixed by a plastic surgeon – because the husband is continuously talking about her nose, that it looks Jewish. And he is so much against Jews – the moment he sees the nose, all love disappears. The poor woman is ready to fix her nose.I said, “Don’t unnecessarily torture your nose. He will find something else, this is just an excuse. Right now he may become accustomed to this nose, but if you fix it then every time he sees you he will see that this woman has a fixed nose, she is really a Jew behind the nose. It will be very difficult for him to forget this. And the money is going from his pocket to fix your nose. You just leave it as it is.”In fact, for centuries a wrong concept has been prevalent: that lovers should like each other in every possible way. That is absurd. Lovers should make it clear – “These are the things I don’t like.” Both should make it clear, that “These are the things I don’t like, and these are the things I love.” And there is no need to quarrel about it every day because that quarrel is not going to change anything. They have to learn to accept that which they don’t like – a kind of co-existence, a tolerance. This is for the lovers who are not awake.A conscious love is a totally different thing. It has nothing to do with love as such, it has something to do with meditation, which makes you conscious. And as you become more and more conscious, you become aware of many things. One: that it is not the object of love that is important. It is your loving quality, your lovingness that is important, because you are so full of love you would like to share it. And the sharing has to be unconditional. You cannot say, “I will not share if your nose is Jewish” – what has sharing to do with noses?Conscious love changes the whole situation.Unconscious love is centered on the object of love.Conscious love is centered in oneself, it is your lovingness.Unconscious love is always addressed to one person; hence there is always jealousy – because the other person also knows that unconscious love is always centered on one person, that it cannot be shared. If you start loving somebody else, that means you have stopped loving the first person. That’s the jealousy, the continuous fear that your lover may start loving somebody else – as if love is a quantity.Conscious love is a quality, not quantity.It is more like friendliness – deeper, higher, with more fragrance, but similar to friendliness. You can be friendly to many people, there is no question of jealousy. It does not matter that you are friendly to five persons or ten persons or ten thousand persons; nobody will feel deprived because you love so many people and his share is going to be less and less. On the contrary, as you are able to love more people, your quality of love becomes mountainous. So whoever you love gets more love if your love is shared by many people. It dies if it is narrowed. It becomes livelier if it is spread over a vast area – the bigger the area, the deeper are its roots.Consciousness gives everything a transformation. Your love is no more addressed to anybody in particular. It does not mean that you stop loving. It simply means you become love, you are love, your very being is love, your breathing is love, your heartbeats are love. Awake you are love, asleep you are love.And the same is true about everything else – your understanding, your intelligence, everything goes through the same change. You become the center of the whole existence, the center of the cyclone, and everything radiates from you and reaches anybody who is able to receive it.It is not a question of loving someone for certain reasons; it is love simply out of abundance – you have so much that you have to share it, you have to radiate it. And whoever receives it, you are grateful to the person.Conscious love makes you a doer, a being, a soul.In unconscious love, you are just an emptiness – dark and dismal, hungry and thirsty. In unconscious love, you are a beggar. You are begging for love, because love is nourishment.And this is hilarious: You are begging for love, the other person, whom you are in love with is also begging for love – two beggars holding their begging bowls before each other, and both begging bowls are empty.Conscious love makes you an emperor. You don’t beg; you simply give. And you give because now you see that the more you give the more you have. So whoever accepts your love, you are grateful to the person.The whole earth can become full of love, an ocean of love, but only with conscious people.With unconscious people, it is just a disgusting place, nauseating… everybody pretending to be loving, and nobody is loving. Everybody is trying to exploit the other, and the other is doing the same to him. And because both are empty, sooner or later they are going to start quarreling: that “You deceived me,” that “You cheated me,” that “You betrayed me,” that “You are not the woman you pretended to be,” that “You are not the man you were showing yourself to be.” But with beggars this is going to be the problem.I have heard about a beggar who used to sit by the side of a bridge. One day he asked, “Give something to a blind, helpless old man.”So they gave him one rupee. He looked at the rupee and he said, “This is not real, this is false.”They said, “But you are blind!”He said, “I am not blind. The man who usually sits here is blind. Today he has gone to see a film. He is my friend, I am just sitting in his place.”But everybody in this whole world of unconsciousness is a beggar, trying in every possible way to snatch some love, some attention, some sympathy – because love is a necessary nourishment. Without love, you cannot live; just as food is necessary for the body, love is necessary for the soul. And everybody is suffering without love, because without love your souls are dying.But what we are doing is not right.The right way is to bring consciousness to yourself.And from consciousness there will be many revolutions in many dimensions. Love will be one of the most important dimensions, and you will find the golden key of how to get love from the whole existence.The secret is: whatever you have, give it, share it.Once the universe knows that you have become a sharer, then all the sources of the universe become available to you. They are inexhaustible.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Some time ago, in answer to my question as to whether enlightenment is the only way a disciple can express gratitude to her master, I heard you say that nothing could express the gratitude. I realized then that gratitude is something that we usually feel almost burdened with, and so we seek to find an outlet for it so that we are relieved of a debt. As the disciple can't express her gratitude – and what would the master do with it anyway? – it seems to me that it could become a kind of quality in someone that could transform them. Would you please comment?Maneesha, the path of the mystic is the path of growing qualities, of transforming the quantitative into the qualitative. For example, love can be a quantity – and as love is understood in the world of sleeping people, it is a quantity; hence, it is followed by jealousy.If I love you, you are in continuous fear that I may start loving somebody else too.And with the love divided, you will not be getting the same quantity you were getting before.Jealousy is nothing but an expression that love is still a quantity in your mind: shared, it becomes less; shared with many people, you are getting less and less. Hence a monopoly is needed, so that you can have the whole lot of it.And both of the lovers – because of this stupid idea – are suspicious, are always spying on each other. If your husband sees you laughing with somebody else, even that is enough to create a quarrel, a conflict, a fight. Your laughter is his monopoly. You cannot smile anywhere else, you cannot be joyful with somebody else; you are confined to an imprisonment. And the same way you are confined, you are jailed, in return you are creating a jail for your jailer. All lovers are functioning as jailers to each other.Hence, love promises so many roses but brings only thorns, promises stars but brings only wounds.The awakened person, the person who is conscious of his acts, of himself, transforms every quantity into quality. His love becomes lovingness. He is a loving person.Now, lovingness is not a quantity, it is a quality. It is not confined to somebody, it has nothing to do with the other, it has something to do with yourself. Your heart is overflowing with a loving energy; everybody is invited…whoever is receptive.The same is true about other ingredients of yourconsciousness.Gratitude is also one of the most important things in the interior world of man. But always remember the distinction: if gratitude is a quantity, then you are going to become burdened with it because quantity is material, and matter has weight; you need to be unburdened.And when I said there is no way to show your gratitude to the master, naturally a problem arises: what you are going to do with this burden? You will be crushed under it. It may turn sour.But gratitude can be transformed into gratefulness. Gratefulness has nothing to do with quantity; it is a quality. You are simply grateful – not only to the master, because the idea of being grateful only to the master is again a hangover of your old ideas of monopoly. The master is to free you; the master is to destroy all limits that confine you, imprison you.If you are grateful, you are grateful to the earth, you are grateful to the sky, you are grateful to the stars, you are grateful to the ocean, you are grateful to the whole of existence.This is the only way not to feel burdened.Gratitude is transformed from matter into energy. Matter is like stone – heavy and hard. The moment it is transformed into quality, it becomes just an energy, a radiant energy. And energy can never be kept confined – its life is in the flow from one end of eternity to the other end; this whole universe is its space.A single man can fill the whole universe with his gratefulness, with his lovingness, with his friendliness, and there will be no burden on him. In fact, the greater the transformation from quantity to quality, the lighter you will feel. A moment comes when you have transformed all that is material in you. In the immaterial you are freed of weight – then gravitation does not work on you.Then you have wings and the whole sky is yours. And there are skies beyond skies, and they are all yours.Love for the master, gratitude to the master should bring freedom to you.And that is possible only if you start changing nouns into verbs. Existence really consists of verbs.Nouns are fictions created by man.In existence, there is nothing which is a noun. You say this is a tree, but have you ever thought? – while you are saying this is a tree, the tree is bringing new leaves, old leaves are falling; new flowers are blossoming, old flowers are disappearing. It is not a dead thing; hence, it cannot be a noun. It is a living entity, it is changing constantly.The word tree gives a false idea, as if there is something unchanging. It will be better to call it a treeing – because the tree is continuously moving. The river is rivering – it is a movement, it is not stale, it is not dead. In other words, the existence does not consist of dead matter, it consists of living energy.There is nothing permanent except change. If you can, with awareness, change your burdens into wings, your treasures into fragrances, you will be unburdened and the whole of existence will be more beautiful, will be more graceful, will be more blissful and a benediction to you. It will go on showering flowers on you. You have fulfilled your destiny – the whole existence rejoices.There are beautiful stories…I will call them stories because there is no way to prove that they are facts. I would love to think of them as facts.It is said that wherever Gautam Buddha moved, even if trees were out of season they suddenly became green, full of flowers, foliage. People used to know that Buddha had passed this way just by looking at the trees on the side of the road – because the whole forest would be naked, barren, no leaves, no flowers; it was not the season.It looks like a fiction. But in a deeper sense, it is a reality. Perhaps visibly the trees had not become green with flowers and foliage, but invisibly the trees felt as if the spring had come. When a man has reached the highest peak of consciousness, it is not an individual achievement. In him, the whole universe has achieved its deepest longing. It is natural that the whole existence should rejoice and dance and sing.Just remember: even things which are beautiful and good can become a burden, and the moment they become a burden you can even start taking revenge on the person.Great masters have been betrayed, and they have been betrayed by their great disciples – not by their ordinary disciples, but by those who were very close to them.It is tremendously interesting to go into the psychology of it. What happened to Judas? He was very close to Jesus. He was the most intelligent of Jesus’ disciples, he was the only one who was educated, and the only one with a very sharp intellect. What happened to him?On the surface, the facts are very simple: He betrayed; he betrayed because Jesus’ enemies offered him thirty pieces of silver.This is sheer nonsense. A man with the qualities of Judas cannot betray a master of the quality of Jesus just for thirty pieces of silver. There must be much more to it. Perhaps Jesus was becoming a burden.Jesus was giving him so much love, and there was no way to return it. Jesus was giving him so much insight into existence, and there was no way to show his gratitude. Jesus was doing everything that a master should do for his spiritual growth.But one should always remember that the person who is being benefited is also an individual. He cannot go on taking because deep down it is humiliating, it is a spiritual insult. And there is only so much one can tolerate. The same thing which was so sweet and so beautiful can turn into its very opposite, can become a poison.It was just to unburden himself that Judas betrayed Jesus.And I say it with certain authority: When he saw what he had done to a man who has always been nothing but love, nothing but compassion, who was always ready to give everything; when he saw the crucifixion and the torture and he realized what he had done, within twenty-four hours he hanged himself from a tree and killed himself.Christians don’t talk about the suicide of Judas. But the whole secret is in the suicide of Judas – not in the crucifixion of Jesus.Judas crucifying himself – and all those thirty silver pieces, he had thrown on the ground – indicates something deeper than historical fact, something concerned more with the inner world. At a certain point, he became so burdened that he became angry at Jesus.He was a disciple: he had loved Jesus his whole life and he was grateful to Jesus.But neither did Jesus tell him nor did he inquire how to transform love when it becomes a burden, gratefulness when it becomes a burden, how to avoid the danger of all those beautiful feelings turning into poison. But when he saw Jesus being crucified, suddenly all anger disappeared. Instead of anger there was only repentance – and not ordinary repentance; he threw down those thirty silver pieces and committed suicide.His suicide is so significant.And the Christians’ silence about his suicide is also significant: they don’t want to bring it in because to bring it in they will have to go deeper than the superficial facts of history. History consists only of daily newspapers, collected, just superficial. It does not give insight. And if it was only the case with Jesus one could think that it may have been an exception. It is not so. It has been happening with almost every great master. Seeing that it happened with Mahavira, it happened with Gautam Buddha, I started thinking that there seems to be something much more than the mere fact that some important disciple betrays the master – but why?My understanding is that it is because the science of the relationship between the master and the disciple has not yet been completely discovered. This is one of the basic contributions that I would like to make to the science: that a master has to be aware not to burden the disciple to such an extent that what was beautiful starts becoming humiliating, insulting.I am reminded….I had a friend who was a great politician. He was the education minister, with great longings to one day go even higher, to the highest post in the country.He was also a very rich man. Once in a while, whenever I was not traveling, he would come to me to ask about peace, silence, relaxation. And I told him, “Unless you drop your ambitions, you cannot be at peace and you cannot be silent and you cannot relax – because in a competitive world where you are not the only one who is trying to become the prime minister of the country, if you are relaxing and others are not relaxing, you have lost the game. Those who are able to remain tense and go on rushing, speeding, who are almost mad, will not even stop to rest unless they have reached to the very peak.” He said, “This is very difficult. I cannot drop the ambition, I have come so far – now the goal is only two steps away. Once I have reached the goal, I will renounce politics and I will sit with you and meditate, and do whatsoever you say. But before that, if I can have a little peace of mind, a little silence in the heart, a little relaxation, I can compete more efficiently.” I said, “That is a contradiction.”Again and again it was the same thing. I told him, “I will never change my position, and I think you are not going to change your position – why waste time? Don’t you have any other problem?” He said, “I have so many problems. One problem particularly I came today to ask you about…” And his problem was that he was a very generous man, but very proud. He was not born into the family which he had become the head of – he was adopted. He was born a poor man, and suddenly he became one of the richest men in the country. All his relatives were poor. He made all those relatives rich – gave them factories, gave them shops, gave them as much money as possible because he had so much.He said to me, “The problem is nobody loves me. I have been giving to everybody – my friends, my family, even strangers have come to me and I have never said no to anything. But nobody loves me. I don’t see in their eyes any respect toward me and I am puzzled. I have done everything – nobody would have done what I have done.”I said, “I want to ask you one question: Have you allowed those people to do something for you?”He said, “I am a very proud man. I would rather die, but I will not beg. And in fact there is no need; I have everything. They cannot do anything for me, I don’t need it.”I said, “The problem is very clear: they are disrespectful, they are unloving, unfriendly, because you have burdened them; you have in a very subtle way humiliated them. You are the man who can help, who can give millions of rupees to people and who does not need anything in return.”I said, “That is hurting their pride. I know your friends, I know the relatives you have supported and you have made rich. And I know that they are full of anger, rage and hatred for you. You have done everything good for them, but you don’t understand human psychology. You do a few small things…you need not ask them for big things, but you can ask them for something: ‘I love your roses. One day can you send a few roses to me?’ And all their anger will disappear. You have many cars. Those people have cars because you have given them money. There is no need for you, but once in a while you can just phone them and say, ‘I need your car; can you send the car?’ You have your own guest houses, you don’t need any help from anybody, but once in while you can ask a friend: ‘If your guest house is available, one of my friends is coming and I would like you to take care of him – just do this much kindness for me.’”And you can change the whole atmosphere around you; then they are equal to you. Right now you have reduced them to such a state – you are so high, so beyond their reach – they are just like insects crawling on the earth.”He said, “I never thought about it in this way.” And after ten years, he met me in a train and he told me, “You were right. I started asking for small things, which don’t mean anything, and they have all changed. Now there is no anger, no hatred, no humiliation; they feel equal to me because they know they have also done something for me. It is not only me who is always doing things for them; they have also been doing things for me. It may be just bringing me a few roses from their garden.”The relationship between the master and the disciple is a very subtle one. And in the past, it has not been understood why great masters have been betrayed. If this understanding becomes part of the relationship in the future, no master will be betrayed; there will be no reason. But the master has to understand that the disciple is also a human being – and this game should not be a one-way traffic where the master goes on giving and the disciple has just to receive it. The master should be capable – whether he needs it or not; perhaps he does not need it – just to give the disciple an idea that he can do something for the master.If Judas could have done something for Jesus, there would have been no crucifixion.So your question is significant. Transform your gratitude in gratefulness – and not toward the master only; the master is only a door. Beyond the door is the whole existence.Don’t cling to the master – because the master is only the frame of the door; he allows you an opening into existence, he is not a wall. But remember that you are not to become attached to the frame; you have to go beyond the frame. There is no need to betray.Just go beyond.And let every experience in you become an expanding energy phenomenon, a resonance – not like a stone, solid and heavy, but with no weight…just spreading all over space, with no limits.Osho,The strange thing is that all discoveries come out of the blue; the scientific explanation is always made afterward, and then in the lecture the scientist usually presents his discovery, which is not his, as if it followed from his theory – which was invented afterward; hence, the lie.This drive to frame everything, being trained as a scientist, is pretty strong in me. But still, the miracle can never be explained away. It happened – what more proof? How to allow to be more and more in the miraculous, to be in the miracle all the time?It is true that all scientific discoveries come to the scientist out of the blue. It is not his effort, but on the contrary his no-effort, allowing existence to reveal its secrets to him.This is not new.The East has known it for at least five thousand years.Lao Tzu has even given it a name: “effortless effort”, “action without action”. And he was trying to explain that whatever man has come to know is not through effort, although there is much effort involved; hence there is great misunderstanding.I will give you an example that will help.For six years Gautam Buddha continuously did everything that was supposed to make him enlightened, and he was such a sincere seeker….He lived with many masters. With ordinary people – insincere seekers, halfhearted seekers – even the bogus masters can go on pretending that they are authentic.But it was not possible with Gautam Buddha.The masters themselves confessed to him, “Forgive me, you are such a sincere seeker. I can always say to others that, ‘You are not doing it wholeheartedly,’ but you are doing it so wholeheartedly that it simply proves that I don’t know how one achieves enlightenment – I am not enlightened. With others it is okay, because they never do anything wholeheartedly, and I can always tell them that it is because they are not working that they are not achieving – and the question of my enlightenment does not arise, I remain enlightened. But with you it is impossible. To lie to you is inhuman. You simply go to some other master.”He went to all the known famous masters, and the result was the same.The last master said to him, “You have worked enough, you have done everything that is possible for human beings, nothing more can be done. Now you just retire into the forest. You have renounced the world, now renounce this spiritual effort. Forget all about enlightenment. And I know you are capable – if you can forget all about your kingdom, you can forget all about this enlightenment. Just relax, deep in the forest.”He moved to the forest.And the first night, relaxing under a bodhi tree near Bodhgaya by the side of a small river, Niranjana, on a full-moon night, he became enlightened. He was not doing anything for enlightenment. The enlightenment came out of the blue.But don’t think that you can go and catch the train to Bodhgaya, on a full-moon night lie down by the side of the tree near the Niranjana river and wait for enlightenment. Nothing will happen. Those six years of tremendous effort did not produce enlightenment, but those six years produced so much relaxation that enlightenment became possible.Enlightenment is not caused by effort. By effort, relaxation is caused. You have done so much that you simply give up. But without doing it you cannot give up. So in the Buddhist religion there is a problem. There are sects who think that Buddha’s enlightened happened because of six years of effort: those six years preceded, enlightenment followed. To the ordinary logic it seems so.Only one school, Zen, has been very extraordinary in its insight. It says it was not caused by six years of effort; but six years of effort have caused relaxation – and relaxation simply opens you up to the unknown, to the unknowable.Enlightenment is not an effect of six years’ effort, but without those six years’ effort there would have been no enlightenment either.You have to understand the subtlety of it.The whole day you work, and then you have a good sleep in the night.Emperors cannot sleep. And it is very illogical, because the whole day long they are resting – it is logical that the person who is practicing rest the whole day long should rest deeper in the night than you, who have been working the whole day, tiring yourself…your practice is not for relaxation, your practice is against it.But life is not logic, fortunately. Otherwise the person who has been working hard the whole day will have to work hard the whole night too. In his whole life he will not get any rest, because his training and his discipline will become more and more mature and more and more ripened.It is good that life has a dynamic, a dialectics.All day you have been making great effort – you have earned relaxation. You need relaxation, you have worked hard.Nature is compassionate.The emperor has been resting the whole day, he does not need any sleep at night. Nature does not care whether he is an emperor or a beggar.The dialectics of life is that the people who make great effort for enlightenment will not achieve by their effort. One day they will have to give it all up, and in that moment of relaxation something opens up – you are not the doer, something happens to you.And the same is true about scientific discoveries – the law is the same. A scientist works for years on a certain project, and then one day he has done everything that he could possibly think of; he drops the whole idea. And suddenly a window opens, and what he was searching for with such great effort is made available to him without any effort at all.In fact, there are deep reasons in it: whenever you are making effort you become tense; when you are tense, your mind becomes narrow. And you are so ambitious, so desirous, so much in a hurry to get something, that you are almost a chaos.And to know anything – either scientific or religious – you need to be a silent, peaceful awareness, not doing anything, not even desiring anything, not even looking for anything.But all the time before, when you have been looking and not finding, has created a certain seed in you. In this relaxed moment, that seed starts becoming a sprout. It happened in Madame Curie’s case – which is the most famous example. She was the first woman to achieve the Nobel prize.She had been working for three years on a particular mathematical problem. She tried from every direction, from every angle, but nothing happened – the problem seemed to be insoluble.And one night she was working late, up to two o’clock, and finally gave up the whole thing, thinking “I have wasted three years, I could have discovered many other things. This idiotic problem is stubborn – just like me. I am stubborn too, but now I drop out of this fight.” She closed the notebook in which she was working, went to sleep, and in the morning…She was alone in the room, and the room was locked from inside. And anyway, even if it was not locked, nobody could have done it…if Madame Curie was not able to do it in three years. She went to her table and she found a piece of paper just on top of her notebook, under the paperweight, with the solution to the problem.She could not believe it.Her husband was not at home; he had gone for a weekend with his friends. No servant would have been capable of doing it. Moreover, the room was locked from inside.Then she looked more minutely; the handwriting was her own.Then slowly she remembered that she had had a dream that she was working on the problem and she had solved it. Perhaps in sleep she got up and wrote down the answer which had come in her dream – not to forget it in the morning.This has been happening to almost all great scientists.So you are right that the scientist has no right to say, “This is my discovery.” In a way, it is not his discovery; in a way, it is existence that has chosen him to be a vehicle. Existence has not chosen anybody else to be a vehicle; he has been chosen because he has been working so hard that he had come to the point where relaxation is possible – complete and total relaxation. In that total relaxation, existence opens its secrets. Understanding this, you can see many implications: that in this way science and religion are exactly the same.Their objects may be different – science may be looking outward, religion may be looking inward – but the discovery either of science or of religion happens in the same kind of state, the totally relaxed mind. Or to use the mystic word, a state of no-mind – because when the mind is completely relaxed there is no mind, the window opens.Mind is the block. And once the mind is no more, you start seeing things that were always there in front of you but your eyes were covered with thick layers of thought. You were not able to see. You are asking how one can live in this miraculous, in this unknowable continuously.The moment you ask how, you are asking for a technique, and no technique is possible – all techniques are efforts. So any technique will do, just do it so wholeheartedly that you come to a point where you drop it – because the real thing is to drop it. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation.But the real thing is not the meditation; the real thing is that after all those one hundred and twelve methods the same thing happens. You have done it exhaustively. You have staked everything and now – seeing that you don’t have any more energy, any more desire – you relax. All efforts are dropped, all techniques forgotten.In this innocence, the miraculous is yours.You are part of it; you have been always part of it. The unknowable is not something separate from you, it is your heartbeat. Your heartbeat has a synchronicity with the heartbeat of the whole universe.But let me remind you again: first you have to do everything that is possible for you – not holding anything back, not thinking that anyway finally you are going to drop it so why put so much energy into it? No, you have to be madly in it, as if effort is going to give you the truth. Only then one day – tired, exhausted, finished with effort – you relax.You don’t know…that depth of relaxation will depend on the depth of your effort. If the effort was a hundred percent total, then the relaxation will be a hundred percent total; and with the total relaxation you have moved into the miraculous, into the unknowable.Then it is your world.Then you breathe in it, you live in it.This is what we have called the ultimate realization – enlightenment.Osho,When I came to you years ago, you told me to tell you when I felt something – I wasn't sure what – in my energy, because you had work for me to do. You said I would know it when it was right.Now I feel so full of you.These past months working in the world, nothing has meant anything to me except the times I've been able to tell people about you. And in those times I was so full and clear I didn't know it was me.Now I'm just here for two weeks – but I feel like the only thing I can do with my life is your work.I just don't know what it is.Can you give me some idea before I go?The way things are happening to you is so beautiful and natural that it is better you should not interfere in it.If I give you any idea, you will start interfering in it.It is happening on its own.Just go with it, with the stream – never against the stream.The watercourse way is my whole philosophy. Just go with the stream in a deep let-go, with all my blessings.I will not give you any idea.Existence will take care of it.Osho,According to George Gurdjieff, nearly all human beings are number one, number two, or number three. Very few can be called man number four, and only a Gautam Buddha, man number seven.I somehow have the suspicion that you don't fit in these categories, but because of the law of seven, more than number seven is not possible.Osho, what is your number?My number is zero. So whenever you want to channel with me, remember zero!Osho,I have heard meditation sometimes described as a science, and other times as an art; on occasion you have even called it a knack. Please explain.Meditation is such a mystery that it can be called a science, an art, a knack, without any contradiction.From one point of view it is a science because there is a clear-cut technique that has to be done. There are no exceptions to it, it is almost like a scientific law.But from a different point of view it can also be said to be an art.Science is an extension of the mind – it is mathematics, it is logic, it is rational.Meditation belongs to the heart, not to the mind – it is not logic; it is closer to love.It is not like other scientific activities, but more like music, poetry, painting, dancing; hence, it can be called an art.But meditation is such a great mystery that calling it “science” and “art” does not exhaust it.It is a knack – either you get it or you don’t get it. A knack is not a science, it cannot be taught. A knack is not an art. A knack is the most mysterious thing in human understanding.For example, you may have come across people…. Somebody has the knack of becoming a friend immediately; just meeting him in the bus for a few moments and you suddenly feel as if you have known each other forever, perhaps for many lives. And you cannot pinpoint what is going on, because you have just seen the man for the first time.I have a friend. He is a doctor in philosophy. He has never earned a single cent in his life, but he lives like a king. He has a certain knack that anybody becomes his friend; he just has to look at you and you are his friend – and you feel as if you have been his friend forever. He has lived on borrowed money – which he never returns because he cannot, there is no way to return it, but nobody feels hurt about it. Even though he has borrowed money from you and he has never returned it, he has the nerve to ask you again – and you will give it! The man is so lovely, so beautiful, that to ask money from him simply doesn’t seem right. And he never feels embarrassed, he never avoids people he owes money to.I have asked him many times, “How long will you continue in this way?”He said, “How long? The population goes on growing – even if I live a million years, I will always have people to give me money.”And the beauty is that you give him money and you feel honored that he asked you, not anybody else. Now what will you call it? – art? science? It is simply a knack.He travels without a ticket, he has never purchased a ticket. I have been traveling with him many times. And he will say, “Why are you wasting money on tickets? Let the ticket checker come; after all, he is a human being.” And once the ticket checker comes, he is caught into this man’s net. He offers him a cigarette, and they are chit-chatting, and they start playing cards, and the ticket checker completely forgets why he has come. And now it is too late to ask for the ticket – they have become so friendly to each other that the ticket checker asks him, “Can I help you in any way?”He says, “You have to – because I have lost my ticket!”He said, “Don’t be worried. I will be there at the gate.”He lives in friends’ houses. He has no house of his own. He moves from one city to another city, but he knows all kinds of tricks with playing cards, chess, tennis, all kinds of nonsense things in which people are interested. And he is a genius. In chess you cannot win against him, in cards you cannot win.And he is such a happy person that people like for him to come to them even if he is going to take their money, even if he is going to take their car and never return – still people like him, because he is simply likable. It is not on any conditions that he is liked, it is just his whole personality.Once he was staying with me. And just next door used to live another professor who was Indian, married to an American woman. The American woman was also a professor at the university. I spent the day at the university, so he started making friendships in the neighborhood. The American woman got into his net, and her husband also became very friendly.Things came to such point that the professor’s wife wanted to leave with my friend. But he said, “It will be very difficult. I have no house, no shelter anywhere. I don’t know where I will be tomorrow morning. You will be in difficulty with me, and I love you so much that I will not create such a difficulty for you. And I love your husband too; I cannot disturb his life.”But the professor was so enchanted by him that he said, “If you want, you can take my wife.”I told him, “Don’t be stupid. You can take cars, that is okay; you can take people’s tape recorders, that is okay; you can take their cameras, that is okay. But if you start taking people’s wives, you will be in great trouble. So make it a point this is the limit. Don’t go beyond this limit.”He said, “You are right. Rationally I also think that this is right. But isn’t it worth trying once? When the husband is ready….”I said, “Any husband will be ready! You are an idiot. It is not because of your charm, every husband will be ready. How many wives can you manage? You don’t have any money. And remember, you cannot bring any woman into my house.”He said, “That’s not right, because that’s what I was thinking – I will leave this woman here. Another woman…I will get caught and I will leave her here. You can have disciples!”I said, “I – these kinds of disciples are of no use to me.”A knack is something mysterious, just a few people can do it.I know a man who can make his ear lobes move. I have not found another who can move his ear lobes. Now what do you call it? – science or what? Because I have asked doctors, “What do you say about ear lobes?”They say, “It is impossible.”But I brought my friend to one doctor and, I told him, “Show this doctor….”And the doctor said, “My God! He moves his ear lobes very easily, without any trouble.”In fact, ear lobes have no biological possibility of movement, you have no control over them – you try. You don’t have any control. They are your ear lobes, but you don’t have any control. But I know one man who manages. And I have asked him, “How do you manage?” He said, “I don’t know. Just from the very beginning I have been doing it.”It is absolutely impossible, physically impossible – because to move those lobes you need a certain nervous system to control them, and the nerve system is not there. The lobe is just flesh. Meditation, in the last resort, is a knack too.That’s why for thousands of years people have been meditating, teaching, but very few people have achieved heights in meditation, and very few people have even tried.And the vast majority of humanity has not even bothered to think about it. It is something…a seed you are born with.If you don’t have the seed, a master can go on showering all his bliss on you, still nothing will happen in you.And if the seed is there, just the presence of the master, just the way he looks into your eyes, and something of tremendous importance happens in you – a revolution that you cannot explain to anybody.It is one of the difficulties for all meditators that they cannot explain to their friends, their families, what they are doing. Because the majority of humanity is not interested in it at all. And those who are not interested in it at all simply think about people who are interested, that something is loose in their heads, something is wrong.Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself – but in the first place, why should you bother about the grass? Basho’s beautiful haiku will look absurd to them. Grass is going to grow by itself whether you sit silently or not, why waste your time? – grass is going to grow by itself. Let the spring come – spring comes by itself, grass grows by itself. Why are you wasting your time? – do something else meanwhile.If a man has not something in his heart already – a small seed – then it is impossible for him.He can learn the technique, he can learn the art.But if the knack is missing he is not going to succeed.So thousands of people start meditation, but very few – so few that they can be counted on ten fingers – ever achieve to enlightenment. And unless meditation becomes enlightenment, you have simply wasted your time.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I am very angry with women. I don't like woman. Why is woman selfish? Why has woman no intelligence? Why is a woman like a cat?Osho, why do you put woman on the way of Tao?Woman is what man has made of her. It is a vicious circle. Man has deprived woman of education and other social institutions, of economic freedom. And then you ask why women are unintelligent? You are the cause.Women have as much intelligence as any man – because intelligence has no concern with sexual hormones. Do you think if you changed Albert Einstein into a woman with plastic surgery, he would lose his intelligence? He would still remain Albert Einstein, but in a woman’s body. The difference is only of bodies; the difference is not of consciousness, not of intelligence.But unfortunately man decided to repress woman.For centuries it has not been clear to historians why it had to happen in such a way. But the latest psychological research makes it very clear why it happened: it happened because man feels a deep inferiority complex in comparison to woman.And the basic root of that feeling comes from the woman’s capacity to become a mother. She is the source of life, she creates life. Man is incapable of it. This became the reason to cut the wings of all women – of freedom, of education – and confine her to a prison-like home and reduce her to just a factory of reproduction so that he can forget that he is inferior.The woman had to be made inferior so that man could feel at ease, so that his ego could feel that now there is no competition with women at all.The woman is not the cause of all her bitchiness.You have been torturing her for thousands of years.No society in the world has accepted her as equal to man. No culture of the past has given the woman the same respect as it gives to the man. On the contrary, they have all tried to force her into a subhuman existence.And the reason why the woman did not revolt against such things is simple: again, the same motherhood. For nine months when she is pregnant, she becomes absolutely dependent – particularly in a society which lived by hunting.And by the way, I would like you to remember that the society in which you are living now – where houses exist, cities exist – is a contribution of women, not of men. The house is the woman’s contribution.Man was hunting. The woman was confined to a small space; naturally she started decorating it, cleaning it, making it beautiful, liveable – and she became attached. In a hunting society, the nomads had to go on changing…because when hunting was not giving them enough food, they had to move to where the animals were. They could not have permanent cities; they could have only tents, not houses.And you can see it: when a man lives alone, his house is almost like a tent, it is not like a house. Without a woman, it remains a tent, a temporary place – just a shelter with nothing sacred about it. As the woman enters, the tent starts transforming into a house and finally into a home.In hunting societies, the woman’s function was nothing but reproduction. She was continuously pregnant. This became her failure: she could not fight, she could not rebel, she had to submit, she had to surrender – of course unwillingly. Nobody becomes a slave willingly.When somebody becomes a slave willingly, there is no problem.But millions of women have been forced to become slaves unwillingly. Naturally they try to take revenge in indirect ways. All those ways combined make them cats, their behavior becomes bitchy.But remember: a woman can be bitchy only with a dog, and a woman can be a cat only with a mouse – and that’s why you are angry. Seeing a woman, you are reminded that you are a dog, you are a mouse.Your male chauvinist attitude hurts.It is simply an unconscious reaction, and you have to be watchful of the reaction so that it can disappear.It is undignified of you. It shows something about you – not about the woman. It is your anger, it is your hate.If you will look at the history….In many villages, the women cannot enter the temples. In some religions she can enter, but she has a separate section – not the same as the men. In all religions, the woman is not accepted as a candidate for the ultimate growth of consciousness. She is unworthy, not for any other reason – just because she is a woman; her crime is that she is a woman. And she can evolve but she will have to fulfill a condition: first she will have to be born as a man.So in religions like Jainism, there are methods, rituals, religious disciplines for women, specifically intended for them to enter a man’s body in their next life.Now the whole Jaina attitude and philosophy can be disturbed because with plastic surgery a woman can become a man with no difficulty. There is no need for all those disciplines and rituals and arduous hostilities. Just a very small amount of plastic surgery and you are capable of entering the ultimate state of consciousness. Strange, that plastic surgery is needed for spiritual growth!But this has been one way to condemn the woman.Another reason why man has condemned the woman is the power of the woman over the man. You can never forgive someone who has so much power over you. The woman is beautiful, attractive…her beauty, her body, her attraction and you become just a beggar – and you are going to take revenge for that too.But everything is going on in an unconscious state. You are not aware of what you are doing and why.Man is almost magnetically pulled by the woman. He can see that he is just a puppet. How can he forgive the woman who has forced him to be just a puppet? – whatever he can do, he tries to do.Women everywhere are not allowed to read the holy scriptures. In many countries the woman is not even allowed to show her face in the society. It used to be so in India; it is still so in all the Mohammedan countries.I have heard, when Mulla Nasruddin got married according to the tradition, his wife asked him, “To whom am I allowed to show my face?”Mulla Nasruddin said, “First let me have a look, only then can I say anything.” So he looked at her face, closed his eyes and said, “Enough! Except for me, you are allowed to show your face to everybody.”These are subtle ways of humiliation, of cutting women off from the world of power, from the world where everything is happening. The woman is not part of it. She is not part of your wars, she is not part of your businesses, she is not part of your religions.And there are countries like China – not a small country….A woman was reading in the newspaper that of every four men, one is Chinese. She came very much worried and concerned. She said to her husband, “This paper says that every fourth person is Chinese. Now you have to be careful; we already have three boys, and I don’t want any Chinese in this house.”In this vast one-fourth of humanity, for ten thousand years it was believed that the woman had no soul, she was as soulless as your furniture. Hence, if a husband killed his wife, there was no crime, he had simply destroyed his property. It was nobody else’s concern to come into it. Thousands of women were killed by their husbands, but the court, the law, did not accept it as killing, because how can you kill somebody who has no soul?In India millions of women have been burned alive simply because of the male ego: “My wife is beautiful, young. If I am dead, she may get married again.” This jealousy was the reason for deciding that every woman should jump into the burning funeral pyre with her husband. The husband is dead; the living woman has to jump into the fire. And we have practiced this for ten thousand years. It still happens once in a while, although now there is a law against it.One feels as if we don’t give any attention to our social mores, our behavior mores. In the whole of Indian literature I have not come across a single statement saying that if women are required to die with their husbands to show their faith, their love, then why are men not required to do the same? What kind of game is this in which the rule applies only to the woman, not the man?The society is made by men. Women are living in a society which is not made for them, not made by them; it has not considered them at all.Your anger toward women is worth understanding. Perhaps it is really your anger against yourself, your anger against men – what men have done to women.Women have been victims. You cannot be angry at them.In the home, the husband is the victim; and it can be said without any doubt that every husband is henpecked. In fact, every intelligent husband has to be – only some idiot may not be. But this is the price that every man has to pay for what mankind has been doing to womankind for thousands of years.If you want to get free from your anger against women, you will have to go through a very deep inner spring cleaning and see that the woman is the victim. And because she is the victim and has no positive way to resist, to fight, she finds indirect ways: of nagging, of screaming, of throwing tantrums. These are simply hopeless efforts. And naturally her rage against the whole of humanity becomes focused on one man, the husband.The freedom of women is going to be the freedom of men too. The day the woman is accepted as equal, given equal opportunity to grow, man will find himself suddenly free from the bitchiness that he used to feel from the women. And he will be surprised that neither is she a cat nor is he a dog – both are human beings.It is time.Man has come to a certain maturity. We can create a world together, with men and women sharing their insight, their visions, their dreams. Because they are different, their dreams are different, their contributions to the society will be different. And if a society can be created in which men and women have participated equally, that will be for the first time the richest society in the world – and without all this bitchiness and nagging and fighting.This is a strange and stupid way of living. But just because your father used to live this way it is accepted almost as if it is something religious. Your forefathers did it, you have to do it, your children will learn it from you.Every generation goes on giving its diseases to the coming generation.My people have to be aware and alert not to pass on any sickness which they may have received from the past generation. Let this be the dead end. Don’t pass it to the new generation. Let the new people grow – the new earth, the new man.The old has failed so badly that there is no point in renovating it. It is all ruins. It simply needs to be written in the history books, pieces of it preserved in the museums – but from life it has to disappear.Osho,I, like many of your disciples, tried many ways to change myself, to give to others and serve the planet.I was a missionary in Africa, a psychotherapist in Beverly Hills, marched against Vietnam, did groups and yoga, joined various save-the-world efforts, and it was all like pissing in the ocean. I had a good time, but it was fairly insignificant compared to the rapidly accelerating dangers of nuclear weapons, over-population and warring nations.One day it occurred to me that you were the only one who was outrageous and radical enough to perhaps make a difference. I hitched my wagon to a star – you – and that was the smartest and most loving thing I ever did.But Osho, am I – are we – so much more brilliant than other people? Why are people so threatened by what I see is your love and compassion? Why are people willing to remain dinosaurs, risk extinction, prefer dying and destroying each other? Why do they cling to outdated nations, religions and armies even though it's obviously not working?If Ronald Reagan had really paid attention and really cared about peace, he would have invited you to be his special advisor – not conspired to have you ousted from America.Why are most people afraid to drop the past and come to something or someone who could help peel away conditioning, so that unleashed energy can really change us and the world? And why don't more people who spout, “one planet, one people!” drop their ineffectual efforts and align with you. In my opinion, if we were to rally around something that could make a difference, it would not be an idea, but you, who has the vastness to create real transformation. Is this right?And are you also working through us, your disciples?Kahlil Gibran has a small story.One full moon night, a few people came to his small pub and drank and drank. He was very happy, earning great. And when they were leaving, he asked the man who was paying: “Will you be coming again? We will do everything better.”The man said, “We are happy as things are, you have done them as beautifully as possible. Just pray for my business to run well and we will be coming every night.”He said, “There is no problem in it. I will pray for you every morning, every evening, every night. But just out of curiosity, I want to ask, what is your business?”He said, “It is better if you don’t ask. But I can understand, it will be difficult for you to resist the temptation. My business is to sell wood for funeral pyres. So when more people die, my business goes well; when less people die, of course it is unfortunate and I have to suffer it. So if you want your business to go well, you have to pray for my business to go well – our interests are the same.”In this whole society, as an intelligent and alert person, you are bound to be surprised: Why do things go on happening the way they should not? Wars are not needed, riots are not needed, bloodshed is not needed, nuclear weapons are not needed. Half of the earth is dying from starvation and you are preparing more destructive weapons. It is simply insane.But the trouble is that all these insane people have the same interest. The presidents and the prime ministers of all the nations, all the countries have the same interest. If nations disappear, they will disappear – what about their power trip?The head priests of all religions are worried that if all religions disappear and there is only a religiousness, priests will not be needed, churches will not be needed. They have the same interest, that this society should remain as it is – miserable, in anxiety, in continuous fear, in deep anguish…a meaningless existence, carrying one’s own dead bodies on one’s shoulders from cradle to grave. And it is all desert – flowers appear only in dreams; in reality it is burning sun and hot sand, nothing green grows.If we see this, why don’t we change? Why do we go on and on in the same rut for thousands of years? The same misery, the same anguish, the same war – nothing seems to change. It seems as if we are caught in a wheel and the wheel goes on moving, fast – again and again the same thing.Yes, history repeats. And that it repeats in such detail is possible only because man functions like a machine.These people are not going to support any change because every change means a disappearance of the old structure in which they are important.With a silent, sincere, loving, compassionate, human being appearing on the world stage – with joy, these few moments of being alive…. And you cannot purchase life; the gift is invaluable.Alexander the Great threatened one Hindu sannyasin, “My master, Aristotle, wants to see a sannyasin. If you don’t come with me to Athens I will kill you.”The sannyasin said, “There is no problem in it. You simply cut off my head. You will see it falling on the ground and I will see it falling on the ground, because I am not the body. And I am no longer interested in carrying this body to my grave. If you are ready to do it, I would be thankful to you.”“In fact,” the sannyasin said, “if you understand, you should not only cut off my head, you should cut yours too – because it is just a meaningless existence. As far as I am concerned, it is meaningless because I have achieved that which is significant, which is a higher quality than meaning. I have known, seen, felt. I have been in that wonderland, nothing more can be added to it. So going on living in the body is meaningless for me. It is also meaningless to you, but for different reasons: to you it is meaningless because you have not found anything, and time is running out of your hands.”And just after thirteen days, Alexander died – and he was only thirty-three years of age.And that old saint who had offered his head with such grace, with such joy…with so much fearlessness that Alexander for the first time felt it would be difficult to cut off the head of this man. He had cut off millions of heads and had never bothered about it, but with this man he hesitated, he pushed his sword back into the sheath.And in thirteen days, he was dead.He wanted, after conquering the world, to rest, relax, and to know what this life is all about.But the condition that he had put on it was very idiotic – “after conquering the world.”We have a small time. The world is big, and its problems are such that all the powerful people would not like any kind of change.That’s the reason why they are annoyed with me – not that I am wrong and they are right. They know perfectly well they are wrong.Because my whole life I have been challenging them on every single point of significance. No answer – because they don’t have the answer.But your misery and their power are interdependent.If you want to get out of the misery, you will have to drop these vested interests and the people who are powerful because of them. And certainly because they have power, they will do everything to prevent any revolution from happening. And if it happens, then too they will try in every possible way to sabotage it.Up to now they have been successful. Either they don’t let it happen, or if it happens in spite of them, they sabotage it so beautifully and they are again in power – only the names change.In Russia, those people who were in power before the revolution were the capitalists – just a word. There are still people in power – more in power than the previous ones. They are not called capitalists, they are called communists. They are more dangerous, they have more power and they are more aware how revolutions can throw out people who are in power – because they have come by throwing out the powerful people. So they are protecting their power number with every scientific, psychological, para-psychological device.Russia is certainly in a strange position in this. It is the only country where revolution cannot happen. All the possibilities of revolution have been destroyed by the revolutionaries who have come into power. They know perfectly well how they have come into power. So they have broken all the bridges, all the ladders have been burned. In Russia, the powerful group and the masses are absolutely without any bridge between them.It is true that every sannyasin of mine is working in different ways – not as a missionary but as a living mission, not trying to convert people by teaching them but challenging people for transformation by presenting their own life, by presenting their own joy, their love, their song, their dance.This is no ordinary conversion – like a Hindu becoming a Christian.It is true conversion: a fast asleep person becomes fully awake, and goes from darkness to light, from untruth to truth, from death to immortality.But I don’t want you to deliberately become my missions.I want you to be absolutely selfish so that you can blossom in your full glory. Your blossoming will trigger blossomings in others; your flame will bring light, life and fire to many.But this has not to be done directly, it is not your business. It is simply the impact of your transformed life.Osho,In the West, the portrayal of woman's body is used in films, books and magazines. This art form is known as “eroticism”.Through the sculptures of Khajuraho and Ajanta I have seen that a similar art form was there in the East.Can you talk about the difference between these two cultures in regard to the female body?Sarjano, superficially there is no difference.Khajuraho, Konarak, Puri, Ajanta, Ellora, Elephanta – they are full of erotic art, just like the contemporary erotic culture where the repressed sexuality of thousands of years has become such a burden that it has to be dropped. And suddenly a great erotic revolution is taking place.Pornography is nothing but erotic and obscene – in paintings, in films, in dances. They don’t create in you a longing for the beyond; they simply create in you more sensuality, more sexuality. But on the surface they look alike.And in India and in the outside world, they are being misunderstood.After the country became independent, Mahatma Gandhi proposed that all these sculptures, all these temples should be sunk into mud. They would not be destroyed, so if Ronald Reagan comes to see, then you can clean it and show him – just for special people….But for ordinary people they would be closed. Because Mahatma Gandhi thought, in the same way as it is thought all over the world, that they are erotic, they are obscene.But I want to declare emphatically that there is a vast difference between the Eastern art in Ajanta, Ellora, Puri, Konarak, Khajuraho, and the modern Western erotic, pornographic photography, painting, music. The difference is that all these temples….For example, there are thirty temples in Khajuraho. There were one hundred temples originally – Mohammedans have destroyed seventy temples, which are now ruins. The city was a city only of temples; people just used to come to see the art. One hundred temples must have been built in thousands of years by thousands of artists continuously working on stone – generation after generation may have died working on it.And they have created the most beautiful bodies in stone. In Khajuraho stone speaks, sings, dances; it is not dead. You can see that the artist has succeeded in transforming the dead stone into a living form. It looks so alive that any moment the statue may walk toward you and say, “Hello.” And hundreds of statues….These statues were not to satisfy your repressed sexuality. On the contrary, they were used as a tantrika method to release the repressed sexuality just by meditating on these naked statues. The method was simply to sit there in silence – only a dim light reaches there, and hundreds of statues surround you.Just watching them, you will be surprised to find that many of those dreams have occurred to you, many are such that they have been condemned in every society – sexual orgies, but they have happened in your dreams; they are part of your unconscious. And these places like Khajuraho were kinds of universities where people were coming to release, to cathart repressed sexuality.And all these statutes are outside the temple. Inside the temple there is no erotic sculpture. In fact, inside most of the temples there is nothing – just silence, a cool peaceful milieu, with the vibes of thousands of years of people meditating there.The rule was when you feel, or your master feels, that now the erotic sculpture outside the temple no longer affects you, it does not create any sexuality in you, any sensuality in you, that it has cleaned your whole repressed sex….It is the greatest psychological method invented by the East. Nobody is told what is happening, and for years there is no need. Once the master sees, and once you see that you are sitting there and nothing happens, it is as if the walls are empty – when you are absolutely certain that they don’t affect you – that is a signal: “Now it is time, you can go inside. Now the door for the inner, for the interior is open.” All that was rubbish has been dropped – a cleanliness, a weightlessness, and a silence which is full of beauty and song….Khajuraho or Konarak…these are not pornographic. They are devices for meditation.What is happening in the West is simply pornography, obscene. It does not help man to get rid of it, but simply gives him a temporary relief. The pornographic literature, photography, are all helping you to stay normal; otherwise, you will go mad.So I don’t think there is any harm when somebody reads Playboy hiding it inside the Bible. What he is seeing in a pornographic magazine brings up his own unconscious.This was used as a meditation technique in Khajuraho. In the West it is used to create more thirst for the same sexuality which has been aroused by the pornographic magazine, by blue films, by naked dances and striptease.The same method was used to transform your energy into spirituality.In the West it is used to provoke more sexuality, more sensuality.And then there is a kind of insatiability – almost all painting has gone pornographic, all the movies repeating almost the same stories, the same plot, the same triangle: two women, one man; or two men, one woman, a simple structure – the same story. What attracts people to it? It is not great appreciation for literature!What attracts is that in the story – needed for the story or not needed – they go on putting your suppressed needs, desires. It is a kind of relief. But tomorrow you will be repressing again, and again you will need the same kind of photography, the same dance.This way you will never be able to enter into the temple. In fact, pornography in the West has no idea that it is the outer wall of the temple.The East has used every fragment of human nature for a greater change, a mutation, to bring something higher in you of which you are capable but unconscious.Osho,One side of me is receptive and vulnerable. The other side is strong and powerful.When I leave my room, I put out my strong and powerful side to protect myself. But my receptive side likes to dance and enjoy existence. I'm in a mess.Please comment.There is no problem.Everybody has these two sides; that is the man and the woman syndrome – half of you is man, and the other half is woman. And it has to be that way because one half has come from your father and the other half has come from your mother.So you are the contribution of two different kinds of persons, two different psychologies. Naturally they create two sides in you: the vulnerable, loving, trusting – that is your woman. And the strong, competitive, efficient – that is your man.And naturally when you go out of your home, you have to change your personality. You have to hide your vulnerable part, and you have to put on a harder, steel mask. You are going into a world of competition.It becomes a problem when you start thinking that this dialectics should not be in you; that is the time when it becomes a problem. If you understand that this dialectics is very necessary…they are complementaries. They are both needed, just like day and night, life and death – they are both needed.So one need not be worried that there are two sides.They are your two doors, and you have to start witnessing yourself as the third. You are not this, you are not that – because you can change them, they are clothes. You put on the clothes of a woman, you put on the clothes of a warrior – they are clothes. Certainly they are not you.Those two parts in you are really two parts of your mind, two hemispheres of your mind, and they are as absolutely necessary as two wings or two hands.The bird cannot rise into the sky with one wing. Those two wings are absolutely necessary; they are not against each other. Even though their movements are against each other, they are supporting each other, they are helping each other. And more fundamentally, they are helping the bird, which is the third.It is perfectly good: outside be a Don Quixote, always keep a sword. Even if it is a false sword, no harm, because a real one could be dangerous – how to hold it? – and you may harm yourself. Have a big mustache and find some good German glue to make the mustache stand out like Ranak Pratap’s.But when you come back home, put this whole makeup aside – with care, because tomorrow you will need it again. And this has to be done without any seriousness. It is simply the ordinary business of life – different things are needed at different places.There is a story that in Rajasthan…Rajasthan is the province of the warriors. The Rana of the town, the head of the town, the chief of the warriors…there was something crazy about him: he would not allow anybody to have his mustache grow upward, it should grow downward – that was the rule.He was a very dangerous man. He would cut your head off immediately if you didn’t appear with your mustache growing downward.So the whole town by and by had started growing their mustaches downward, because it was dangerous – you might forget and come across that man and your life would be at risk, because he was just crazy, he simply cut people’s heads. Only his mustache could be turned upward – of course he was the chief.A young businessman came to settle in the town. He also had a big mustache turning upward. People said, “You are settling in this town? Then remember, either cut your mustache or turn it downward; otherwise, you will soon be in unnecessary danger.”The young man said, “Don’t be worried. I will see about that….”And the next day he went with his mustache turned up to see the warrior.But as he was coming out of his house, the warrior was there. Somebody had told him that one person in the city had his mustache turned upward. So he came to see who the man was: “Finish him, because there is no need to make unnecessary long stories when a shortcut is possible.”Seeing him, he immediately took out his sword.The young man said, “Wait! I cannot turn down my mustache. And it is not easy to cut off my head because I challenge you to a fight. But before that, I would like you to go and tell your friends – meet with your friends, your family, your children – because although I do the work of a businessman, I am up to now an unconquered warrior. Bring your sword and I will be waiting for you here.”“And while you are gone, I will go and cut off my wife’s head and my children’s heads, because after I am gone who will take care of them? – unnecessary trouble. After you are gone, who will take care of your children? – unnecessary trouble. Finish them! So we go from the world without any burden.”The warrior said, “It sounds logical.” He went back, he finished off his wife, his children.Everybody said, “What are you doing? Have you gone really mad? Just about the mustache was okay, we have accepted it – it is not much, just eccentric. But you have killed your wife, your children – what are you doing?”He said, “Not only have I killed mine, another man has also killed his. It is a question of prestige; in this town only one man can live with his mustache turned upward, not everybody. So this was the condition: that I can meet with my people, he can meet with his people, and he will be coming and I am going. We will face each other on the crossroad. The rumor is that he is a great warrior, but that is not a problem – being a warrior is in our blood.”He arrived at the crossroads and could not believe what he saw: the young man had turned his mustache downward, just glued it down. You just need good glue – don’t use Indian glue; otherwise, somebody may cut off your head unnecessarily. The warrior said, “What have you done?”The young man said, “I just thought…why kill your wife, your children? Those poor people have not done anything to me, and I should become a cause of their death? Of course my wife and children are mine, I can kill them, but not yours. So I thought, just because of the mustache…? And it is not a big job; in two minutes I just turned it downward.”The warrior said, “This is dangerous! What did you do with your wife, your children?”The young man said, “There was no need to do anything, because when I’d turned my mustache down, why should I cut off my wife and children’s heads?”The warrior said, “You are dangerous. I have finished off my whole family!”There are these people with different names, in different cultures, whose function is to fight and to destroy.And naturally when you come out of your house, you are coming into a battlefield, where everybody is competing with others – a thousand and one types of fight are going on which you cannot see. They are all invisibly joined in fighting each other; over small things these fights are going on.One couple were just signing in the registrar’s office – they were getting married. And as the man signed, the woman said to the registrar, “I want a divorce immediately, right now!”He said, “Are you mad? You are just signing for marriage, and immediately you want a divorce?”She said, “Seeing my signature, he has signed his signature three times – in big letters. It is better to have this fight here and now and say good-bye to this fellow. Everything three times for our whole life?”Over small things, people are continuously fighting.Naturally you come with no love, no trust, a defense, hardness, doubt, suspicion, skepticism, taking everybody as your competitor, everybody as your enemy.But it is the game.Don’t become too much attached to this part of the play. When you go home, just put it aside completely and be the other part which has been denied.And once you start moving from one part to another easily, the more and more clearly it starts coming to you that you are separate, you are just a witness, a watcher; this is your mind, but this is not your being.The one who is aware of this whole game is the being.And to realize the being is to realize all that is worth realizing.Osho,In a world ridden with hate and hostility, sadness and sorrow, you seem to be the lonely bard of love and laughter.Is this not hilarious?It is.It is hilarious but somebody has to begin it.We want the world to be less serious and more sensitive. Sincere of course, but serious never.We want the world to learn that the sense of humor is one of the most fundamental qualities of a religious man.If you cannot laugh, you will miss many things in life, you will miss many mysteries.Your laughter makes you a small innocent child, your laughter joins you with existence – with the roaring ocean, with the stars and their silence.Your laughter makes you the lonely part of the world which has become intelligent, because only intelligent people can laugh. That’s why animals cannot afford to laugh – they don’t have that much intelligence.You can try – you can tell a joke to your buffalo and see what happens.And because seriousness has always been taught to be almost necessary for respectability, it has made everybody serious. It is not that they are serious for any reason, but it has now become their second nature; they have forgotten completely that seriousness is a sickness, it means the sense of humor is dead in you.Otherwise the whole of life all around is so full of hilarious things.If you have a sense of humor, you will be surprised that there is no time to be sad – every moment something or other is happening everywhere.My mission certainly is to bring laughter to the whole of humanity – which has forgotten it. And when you forget laughter, you always forget songs, you forget love, you forget dance – it is not that you only forget laughter. Laughter has its own combination of qualities, just as seriousness has its own combination of qualities.Forget laughter and you will forget love.With a sad face, how to say to a woman “I love you”? You will have to smile a little bit.With a serious face you cannot say even the smallest thing.People are taking everything so seriously that it becomes a burden on them.Learn to laugh more.To me, laughter is as sacred as prayer.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I left my mother twenty years, and my wife over four years ago. Why can't I let them go?One of the mysteries of life is the law of reverse returns. There are things which you cannot do. Although people have done them, although it is possible they may happen to you too, they are always happenings, they are never doings.In fact the doer, the ego, is the barrier to the happening. Happening needs the innocent mind of a child who can still dream of fairies, who can still find treasures in colored stones, whose eyes are still not covered with the dust that we call knowledge. His ignorance is far more beautiful than the knowledge of a great scholar. Because ignorance is at least natural. At least it is yours; it does not make you a hypocrite, it is never insincere.I have been wondering and looking in thousands of scriptures and commentaries on scriptures but I have not found a single statement in five thousand years’ literature which shows some understanding about ignorance. In fact, they are all interested in knowledgeability; ignorance they want to destroy. They want to gain knowledge because knowledge will give them power – knowledge is power. Knowledge will give you prestige, money, respectability. Knowledge will fulfill many of your ambitions and desires.Ignorance cannot do anything for you, but it can allow something which is far more precious than knowledge can ever give to you. But its whole secret is in allowing, in patiently waiting – with a question mark in the heart, with a quest all over your being, a quest which is not partial, a total inquiry.Ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Rightly understood, it is not something negative. It is simply a tabula rasa – a clean slate. Nothing is written on it. You have to write your own holy Bible, holy Koran, holy Gita; you have to give birth.Ignorance is a womb.It contains the quest for truth – and if you don’t fall victim to knowledgeability, ignorance is the right beginning.To know absolutely that “I do not know,” is the first step of wisdom. You have known something of tremendous value: you have known your innocence, and in this innocence, the ego dies. The ego can live only with the false – it is the accumulation of the false. The ego is interested in knowledge – borrowed, third-hand, rotten…but knowledge is cheap.To know by experience is a risk. You may burn your fingers in the experiment.In the experiment, you are dropping out of the crowd and moving alone in this vast universe and you don’t have any guide, any maps, any instructions. All that you have is a thirst.But in the desert people say, and it is derived from thousands of years of experience, that when a man becomes so thirsty that he forgets everything…. The fiery sun on his head, the fire in the sand, and he is all thirst; now it is not even a verbal thing in him. It is not that he is thinking, “I am feeling thirsty.”He is thirst. Not that he is thinking about it, he is it.The desert people all over the world have experienced a very strange phenomenon. Whenever somebody comes to such a state of thirst – and many times it happens in the desert – he suddenly becomes intuitive. He starts moving toward the place where he will find water. He has no map, he has no instructions. He has no way to move logically in any direction because in the desert all directions are the same, and there is no reason to choose one direction and not another.But now there is no question of choice. There is no question of thinking, he is just thirst. And that thirst moves existentially toward the place where it can be quenched.When I came to know about this, I was surprised that no other mystic has taken note of the fact that the same is the situation of the seeker. Of course his desert is bigger, and his thirst is bigger too. The ordinary thirst is momentary; his thirst is eternal – but the basic principle is the same.When a man becomes so aflame, he starts moving…I will not say he starts going in that direction; he finds himself going toward a certain direction, having no other alternative. There is no reason to stop. And that’s how those who have reached, have reached.Remember one thing: that to get rid of the doer is the most essential thing if you want to taste another world – the world of happenings, where you are just a witness.The law of reverse effect is: there are things which you can have but because you are trying to get them, you will not be able to get them. It is like when you want to fall asleep in the night. You try all kinds of tricks but you find that you cannot befool yourself – sleep is not coming. On the contrary, because of your tricks and because of all the things people have told you to do if you do not find sleep coming to you naturally – all those things keep you awake. Because to do them you have to be awake!Somebody is repeating a mantra – but to repeat a mantra, you have to be awake. Somebody is doing some breathing exercises from Yoga – but breath is so deeply involved in life that if you are using breathing in a certain way, with a certain rhythm, it will keep you alert, awake, fresh.Sleep needs totally different things. If you want sleep to come, forget all about sleep; that is the first rule. Do something else. Get involved in something so deeply that you are not at all concerned with sleep and it will start coming. You will hear small footsteps, you will feel it is coming, but don’t pay any attention.Sleep is a feminine energy. If you look at it – and here you come to a very significant point – the feminine energy functions in a totally different way than the male energy. The woman wants you to chase her. She does not want you simply to sit and wait for her to come. Even though the woman wants you, loves you, wants to be yours, first she will run away. She will not run very fast. She will run in such a way that you can catch her; she will give you every chance to catch hold of her.Every feminine energy has the same quality. Sleep is feminine, you cannot catch hold of her. You have just to close your eyes and lie down and wait. She will come…she is just in the other room.In the same category are all great values: friendship, love, peace, silence, and ultimately the realization of your godliness – they all happen. You are not the doer.So first, let this be settled in you: that there is a world of doings that is the outside world, the worldly world; and there is a world of happenings – the inner world, the otherworldly world. Certainly their principles are going to be diametrically opposite.I have seen people trying to relax. I have seen a book with the title, You Must Relax! “Must” will not allow you to relax! Relaxation is not something that you do, it is simply the absence of all your doings. In that absence is the greatest experience of life, and all great values will grow on their own accord.Of course, your ego will not be fulfilled. In fact, it will be dead by the time you have experienced a few things which only happen.You have to choose between the ego and the world of happenings.The ego can give you many things: misery, anger, sadness, despair, anguish…and the line is long. It has its own treasures, if you are interested.The absence of ego has also its own treasures. And the world of the ego and the world of egolessness are not very far away. They are neighbors.Just a very thin fence of thoughts divides them.It is simply a question of understanding that there are things which cannot be done – so don’t do them, let them happen.You just be a watcher. And once you have learned the knack of watching you will start growing up higher every moment toward the ultimate experience – of knowing oneself, realizing the nature of your consciousness…because that opens the door of immortality.A meditator slowly slips from the world of mortality into the world of immortality. On this side, the world of doings, there is death. On the other side, in the dimension of happenings, there is no death.And unless you experience a clear vision of deathlessness, you will remain miserable, you will remain in despair. And because you live in the world of doings, that is the only art you know – and that art is preventing you from entering into a different dimension.So you have to learn sometimes just to be a child, playing, jumping, dancing, singing, for no purpose at all. Once in a while just lying down on the lawn, or on the beach – doing nothing, lying down in such a way…as if you are in your mother’s womb.In fact, the scientists say that people feel good near the ocean because the child in the mother’s womb floats in a liquid which has the same proportion of chemicals, salts, as the ocean. And we are made eighty percent of water. It is a miracle! You just think once again…you are eighty percent water – walking, running, going home! Just twenty percent, the skin, is functioning like a bag.You feel fresh near the ocean – the same salty air, some forgotten memory….Scientists are now coming closer to the Eastern insight about human evolution. Now the latest researchers say that Charles Darwin is not right, man has not come as a growth from the monkeys. They are proposing that man was born as a fish, not as a monkey; in the very beginning he was born in the ocean. And because life needed all that the ocean contains, the mother’s womb has to contain everything just like the ocean. A pregnant woman becomes very much interested in salty things, because the child is asking for more and more salt. Salt is a necessity….But for nine months floating in the mother’s womb the child knows the eternity of relaxation – no tension, no business, no worries, no taxation.The child simply is, just a pure isness – that is relaxation.By the side of the ocean, lying in the sand, just move as if you are back in your mother’s womb. You are not to do anything. Just lie down and enjoy the wind, the roaring ocean…and you will be surprised that the meditation that you have been trying to do for years and has not happened, is happening.Once you know that there are things which need your support – not as a doer but just as a loving gardener looking at his rosebushes, waiting and trusting in existence…the spring always comes and it will bring flowers.The spring of your consciousness will also come, but you have to learn a simple secret – that of let-go.And the learning simply comes by trying to understand the nature of doing and the nature of non-doing.I was taken to a theological college to talk about Jesus, and after I had talked with the students, the vice-chancellor took me around…it is the biggest Christian college in the whole of Asia which prepares missionaries. He took me around, and I could not believe what I saw. If Jesus had seen it the Jews would have been saved from crucifying him – he would have committed suicide himself!The missionaries are being prepared…on what sentence what kind of emphasis has to be given, what sentence has to be spoken loudly and what sentence has to be almost whispered, at what point you should beat the table….I told the vice-chancellor, “You are destroying these people. Jesus never went to any theological college; he was not trained in the art of oratory. He is certainly one of the greatest orators the world has produced, and he does not know any art; he is uneducated. His power and the fire that his words carry are not coming out of a training, they are coming from his heart. In fact, he is not doing them, they are happening.”The difference is very delicate and very difficult…whether the person is making a gesture or the gesture has blossomed just like a flower. If you have to say something your hands will follow, because your hands are extensions of your mind. When the mind is trying to express something and finding it difficult, the hands add whatever they can contribute. And sometimes what words cannot say, the movement of the hand, the grace of the hand may say. The word may not reach its target but the heart may touch the hand extended toward you. Your eyes may catch the depth of the master.I told that vice-chancellor, “You are spoiling three thousand students every year – and you think you are preparing missionaries who are going to convert others into religion. You are not even able to convert these people! Because if their hearts are with you, then their gestures will automatically follow, then their emphasis on certain words, phrases or sometimes just silence…”A moment, a gap, one never knows…what the moment is going to bring is absolutely unknown.Whatever you want to do, remember:Doing is material, worldly, mundane. There is nothing which can be called “spiritual doing”.Spirituality is a happening, it is bigger than you, you cannot do it. You can make a shelter of your house, but you cannot make the sky with all the stars.All great values are like the sky – so vast and with so many stars and with so many mysteries. You can enter into this world of the miraculous if you drop yourself, leave yourself out of the temple.I am reminded of a very ancient story….There was a great sculptor in Rome. His statues were so highly praised that for the first time unanimously the critics said, “There is no more possibility of improvement.” He has said the last word; his statues look almost alive, as if just any moment the statue will come out of its place to greet you, to shake hands with you or give you a hug” – although I don’t think you will be ready! The hug may prove dangerous. But that was the appraisal from all over the world, that the man had come to the peak, and now there was nothing that could be added to the art.Then the man became old, as everybody has to become old, and he became afraid of death. As oldness started settling he started thinking what to do about death. Being a sculptor this idea came to his mind easily: “I can make a statue of myself.” And he had a beautiful round hall where hundreds of statues were standing and sitting. So he thought, “When death comes I will be standing somewhere inside the crowd of my statues; only I have to keep my breathing as slow as possible.” And that was possible, because people used to say that his statues seemed as if they were breathing. They were so alive that they would do something, they could not remain standing forever in that way.Death came and was puzzled. The sculptor had made a few statues of himself and placed them among other statues. Death could not believe that…she went around watching, looking, trying to find some sign but she failed. She said, “My God! He has done only one thing wrong…”And the artist forgot completely the situation and the scene and said, “What?”Death said, “You cannot forget yourself. And that I could see even by your nose, but I did not disturb you. I simply went on looking around. I wanted to see whether you could remain silent. That would have been really going beyond death – but you could not forget your ego and you were feeling more and more satisfied. The more I was going ahead, looking like a failure…I was seeing from the corner of my eye that you were looking more and more successful, certain that you had defeated death. I can be defeated but not by the ego.”The egoless has no death to encounter. You are born – have you done anything? can you take any credit for being born? for having two eyes and not three? for having eyes at all? Otherwise the world would be dark – no colors, no light, no beauty. But all these things have happened to you. Birth happens to you, youth happens to you, love happens to you, old age happens to you, death happens to you – whatever is essential happens to you and whatever is non-essential is left for you to do.So don’t waste your whole life in the non-essential.That non-essential is also needed but remember that the essential has not to be forgotten.And you have not to do anything for it. You have just to be receptive, open, vulnerable, available…so that if the call comes from the beyond you will be ready to say with your full heart, “Yes. I am coming.”Osho,I listened to the tender sound of a cool well, bubbling water just flowing without any effort and yet busy…Sunrays dancing to the melody, eternally fresh. But the I forgot. All that remains is the thirst to come back and be the well, sometimes recognized, sometimes not. Osho, is there anything to be done? Is the thirst enough?The thirst is enough.So the question is not whether the thirst is enough or not, the question is whether the thirst is there or not. Because there can be a false thirst – and you know about the false thirst: you are not feeling thirsty and suddenly you see a bottle of Coca-Cola. Strangely enough you start feeling thirsty, and just a moment before you were not thinking of thirst at all.I used to live in one place…just next door was the richest man’s house; it was a beautiful palace. And in India nobody bothers about it; it is taken for granted that people will urinate anywhere. The whole of mother earth is a toilet. So by the side of this man’s house there was a small street, very lonely and once in a while somebody would urinate there and he was very mad about it. In the morning he would be in the garden and if he saw somebody urinating there was going to be murder! So much trouble he would create for the man, and the police will come and….One day I was by the side of his fence and I said, “Why don’t you put small signboards around the house saying that urinating is prohibited?”He said, “That’s good idea.”So he made beautiful wooden signs – beautiful because they have to go with the beautiful marble – all around the house. And by the evening he came….I said, “You must have come about those signboards that you have put up.”He said, “Yes, I have come about those. Where is your father?”“But,” I said, “my father has nothing to do with them. It was my suggestion, the whole credit goes to me.”He said, “You keep quiet, just call your father.”So I called my father.He said, “This boy is dangerous. He tricked me! Now my whole house is stinking of urine; all around the house you can find nothing but urine.”Just the human mind…when you see a board: “You cannot urinate here” such a great desire arises! One can risk anything, but one cannot leave that place, it is hypnotic.The functioning of the mind is such that no prohibition can ever be successful. Prohibition becomes provocation, it becomes a challenge and suddenly…you were going on your way, thinking your thoughts, and suddenly this board makes you aware that you too have a bladder. And somebody telling you not to do something makes it attractive. It can become an obsession.Don’t create obsessions in your life.Live more playfully, less seriously.Don’t be rigid; these are the qualities of the dead. Be flexible. Grow a sense of humor so that you can remain protected from all kinds of dark nights, dark holes. Your sense of humor will protect you.And if once in a while you can have a deep laughter, from your very roots, it will give you a freshness, a new vitality, a new energy to move mountains.Ten thousand years we have lived without understanding the subtle workings of the mind. Hence every religion says, “Don’t do this,” and creates the world that you see. This is the world created by people who have been telling you, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” And those are the things which are being done!And the more emphasis there is on denial…. Life reacts with a tremendous force against any denial, and you are caught in a very difficult crisis. If you follow life you cannot follow your holy scriptures, and that will create guilt in you – and to go on collecting guilt is like growing a spiritual cancer within yourself. If you follow these commandments in the scriptures you are going against your nature, against life itself. So there is not going to be any fulfillment, there is not going to be any joy; there is going to be only darkness, misery.Slowly, slowly you start feeling a kind of death happening to you, because life is not being allowed to live in its totality. Death is bound to fill the gaps where life has not been allowed to blossom.And every man is carrying within himself so many poisonous, life-negative ideas that everybody is in a limbo, just hanging in between. Neither can he do what life wants him to do – fully, completely, not holding anything back – nor he can repress. Because you are nature; and who is going to repress? You will have to divide yourself into two parts. You will have to create classes within yourself.There are people who are thinking of creating a classless society – without knowing at all that inside, man as an individual is divided into classes.In India, the brahmin is synonymous with the head and the sudra, the shoemakers and the poor manual laborers, are symbolized by the feet; the warriors are symbolized by the arms. And they have a hierarchy – the feet cannot become the head. So whatever you are, you cannot change, you cannot transform yourself. You have to accept your fate – this has been the teaching for thousands of years.And the result is this miserable humanity. This is the conclusion of all your religions and all your prophets and all your saviors. This is what they have done, this is how they have saved you.They don’t seem around too much nowadays – perhaps they have saved you completely! They may have gone to save somebody else on some other planet, some other star.These saviors existed because we wanted somebody else to do this work of spiritual growth for us: “Somebody else should do it.”Nobody else can do it.It is your freedom to be miserable or to be blissful, to remain in darkness or to live a life of light. This is the prerogative of human beings.The saviors are cheating you. To say to somebody, “I am going to save you,” means that the person stops his search and becomes only a shadow. He follows you. And remember, existence does not accept carbon copies; it needs the original. You have to take the whole responsibility for your life.And it is not a burden. In fact, freedom can never be a burden. The moment you accept total responsibility, you become free to be whatever your nature demands, to be whatever your nature deserves. And only when you fulfill your destiny – alone – finding your path, risking everything for the search, then life is no more just vegetating. Then life is a song, a dance, a deep ecstasy.But you have to drop the idea that anybody else can do it for you. You have to drop the idea that knowledge gathered from scriptures can do it. You have to be mature, you have to accept that “This is my life and only I can do something for it.”In this way you become an individual.In this way you become free from organizational religions, in this way you become free from any political, philosophical ideologies.In this way you become innocent again.Your eyes are clean, have depth; your heart is ready to dance.And if you can forget yourself and start the dancing, start the singing…. And when I say forget yourself, don’t misunderstand me. Don’t start emphasizing the fact of forgetting yourself – that will spoil the whole thing. When I say forget yourself, I simply mean that when you are dancing, let the dance be there and the dancer dissolved into it. When you are singing then what is the need of the singer? Let the singer melt into the song, and each moment of life starts taking on the qualities of truth, of beauty, of blissfulness. You don’t have to go anywhere. And you don’t have to be anybody else, either. Wherever you are, whatever you are, exactly there – in silence, in peace – you can discover the very center of the universe.That center exists in everyone. We are different only on the periphery; at the center we are one.That’s why a person who has reached to his innermost core becomes a magnetic force – because he is now at the center and you are at the periphery. He has all the gravitation. If you just relax a little bit…because you are clinging with the periphery. A little relaxation and you will be pulled in.And while you are slipping into the presence of the master, you will find that a dark shadow of your own, which we call the ego, is leaving you. As you are coming closer to the master, the ego is leaving you. The moment you have come and there is no barrier between you and the master, you will be surprised: for the first time you don’t have any weight. It is as if that ego was a mountain on you, and suddenly everything looks bright, fragrant, rosier.Life is simple.We make it complex by doing things against nature.There is only one religion, and that is nature. Allow nature to take you completely; allow yourself to be one with nature.Anything that goes against nature is against religion, is against spirituality, is against your ultimate welfare. So just listen to your nature – and your nature goes on telling you, but we are deaf.I have heard…. In Tibet, two Buddhist monks were passing through the marketplace. One monk was very greedy. In fact, because of his greed it was suggested he renounce the world and become a monk; otherwise, “Your future is going to be nothing but hell.”He listened to many saints, tried many times, but again and again he thought about all the possessions he had collected, and he went on postponing. One day the master called him and said, “It is enough, because now I cannot wait; I am going to die tomorrow. Now you decide.”Under such compulsion – it was almost blackmail – he got initiated, renounced the world. But that does not make any difference.The greed is inside you, not in the things.So now it became attached to new things. He started collecting other things, with new names. He started collecting ancient scriptures….Both monks were passing through the market where there was so much crowd and so much bargaining and so much noise…and somebody’s coin fell and he heard the sound.He said to the other monk, “Did you hear it? I just heard the sound of a coin falling on the road.”The other monk said, “You are a miracle! In such a maddening crowd…just the sound of a coin? You managed to hear it? You have to forgive me, I don’t have that much sensitivity.”They both went to the master and told him about the incident. The master said, “It is not insensitivity on your part – he is too sensitive toward coins! Even in a market, the sound of a coin…he knows no other music.”Don’t go against nature.Listen silently – and whatever you have to do and whatever you have to be, all directions are within you.Once in a while you may go wrong, you may commit a mistake. But they’re all part of natural life, and you will learn from them. Each learning is based on mistakes.But one thing has to be certain: you have to be strong enough to take the whole responsibility of your life, for good or for bad. Act out of freedom, out of awareness; not out of dead principles and religions and books.To me, fearlessness, courageousness is the foundational quality of a religious man. He will risk all, but he cannot go against his own insight. Whatever the consequences, he will follow his own insight. This is how he becomes stronger and stronger, more and more like steel, so that even fire cannot destroy him.Osho,Enlightenment seems to me always to be an end, a death, a kind of suicide where a comeback is never possible – no more adventures, no lovers, no sunsets, no dramas, no candlelight dinners. What can be more beautiful than the senseless dramas and joys of all my searchings? How is it after death for an enlightened man? Is it not boring for the next ten thousand years? I feel simply a death-fear.Enlightenment can be a very scary thing.It can create a great paranoia in you. And your question is significant, because millions of people in the world never think about enlightenment, and the reason may be this deep-rooted fear. They have known a certain kind of life and they think this is the only life possible – that’s where they go wrong.This is the lowest form of life that we are living. In fact, to call it life is not right, it is only birth. It is only a possibility. You can make a life out of it – life has to be created. And the misunderstanding is so old…and people don’t want to drop it because it is so consoling to think that you are alive and you are enjoying everything and it is a beautiful drama.But you have been through this drama many times.It is the same drama. Small details change…A is married to B instead of to C. One lives in this country, is born into another…but goes through the same routine. The same misery will come, the same jealousy will come; all the games of ambition that people go on playing will be there – but you are not bored. You are not bored because each time you die your memory closes a door; otherwise you will go mad. Nature has an autonomous system: the moment a person dies his whole memory system of that life goes with him into the new life, but the door is closed.One of Mahavira’s contributions to the world is his method of jati smaran. Jati smaran means the science of remembering your past lives. It was his absolute emphasis that nobody should become a sannyasin unless he goes through the remembrance of a few past lives. He was asked many times, “Why this insistence?” because nobody else insists on it.He said, “Unless you look into your past lives, and you see that you have been doing the same thing again and again and again, and your hands are still empty, and you are again doing those same things….”You will become bored and you will start feeling that “I must be utterly unintelligent” – but because each life is completely closed to you, you don’t know anything about your past. You don’t have any insight into your future.All that you know is this small life, and in this small life you know two things: the misery and the pain of life, and ways and methods of forgetting that misery and pain. That you call your amusement, entertainment – going to a movie, to a circus. These are your ways to forget your life. There you became engaged for two or three hours in a different world.The enlightened person is certainly difficult for you to conceive of.It is just like if you smoke, you cannot conceive how millions of people go on without smoking. They must be missing! And the person who does not smoke is not missing anything except some nicotine, some poison that will kill you earlier than him. Otherwise, he is not missing anything. The person who is an alcoholic cannot believe that the whole world goes on without the bottle. He cannot live even a single day without the bottle. He feels pity for you: “Poor fellows, they don’t know that there is a way, through alcohol, to forget all the burdens of life.” But he cannot conceive of a life which has no burdens at all to forget.And that is your position. When you think about enlightenment, the problem is that you don’t understand that the man who is enlightened is no more an ego. You can insult him but you cannot hurt him; you can abuse him, you can condemn him, and there will be no change in his being. Even if you kill him he will remain the same.It is difficult for you to understand how an enlightened man can remain without going to circuses, movies…and all kinds of stupidities are there. But so few enlightened people have existed that not much is known about them. And much is such that unless you experience it, you cannot understand it.For the enlightened person, everything that is going on around him is a circus. There is no need for him to purchase a ticket – his problem is how to get out of the circus! He does not want to go to the movie, he wants to get out!But wherever he goes….Just think of Gautam Buddha in Bombay….It is not difficult to infer why these people have declined to happen. Why no more Gautam Buddhas, Mahaviras, Bodhidharmas, Zarathustras? Where have all these tremendously beautiful people disappeared to? Why are they not more available to us? Because humanity has grown so much – just in the proportion…. In India there were only two million people in the time of Buddha. Now there are nine hundred million people in India. Just looking at the proportion, at least a dozen Buddhas are absolutely needed!But that kind of person has disappeared – and he has disappeared because what you call life he has found to be nothing but slow death.And he has found the real life. Once a person finds the real life, why he should come back into a miserable world?But your question is relevant. You feel afraid that sitting silently for thousands of years is going to be difficult.But you don’t know that if you are silent, time stops. There are no more ten thousand years, ten million years, nothing. Just a simple now.When mind is silent, time disappears because mind is time.Now you are worried that in life there is so much drama, and the enlightened man…what is he going to do for eternity?What drama you are talking about? One idiot slipping on a banana peel? And everybody starts laughing…this is not compassionate. Even if that man is a banana, he has every right to slip on a banana peel. He is not harming anybody, just doing some special kind of yoga.But why are you laughing?Your life is full of sadness and you are in search…wherever there is a possibility to laugh, some sadness is thrown away, some burden is thrown away. Certainly, an enlightened person will not be laughing. There is no need. The laughter is needed because of your sadness, it is an antidote to sadness. The enlightened man is so blissful…and remember, blissfulness is not happiness. That’s where things always become confused.Happiness is momentary: on both sides of happiness there is unhappiness.Blissfulness has no opposite to it, there is no such thing as “unblissfulness.” There is only blissfulness, and that blissfulness is not dependent on anybody else or anything outside the enlightened being himself.His source of bliss is within his own being.He is shining, radiating what he has experienced. And the more he shares it, the more it goes on growing.Time has no existence for him any more.He lives in the moment. And he lives so totally and so intensely that there is no space for any sadness or any misery to enter.But don’t decide anything before experiencing at least a little sample. Experience a little meditation and it will be the answer to your question. Because one day you will find that you are sitting silently and so joyful, for no reason at all.The moment one becomes enlightened, one becomes blissfulness, one becomes benediction. Time and space both disappear. He becomes one with the whole.Then stars are within him, flowers are within him, skies upon skies are within him. Then birds on the wing are within him.Right now everything is outside you.Enlightenment brings everything inside you.It spreads you far and wide, to infinities. Many such questions will arise, but don’t just intellectually think about them. Otherwise, you will be missing the real juice of life.Experiment.Your questions should come out of your experiments; then they will be existential and they will be of immense help for your growth.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

https://oshoworld.com/sermons-in-stones-07/

Osho,Is it possible for a woman to be in love and still centered?The question has many implications.First, you do not understand what being centered means.Second, you also have no experience of the phenomenon of love. I can say this with absolute authority, because your question supplies all the evidence for what I am saying.Love and centering are one phenomenon, they are not two. If you have known love, you cannot be anything but centered.Love means coming to be at ease with existence. It may be through a lover, it may be through a master, it may be through a friend. Or it may be simply direct and immediate – to the sunrise, to the sunset. The very experience of love will make you centered. This has been the whole philosophy of devotees down the ages. Love is their science; centering is the result.But there are people – and there are only two kinds of people – who have a dominant reasoning, logic. Their heart is undeveloped. And there are people whose heart is blossoming and now reason, rationality, only function as servants to the heart. Man’s misery is that he is trying to do the impossible: he is trying to force the heart to serve the mind, which is impossible. This is your chaos, this is your mess.The question has arisen out of the ordinary experience called love. It is not love, it is only called love – just a glimpse, just a small taste, which is not going to be a nourishment. On the contrary it is going to become a pathological state, because one moment you are high and everything is just far out and the next moment all is dark, you cannot believe that there has been anything significant in your life. All those moments of love appear to have happened in dreams, or perhaps you have imagined them. And these dark moments are absolutely joined with the beautiful moments.This is the dialectics of human mind. It functions through opposites. You will love a man and you will love the man for absolutely wrong reasons. You will love the man or the woman because you are carrying within you an image of the other. The boy has got it from the mother and the girl has got it from the father. All lovers are searching for their mothers, their fathers – and in the final analysis they are all searching for the womb and its beautiful, relaxed state.Psychologically, the eternal quest for moksha, ultimate liberation, enlightenment, can be reduced to the basic psychological fact that man has already known the most beautiful, the most peaceful state before he was born. Now if something greater does not happen in his life, some exposure to the divine, to the universal, he is going to remain miserable. Because unconsciously, every moment, there is judgment.He knows he has lived for nine months…and remember, for a child in the mother’s womb, nine months are almost eternity because he does not know how to count, he does not have any clock. Each moment is enough unto itself. He does not know there is going to be another moment afterward, so each moment is a surprise. And with no worry, with no tension about food, about clothes, about shelter, he is absolutely at ease, relaxed, centered. There is nothing to distract him from the center.There is nobody there even to say hello.This experience of nine months of being centered, of immense joy, peace, aloneness…the other is no more there; you are the world, you are the whole. Nothing is missing, everything is supplied by nature without any effort on your part. But life confronts you in a totally different way – antagonistically, competitively. Everybody is your enemy, because everybody is in the same market; everybody is your enemy because everybody has the same desires, the same ambition. You are bound to come into conflict with millions of people.It is because of this inner antagonism that all the cultures of the world have created a certain system of etiquette, familiarity, formality, and they have emphasized it continuously to the child: “You have to respect your father.”All the cultures all over the world throughout the whole of history – why are they all insisting to the child, “You should respect your father”? There is some suspicion that if he is left alone, the child is not going to respect the father – that much is certain, simple logic. In fact, the child is going to hate. Every girl hates her mother. To hide it – because it will be very difficult to live in a society where all your wounds are uncovered and everybody is walking around with uncovered wounds – a certain ethos, a morality, a certain style of life has to cover it and to show just the opposite – that you love your mother, that you love and respect your father.Deep down just the opposite is the case. You have been divided into two parts by the society. The false part has been given all respect, because the false is created by the society. The real is denied any respectability, because the real comes from nature – which is beyond the control of any society, culture or civilization. Each child has to be trained in lies, has to be programmed in such a way that he will be subservient to the society, a docile slave.All societies are breaking the very spine of every child so he becomes spineless. He cannot raise his voice, he cannot question anything. His life is just not his own. He loves, but his love is false. From the very beginning he was told to love his mother “because she is your mother” – as if being a mother has some intrinsic quality or some obligation that you should love her. But it has been accepted that the mother should be loved.My emphasis is that the mother should be loving, and no child should ever be told to love somebody unless it happens on its own. Yes, the mother, the father, the family can create a milieu without saying anything; the whole energy can generate, can trigger your own forces of love.But never say to anybody that love is a duty. It is not. Duty is a false substitute for love. When you cannot love, society goes on supplying duties. They may appear to be love, but inside there is nothing loving in it; on the contrary, it is only social formality. And you become so accustomed to social formalities that you forget completely that there are things which are waiting to happen in your life but you are so occupied that you don’t give space, you don’t allow love to blossom in you.Hence you don’t know that centering and love are one thing.Centering is more appealing to the intellectual. Nothing has to be believed; there is nobody else to whom you have to surrender.It is because of the other that every love affair becomes a tragedy.In Indian literature there are no tragedies. In my student days I was asking my professors, “Why are tragedies missing in Indian literature?” And not a single teacher or professor was able to say something significant about it.They simply shrugged their shoulders and they said, “You are strange; you find such questions…I have been in this university for thirty years and nobody has asked.”I said, “To me it seems very obvious that the question has deep roots in the culture. In all other countries except India there are tragedies – beautiful stories, novels, fiction – but in India they are missing. And the reason is…India is a more ancient land than any other land. It has learned many things from experience, and one of them is: that which should not be, should not be talked about; hence there should be no tragedy.”Their logic can be understood. If man feels that life is everywhere a comedy, then there is a possibility he might continue deceiving himself. He might never tell anybody his problems – because he thinks nobody has problems; why become a laughingstock? Something is wrong with you – just keep quiet. There is no point in exposing yourself to a cruel society which will simply laugh at you and prove that you are an idiot and you don’t know how to live.But it is not so simple. It is not a question just of knowing how to live. It is a question first of dropping all that is false in you. The false comes from the outside. And when all that is false is dropped and you are utterly naked before existence, the real will start growing in you. This is the situation which has to be fulfilled for the real to grow, to blossom, and to bring you to the ultimate meaning and truth of life.It has to be remembered: You can start either from centering – and the moment you are centered you will suddenly find immense love overflowing – or you can start from love. And the moment your love is without any jealousy, without any conditionings, but just a sharing of the dance of the heart, you will experience centering.They are two sides of the same coin. Centering is a more intellectual, scientific method. Love has a different source in you – your heart. It is more poetic, it is more aesthetic, it is more sensitive, it is more feminine, it is more beautiful. And it is easier than centering.My suggestion is, first drop all false ideas about love. Let something real grow in you, and centering will be coming, enlightenment will be coming.But if you find it very difficult to start with love, then don’t feel in despair. You can move directly through centering.You can call it meditation, you can call it awareness. But in each case, the ultimate result is the same: You are centered and overflowing with love.Osho,You usually say that women help men to become enlightened. How is it vice-versa?Latifa, I usually say that women help men in attaining enlightenment, and you must have been wondering what the situation is vice versa.To help somebody toward enlightenment needs immense patience, needs great love. The woman has a few higher qualities.In the first place, the man more or less becomes interested in enlightenment because his wife is interested. Not to be interested in something in which the wife is interested is to keep a cold war going twenty-four hours a day in the house; it is wiser to go with the woman. The vice-versa will be very difficult. The vice-versa means the man pushing the woman toward enlightenment.In the first place, who is going to look after the house? And a dozen nasty children…just your great contributions to the world. Afraid that one day you will have to die, you are leaving so many examples that whether your name is mentioned in history books or not, it does not matter – the real history will be made by your children. They will rape and they will murder and they will commit suicide and they will do all kinds of great things.The husband is continuously worried about the financial situation; his whole life is devoted to earning money. He cannot persuade the wife because that will be the end of the family. Then both will have gone toward enlightenment, leaving those nasty children to destroy the neighborhood – just making places for more meditators.Man is more ambitious. His ambition is mundane. The woman is not ambitious – and to move toward enlightenment you have to drop all your ambitions, all your desires.Man is more in his head. He goes on continuously thinking, arguing. And there are things – and those are the only significant things – which first you have to experience and only then you can think about. Otherwise, what can you think about? You have heard only an empty word – love. You have no experience; your word love is only a container, empty, with no content inside it.Man has not been helpful. He would like his children to fulfill all the desires that he has not been able to fulfill. He wants his children to become prime ministers, presidents, the richest people in the world. Those were his desires, those were his father’s desires, those were his grandfather’s desires and in heritage he will give those desires – which are maddening – to his children. He cannot talk about enlightenment.Latifa is German. Even a German husband cannot manage to force a woman to become enlightened – what to say of other races? – because even the German husband is as henpecked as any husband. In that, there is no difference between the German and the Chinese and the Indian and the Japanese; it does not matter. There is only one kind of husband: henpecked. Whatever you do, you cannot change the situation. And it will be hilarious: a henpecked husband leading a wife toward enlightenment, and that too, in Germany!No Latifa, don’t wait for a husband. You will have to do it yourself. Yes, once you have done it for yourself, you can drive one or many husbands toward enlightenment, like cattle!People have been asking me, “Why, in the long history of man, have so very few people become enlightened?”I said, “What to do? There was nobody to chase them!”If women decide, you will see husbands in every house standing on their heads meditating, crying, that the time is wasted and the customers must be there and the shop…. But in enlightenment you are not supposed to think about such things as shops and customers.Women can help, but that much understanding has not come to men yet.Even the smallest girl has qualities of a grown-up mother; a kind of motherliness surrounds her. That is not true about a boy. You will not find any vibe of fatherliness around him. To be a father is a social institution and to be a mother is a natural phenomenon. Husband and wife are faraway categories.In India, although we have participated in the crime, the universal crime against women…. There have been people in the East – few, but at least there have been a few people – of great insight, and their insight can be seen in many ways.In India, you can go and see temples of Sita and Rama, or Radha and Krishna – but have you observed that you always put the name of the woman first and the man second? It is always Sita first, Radha first…and the companion is no ordinary human being; it is a Krishna, it is a Rama. But still the woman is placed first because to her, enlightenment is far easier than a pregnancy. It is also a kind of pregnancy.The woman knows the language. The man cannot understand it – pregnancy? He can make a woman pregnant but he remains an outsider. His work in giving birth to children is negligible; any syringe can do it. And nature has no preference for men over syringes – they are better used once and disposed of. With man, the difficulty is that once you get caught, it is very difficult to get rid of him. Then the syringe goes on hanging around you for your whole life and the syringe thinks itself very important.Enlightenment is life’s ultimate fulfillment. The woman is closer, her love is more sincere, her readiness to risk is great. You may be thinking otherwise, but because man thinks, he cannot take a risk. First, he will think and be sure that “success is going to be mine.” Only then will he enter into any challenge.The woman jumps first and then there is the whole of eternity to think about it.Latifa, whatever I have said is the best part of the story. It has rarely happened.It has happened, women have helped their husbands, sacrificed their whole lives, never thought about themselves. Their surrender, their devotion to their lovers has been total. In this totality, they have achieved before their lover has.Man is fragmented; his mind is going in all the ways, in every direction. Nothing is complete because you have only a certain amount of energy and you are running in so many directions that you will end up just like a mad dog. You will not reach anywhere.Hearing about enlightenment, man becomes interested in becoming enlightened too, but that is only one of the items on his laundry list – and this is the last item. When everything is dry-cleaned, then finally he will come to me. And here we just do dry-cleaning of your brain, of your mind.A man goes on thinking about enlightenment, nirvana, truth, but they never seem to become life and death problems. They remain questions – philosophical, theological – and you can go on living the way you are living and you can go on thinking and reading and writing but the world of truth has nothing to do with reading and writing.When a woman becomes interested in enlightenment, her interest has a totally different quality. It becomes her whole life – not just one item on the laundry list but the only item.The woman is naturally capable of being one-pointed. That is not true about the man. Both are necessary, both help each other to create a rich life. But they can be great friends about the beyond also. They can help, discuss, meditate together, start changing their loving toward more and more a meditative state.Men have been helped by women in another way also. The woman has been such a nuisance that because of her, the man started thinking of enlightenment. It is an escape – from the woman! He calls it the world but the woman is the world. And for thousands of years, man has been escaping from the woman, from the children, from the world – but these escapists have not attained anything worthwhile. Through escape, through fear, you cannot attain truth or love.So in this ugly manner also women have helped men – forced them, rather – toward enlightenment. Men cannot do even this to women.In a small school, a teacher was asking the students – small boys and girls, “Can any one of you describe a strange animal that nobody else has seen?”One small boy raised his hand. Even the teacher was surprised – “Where has he found a strange animal?” The whole class could not believe it, because this was the first time…. That small guy was a very silent boy. He used to stay at the back of the class, never creating any nuisance, never asking anything. And he was so certain of his answer that he was raising his hand.Finally the teacher said, “What is your answer?”He said, “The animal lives with me.”The woman said, “What? You are a strange fellow! First, you shocked everybody that you have seen a strange animal that nobody has seen and now you say the animal lives with you?”He said, “Yes. It is nobody else but my daddy.”The woman said, “Your daddy? But I am talking about animals!”And the boy said, “You yourself have said that anima means life, and animals mean ‘those who are living.’ And certainly my father is living. And I call him a strange animal because when he goes from the house, he goes like a lion and when he comes back to the house, he enters like a mouse. He is…outside you should see him! And you would not believe it if will saw him inside the house.”Man cannot help in that way. He cannot create so much trouble for the woman that she starts thinking of renouncing the world. The man has certainly been helped, rightly or wrongly – rightly, very few times; wrongly, most of the time, he is driven toward enlightenment.But the ugliest thing man has done is that he has not shown any gratefulness toward women. Whether their means were right or wrong, he has reached enlightenment; at least the woman deserves to be thanked for it. But perhaps they never thought about it in this way. They thought it was because of their understanding of the life of the world that they were going to the Himalayas. It was not understanding, it was really weakness in facing and encountering situations which are on every step in life and remaining silent, peaceful, blissful.So man has chosen to drop the world and move to the mountains. It has not helped anybody. Those who have moved to the mountains have fallen into a kind of retardedness. Mind is a mechanism, it needs use. It needs situations where either it has to react or to respond or just to remain neutral, a witness, not bothering about it at all. But in the mountains where life is not around you, with just the rocks and with the trees, you will not come to a fight. They will not provoke your anger, your hatred; they will not provoke your ambition, because nobody is trying to be the president there.A great emperor came to see a Zen master. He brought a beautiful robe, studded with diamonds. He wanted to be initiated into meditation and this was just a small gift.The Zen master took the gift with great respect, but he said, “You are putting me in an embarrassing situation. It will be very kind of you, if you don’t feel hurt, to please take this robe. It is perfectly suitable in your court. If I use it here, monkeys will giggle, wolves will laugh and the whole mountain will whisper wherever I will go: ‘Look at this idiot! We used to think he was a saint.’ Don’t put me in this embarrassing situation. You take the robe away, it is enough that you brought it.”Men and women have to live together on the earth but they have not learned yet how to be together and yet not lose their individuality, how to be together so much so that they are almost one, without disturbing this oneness in mundane affairs.Man and woman both can help – and if the right kind of help is available, there will be no need for man to escape to the mountains, to the caves, to the monasteries. There is no need, because you cannot find a better place than your home. A loving atmosphere, people who understand you, people who understand your silence and your meditation, will go hand-in-hand with your love. Even if you get into meditation in the mountains, you will have only one wing. You will not be able to fly to the sun. The other wing you have left in the world, which could have been a tremendous help to you, and you could have been a great help in return.If a couple gets initiated into meditation together, they are really getting married for the first time. As for your other registration certificates for marriage – they are not valid for me.To me, there is only one certificate that existence gives you – where love and meditation have been helping each other, supporting each other and opening the doors of the sky for your flight, the flight of the alone to the alone.Osho,The German psychologist, Wilhelm Reich, stumbled upon some inner secrets of bio-energy. He also started practicing these on his patients but he was declared anti-social, was imprisoned and pronounced mad. Osho, what is it that Reich was working on and where did he go wrong. What was he missing?Wilhelm Reich is one of the most important names in the world of psychology. Perhaps he was second only to Sigmund Freud – but he was the youngest disciple of Sigmund Freud and before I answer your question, I have remembered something which is the only incident in the long life of Sigmund Freud which shows something of Zen. It is something which was always present around the great masters but you can’t expect it in Sigmund Freud’s life. I want to tell you about it for the important reason that even a man like Sigmund Freud has the potential of being a mystic. If he missed it, that is another thing.Wilhelm Reich was continually writing letters to Sigmund Freud. He was young – perhaps thirty-five, half the age of Sigmund Freud – and Sigmund Freud was not interested in such a young person. His work was long and he had old colleagues with whom he was working and his movement had become almost international. Now he was unable to go on taking new students and new responsibilities, so he refused. And he refused his best student.But Wilhelm Reich was a German, stubborn; you could not just reject him and then things are finished. He went anyway to an appointment that had been canceled. He knocked on the door and Sigmund Freud himself opened the door. They looked at each other. There was a moment of silence.Sigmund Freud said, “But I have canceled the meeting.”Wilhelm Reich said, “But I have not – and certainly a meeting means a meeting of two persons, so it is only you who has canceled it. From my side, I am still available and I thought that I should present myself because I have not canceled it.”Sigmund Freud again looked at Wilhelm Reich as if hesitating or weighing…”What to do with this man?” He said to him, “I am old. You are too young; I will not be able to finish my teaching. And you may not agree with me because there is a generation gap. So why waste your time? Start on your own, you have my blessings.”With tears in his eyes, Wilhelm Reich thanked Sigmund Freud and returned home. He learned about human energies, about the functioning of the mind, about levels of consciousness – and it was good that he was refused, because he opened a totally new door and he went on thanking Sigmund Freud his whole life; “If he had not refused me, I would have been just a Freudian. At that moment I was hurt but I am immensely obliged to him that he left me alone. I had to start from scratch but I went in a totally different direction and now I can see that all of Sigmund Freud’s work is dream analysis and has nothing to do with reality.”Dreams are only shadows. At the most, psychoanalysis can give you normal dreams, can help you to avoid nightmares. But more than that has not happened.Wilhelm Reich started working on human energy. Naturally, if you work on human energy you are going to come to the source of all – that is sexual energy. The moment he touched upon sexual energy, all the religions were against him. The government was against him, the psychologists were against him, and his situation was a very strange one.He had come to experience that when two lovers are approaching closer to each other, there is a magnetic force – if there is love. If there is no love, then only two bodies meet, but not two energies.He had a scientific mind. He made a box in which two persons would make love. His idea was that the energy love creates can be caught and can be used. Now this was a troublesome thing. He could not show anything – the box was empty. There was no way to materialize the biological energy, but he gathered every possible evidence.Somebody was suffering from impotence. Wilhelm Reich would put him in the box and his impotence would disappear, at least for a few days, as if his battery had been recharged. It was an indirect proof but something had happened. In the box, something had happened, the box was not empty.He told lovers, “Even without loving, you can simply lie down, cuddling, melting into each other.” His work was strange, hard…and it was made more difficult by the society because they started immediately condemning him, saying that he was in conspiracy with the devil – just like me! – saying that sex had to be renounced and he was teaching people some strange exercises.Those strange exercises show his genius. He had no idea of Tantra, he had never been to the East. But the exercises that he found are ten thousand years old. He discovered them and thousands of witnesses who were healed by him…because soon he started healing other patients, not only the sexual ones. Because sex energy is pure energy, it can be converted into many forms. It can become your intelligence, it can become your silence. He started treating people.The treatment was simple: he would just put them in the box. They would remain for fifteen minutes or twenty minutes, a few sessions – and they were cured. But medical science was against him because “this man cannot practice medicine.”This is how law is blind. This man cured thousands of people of strange diseases which were not curable by ordinary, official medicine but that couldn’t be counted. The question was whether he had a registration: “Is he licensed to practice?”Wilhelm Reich said, “I don’t use medicine, I don’t prescribe anything. My whole medicine is the box. If you accept it as medicine, then the medical faculties of your universities have to prove what kind of medicine is there. When I tell you to look into what I have found, you think I am crazy and when I cure people, then I am criminal. I have not harmed anybody.”But medical science, the Christian Church, the government – all started many cases against him. You can start any case – it may be absolutely false, unfounded, but you can harass the person for years. So many cases…and the man became so tense and there was nobody to support him, not even the people of his own profession. They were against him because their psychoanalysis would die if his energy box succeeded.Medicine is not ready to accept somebody who has no medical certificates. His friends left him. He was in great agony because he knew he had found something of great value for humanity and he also saw that he could not convince anybody. He was only convincing people that he was crazy. People were simply laughing, making cartoons, bringing court cases against him.Finally he was jailed because he was practicing medicine without a license. Now you see the tricky world. He was not practicing medicine, he was practicing healing – that you can say, but you cannot say he was practicing medicine. He had not harmed anybody, and he was ready to cooperate with any research group. He was available to talk about everything he had discovered.But his discoveries were going against Christianity, his discoveries were going against your so-called morality. His discoveries were going against your whole social structure, educational structure, political structure.He was one of the greatest revolutionaries ever and he has remained unknown, unrespected, unremembered. And in jail, they must have tortured him immensely. He was not a man who can fall apart easily; he was a very integrated person and the people who knew him testified that it is very difficult to find such a strong, well-rooted and grounded person – but he went mad in jail.I suspect he was forced to go into madness. It is very easy to drive anybody mad when all the powers are in your hands and the person is made absolutely helpless. When he became mad…. This is the world: when he was at the peak of his fame, there were friends, there were colleagues, there was a beautiful woman who loved him. But when he came out of jail, the woman divorced him, the friends disappeared, the colleagues made it clear to him that they didn’t want any more connection with him because even to be connected with him created suspicion.It is sad that he died, but I will say he was forced to die. If you boycott a person in such a way that he becomes an island in the great ocean of humanity – separate, isolated, cannot communicate with anybody, everybody thinks he is mad – naturally, his will to live will disappear.He shrank and died. And it is strange that after his death his work has remained where he left it. It has immense potentiality. It needs to be developed and it needs to be developed in collaboration with Tantra.I call Wilhelm Reich a modern Tantra master, although he was not aware of it. Perhaps in his past lives he may have known the secrets of Tantra – because his work contained the secrets of Tantra.You will not believe that in India there were at one time, two thousand years ago, two hundred thousand followers of a special group of tantrikas. They lived naked. Couples used one gown, just one loose gown around both, made of a special silk which prevented the radiation of any kind of energy from going out or in. They would go for begging or anything but they would remain together, naked, in their gown.They were doing a great experiment, of melting and mixing the female and the male bio-electricity. Because the very meeting of this bio-electricity can help you to go into deep meditation without much effort in fighting with your thoughts. There were one hundred thousand couples and Raja Bhoj, the king in those days, was so furious – “This is destroying our whole morality, this is corrupting our children. Children will see and they will ask, what kind of people are these? – naked in one gown…. These people will corrupt our whole religion and tradition.”Bhoj decided to kill all of them. One hundred thousand couples – that means two hundred thousand people – were killed all over the country, burned alive. Not a single couple was left alive; their literature was burned, their temples were burned. Never before or after has any tradition been so brutally destroyed, so inhumanely destroyed.But when you bring up the subject of sex, immediately you annoy all the people who are in power because nobody who is in power wants people to live to their optimum sexually. They want you to live your minimum sexually because at the minimum you can be enslaved. At the maximum, you are so powerful, you are so intelligent – you are a rock and you cannot be destroyed. Whoever tries to destroy you will be destroyed.Wilhelm Reich will have a revival because what he was doing was absolutely scientific. No Christianity can prevent it, no government can prevent it. And perhaps….I have so many sannyasins educated in psychology, in psychoanalysis, in analytical psychology and different schools – perhaps a few of my sannyasins will start working on Wilhelm Reich. He belongs to us. I give him posthumous sannyas.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Waiting for you to get well, there came a point where I wasn't waiting anymore for something – it simply became just waiting. Discovering the beauty and sweetness of it was so precious. Waiting needs no patience. It is like living in moonlight – a mysterious quiet joy, so nourishing and restful, becoming a womb connected with you in a circular flow of energy. And just when I felt I could go on waiting forever and ever – wondering if I was becoming too much of an Indian! – you shower on us again the gift of your physical presence, the golden bright sunshine setting me aflame again.Osho, can you ever be as happy with us as we are with you?Purna, the experience has been immensely valuable.On the path of mystery, all objects are nothing but excuses – because you cannot wait without an object, without it being for something.The moment waiting is for something, it is desire; it is not waiting. And by its very nature, desire goes on becoming narrower.You love – the beginning of love is a wider experience, because love has not become desire yet. You have not started to take your beloved for granted. The calamity of marriage has not happened yet, you are still free to move in any direction. The other is not yet binding. The other is not yet a hell because there is no relationship yet. No promises are yet given, no decisions for tomorrow are yet taken. You are entirely satisfied with the moment.When you are in love, who cares about the future, about a life beyond death? When you are in love, life is here at the very center of your love, but only before you commit the common fallacy of humanity. You love somebody but the love is not defined yet, is not reduced to law – you have not been to the marriage registrar’s office, you have not been to any priest to destroy your love and give you a guarantee.You have not asked for the guarantee yet – that’s why you are free.You have not asked the other person to be a certain way and only then you will love. Your love is still unconditional, you love the person as he or she is. Your love is not yet possessive.But soon that moment will come, and out of this beautiful experience of expansion of consciousness you will start being afraid to lose it.Who knows about tomorrow?The woman may turn away, the man may not recognize you.Basically, we are strangers. And all that we know about each other is arbitrary – the name, the address, the face, the beauty – because all these will be changing.Your beloved may have the most beautiful eyes and tomorrow, blindness is possible. Unless you have learned to love as the other is, the beautiful beginning, the beautiful sunrise in your consciousness, will turn soon into a dark night of the soul.The same things that you used to love now create anger, now create hatred. The same things that you used to appreciate are now nothing but nagging…. The reception room was beautiful, and because of the beauty of the reception room you have entered a jail.But this is not the only possibility, of lovingness turning into a narrow, ugly desire to dominate, to possess, to be jealous of. If this were all, no intelligent person would have tolerated life for a single moment. For the intelligent person, suicide would have been the only way out.But it is not so – because there is an alternative.Love can become too much concentrated on the object, the beloved. And this is the misery; then you become dependent and nobody loves dependence.The alternative is that love does not become addressed to a single person or a single object, but takes a diametrically opposite dimension – not toward the object but toward one’s own subjectivity.One becomes love.It is not a question of loving someone, of being in love with someone. It is simply a transformation of your consciousness: love is your fragrance. It has nothing to do with anybody else in the world.That’s what happened, when you were waiting and waiting for me.A moment is bound to come – if you are silent, joyous, trusting – when waiting can become a depth in your soul. And because you are not waiting for something or someone, you are the waiting – a silent watchfulness. And because you are not concerned with anything particular, objective, then everything that happens feels as if you were waiting for this.All the flowers bloom for you and all the stars shine for you. Because you have not attached yourself to a particular flower, you have simply become an opening, a loving, a waiting consciousness.This is not only true about waiting; it is true about all spiritual qualities. Either the quality can move toward an object or it can move toward one’s own being. When there is no object, the energy is bound to move inward – energy cannot remain without movement.Energy is movement.When there is nothing outside, your own life forces turn inward to the very source of your being.And this is what I call enlightenment.You cannot desire enlightenment; you can only wait.You are asking me if I love you in the same way, with the same intensity, with the same totality as you love me.It will be difficult for you to understand: there is a love which is not the love that you have known.Your love, howsoever pure, carries something of biological unconsciousness in it. You are not totally free to love anybody.Suddenly one day you fall in love with a person.It is not your action. It is something unconscious in you – your chemistry, your biology, your physiology. They are all conspiring and giving you the idea of love.I cannot love you in that sense.My love cannot become a bondage to you in any way.And my love is qualitatively different: I love not because you are lovable; I love because I cannot help it. And it is not a question of loving someone. Just the way I breathe in and out, and my heart beats, love radiates on its own accord.It is possible that you will see that I love someone more, someone less…. Because you always think in terms of quantity: more or less. And your conclusion has a certain validity, too. But you are not looking at things right side up; you are looking at things upside down.My love is just like the light – it is neither more for somebody nor less for somebody. But still, for the blind man it will not exist. For the one who cannot see properly, it will be dim. And for one who can see with a clarity it will have a different intensity.It is the same light, but it will depend how much you can receive.If you are totally open, you can receive it all.And because it is not a quantity – it is pure quality; hence indivisible – I can give you my whole heart without having any trouble in giving my whole heart to many other people. Because it is not mathematics, such that I have given the whole heart to one person and now what am I doing? – I am finished!That is not my experience.I have always given my whole heart, because I am lazy. Who bothers to cut one’s own heart into pieces? And then to give in a miserly way, pieces…and those pieces will be dead.The heart is alive only in its totality, in its organic unity.But the trouble is in your wrong conditioning.I can give to the whole world, to each single individual, my whole heart – and still my whole heart remains with me to be given to any newcomer. Because newcomers are always coming!You may not be able to understand many things about what the situation is when you are love. For example, when you are love, your love cannot be hot. And in this world, people want hot love. Hot dogs to eat and hot love to enjoy, and their paradise is complete!My love is neither hot nor cold. It is cool.Unless you become very calm and cool, you will not be able to understand it. You have known only the hot love – and remember, the danger with the hot love is that sooner or later it is going to become cool. Everything hot is bound to become cool sooner or later, and the final end is that it will become cold. You cannot prevent it, it is a natural process.So each hot love turns into hot hate. But you are accustomed to hot – either friendship or enmity, but it has to be hot. You are so insensitive that unless something is very hot you cannot feel it. Hence, your question.My love is cool.To understand it, you will have come to the same temperature.And cool love is not only love, it is much more. Because of its coolness, it is meditation, it is silence, it is serenity, it is tranquillity, it is centering. It is not a small phenomenon.I love you more than you can ever be loved.But my love and your experience of love are so different that you will have to change gear. This is what happened while you were waiting. You waited one day, two days, three days…. And I was sending messages: “Within one or two days I will be starting….” You know I am crazy, I have my own ways of working.I would not have started speaking. It is because of Darshan, Bhadra and Hansa. I was not seeing people for the simple reason that I find it impossible to say no to anything. And when Hansa recited a small piece of Urdu poetry, which means “I don’t have any complaint. As it is, I am happy; I don’t have any complaint. But life without you is not life at all….”It was impossible to say no.So I said to them, “Inform my people that I will start speaking today. Rather than saying no to you, I can stop again!” I have my ways – and this time I will not allow Bhadra, Hansa and Darshan to see me!But this is significant to understand: whether I am speaking or not speaking, whether I am seeing you or not seeing you, if you can be here feeling the invisible presence, that is more than can be expected of human beings. And that is the golden key.And in what situation you will wake up nobody knows. Everybody is asleep for different reasons and needs different situations to wake up.Perhaps it helped Purna greatly. She was waiting one day, the next day…. Naturally when you have to wait too long, waiting becomes not an excitement but a settled state. She settled with waiting. She forgot even what she was waiting for. This is the moment when energy starts turning inward. And to shower in your own energy is the greatest ecstatic experience available to man.But the second part of her question…she will have to learn a little more, to experience a little more about love – object-less love; love not as a relationship but as a state of being. Then she will be surprised: it is cool, not hot. It is non-possessive, it is non-jealous, it has no conscious or unconscious desire to dominate the other.True love is not a beggar; it does not ask you to “love me.”True love shares its whole being, its whole joy, all the songs, all the flowers, all the stars. It is a celebration. And you are not obliged – true love is always obliged that you participated in the celebration, that “You allowed my love an entry into your being,” that “You trusted me so much that I am grateful.”I know you love me.But I would like you to rise higher, because right now you are just walking on the ground, the lowest rung of the ladder. And you have the capacity to take off into the sky – sky beyond skies. You can reach to the very climax of existence and its beauty, its truth, its eternity, its deathlessness.What has happened to you, Purna, continue it in other realms, in other directions.In love, drop the object.In meditation, don’t meditate upon somebody or something – drop the object.All over the world, whenever you tell people to meditate, they immediately ask, “On what?” because verbally, meditation is action, activity.On what has one to meditate?Meditation begins only when there is nothing to meditate upon, when there is simply consciousness – you are aware – but you are not concentrating on anything.Concentration is a kind of imprisonment. And all our educational programs around the world are teaching people to concentrate.A man like Adolf Hitler creates concentration camps to kill people – his concentration camps are crude and primitive. All the religions have created concentration camps for you, but they are psychological. They have created a certain prison inside your mind. You cannot go out of it because wherever you go, it is always within you. You cannot run; howsoever fast you run, it is always with you.A Sufi story is….A man was very much afraid of darkness; he had a paranoia. He was also afraid of aloneness – these two things are always found together. The man who is afraid of darkness will necessarily be afraid of aloneness, and vice-versa. Because darkness gives you a feeling of aloneness in a vast universe. It may be populated with nine hundred billion people, but in darkness you are alone.As you start a revolution in you, transforming love from objects and pouring it into your own source, you will be absolutely mystified – coming to know that you have so much love that you can bless the whole world.But your love will be more like compassion, cool, more like friendliness. Your love will be free from its biological, hormonal, chemical past. For the first time it will be beyond matter. For the first time you will not be forced by some blind forces in nature – you will decide.And when you have so much to give, and when you discover that the more you give, the more you have it, then love is no longer a relationship but a pure sharing, with no desire of gaining anything in return.Love has gone beyond the world of the marketplace; it is no longer business. It is for the first time pure play, leela.But about the second part of your question: your love is certainly hotter. And you know, I don’t like heat! You can see…two air conditioners!You will have to experience a higher and more refined, more purified energy. Only then you can understand whether I love you more or you love me more. Right now it can be said that you love me more. My love is simply love – neither more nor less. I cannot figure out how to love less. I have tried! – but I am ashamed to say to you that I have failed continuously for my whole life. I have not been able to love less and neither can I love more. More and less are words that don’t belong to the spiritual realm. They belong to the world of matter.The English word matter is from a Sanskrit root, matra. It means that which can be measured. From the same root, matra comes the French word metre.That which can be measured is not my love.That which cannot be measured, that which cannot be more or less, that which is just for you to share…. Because this whole existence is made of the stuff called love. As you understand your reality, you have understood in miniature the reality of the whole existence – it is made of the matter called love.We are living in an ocean of love, unaware.But there are ways to grow and become aware of the tremendous ecstasies that are possible to you. Just loving a single person you feel so happy…just think of yourself becoming love. The whole existence becomes your beloved – the trees dancing in the wind and the sun, the clouds moving in the sky, a beautiful sunset…. Once you understand that you are part, an intrinsic part of this loving existence, this constantly rejoicing existence, you will drop all boundaries and all limitations on your love, on your intelligence.You will be reborn – reborn as a Gautam Buddha, a fully awakened consciousness.Your experience has directed you toward a right source.Just follow it – with ease, with relaxedness. And much more, so much more that you cannot imagine, is going to shower on you…roses and roses and roses.Osho,You have said recently that a sannyasin has no nationality anymore. Do you say the same thing about age? Since I have been a sannyasin, I have felt ageless. I am sixty-two and young people accept me as one of them. How is this possible?Meditation is a transformation of your whole being. You are no more part of a crowd, no more a cog in the wheel. You have taken your responsibility on your own shoulders; you have become a free individual.Nationality will disappear, because these are all arbitrary lines, man-made – and their existence is ugly, because their existence shows that man is not mature yet. Otherwise, what is the need to have so many nations, and every nation having great armies…. People are dying in poverty and seventy percent of the national income all over the world goes to the military. Humanity is living on only thirty percent, and the army gets everything better – naturally, because they have sold their lives and they are being prepared for death, either to kill or to be killed.This seems so useless. Why should there be wars? Why should there be violence? And why should nations continue after five thousand years of experience shows that they are cancerous, destructive?The man of meditation is bound to be a citizen of the world.He is not going to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. Because he can contact existence himself; there is no need of any mediator, no need of any priest, holy book, church. All these religions have been creating nothing but bloodshed, burning living human beings and doing all kinds of ugly acts against innocent humanity.As you become more silent, as your eyes become more clear, as the smoke that surrounds you disappears, then religions, nations, discriminations between black and white, discriminations between men and women – all are going to disappear.And it is right that you are feeling ageless. Meditation starts taking you beyond time because it is going to take you beyond death.You will be surprised that in Sanskrit there is only one word for both death and time. It is kal. Kal also means tomorrow – tomorrow there is only death and nothing else; life is today.As you become peaceful…. Your tensions are your weight. When the tensions are not there, you become weightless.And the consciousness which is your reality has no time-space limitation. Your body grows from childhood to youth to old age to death – these changes are happening only to the body. These are the changes of the furniture in the house…painting the house, changing its architecture. But the man who lives in the house – the master of the house – is unaffected by all these things.Consciousness is the master.Your body is only the house.So the moment you enter meditation you have touched within yourself something of the universal – which has no age, which has no limitation either of time or space.This is not only happening to you. I receive many letters from older sannyasins saying that they are feeling so young, and they don’t see any generation gap. They mix with sannyasins and not for a moment does the idea come that they are eighty years old and these are twenty year-old kids. But they communicate and nobody thinks that it is a little strange.One woman sannyasin from Scotland wrote to me, “Now, Osho it is going too far!” She is seventy-eight, and now she is running after butterflies! And the whole village thinks she has gone mad because she is continuously laughing and enjoying and the village cannot believe it. Because they have seen her, always miserable…they cannot believe what has happened to her. She is behaving like a small child.She asked me, “What to do? Should I try to behave in the old way?”I said, “You can try, but you cannot succeed. So don’t waste your time, just go after the butterflies. And why bother about the idiots of the village? You enjoy yourself.”Meditation is not something mental.Meditation is something concerned with your being.Just plugging into it a little…and suddenly everything is different. The body will go in its own way, but you will know that you are not the body. People will die, but you will know that death is impossible. Your own death will come – but meditation prepares you for death so that you can go dancing and singing into the ultimate silence, leaving the form behind and disappearing into the formless.Osho,Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I heard you say once that a lie is sweet in the beginning and bitter in the end. And truth is bitter in the beginning and sweet in the end. I have been meditating, but I don't have the experiences people report from the drug ecstasy. Is the drug like the lie and meditation, the truth? – or am I missing something that could really help me?Ecstasy can create a chemical change for the time being. It can make you feel a great well-being, more intensity in life, more color in the world. But this is only going to last for few hours and then you will again be back with a thump on the ground, and now life will look even more miserable, because now you have something to compare it with.Drugs like Ecstasy cannot reach your consciousness. They can only reach your mind. They have nothing parallel to meditation.Meditation reaches your consciousness. It is a state of no-mind. And drugs like Ecstasy reach only to the mind, and give you a euphoria, beautiful dreams, fantasies which appear to be real. So when people tell you that they have experienced so many beautiful things, you feel sad. You have been meditating and you have not felt anything and these people are feeling things through an ordinary, chemical drug.Their experiences will not happen to you.The path of the drug and the path of meditation are totally different.On the path of meditation, you will experience silence; you will experience a joy without any reason; you will experience immense light, a luminosity arising from your very center – as if you have become a star. But these things only happen in the beginning part of meditation. As meditation grows, all experiences start going.The ultimate in meditation is a state of no experience.Just pure nothingness – because that is the source of existence and that is the place where existence goes again and again to renew itself.Now we have on experimental grounds the conclusion that has been reached in the East by many mystics, that just as everything in existence moves in a circle – stars, sun, the moon, the earth, everything moves in a circle – everything that is born, dies. Earths are born and then they die. Of course, they have a long life. This earth has been here for four million years. But this is not a long life; it is still a child. Four million years means nothing because the sun is almost ten million years old and our sun is not very old; it is one of the youngest in the universe.There are suns which are so old and so far away that when I came to know about it, it was really shocking. There are suns so far away that they will never know that the earth existed – for the simple reason that when the earth was born four million years ago, the rays that started moving toward the earth from those faraway suns have not yet reached. The distance is so great. By the time they reach, the earth will be finished.So if somebody from that star were trying to find about the earth, he would miss it completely because it would be lost between two rays. If he were taking a photograph, no image would appear on his film – just emptiness.In this vast universe, the Eastern mystics have come to realize that even the whole universe goes into death once in a while. Planets die, suns die, stars die – every day new stars are born, new planets are born. Whole solar systems have disappeared, not leaving even a trace behind, and new solar systems have appeared. They say, and I agree with them, that the whole universe dies. Then there is darkness; everything has gone to sleep. And again there will be dawn; again planets will be born, stars will be born – a new cycle of creation. Millions of cycles of creation have happened and they will go on happening.Your consciousness belongs to the eternal which never dies. At the most, it goes into sleep when the whole universe dies, and comes back in the morning awake, fresh – a new world is beginning.Just remember one thing: that for all the secrets of life, meditation is the only key. So go deeper into meditation and don’t be bothered about experiences. Just look at those people who are taking Ecstasy. I don’t think it is a dangerous drug, but look at those people. Do you see the light of the eyes of Gautam Buddha? Do you see in their gestures the grace of a Krishna? Do you see something in their life that has changed because of their experiences?Nothing has changed. They have become more sad, more miserable. Now the only hankering is to get the drug – they can remain hungry, but the drug is needed. They are deceiving themselves.The only criterion for a right method is that it should transform your life. You will become more peaceful, more loving, more intelligent, more aware. Your life should show it – only then is what you are doing right. If by taking a drug you enjoy dreams, I will not say don’t enjoy dreams because I am always for totality – enjoy totally! But you don’t know anything about meditation. At least, don’t disturb the meditators. You are disturbed…. Soon you will get fed up. Those same scenes which were psychedelic in the beginning will start becoming ordinary. And what are you going to gain?Your ignorance remains the same, your cruelty remains the same, your anger, your violence, your jealousies remain the same.Meditation is a science of transforming the qualities of life. It is not just to give you a little consolation or a little entertainment. It is to transform you so that you can become part of the universal circus. It is so hilarious; you just have to be clear enough to see it. Just watch any man and you will be surprised: the world is full of hilarious people, but nobody is taking note. Otherwise you need not go and waste your money – just sit by the side of the road and watch the show.Don’t be bothered by any experiences that people who are taking drugs will tell you about. Meditation is not concerned with experiences but with the experiencer. Experiences are outside things. Meditation is concerned with you, not what happens to you, not what you see…. A beautiful rose – certainly under the influence of a drug it will look more beautiful, more radiant but still, what is the use? You remain the same person. Your heart does not open its petals, you are as dead as before. Except for meditation there is no way. Drugs can give you hallucinations, illusory experiences….I am not in any way against anything. My whole approach is to use everything in such a way that it can become a nourishment to life, an evolution to consciousness. I am not against drugs either. It is such a foolishness on the part of governments all over the world that alcohol is not condemned, although alcohol is more dangerous than any of the drugs.This is how you can see that you are being dominated by fools. Alcohol is allowed, and drugs…. Many of them are harmless, but thousands of people and particularly young men and women are in jails because they were taking drugs that the governments decided should not be taken.It is strange that the government does not ask the medical colleges to investigate whether they are harmful or not, and if some drug is harmful, but gives a beautiful experience – illusory, hallucinatory, but at least something in this world which is just like a desert…If some drug has some harmful effects, medical science is advanced enough to remove those harmful effects. Drugs can be purified to such an extent that anybody can take them and have the experience. Because no government has the right to prevent anybody from having any experience. He is not harming anybody….The function of the government should be to take care of people. There are so many medical colleges around the world – do research, find something which gives beautiful experiences to people, nourishment to the body, health to the mind. And you will be surprised at why I am saying this. I am saying this because if good, harmless drugs are made available and people are allowed to take them, these people are soon going to be fed up with the drugs and their experiences.Sooner or later they are going to move toward meditation – there is no other way.We will have used the drugs. Without harming the person we will have managed it so that the drug has given him some experience and now he wants something more which the drug cannot give. And in fact, as you take a drug every day its impact goes on declining. Every day you have to add more quantity. But finally, every drug becomes useless, your body becomes immune to it.I have been with people who have taken all sorts of drugs but they are not drug-addicted people; they are following an ancient path which has used drugs. And then the moment comes when drugs don’t affect them at all. You can give them as much quantity as possible, and nothing happens to them.In their monasteries they have dangerous serpents, particularly cobras. If you are bitten by a cobra you are finished. And these people allow the cobra to bite on their tongues! In the beginning they have psychedelic experiences, and now the cobra poison cannot kill them…they are full of poison.The strangest thing is that the cobra dies because the poor cobra has never come across such a man – so full of poisons! The cobra has a small gland in his mouth, that is all – the rest of his body is without any poison. In China, the cobra is a delicacy – just cut the head and you have a beautiful vegetable.The people I was talking about soon get immune to cobra poison too, and that is their test. Then their master allows them initiation. Now nothing can create hallucination in them.So drugs have been used in the East for centuries as a help to meditation. Now they have destroyed all possibility in the man that any poison, any drug can create illusion. His consciousness is far stronger now. No poison can kill him, no poison can make him even unconscious – he remains alert and conscious.As far as I am concerned these people were doing the right thing and it will be good if rather than behaving fascistically, we allow our people to have the experience if they want – but give it in such a way that soon it can indicate to them the path leading toward some meditation.I am not against drugs. I am not against anything, because everything can be used in the right way and everything can be used in a wrong way. Poison can be medicine and medicine can be poison, it all depends.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,When I listen to your discourses, you take me on an indescribable journey. If afterward someone asks me about what you have said, I hardly remember. But when people ask me personal questions, answers are coming out of my mouth which astonish me the most. Osho, am I becoming a parrot of your words?Listening to me is less like listening and more like drinking. Although it is a verbal communication, that is only the superficial part of it. Hidden beneath it is the real communion where meanings are absorbed and words are forgotten.You cannot become my parrot – at least while I am alive.It is impossible to become my parrot. You will go crazy! My words are so full of contradictions that the poor parrot will be crushed under those contradictions. And it is a sure signal that you are not becoming a parrot because you don’t remember my words. The parrot only remembers words, but whatever is being communicated to you is absorbed.It has to become part of your blood, your bones, your marrow – not part of your memory. Unless it becomes your blood, your bones and your marrow, it cannot transform you.And the transformation is happening. You are aware of it, that in answering a personal question or responding to a situation, something comes out of you that is not yours. You are surprised even by your own words – because listening silently, not paying attention to the words but to the wordless message contained in them, you are slowly, slowly moving your very consciousness.You will not become more knowledgeable here. You will become a new man, a man who knows the meaning of life, a man who has experienced the great benediction of silence and serenity. His actions are bound to reflect his consciousness.And if you cannot remember my words, don’t be worried about it. You are nourished by the meaning, and it is the meaning that will change you, your actions, your responses. It is not the power of the words that transforms anybody. There is no need to be afraid, you are on the right track.One thing has to be understood: you remember only things which you have not understood. Things that you have understood need not be remembered – they will act, they will be in your eyes. They will be in your gestures, they will be in your life, they will be in your love, they will be in everything that you do; but they will not be part of your memory system. They are far higher than the memory because they don’t belong to the mind.Mind is the lowest part of your consciousness. It is good enough as far as the world is concerned, but it is not of any use if you are thinking to go on an inner pilgrimage. You will have to leave that mind behind. Its whole training is for the outside world. It will create all kinds of hindrances if you start moving inward.It is a trained outsider.So it is good that words are not being caught by your memory system. Your listening is so total that the words go directly to your very being, to your consciousness – they don’t need the mechanism of the mind.The mechanism of the mind is good as far as the objective world is concerned but in the inner, in the interior of your being, mind has no entry. Mind has never entered into the innermost core of any human being in the whole of history; the very nature of its functioning prohibits it. It is by nature, extrovert. The moment you start moving inward, you are separating from your mind system, you are leaving it behind. Now you are moving on the wings of consciousness.If what I am saying to you is becoming a reality in your life, who cares whether you remember my words or not? It is perfectly right not to remember them; any remembrance of the words will be an obstruction. Let only pure meaning spread to the deepest core of your being where words have no access, where only wordless meaning is able to enter.A bishop, thinking to convert a Zen master – because he saw thousands of disciples, he thought it better if this old man were converted; then naturally all these disciples would be converted too. With great respect he approached the master. He had brought with him the Holy Bible. He opened the chapter containing the Sermon on the Mount. He wanted to show the Zen master the best of Jesus and if he agrees…and it is very difficult to disagree with the Sermon on the Mount. The argument inside his mind was that it is very difficult, almost impossible, to disagree with the Sermon on the Mount unless you have a superb, logical mind, something parallel to the genius of Friedrich Nietzsche – then perhaps you may be able to disagree.Nietzsche is the only man in the whole of history who has disagreed with Jesus, and not on weak points but on the strongest. The ordinary way is to find loopholes, weaknesses, and hammer on them. If you cannot find them, create them – nobody is so much interested in going to the original sources to look.The world lives on newspapers.Jesus says “Man cannot live by bread alone.” I say to you, a man can live without bread but not without the newspaper. The newspaper is his whole wisdom. These are people who cannot argue against Jesus, Zarathustra or Lao Tzu.For example, Jesus says, that God is love, God is just, always fair, always compassionate. The Old Testament’s God is a very angry God – never forgiving, never forgetting; nobody is going to avoid the punishment for his evil acts. The concept of Jesus’ God seems to be far more refined.Loving, just, fair, compassionate…it seems to be closer to the human heart. But Friedrich Nietzsche criticizes it and his criticism is foundational and crucial. He says, “You cannot say God is love because wherever love is, hate is and if your God knows no hate, he cannot know love. How will he find it out that this is love? To define love, a certain experience of hate is needed. To define silence, noise is needed. To define beauty, ugliness is needed. You are alive because every day many people are dying and you can see the distinction. If nobody was dying, you would not even be able to imagine what life is.”His criticism is very psychological. He is saying that you are taking one part, one side of a coin, and leaving the other side. This is impossible. You cannot have a coin with only one side. You can go on making it thinner but the other side will remain – either both or none.Nietzsche says Jesus’ God is nothing but the completion of the Jewish concept of God. He was anger, he was hate, he was rage. Jesus has taken the other side of the coin, but both are halves and God is whole. If there is any God, he can only be whole.Jesus says, “If somebody slaps you don’t be angry, but with humbleness give him the other cheek also.” It is such a beautiful idea, but a man like Friedrich Nietzsche has an insight and maturity which the common masses cannot have. His criticism is one of the examples of the highest reaches of logic.Nietzsche says, “If somebody hits me on one of my cheeks, I am not so inhumane as to give him my other cheek. That is egoistic. It is trying to prove that ‘you are just an ordinary human being – I am a messiah, a messenger of God. I forgive you and if you enjoy hitting me, you can hit me more.’” Nietzsche’s point is that you are reducing the other person to utter humiliation. Nobody in two thousand years’ history has raised this question.Nietzsche says, “If somebody hits me, I will hit him as hard as I can because I am just as human as you are. I don’t want to prove myself holier than you, higher than you, superior to you. I respect your humanity and I accept your challenge. You have slapped my face. You have given the challenge to me.”He is saying that Jesus’ idea is disrespectful. And certainly if you look deep into its psychology, you will find it is insulting. You are not accepting the other man as a man equal to you. He is an ignorant man, unenlightened. You are awakened. You are creating a distance between yourself and the person who has slapped you.Nietzsche says, “I cannot create that distance. That distance is nothing but fulfillment of a very subtle kind – and fulfillment not of your being but only of your ego.”But this bishop thought that by reading from the Sermon on the Mount, the old man was bound to be convinced that Jesus was as enlightened as Gautam Buddha. He read two lines and the old man said, “That’s enough. Whoever has written these will become enlightened in some future life but as far as this life is concerned, forget all about it.”The bishop said, “But the lines are so beautiful – each word a diamond unto itself.”The Zen master said, “It is not a question of words. While you were reading, I was also listening to the gaps. The man was articulate as far as words are concerned but the gaps expose him completely. What he is saying is only mind stuff, it is not his experience. But the man is good. Don’t be worried; in some future life he will become an enlightened person.”Look – life is not a difficult matter. It becomes a problem when your life wants to go one way and your mind drags you in another and you are in a conflict, torn apart. You can go to neither side…because half of you is trying to go in another direction.Life becomes absolutely simple once you start functioning from something that is higher than your mind. In the beginning for any seeker the whole search is to find a space above the mind.Once you have found a small space above the mind, all dualism disappears, all tensions, all anxieties disappear. And strangely enough, the mind which was never in your control, suddenly surrenders itself to you.Mind as a master is a disaster.Mind as a servant is a beautiful gift of nature. You just have to find the master – and it is not far away.It is just above the mind.Only one step.Osho,You recently talked about how bogus channeling is. As a Rajneesh group leader, I feel that my work is most successful when I manage to get out of the way and become a vehicle for you. At these times, whatever I'm saying or doing, I feel your love and silence pouring through me. Am I in a delusion, like all the other people who think they channel? Could you please say what my function is as a group leader, as your disciple?The people who have been proposing for thousands of years that they are the mediums of God – in other religions of “gods” – or of those masters who are no more in the body, are becoming vehicles to them, mediums to them. The possibility is there.If you have loved me, even when I am not in the body there can be still a contact. For love it makes no difference. But the whole thing depends on the medium – his purity, his silence, the absolute stillness of his mind. The silence has to be so great that it is as if he is no longer present – only silence is there. He has become just a hollow bamboo.I criticized those Californian pretenders who are talking about channeling themselves with dead masters, with the people who have gone beyond and cannot come back to the earth because their work on the earth is complete. These people in California have not gone into any discipline which makes them mediums. They know nothing of meditation. They know nothing of the state of no-mind – because only in the state of no-mind is there a possibility of contacting some unembodied soul.These people who have become channels are not in any meditative state, one thing. The second thing is that whatever messages they are bringing are such crap that it is disrespectful toward the dead. Those poor fellows cannot say anything now, that “this is not my message.”When a message comes from a master it has to be something so absolutely needed that the masters who are no more in their bodies feel that a message should be sent to all unconscious, sleeping, blind people. But it is only when there is something urgent; otherwise, there is no need.I have looked into a few of the books which these channels have produced – they are absolutely rubbish! They can be valued only by weighing them – that much paper has been wasted. I have not come across a single mediumistic book which shows the greatness or the grandeur of a Gautam Buddha. And strangely enough, all these mediums are not mentioning the names of the real masters because then, compared to their statements, the rubbish message that they bring will look too poor.If somebody says, “This is a message from Gautam Buddha,” then it has to be of his quality. So they are talking about masters who have never happened, they are talking about masters who happened on the continent of Atlantis which has drowned. Fortunately there is no proof now, no document, no evidence left about whether there was such a master, ever.But I can say that these statements are not coming from any master. The statements themselves are not luminous. There is nothing that gives them the authority of experience. It is all gibberish.And you should also see that these people who have been chosen for this great work of becoming vehicles…their lives don’t prove it. They are just as greedy, as angry, as jealous as anybody else. Their mediumship would have transformed them. In fact, unless they were transformed, they could not become mediums.My sannyasins working around the world in therapy groups have felt that sometimes they are open to me, available to me, and sometimes they are closed. It is human nature, ups and downs; they are not enlightened yet.Sometimes they see the eternal snows, far away in the Himalayas; but they are far away and just once in a while, when there are not clouds and the sun is shining, you can see them.But you are not there.When a sannyasin is closed, his first work should be not on the group participants, his first work should be upon himself. He has to open, he has to be available to me. This is simply an excuse – because if he is open to me, he is open to the whole existence.The moment you open your door, immediately the fragrance of the flowers enters without making any noise. The sun rays enter. A cool breeze comes in. You have opened the door to the whole universe.To be available to the master is just an excuse. You will be afraid to be open to the whole universe – it will be too much.The master convinces you that there is no need to open all the doors and all the windows: “You just open a small window – a special window for me.” But once you open even a small window, the whole sky enters in. And the joy, the peace, the beauty that you feel will make you open all the windows and all the doors.My therapists have been seeing the difference in their work. When they are open and available they can see and feel so decisively, so indubitably, that something from beyond is pouring through them. They have just become a hollow bamboo, playing the song, allowing the song to flow. The song is not of the flute. The greatness of the flute is that it does not hinder the song in any way but helps it, allows it to reach into the world.There is no question of channeling – although I have given you my number. It is a difficult number.Zero is my number and unless you are zero, you cannot find it. You have to be zero to be in tune with me.But then you will see a tremendous change in the quality of your work. You can do miracles to the participants.If you are closed, you may be able to conduct a group because you know the technical side…. Do you know the difference between the scientist and the technician? The technician is not a scientist, and the scientist is not a technician. The scientist discovers the hidden treasures of existence and also discovers the techniques and methods to use those treasures. The technician is only concerned with the technique. He is not a discoverer, but he knows exactly what has to be done.There will be a great difference of quality but it may not be felt by the people who have never known anything higher.A therapist who is not in deep meditation, is not open, is not merging into the universe, will not be able to become a real help to the participants. Perhaps a consolation…perhaps those participants will feel the euphoria for a few days and then it will fade out. Then again they need another group. They become addicts.Group addicts are in the same category as drug addicts. The group has not helped them to be free and independent; the group has made them slaves. Now they will be continuously searching – this group, that group.But no group is going to give them an insight into themselves because the therapists themselves are not in a situation where all problems are solved, all questions dissolved, where they are simply relishing each breath. They have their problems just like you have.It happened….One of the great psychologists, one of the founders of the movement of psychology, Alfred Adler – he is one of the trinity: Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung and Alfred Adler, these are the three pillars. He was talking to his students and a very embarrassing situation arose. One statement he made, that “My experience…” and it was a lifelong experience of the thousands of patients he had studied. He said, “My experience with people is that it is not just an accident that a person becomes a teacher in a school. He wants domination. He is not strong enough to become a terrorist, but he can become a teacher and can torture thirty small boys and girls.”It seems there is some truth in what he is saying.Everybody chooses a particular profession; there must be a psychology behind it. It has been found in many surveys that the people who study medicine are the people who are most afraid of death. Your doctors are more afraid of death than anybody else. They have come to medicine in search, unconsciously, of finding a way that leads beyond death. It is not a deliberate decision but if they are hypnotized and asked, the answer comes clear: they are afraid of death and they have joined the profession out of that fear.In the life of one of the emperors of India, Aurangzeb, there is an incident. He had revolted against his father, kept him in jail, and taken over the empire. He writes in his autobiography: “My father requested of me from jail, ‘I would like to have at least thirty students to whom I can teach religion, literature, poetry. In this way I will remain engaged, and engaged in an activity which is very close to my heart. I love children, I love poetry, and now there is no work for me.’”The comment of his son is, “He still wants to dominate. The desire for having thirty students has nothing to do with education because in his whole life he was never interested in education; he never opened great universities or colleges or anything. He never did anything for poetry or literature. Now, in jail, he wants thirty students so that he can dominate. He can still remain an emperor although the empire will be very small – only thirty students.”But people are even satisfied with one person – one woman, one man. Just a small empire confined in a small flat.Adler was saying that politicians are all suffering from an inferiority complex. They feel inferior for any stupid reason. For example, Lenin, the man who created the Soviet revolution and the Soviet Union was very much worried and concerned and always was conscious of the fact that his legs were small. His upper body was bigger and his lower body was very small. His legs could not reach to the floor. Sitting on the chair, his legs were just dangling there and he was trying to hide them in every possible way so that nobody would see them hanging there in the air.That was Lenin’s problem. That created the Russian revolution. That made him the greatest revolutionary in the world. That made him the greatest, most powerful man on one-sixth of the land of the earth – the Soviet Union is one-sixth of the land of the whole earth. It is almost two continents. It starts in Europe and it ends in Asia, it covers the whole of Europe and Asia.All politicians are in search of power. It is a will to power. But why? You must be feeling somehow powerless. You want to prove to yourself and to the world that you are not powerless because you know that if you don’t do anything, you will suffer your whole life from inferiority and everybody else will look at you as inferior.This situation has to be changed.In this way, Adler was going to describe every profession possible, and what is the psychological reason behind it. Just then, a student stood up and asked, “What about the psychologists? Is there something loose in their heads? Why does anybody choose psychology? According to the philosophy you have expounded there must be something wrong with his mind, and I agree totally with it.”Adler was very much shocked – that meant he was mentally retarded, sick, something was wrong in his mind. He never mentioned that theory again! He mentioned it only once in his whole life. That is rare, because the theory is very significant and very true.Why does a man want to be a therapist? Has he done his own therapy? Is he finished with his homework? If not, then what right has he got to interfere in other people’s lives, their minds, their unconscious, their superconscious? He has only read these words, and he is trying these words on poor people – poor because they are being treated as guinea pigs, poor because they have paid two hundred and fifty dollars to be treated as a guinea pig!And there is a human tendency which is not taken note of…. When somebody pays two hundred and fifty dollars for a therapy session, if he says after the session, “Nothing happened,” then everybody will say, “You are an idiot! They cheated you – two hundred and fifty dollars gone. And we have been telling you that you were hanging around wrong people, but you never listened.”Now two hundred and fifty dollars are gone, the whole week is destroyed, and to be treated by people as an idiot…this can be avoided.They come out and before they get out of the therapy premises, they start smiling. They start walking as they have never done before, so light! Now, let the people ask.And people will say, “We were wrong, something has happened. Look at that man – singing a song, unafraid of the world. He has never been like that. It is worth two hundred and fifty dollars.” And when they ask him, he tells them what great things have happened, great experiences. This way he saves face.This is an old phenomenon, and the psychology is simple.I must have told you a story….A man was caught in the middle of the night, in the bed of somebody else’s wife. The man was not supposed to come home that night but his work was finished so he came home earlier. He could not believe it. His wife was very devoted – that’s how he had known her – and this man was also well known to him. He was certainly a nice gentleman, but what was happening was not nice. He became so furious that he took out a knife and cut off the man’s nose.The man was well respected in the society…now everybody would be asking tomorrow: “What happened? How come you were found in that house? Why did you go there in the middle of the night?” – a thousand and one questions, and he had no answer. And this nose, absent, will be seen more than when it was present and nobody bothered about it.There was not much time. He escaped in the night.On the way, reaching the other town, he met another traveler who was going in the same direction. The traveler asked, “What happened to your nose?”He smiled, he danced….The traveler said, “What is the matter?”He said, “It is so simple. My master used to say, ‘It is very simple but unless you experience it yourself, there is no way.’”He asked, “What do you mean by all these things?”He said, “I have experienced God. Only the nose has to be sacrificed, the nose symbolizes the ego.”The man said, “That’s right! I am also a seeker. It will be a blessing if you accept me as your first disciple.”So he took the man by the side of the road, behind a bush and cut off his nose. The nose was gone. The man looked all around and he said, “But I don’t see any God.”The master said, “Neither do I. But what to do? When your nose is gone some reasonable, rational and acceptable explanation is needed. Now you go into town, smile, dance and whoever asks, ‘What is the matter?’ just tell him that, ‘It was such a simple thing and religions have made it so complicated just to exploit people. You have only to cut off your nose. Except for the nose, there is nothing between you and God.’”People said, “We never heard this philosophy before. We have seen all kinds of scriptures and all kinds of religious preachers have been in the town. Nobody has told us that the nose is the problem.”He said, “You come to my master. He does not go inside the town, he remains outside. I am his chief disciple. Those who are interested in seeing God, I can give them appointments.”A few people were interested. In the evening, a few more noses disappeared and everybody looked all around and said, “But where is God?”The master said, “Don’t be foolish, there is no God. Now there is no nose either! But you will have to say something to people; otherwise, they will call you an idiot. It is up to you – to be intelligent, wise, enlightened or to be idiots.”Within two weeks, almost half of the town was without noses. And everybody was talking about God and the beautiful experiences. Even the king became interested.He said, “Just for a nose, losing God is stupidity. So many people cannot be wrong…and they are my people.” He called them and asked them, “Tell us exactly what happened.”They told the king, “We met this great master and he said that there is not much of a problem. If you are just ready to remove your nose, the curtain is opened; God is available, and everything that saints have been talking about for centuries. And he was right. Now for the first time we are alive.” And they started dancing….The king said, “These are all intelligent people, so make an appointment for me.”The prime minister to the king was an old man. He said, “Just wait a little. Let me try to find out exactly what the situation is because nobody has ever heard that cutting off the nose is the shortest way to God. You just give me three days and let me look into the whole thing.”In the night, he came with a group of army people and caught hold of the man, who had now become a great master. They took him to the palace, gave him a good beating and told him, “Unless you tell the truth, the beating will continue.”He said, “You know the truth, I know the truth, everybody knows the truth. I have been caught in the bed of somebody else’s wife and that madman has cut off my nose. Now what do you suppose I should do? – go around town telling everybody what happened? So I thought this was a good chance. I have been thinking many times to renounce the world and this is the best chance. Even if I don’t want to, I have to renounce at least this town where people know me and go to another town. Then I talked with this man on the road who was a fellow traveler. I was not certain that he would be convinced – because it is so stupid. But people are stupid, and the man agreed!”“I was feeling sad for the poor guy. It was at least relevant in my case because I was caught with somebody else’s wife and he was angry. Now this poor guy has not even been caught with somebody’s wife but he was so convinced…I tried to tell him, ‘You are too young. First live your life – and this is a simple method, you can come any time.’ But he wouldn’t leave me so I had to cut off his nose.”“He could not find any God and I told him that I had also not found any God, but now this is the only way to protect our respectability. ‘You go into the town and dance and sing and declare that, Whoever wants to see God need not wait a single moment. My master is there, I will give you the appointment.’”The prime minister brought the man to the king and said, “Listen to the story – and you were going to get your nose removed! Then you would have started seeing God – that seems to be very logical. And perhaps all of us in your court would have been forced to remove our noses because it does not look right that the king has achieved God-realization and you are living with a God-realized person, still in ignorance.”They told the man, “You go back to your home town. Otherwise, you will have to remain in jail.”This man certainly seems to be criminal.But all your religions are doing almost exactly the same in different ways.The therapist has to remember that the moment he comes in he should, if he is honest, tell the participants that “I am no longer open to existence and in this state of closedness, I can only do harm to you. I will work only when I am open, vulnerable.”And the master is only an excuse.It is easier to be open toward me because you love me and you trust me. But while you are becoming open to me, you are becoming open to everything.So it is not really being open to me – that is only a strategy, a device. The reality is to be open to the whole existence. With that vastness, clouds wandering inside your chest, you will be able to help many people to understand their situation, to accept whatever they are, to learn methods of becoming more conscious.And the therapist has to remind people continually that he is not the master. The moment the therapist starts playing the role of the master, then he is going to do much harm to people.I have known hundreds of therapists. They have the same problems as you have, perhaps more, and they are trying to help you. They are drowning and they are trying to save somebody who is drowning – perhaps drowning together is better than drowning alone.The therapist knows nothing beyond mind. His only work is to bring people to a normal, peaceful mind. This is not a great achievement but you will make the person able to function in life in a normal way.The madman is nothing but one who is behaving abnormally. The therapist simply pulls down the abnormal man to the normal state. His whole work is confined within the mind.He cannot be a master and if he wants his therapy to be of significance, he has to function as a vehicle, as a channel to a master he loves.Then therapy goes through a transformation.Then you are not just trying to work out how these people should be brought to normality; that is only a preparation. You have prepared the ground, but don’t think you have prepared a garden. After preparing the ground you will need seeds, plants and much care and much love to make a beautiful garden.A man can be normally mad – that’s what the whole of humanity is. A man can be abnormally mad – psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists are trying to somehow bring him back.And the third category is the man who has gone beyond mind.The function of the master is to take you beyond the mind.The therapist can be helpful, he can prepare the ground, he can take out the weeds, but that does not mean that he becomes a master, that does not mean he becomes a gardener. That is a totally different affair.Therapy in itself can be used as a step, but if you know only therapy and nothing more beyond it, that which was going to become a step, becomes a block. It is the same stone. Either you use it as a stepping stone or it becomes a block preventing you from moving further, higher, closer to your sources.Right now, all over the world there are many therapists. But my therapist is unique in the sense that he is not only working according to the findings of psychology – he is working according to the findings of Yoga, of Tantra, of Sufism, of Zen, of Tao, of Hassidism. He’s a spiritual guide. But for that, knowledge acquired only from books will not help.You will have to go through a transformation.And the participants in your groups can also be helpful to you, just as you can be helpful to them; because their problems are your problems, your problems are their problems. And remember one thing: it is easier to solve somebody else’s problem because you are not involved. You are detached, you can see more clearly because you are not in the mess. You can help that man to come out and you can learn something for yourself because many times, you will be in the same situation.I allowed therapists in my communes to work on the participants and to work on themselves.The real work is upon yourself.Only when you have a light within you, you may be able to share it with others.Osho,It's hard to imagine my ever being very courageous. In fact, most of the time, I feel like a mouse. Can the qualities of love and meditation turn even a mouse into a buddha? PS I've been so mousy that this is my first discourse question in eight years.A mouse can become a Gautam Buddha.He just needs a bottle of alcohol; as he becomes drunk, he starts forgetting that he is a mouse. Who says he is a mouse? Under the impact of alcohol, he may start roaring like a lion. But as the alcohol goes, with its influence on your mind and body, you will be a mouse again.And it is very painful. To be a mouse is okay but to be a mouse again – that hurts! But the mouse has his own qualities, he has his own intelligence. Millions of human beings have many potentialities, many talents, and they remain unused.So if other animals who are deeper in darkness, deeper in unconscious, cannot achieve to higher states of consciousness, you should not laugh at them.You must have heard the ancient story, which is almost universal – in every language, in every country, something like that story exists….For centuries it has been going on: that the mice are always tortured by the cats and they are always having conferences, discussion groups – how to get rid of the cats?Finally, one old mouse said, “I have heard from the ancients…there is a way. You have to tie a bell round the neck of the cat, and all problems will be solved – because wherever she is, we will know. It is only when we do not know that we are caught.”But the whole crowd laughed, giggled. They said, “We have been hearing this type of thing in every conference, but the question remains the same: who is going to tie a bell around the neck of a cat?”The old man said, “The solution is in our hands, but the person who can manage to transform it into a reality has not happened.”A young boy said, “I can do it. This is nothing.”They said, “You must be mad. You are not even adult, you don’t have any voting rights.”But the young boy said, “The problem confronting us has nothing to do with citizenship, old age. It has nothing to do with these things, it has something to do with intelligence. I have it.”They said, “Okay, give him a chance. We are afraid – because your father and mother have gone for a holy pilgrimage and surely you will be eaten by the cat. What answer will we give them?”The boy said, “Don’t be worried. I have figured it out completely scientifically.” And he managed!He used to go into the neighborhood medical store; that was his most-loved place. So he brought a few sleeping pills and dropped them in the cat’s milk. Naturally, once the cat drank the milk, she fell unconscious for fifteen or twenty minutes. That was enough time – he tied the bell around her neck and the next day everybody was puzzled, the cats were puzzled because they could not get a single mouse. The mice were puzzled… “For centuries we knew that the only solution was a bell but nobody did anything. And now we can see that it was a simple thing.”If you look into the lives, the past lives of Mahavira – in many of his lives he was an animal. The same is the case with Gautam Buddha. Both have told hundreds of stories of their past lives. In many of their lives, they were plants, in many of their lives they were birds, in many of their lives they were other animals.In one story, Buddha said he was an elephant and the forest caught fire and he was running – all the animals were running out of the forest. The fire was becoming more and more dangerous. The elephant was running and he came out of the circle of fire. Just for few minutes he wanted to rest under a tree, and as he was going to put his fourth foot on the ground, he was alerted by a small rabbit who was sitting there, under the protection of his foot.The elephant was in trouble. If he put his foot down on the ground, the rabbit would be finished. If he did not put his foot down…the fire was coming. And the fire came but the elephant remained determined not to kill the rabbit. He died in the fire. Gautam Buddha said, “I was born as a man because of my small act of compassion toward the rabbit.”No animal, no tree, nothing in existence is incapable of becoming enlightened. It may take a little time, or a little more time, but enlightenment is a destiny. It is a destiny of the whole existence.The whole existence has to become one day a festival of lights.The idea of non-violence in the East arose because of this discovery: that each animal has the potential to become the highest peak of truth, consciousness, love. It is ugly to kill them for eating. The idea of not killing animals for eating came from the experience that they all are capable of becoming gods in their own right. They are equal to you – maybe a little more unconscious, a little more in the dark, but they are not different.We are one family.And it is not only so about the animals; this whole existence is one family.To see and experience it as one family is what I mean by love.Love becomes the most important phenomenon in the transformation of man.You have not asked a question for eight years. There is no need to be worried about it. You may not have asked, but I have been answering your questions too. It is only a question of waiting a little; if you are not going to ask, I am going to answer anyway.And don’t be worried that you have fear in your heart.Everybody has fear in the heart because everybody has death in the future.It cannot be said that you can enter into discipleship only when you have dropped fear – that will be closing the door. I say unto you: fear, greed, anger, everything is allowed.You just come a little closer, enter the temple.The very entry burns out all that is false in you.Only pure gold remains.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Recently I developed epileptic fits – apparently due to a tiny cyst in my brain – which the specialists don't understand. But for me it feels like something amazing is happening. The first fit, in June, came totally as a surprise, and felt like a big hit on the head: wake up! Since leaving the commune I have been living unaware. Afterward I changed; wanted to be alone, silent, to meditate and to listen to you. Gradually I'm more with friends again, feeling more mature, more centered. Then, while feeling physically very well and clear in myself, another fit happened a few days ago. Already I feel something different again, a greater intensity – sometimes very afraid, sometimes so ecstatic I feel I could explode! Generally I am more playful. For the first time I feel beautiful, safer, more loving. Life is very beautiful and joyful. I enjoy the prelude to the fits; my learned knowledge disappears and I'm left with a sense of me – very easy, no effort. But fear comes too: I'm afraid of what might happen, and during the fits I sense a huge no in me. I feel that if I could say yes instead, it would somehow be better. Osho, please could you comment?There are a few things which are important for everybody, not only to the questioner.The most important thing is that medical science, physiology, psychology, are very immature in the sense that they are only doing their work on the surface of human beings. They are not finding a way to man’s center. And because they do not accept the existence of some consciousness beyond mind, of some consciousness beyond death, they are completely closed, prejudiced against the whole tremendous effort mystics have made in finding the center of consciousness.Many times the diagnosis of a physiologist or a physician may be absolutely wrong for the simple reason that his vision is not comprehensive enough. He understands man only as matter, and mind as just a by-product of matter, a shadow phenomenon with nothing beyond it, nothing eternal, nothing that is going to remain forever.They have created a picture of human beings which creates despair in intelligent people. And because of their outright rejection, their approach is not scientific; it is as superstitious as any other fanatic religious or political person’s. Science has no right to deny consciousness unless it has explored the inner sky of human consciousness and found that it is dream stuff, not a reality but only a shadow. They have not explored – they have simply assumed.Materialism is the assumption, the superstition of the world of science, just as God, heaven and hell are superstitions of the religious world. Science is not yet pure science and it cannot be, because the scientist is not yet innocent, unprejudiced, ready to go with the truth in spite of himself and his conditioning.The fits that are happening to you are not a disease. I am not a physician but I am not looking from the physician’s side of the phenomenon, I am looking from the other shore. Your fit is really a rushing, overwhelming consciousness that your mind cannot contain, and because it cannot contain it, it goes unconscious.I will not call it a disease. I will say you are blessed. And the reason I am so certain that it is not a disease is because after the fit you feel blissful, ecstatic as you have never felt. After a disease you cannot feel ecstatic – you will feel exhausted. After a disease you will feel weak, shaken, wobbly…but you are feeling ecstatic, you are feeling more blissful than you have ever imagined you could feel.The fruit is the evidence of the tree it has come from. If it is juicy, sweet, tasteful, it is saying something about the tree because whatever it has is a gift from the tree. The tree must be young, the tree must be full of juice. Just looking at the fruit or the flower you can infer much about the tree.What happens after your fits proves that your fits are not those of a sick man – and I want you to understand something which is missing from medical science. Your fit is because of an abundant release of energy. The mind is capable only of a certain amount: the day-to-day energy which is exhausted very easily. From your center, floods of energy are approaching the brain system. The brain system, the mind, is not able to absorb that much energy; it goes into a state of coma. The doctor will look at the coma, he will wonder about the fit, he will try to find the cause…. And your doctors have not been able to find the cause; they will never be able to find the cause because they are looking in the wrong direction. They are looking in the mind itself, as if something is wrong in the mind; hence the fit. Nothing is wrong in the mind – but the energy beyond the mind is becoming available to the mind.Mind is a beggar. You will have to learn to live as an emperor, and the fits will disappear.The fits are symbolic that great changes are happening in you.I am reminded of a few things which will be helpful to you. Five thousand years ago in China, acupuncture was discovered in an accident. A man had suffered his whole life from terrific migraines, and the Chinese medicine had not been helpful at all. They did everything but nothing worked. It seemed the case was hopeless. But they were in the same fallacy as your physicians are.This man had gone to the forest to collect some wood and was hit by a hunter’s arrow accidentally. The arrow hit his leg and his migraine evaporated instantly!Now ordinarily you could not connect the two; this was a new revelation. He went back to his physicians and told them what had happened: “This arrow has done something: for the first time in my life I am feeling healthy in my head; otherwise it was always heavy.” Even if it was not a severe migraine, something of the pain had become almost natural to him. But it had disappeared so miraculously that he was afraid to take the arrow out; it was better to live your whole life with this arrow stuck in your leg than to have that migraine again!But the doctor said, “The arrow cannot be allowed to remain. It will create poison in the body; it may be poisonous already. It has to be pulled out. But don’t be worried, it has given us some clue.”This is how acupuncture was born. The physicians took out the arrow, but the migraine never returned. Over hundreds of years, slowly, slowly they discovered that there are seven hundred centers, interconnected in the body, and it is not necessary that your migraine has its source in your head. The source can be anywhere in the body. It can be at any of those seven hundred centers. The only thing that has to happen is that that center is vibrating your brain, sending waves of energy to your brain which are hitting other centers and creating the migraine.Now because of that arrow a particular center in the leg was dead – it could not broadcast anymore. That was the cause, and they were trying everything but it was all off the wall! And they had no idea, nobody ever had any idea that the center might exist somewhere else and unless that center was cured, the effect that was showing somewhere else would continue to show.This fit is something very similar to the fits of Ramakrishna. He is the only mystic in the East who used to go into unconsciousness with any slight provocation. Somebody would start singing a song of devotion to God and that was enough…in the middle of the road, in the traffic of Calcutta – which is the maddest in the whole world! What you see in Bombay is the best in India; if you want to see the real thing, go to Calcutta! It is simply crazy. It was so difficult to take Ramakrishna from one place to another place because even if somebody said “Jai Ramji” – that is a common greeting in India, “Victory to the God, Ram” – that would be enough, Ramakrishna would fall flat on the ground. Just the name of Rama…he was so sensitive, his system had developed to such a delicate vulnerability, that even a small triggering and he would be in samadhi.Doctors were called and they were in the same difficulty, they could not figure it out: the man was perfectly healthy, there was no reason for him to become unconscious, and it remained a mystery to the physicians. But the reason why it remained a mystery to them was that they were not ready to look from a different perspective. It is not the kind of fit in which you become unconscious because the quantity of consciousness in you is so small. Some shock – your wife dies, your business goes bankrupt – just a slight shock is enough because there is not much energy, you are not very conscious. It is just a small amount of energy, it can be crushed by any accident. This is the nature of the ordinary fit: you lose your conscious energy and only unconsciousness remains.As far as the questioner is concerned, it is happening totally differently. It was happening totally differently to Ramakrishna. It is not that your consciousness disappears and you become unconscious; on the contrary, so much consciousness descends that you are not able to cope with it. Your mind is simply in a state as if suddenly frozen…so much is showering and your mind has no experience, no discipline to manage it. It is too much, and because of too much consciousness, it will be felt on the outside that you are having a fit.The symptoms are the same. Only one thing is different and that is what happens after the fit – that is decisive. If it is a fit where consciousness has disappeared the man will find himself utterly weak, sad, feeling as if he has died and is coming back to life again. He will not have any memory that he has been unconscious for two hours, but his whole body will show symptoms that he has passed through a trauma, a painful trauma.If it is not a fit but a glimpse of samadhi, the person will wake up rejuvenated, young again, fresh as he has never been – absolutely silent, peaceful, with a clarity to things.Even your question has that clarity. The question has not come out of your confusion but out of your clarity.Rejoice, and allow those fits. Don’t try to control them, don’t even make an effort to control. Rather, try to be awake while the fit is there. Slowly, slowly you will become capable of being awake while the fit is there, and then there is no fit because you are no longer unconscious and there is no discontinuity in your consciousness. It is a continuous flow…growing, flowering, becoming wider and bigger.You need not be worried about it, but you should not be going to the physicians and doctors because they will stigmatize you, convince you that something is wrong. They will make you afraid that you are losing control of your mind. They can make you so much afraid of the disease that you will start to unconsciously prevent the fit and that will be a disaster. Even now, although after the fit you are feeling beautiful, still – in the fit you feel a great “NO,” you don’t want to go into it. You have already accepted the idea of the doctors that it is a disease, that if you go deeper into it you will be mad.I say to you: if you can go deeper into it you will be certainly mad in the same sense that Gautam Buddha is mad, Socrates is mad. These people are not really mad, they alone are sane but they are in a mad world.And they are in such a minority that only after millions of people does there come a point when somebody becomes enlightened. He is so alone. And the whole world is not ready to accept anything that has not been happening to them…and naturally they are in a majority. And this man – Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Bodhidharma – is trying to say that he has achieved something which you have not achieved. It hurts your ego, it annoys people, it irritates people because it brings the question clearly into their focus: “Is there life, a sane life?” They know life is not sane, but where to find the sanity?All the religions have been saying that to find it is a very difficult job, it takes lives and lives to attain. So they are discouraging people…all the religions have been a tremendous disadvantage to humanity because they have all discouraged you. An authentic religion should encourage you.You are asking me, because you must be feeling inside that if you can say yes totally to this strange space that overwhelms you…. Why do you want to say yes to it? And why does there come only a big no?The no is coming because everybody you talk to about it is going to tell you that this is a dangerous disease: “Pull yourself together, pull out of it.” It is the world around you that is making you afraid.I would like to say to you that there is nothing to fear. You can say yes. You can allow existence whatever it wants to do with you. You can simply leave yourself in the hands of the unknown, and a miracle is waiting for you.Osho,My daughter, Ma Shanti Mara, who is seven years old, asked me to translate her question to you because she does not speak English. Her question is: “Warum gibt es Gott?” – why is God? She is now at school and confronted with “religion,” and more and more the question was forming in her heart and head. Now she is beginning to realize that at home, sannyas is happening, and outside, something else. Would you please comment?The question is significant. Children always – almost always – ask, “What is God? Where is God? How does he look?” These are simple curiosities. But Shanti has asked a rare question, very rarely asked: why is God? There is no question of what God is, there is no question of where he is, there is no question of how he looks.Her question is more fundamental – “Why?”Why is the hypothesis of God needed?It is not a simple curiosity. She has pinpointed the weakest point of all the religions – why God? No religion has been able to answer the question, no philosopher has been able to figure it out. Because whatever reason you give – “God is because of this reason,” – God becomes secondary. And no religion can put God second to anyone, so they go on round and round giving answers and knowing perfectly well that none of their answers is going to answer the question. But I can answer the question because I do not belong to any established religion.God is because you are full of fear.It has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with philosophy. It has something to do with your psychology. God is your fear, projected, magnified unto the skies, made bigger….The Indian God has one thousand hands. He must look like a centipede! So if you meet some big centipede, be respectful! – who knows…. The Indian God has three faces – obviously he needs them so that he can look all around; otherwise he is looking to one side and on the other side the world goes mad, which is always possible. So he has to be continuously on watch. The idea looks very good but it is basically your fear.The fear is whether God knows you or not. So big a crowd on this small planet…and there are estimated to be fifty thousand planets in the world where there is life. And this is only about the world that we have come to know through science; it is not the whole world, it is only a small part. Every day new territory is revealed, and Albert Einstein said in one of his letters that it seems the world has no limits.Logically it cannot have, because to make a limit you need two things. You cannot make a limit with one thing. You have a fence around your garden because the gardens of your neighbors are there. You can make a fence – but can you create a fence where the world ends, and there is nothing beyond it? And even nothing beyond it is something beyond it. Who knows what that nothing contains? And it will be infinite, the exploration has to continue.Man’s science is very undeveloped and you will be surprised; if you look backward then you can understand. Whatever you are doing in the hospitals and the medical colleges seems to be right, but if you look at the history of fifty years ago, you will be surprised – everything that has looked right has proved wrong in fifty years’ time.Just fifty years ago the treatment for a madman was bleeding – his blood had to be taken out. Naturally, he became weak – if he was a violent type of madman, destructive, attacking people, naturally he will not do such a thing now. He cannot do it, he is so weak. Do you think this is treatment? You have simply made the madman weak. Soon, within a month or two, he will be back again. Once the blood that was taken out is replaced by fresh food, air, sun rays, he will prove that what you have done was simply stupid. And now they recognize that it was stupid, it had nothing to do with madness. But for three hundred years it continued to be the authoritative medical treatment for mad people.Now whatever you are doing you cannot be very certain about it. Tomorrow it may be proved wrong.But experts have a tendency to be authoritative. They will not listen to what I am saying, because to listen to me means to change their whole vision of life.For example, I was saying that the first questioner’s fits have nothing to do with mind, that it has to do something with spiritual energy that is flooding the mind – and it has been happening to mystics, it is not a new phenomenon. They should not treat the person as insane. They should not try to prevent the fits because if the fits are prevented then the person can really go wrong, can go mad. Now, through fits the overflow of energy is released. If the fit is prevented you have closed the only outlet for it.But they will not understand what I am saying, that you have to help the person to center his spiritual energy, to crystallize it…. And there are methods. Once it is crystallized and centered and rooted, it will not overflow the small mind and the fits will disappear, and without any harm to the person.But to accept this small approach they will have to change their whole prejudiced mind and that seems to be one of the most difficult things for people to do. On the contrary, what they will do is to put a case in court against me saying that I am not a doctor and I should not tell people what is a disease and what is not a disease.I am not prescribing medicines to anyone. I am simply making it clear that what you are thinking is a disease is not a disease but a blessing. If you can say yes, then the conflict between you and the overflooding energy will disappear, and for the first time you will know who you are, what the meaning of life is. For the first time you will know that there is no death – only forms change; the formless spirit continues. And you are the formless.This is my way of deciding: If after the fit you were going into a bad state of mind – bitter, sad, frustrated, angry – then I would have said to continue the treatment because something is wrong with the mind. But because your experience after the fit is so grand, has such beauty…you should forget all about disease and the doctors. You are absolutely on the right path. Start saying yes to it and don’t go into it with fear because fear causes a shrinking. Go with joy, dancing.It is an invitation from the beyond. Accept it gracefully, and there is much in store for you to be surprised.Osho,In Rajneeshpuram I used to worship for long hours every day. This would still the state of mind in general; and the peaks of meditation I experienced continuously were great. That kind of thing does not seem to be happening here in Bombay, even after so much relaxation and not much work to do. Please explain whether this is due to the surroundings and situations here, or for some other reasons.The method that was being used in Rajneeshpuram comes from Gurdjieff. He himself got it from ancient Sufi sources.You will have to understand a few things before you can understand the answer to the question.According to Gurdjieff – and I agree with him – your life energy has four layers. The topmost layer of your energy is very thin, it is only for day-to-day work. By the evening you are tired and you want to go to sleep. That day-to-day energy needs recharging every night. In the morning you are again fresh, ready to work.The second layer is the emergency layer. It is bigger because it is a question of emergency. You come home tired, the whole day…and it has not been one of those great days when whatever you touch becomes gold; it has been a very ugly day. Tired, frustrated, you just want to go and drop dead into bed, but as you are dropping into bed – unfortunately you are still alive – the house catches fire! You forget all your tiredness, you are running for hours to put the fire out. You have forgotten that you are hungry, you have forgotten that you had come just to go to sleep. You are so full of energy, so vibrant, that even when the fire is put out it will take hours for you to go to sleep because you became so excited. It was not only that the house was on fire, you were on fire too! It will take a little time for the fire to cool down. All the thoughts that have been moving so fast in you will take a little time to settle. This is the emergency level.When somebody fasts for many days he has to live on the emergency level. When somebody forgets his way in the forest for days together, he has to live on the emergency level. Ordinarily, we have made life so secure, comfortable and safe that millions of people never come to know their emergency layer of energy.Then there is a third layer which is even bigger. That connects you with the whole life of the universe. And below that is the fourth which has no boundaries, it is unlimited. When you reach to the fourth you are one with existence. Then the whole energy of existence is your energy.In the commune…and this was misunderstood all over the world; this is how everything is misunderstood. People understand only that for which they have been conditioned. They think that is all, while in fact the whole has no boundaries and you can go on exploring in any dimension, to any depth, without coming to the end.People were working twelve hours a day and sometimes fourteen hours a day. To outsiders this looked like they had been hypnotized – otherwise who is going to work fourteen hours continuously? But the reality was that these people were under a certain program of evolving consciousness. It is somewhere from twelve to fifteen hours that the first layer disappears, is finished. If you have been working hard for twelve hours, the first layer will be burned out. Ordinarily you stop, it is time to take your supper and go to bed.This is where Gurdjieff comes in. He says, “If you can continue now, when there is no energy, you are completely empty of energy as far as you know – those hidden layers are not known to you – continue!” A moment comes when suddenly all day-to-day energy is exhausted, and immediately the second layer becomes available to you. You are flooded with an energy so powerful that people who have come to that energy have felt that now they can do anything. Nothing is impossible, the energy seems to be so great.But before you can reach the second level the first has to be exhausted. And there is no way of giving you any proof, argument or evidence. You have to do it and experience it.Anybody who has done it has never come back empty handed. Once you have tasted the second layer of energy – which is purer, unpolluted – naturally your desire to go deeper becomes a thirst, an intense longing….If you go on working for thirty-six hours, non-stop, you can open a passage to the third layer of your energies. And to be in the third layer of energies is to know things that you always wanted to know. It is in this layer of energy that one experiences love without attachment, one experiences love as sharing, not as relationship. It is in this part of energy that you experience yourself separate from body, from mind, from everything. You are just a witness – and that is the fourth.Between the third and the fourth there is a very thin Japanese paper curtain. From the third you can even see things moving into the fourth, behind the paper curtain. And it is only a question of removing the curtain, because if it was for you to work and exhaust the third layer it would be impossible. You cannot exhaust it, it is far bigger than you.You are connected with the whole life system. The fourth brings you home, brings you back to the crystal-clear nature of your being.Here in Bombay you are relaxed, there is not much work for you to do; that’s why your meditation is not going deeper. That work part was an essential part. If the whole day long you are relaxed, your relaxation will remain superficial – it will be spread over a long period but it will be thin. If you have been working intensely for twelve or fourteen hours you deserve the same intensity, the same depth of relaxation – that is a natural phenomenon, a nature that is continuously looking after you. But even nature cannot go against its laws.The law is: if you want the experience of deep relaxation then you will have to go into deep exertion.There is no need to go anywhere else. Here you can do jogging, running, swimming. Exert yourself so the first layer, which is never fresh…. It has to be used every day. It is just pocket money, you need not carry it forever. As you start some kind of work with totality you will find your meditation coming back – and it will be deeper this time, because in the commune whether you were consciously aware of it or not, unconsciously you felt that you were being forced to work. The very idea that you are being forced to work destroys the beauty. Your work remains half-hearted and your meditation will remain half-hearted too.I know that working twelve hours or fourteen hours is difficult – and particularly if you have not worked so much in your life it is painful.The whole body hurts, sleep becomes difficult. Because you don’t understand why this much work is being given to you, there is resistance…you do it, but not with a dance.Here nobody will be forcing you. You will be doing your jogging or swimming or running on your own accord. This will bring you closer to totality and a total act brings its reward in a total silence.From tomorrow morning start…a few other sannyasins may be ready to come and join you, and it will be good on Juhu Beach. So first jog and dance and sing and then rest there on the beach for a few seconds or a few minutes just listening to the sound of the waves, feeling the sun, the wind. Fall in a kind of synchronicity, become one with it.It is not that you are separate from the ocean and the earth and the sun. You are not. We are all connected. And to remember all those connections makes you a member of this vast universe. The trees and the rocks and the stars all turn into a great brotherhood.Life starts giving you its secrets as you become more and more available to it. It is very just and very fair. You get only that which you deserve.Osho,I have heard that some people claim to be doing the same work that you do. Is it not true that while others are trying to alter the major disturbances in people's programs, your only reason for living is to ensure the elimination of the programs altogether? In any case, could one program eliminate another, even if it wanted to? Are they not left behind on the shores of western maintenance-man psychology? – tepid reformers, not revolutionaries?No program can replace another program. Every program can repress the older program in you. The older program goes deeper into the unconscious and the new program becomes your personality. And psychologists are deceiving the whole world by saying that they are deprogramming people. It is not deprogramming, it is only reprogramming.Your insight is true, that the therapists, psychoanalysts and others of the same kind, are claiming that they are doing the same work as I am doing.In the first place, I am not doing any work.In the second place, their work and my approach are totally different.You have got the point, that they are simply adjusting people’s normal behavior. All the psychologists are doing only one thing and it is the best paying profession in the world: they are just keeping you mediocre, normal.It is good that these people did not appear a little earlier; otherwise Jesus Christ would not have been crucified but psychoanalyzed. All the mystics of the world would have been put into psychiatric hospitals – they have to be made normal, they are behaving abnormally.Mahavira walking naked – naturally it will look like something has gone wrong in this man’s head.The psychologists are just maintaining the society as it is. Hence the society pays them more than any other profession, although their work is nil. But the society pays them highly for the simple reason that the status quo should not be changed. If people remain normal then they cannot gather courage enough to change the structure of the society, to change the future of man.Normal people do normal things.Revolutionary action is not a normal thing.The very idea to change humanity completely, to change the human world so deeply that it becomes disconnected with the past is not within the hands of normal people. It needs geniuses, and all geniuses are abnormal.The word abnormal can be used for both: those who have fallen below the mind and those who have gone above the mind. Both have become abnormal. That’s why there is sometimes a similarity between a madman and a mystic, some kind of similarity. You may not be able to figure out what is similar but there is some kind of similarity, and the similarity is that both are out of the mind. One has fallen below the mind and one has gone above the mind. Both are no longer living in the mind – that is the similarity. But it is such an invisible phenomenon that to figure it out is difficult.In the west there are many people of the quality of Ramakrishna who are in madhouses, because in the west going above the mind is simply not acceptable – there is no “beyond”, so Ramakrishna is simply mad.In the east just the opposite has been happening for centuries. There are many mad people who are thought to be saints because their behavior has some similarity. You may not be able to grab hold of it but there is some similarity.I have been in touch with a few people who have been worshipped like incarnations of god but really they were just mad. But once you have accepted something, you start interpreting accordingly.Near Jabalpur where I lived for twenty years, there was a man – Tuntun Pal Baba. no relation to Tintin! He was very old, ancient. He never said anything.I went many times and remained there for a few days just to watch him. He started becoming afraid of me because he certainly understood that I was not his follower or worshipper, that I was looking for something else.He had a paralysis of the left side so he could not even hold a cup of tea with his own hands. His left hand was almost dead and his right hand was also trembling; he was old and weak so somebody would have to hold his cup. Even drinking the tea was difficult because half of his face was paralyzed. So tea would be flowing all over his robe and just in the middle…he lived only on tea. He would give the cup to somebody. half the tea he had taken himself, and half he would give to somebody – whoever was present there. That was his prasad.Such a disgusting scene…because his saliva was going into it and people would drink that tea as if they had found nectar. And these were the people who had gone there for some desire to be fulfilled, some sickness to be cured. Somebody is childless…a child to be given; somebody’s son is lost and he wants to find him…all kinds of people, but not a single spiritual seeker.And there was no answer – the only answer was the cup of tea. So you would drink the tea, go home, and with the miracle of Tuntun Pal Baba have a child immediately! Hundreds of people were going, just a queue the whole day. If one hundred people come, fifty are going to be cured – they were going to be cured even if they had not come, because everybody who becomes sick does not die. So the business is perfectly good: at least fifty percent are going to be cured and these fifty percent will spread the news, they will exaggerate it – which is just human nature – and more people will be coming.Because of the Indian conditioning, the other fifty who failed thought they must have done some evil act, so evil that even a paramhansa’s blessing is not able to remove it. Or perhaps they would have to find another source of divine grace; perhaps Tuntun Pal Baba is not the right person for them. They will never come back to tell the story that the prasad, The present from Baba has not worked. Only the people for whom it has worked will come back again, and with new people…the crowd will go on growing.I used to sit there and watch the crowd, the faces – what kind of people come and what does that man have? One afternoon in the hot summer there was nobody else, I was alone with the baba. He asked me, “Why are you unnecessarily torturing yourself in the heat in this village?” I don’t know how this idea entered people’s minds that I am an incarnation of god. The more I denied it, the more they became convinced – because that is one of the symbols of the incarnation of god, that he will deny it.“I am a humble man, I am not a reincarnation of god,” he said. “I am a poor man, uneducated. I had no idea that I was creating trouble for myself. The more I denied, the more people were coming. And because of this paralysis I cannot talk much. And this tea! – I have not started it, people just started it themselves, because there is nothing else with me – I only drink tea. People just started it. The cup might be half full and somebody would take it out of my hand and give it to somebody else, and the whole day…. so the whole day I have to drink tea!”I said, “You should have told them that this was nonsense. I can take you out of this place.”He said, “What is the point? Because they are being helped, although I am not helping them.” He was a sincere, simple man…. “They are being helped so what is the harm? Even if fifty percent of people are helped…poor people, they cannot pay for medical treatment, they cannot go to big cities and big hospitals. If they are being cured, let them believe that I am a god. But sometimes even I start giggling in the night – what kind of a god? Half paralyzed, cannot eat anything, only liquid…and now that liquid has become only tea.”The last time I visited him he was dying. He whispered in my ear, “Try to explain to these people that you create these illusions yourself and you don’t even give me a chance to refute it. I am saying I am not a reincarnation but you are not ready to listen to it.”I have seen a few more people. This man was not mad at least, he was only sick, old. But I have seen mad people. Their madness is thought to be something divine. In their madness they may do anything, they may dance on the street….I was passing through Kanpur; I had a meeting in Kanpur and after the meeting, as I reached the railway station I saw a crowd. Somebody told me that there was a godman, and that’s why the crowd was there. So I went inside the crowd and I could not believe…this man used to be a servant in the hostel where I had lived. He felt a little ashamed.I said, “Don’t be ashamed. in this country you can be ashamed of anything but not of being a reincarnation of god – enjoy! Because in your job what were you getting?”He said, “That much is being collected by my followers now.”He had six followers who were continuously collecting money from people. If you gave money you could go close to him, touch his feet, have his blessings. He had nothing to say.I asked him, “When can I see you alone?”He gave me a time in the night and he met me. I said, “You were a simple person, what happened?”He said, “I also cannot figure out, what happened. I had gone to a marriage party and there, in the sweets, they had mixed some drugs so I started doing strange things. I threw my clothes off, went naked into the market…and a crowd followed me, and the same people who had given me the sweet started saying, ‘He is a reincarnation!’ I was half conscious, half unconscious. I could hear somebody saying, ‘He is a reincarnation of god!’ and I was not in a state to argue. In fact, I thought perhaps I was a reincarnation of God!”“I started dancing more madly and since that day, I am enjoying it. It is a good business. No qualification is needed.”In the West, they are making one mistake. Here we are making another mistake. But the mistake is possible….The man who has gone beyond mind and the man who has fallen below mind – both are out of the mind, so there is some similarity. That similarity should not deceive anybody – because the person who has fallen below mind will be sad, tense, searching for the lost home, nervous, feeling unworthy. You have to look into the qualities and the feelings of the man.The man who has gone beyond the mind will be feeling like a child, innocent, will be relishing existence and its beauty, will be creative. He cannot be destructive. He may paint, he may sculpt, he may sing, he may dance, but a man who is moving above mind is bound to pour a little more beauty into the world, a little more music, a little more poetry – that is his contribution.Only your contribution proves where you are – whether you are mad or you have gone beyond mind to authentic sanity.What is happening is perfectly beautiful. Just say yes – not a verbal yes but an existential yes, in which every fiber of your being is involved.You are very close to the opening of a new world, of a new consciousness for you.It is for this consciousness that you are here with me.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 11 (Read, Listen & Download)

https://oshoworld.com/sermons-in-stones-11/

Osho,You can't really mean it when you say you have lost all hopes and illusions, because you know perfectly well where humanity stands today and you know how slow evolution is. I often wondered if you had not come a bit too soon: humanity was not ready to understand your liberating message, and simply misbehaved with you.And this was the explanation that I found within: yes, you had come too soon – all great masters come too soon (poor Jesus' message has been understood by only a very few after nineteen centuries, so you'll have to be patient!) But the shock was necessary – the spiritual earthquake. Yet some ego-skyscrapers are so technically perfect that they can resist probably even the destruction of the entire planet.Another thing I ask myself is why you are so brutal, so violent, so offensive. I can understand this behavior with disciples in the hope of fracturing their egos, but with politicians…? They just can't be anything else than offended – but they won't learn what you want to teach them (at least not in this incarnation) and you know it, so what is the sense? Please explain. Couldn't you be just as outspoken (that is what I so love in you) yet less provoking? It would have saved you so much trouble, I'm sure, and would not have caused this ridiculous alliance of all governments against you.I understand your love, and I understand your love for my work. But you do not understand the ways the masters use to work on the sleeping humanity.Jesus was offensive – deliberately, because there was no other way to wake up his contemporary humanity. His crucifixion has perhaps been understood by only one man up to now in the whole of history, and that man is not a Christian.That man is George Gurdjieff. Because he is not a Christian he can stand aloof, with no prejudice at all. His insight into the crucifixion of Jesus is that it was planned by Jesus himself. On the one hand he was very offensive, very rude – that provoked the blind masses. On the other hand he was mercilessly hammering on the priesthood – and the priests in those days were very much more powerful than they are today. Today they are nothing but the Queen of England; it means nothing. The Queen of England or the queen of playing cards – they are synonymous.Jesus sacrificed his life because in those primitive days there was no way to spread a message unless it thrilled the very heart of the merciless humanity. The struggle was not with the heart, the struggle was with the stones – or perhaps worse, because even stones are not as stony as a human being can be.Everybody who has tried to understand Jesus has thought it: “Why was he offensive? He could have been a very respectable rabbi; people would have worshipped him, loved him. Instead of crucifying him they would have wanted to crown him.”But that was not the work Jesus was doing. The question was not the cross or the crown, the question was the awakened man or the sleepy, unconscious humanity. When you are deeply asleep you have to be shaken, your name has to be shouted, cold water has to be thrown into your eyes. But this is all done out of compassion.I have been offensive and I will remain offensive. I will go on growing more and more offensive, for the simple reason that you are so deep in a coma that perhaps only a scream might reach you – or might not reach you.Perhaps you will look at me for the first time only when I am on the cross. Right now you take me for granted – only the cross will destroy your state of taking me for granted. Perhaps only the cross can shake you enough so that you can wake up.You have said I may be hard with my disciples because they are committed to a certain work of evolution – it is not being done against them, they have come and they have joined me. The question is relevant: Why do I go on hammering on the politicians? Again, the questioner is innocent and ignorant. She does not understand the structure of human consciousness.When I criticize the politician, it is not the politician outside you, it is the politician within you.The outer politician is only a manifestation, a collective manifestation of your inner politicians. You are all searching – in some way or other – to have more, to possess more, to be powerful, to be dominant, to be special: V.V.I.P.…a V.I.P. is no longer enough.When I criticize the politicians I am criticizing the political structure of your mind.Aristotle is right only on this point, according to me, when he calls man a political animal.Your politician is still in a latent state. It has not been possible for it to have an opportunity to come into its true colors.That’s why power corrupts – in fact, power has nothing to do with corruption. It appears that power corrupts because power gives you the opportunity to bring out all your fantasies, dreams, and change them into reality. You have the power to do it.And Acton is right that absolute power corrupts absolutely.I have to criticize the politicians because they are what you would like to be. Presidents, prime ministers, governors, ambassadors – that’s what you would like to be, but it is only a seed in you. And in the seed you cannot see all the flowers and all the colors. When I criticize the politicians I am criticizing you as if your politician had come into power.And in a certain way…you may not be very powerful, but everybody has a certain power over certain people. The parents have power over their children, the husband has power over his wife – at least he believes that. The real power is with the woman, she has all the keys. And husbands and wives are constantly fighting to prove who is higher, who is more intelligent, who is always right.So everybody has his own small area, his own small territory where he is powerful. The teacher in the classroom is almost a king.In India, physical punishment is against the constitution. Children cannot be tortured in any physical way. But that is only in the constitution, not in reality. All over India children are beaten.When I entered my high school…. One man was very notorious for beating children – he was our mathematics teacher. His subject was difficult and he had no compassion at all. He thought that by beating children you could raise their intelligence! By beating children you can destroy their intelligence, but you cannot raise it. Beating is destructive.I had decided the very first day that in the very beginning I had to come to terms with this man. As he entered in the class, I did not stand up to greet him as every other student did. He looked very angry…a little surprised, too. For a moment there was silence and then he said, “It seems you don’t know me.”I said, “It is true. I don’t know you, but something more important is true.”He said, “What is that?”I said, “You don’t know yourself.”He said, “I don’t want to go into philosophy – don’t change the subject! You have to tell me why you remained sitting.”I said, “Because I have not seen anything honorable in you. Now, I am helpless – I cannot honor a person if I cannot find anything honorable in him. I cannot be a hypocrite.”He said, “You don’t understand. I will bring you to your senses with just one good beating.” And he took his cane out of his desk.I said, “You can beat me, but just look outside the window.”He said, “What is there?”I said, “Just look….” because outside the window, far away, was the police station.He said, “What do you mean?”I said, “You beat me first – then accompany me to the police station, because physical punishment is a crime.”His cane slipped from his hand. He had never thought about it, that a student could report against him. He said, “But this will become a precedent for others; nobody will stand up….”I said, “There is no need. In what way does our standing help you? Just so you can feel powerful? These poor boys are standing out of fear, not in love, in trust; not in real gratitude.”Something happened to that man. He threw away the cane.And now because he was not beating them, for the first time he started encountering the beauties of small children. In violence, all those beauties shrink. In fact, the violence prevents their growth in all directions: in intelligence, in love, in friendliness, in sharing, in rejoicing…. The whole day long, from one class to another they are humiliated, insulted, beaten. Still you expect respect from them.I made it clear to him: “I will give you respect – and only on that day can you decide that something has happened in your life. All the respect that has been shown up to now was out of fear. Unless I feel love for you and gratitude for you, you will have to wait. And you will have to be patient. It rarely happens that people change so quickly.”But perhaps he was just on the verge, and only a slight push was needed. He turned a complete circle, one hundred and eighty degrees. He came to be one of the most lovable, respectable teachers in the whole school. He was not senior enough, but because of his tremendous change he was chosen to be the principal of the school the next year when the old principal retired, although it was not his turn.And he wept in front of me, holding my hands, and said, “The whole credit for making me the principal goes to you. Not only have you changed my relationship with the students, strangely, once I started changing, the change has affected every relationship. I have loved my wife for the first time, I have loved my own children for the first time. Now I am teaching not just to earn money, I love it. I enjoy it.”“When someone commits a mistake it does not make me angry. And now I can see that before I was angry twenty-four hours a day, so any slight excuse was enough. I was fighting with my father, with my mother, with my wife, with my brothers…I was carrying all that mountainous burden and these small children were simply victims. You were right: it was because I could not show my domination toward anybody else – I am just an ordinary school teacher – but I could show my domination and my power and my greatness and my superiority, and deep down fulfill a certain ego. Since the day I dropped the idea of being violent with the students, slowly, slowly my eyes have become clean and clear, and I can see that to err is human.”I said to him…and he has remembered it; the last time I saw him in 1970, he reminded me. He said, “To err is human and to forgive is divine – that is the old proverb.”I said, “That proverb is dangerous because it makes forgiving so far away. Gods forgive, and you are not a god. To err is human. To forgive is more human, it is not divine – just more human.”In fact, the moment you have achieved your own humanity, you have achieved your divinity. They are not two things. Your humanity at its climax is the beginning of your divineness, of your godliness.My criticism of the politicians, first, is the criticism of the hidden politician inside you – as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father. You are expecting obedience, you are thinking that your child is not only born out of you but has to be just a carbon copy of you.Children are born of you, but they don’t belong to you. They belong to the future, of which you know nothing. You are the sunset, your children are the sunrise – and the gap of the whole night is there.Secondly, I don’t see men as islands, separate from each other. And I don’t see their activities as separate from each other either. They are all part of a network.If I want a revolution in human consciousness I will have to hammer on the heads of politicians as hard as possible, because politicians are the ones who are always standing and they have the power to prevent any kind of revolution, any kind of change. They want a society with a status quo, because any revolution is going to throw them from their power positions.A conscious humanity cannot tolerate idiot politicians guiding it.I have had to criticize the so-called leaders of religion, high priests, popes, shankaracharyas, because they are making every effort that man’s mind remains retarded. Only a retarded mind can be exploited.And you ask me not to be offensive, not to be violent.Your idea must be that if I am not offensive, if I am not outrageous in my statements, if I don’t criticize those who are in power – politically or economically – then my message will spread more easily.You are wrong.The whole of the world’s media is interested in something sensational. They are not interested in the softer values of life. It is said that a good man has no life – as far as reporting about the good man is concerned, he has no life. At the most you can say he is a good man, but life? Where will you find it in a good man?It is a very ancient part of wisdom that you cannot write a novel or a drama around the life of a good man, and even if you write it you will have to print it yourself. And it is not going to be a best seller, it will be a no-seller! It will have its uniqueness…but you will be in constant trouble – what to write? A good man is just good man, tastes good. It is the bad man who has a life. He is colorful, he is not monotonous. You can enter into his life and you will find surprises upon surprises; a great story is possible.If I speak softly, very lovingly, it will be impossible to reach within just few years to every nook and corner of the world.I have my own method, and I know how to turn the tide at any moment.It is just a question of turning the switch.First let me create a good number of enemies – which I am successfully doing! – and you will see for yourself: these same enemies will turn into friends. I just have to go on creating enemies for a few days more. Once I have touched your heart – right or wrong, it does not matter – then it is a very simple phenomenon to change anything.Those who are behaving as enemies have already become emotionally attached to me. Just the other day I received a message from Oregon that Oregon is missing me very much…because who has ever heard the name of Oregon? But for five years Oregon was international news.I was a tourist in America and my visa had expired long before, so I was illegally there – kept by the government! The illegality goes to the government, because I was asking them: “Either you extend my visa or you say no. If you say no I am going to court – on what grounds can you deny me?”So they were in a puzzle: they could not say no, because once they have said no their power would be gone. Now the power would be in the hands of a court where they would be a party, and they would have to prove why they had been harassing me for two years continuously. And they could not say yes because the president wanted me and my commune to be destroyed. The attorney general of America wanted my commune to be completely destroyed. America’s richest man, Rockefeller, wanted me to leave America. The archbishop of America was certainly after the president continuously.They wanted me to leave the country but for that they needed to say no to extending my visa. And they were afraid to say no because once it went to court then it could take twenty years…from one court to another court….These people were trying hard that the newspapers, radio, television, cable television should not report me, for one thing. Every pressure was put on all kinds of media: “Either report negatively or don’t report at all.” And in the world of the news media freedom of expression exists only in the ideas, in the great human rights and human values of the constitution; but basically it does not exist. And this is simply because to have a big daily newspaper you have to be either a political organization, a religious organization or a rich man to invest money.And all the newspapers survive on the advertisements given by the government. The moment they don’t listen to the government the advertisements stop – and no newspaper can exist without government advertisements. The situation is such that freedom is just an empty word.Coming in contact with the news media people, I was surprised: these people were beautiful, they tried to do their best. And later on they informed me – “We are sorry. The bosses are editing things out, adding things, changing the whole flavor. And we are poor people; we cannot risk our jobs.” When their news reports came out on television, it was totally the opposite of what was felt in the direct encounter with the person.I inquired of a few journalists: “What happens? You write, you listen…I have seen tears in journalists’ eyes. I have seen them dancing with sannyasins. What happens to you when you report to your newspaper, your radio, the television?”They said, “We are ashamed. Our work is to give the reports and then it goes to the editorial department. Then – particularly because of you – it goes to the boss for a second check. Unless they have destroyed it to utter negativity they are not satisfied.”It is because once it becomes negative, people enjoy it. People are living in negative minds, so whenever a negative report is given they fall in rapport with it. They say inside themselves, “Right! We knew it already.”One journalist told me, “If we write exactly what we feel, the whole staff thinks we have become hypnotized. If we don’t put something against you…. And it does not matter whether it is right or wrong; something against you is a protection: They will not say, ‘You are hypnotized.’”Perhaps Satyananda is here. He came as a journalist from Stern magazine in Germany. He was one of their topmost journalists, but he wanted to feel it – the meditations, the groups, silent sittings with me, discourses…he remained there for a few weeks. He wanted an inside story, not just a story from an outsider. He collected so much material and he was so happy when he went…before leaving he became a sannyasin, too. But as he reached the Stern office they started laughing. They said, “He is completely hypnotized! Look at his red clothes, mala…he is not the man we sent.”When they saw his report they simply said, “Not a single word from this report can be published. You have been brainwashed, you don’t know what you are writing. You are under hypnosis, you are being used as a medium; you don’t know what you are doing.”He said, “What nonsense are you talking? I have not been hypnotized.”But what can he do? The report belongs to Stern, not to the writer. The writer is paid for it.He went on struggling, negotiating – “This much you can cut…this much you can cut….” And finally only one sixth remained. They distorted his whole beautiful article.But he was disillusioned completely – this freedom of expression, all these democratic values are just words. He resigned his position on the grounds that they had been printing things which were not true, and because they had inserted whatever they wanted into his article.He told them, “I cannot serve here like a slave anymore. You have not purchased my mind.”He wrote a book, which became a best seller in Germany. He came back to live in India, and then he was in America with me. And soon – once I settle somewhere – he will be coming.So the problem for me is that if I simply talk about meditations, about ecstasies, spiritual experiences, then the message cannot reach those who are in immense need of it, and I will feel guilty. I should make every effort that the message reaches.To provoke people, you have to be offensive. To create a new ground for a new humanity, you have to destroy much of the past – and you cannot be other than hard. If I simply talk about abstract concepts which are not any danger to the existing society, to the vested interests, I will be respected – the same people who are enemies will start talking about me as a great saint – but I will not be of any help to those who are really thirsty.So I am not worried about all of humanity.My concern is that I must reach each door and knock at least once. If somebody can understand, he should not miss. If somebody cannot understand, there is no harm – he was not going to understand anyway.So everything that is being done is well planned and deliberate. It is not accidental.I can understand your love, but you have to grow into a little more clarity about the function of the master.And you cannot suggest to the master what he should do and what he should not do! With good intentions…but you are doing a stupid thing.Osho,If the experience of God is a subjective experience, then what are priests and popes for? If the experience of God is an objective experience, then why don't they produce him?God is neither subjective nor objective.God simply does not exist.Your question is that if God is an objective experience, then scientists should be able to produce it. If man can go to the moon, it is conceivable that scientists would be able to put on their table the experience of God or the presence of God. That’s what Karl Marx used to say: “Unless God is proved in a scientific lab I am not going to accept it.”One communist friend used to stay with me once in a while. He wrote this passage to me…. I said, “Marx’s statement is self-contradictory.First you say, “If God is an object…” Your statement begins with if. It is not your experience. If you have the experience then there is no possibility of ifs and buts. It is purely an intellectual question. If God is an object, then certainly scientists will be able to produce it. They have not been able to produce it; hence Karl Marx says there is no God.That’s why I say that even our so-called great thinkers go on committing very small mistakes, but their impact can be tremendous. Karl Marx is saying that scientists have not been able to bring God into the lab, dissect him, find out what is inside him, turn him inside out, just to have a look all around. Because this has not happened, he says God does not exist.I told my communist friend, “Marx was eligible only to say that God does not exist as an object. It is simple logic. You have given the objective to the scientist and the scientist has not been able to produce it, so only one thing has become certain: that God is not an object. Not that there is no God – because you yourself say that there is another side, the subjective side. What about it? And Marx remains silent about the other side, which has simply been dropped!”God is an experience.It is not right to say “the experience of God.” That creates difficulty, it makes God an object. There are three things: God the object, you the experiencer, and the experience between you two, as a bridge. God is not a subjective experience, God is just the experience of the inner.There is no God as a person. God is your subjectivity – it is another name for your inner being.It is you, asleep.You can be awake.Then too you will not be able to see God, because God is not a person at all.God is our inability to experience the inner reality and give it an expression. When we try to express it, trouble arises. Any name is good.Mohammedans have one thousand names for God. Hindus have vishnu sahasranam – one thousand names for God. And I say to you, the reason God can have one thousand names is because he does not exist. If you exist, then one name or maybe two – at the most three…. But one thousand is just meaningless.It is almost impossible to find any name among Mohammedan names which is not the name of God. Arabic is not a very great language; its scope is very small. It is the language of nomads wandering in the desert – very primitive. Even to find one thousand names in it is a little bit of a difficult job. All the Mohammedan names that you come across are names for God.Something has to be said – the experience is valid; it has been validated by thousands of mystics around the world. There is something more than you know, than you feel, within you. Your consciousness, your existence…”God” is only a symbol. You can use it, but it has fallen into wrong company. Being with Mohammedans and Hindus and Christians, it has lost its beauty and grandeur. It has become too ordinary, too mundane.And its associations are not good – because in the name of God, thousands of people have been killed. In the name of God, conflict continues around the world; thousands of undercurrents of fighting, efforts to convert people to your fold – because numbers are very decisive as far as politics is concerned.You have to understand the politics of numbers. Why do Mohammedans go on insisting that they will continue to marry at least four women? Although they cannot rationally support their idea, the question of reason does not arise. They say their holy book says, the holy Koran says you can have four wives, or even more – Mohammed himself had nine wives. So it is not a question of argument or discussion. You are interfering in their religion – it is a question of religion.Marrying nine women and depriving eight men – for their whole lives they will not get any women. Naturally, you are creating the institution of prostitution – what are those eight persons going to do?Religions have created prostitution, they are the sources.Just forty years ago, the Nizam of Hyderabad died. When he died he had five hundred wives! This is superficial reasoning, that their religion is being interfered with.The real thing is if you allow a man to marry many women, many children are possible; your population will increase. It cannot happen vice-versa. You can have one woman with five husbands and still she will produce just one child. Nature is not going to bother that she has five husbands so just be a little kind and give her five children, numbered according to the husbands. So it is pointless to have one wife with many husbands.To have one husband and many wives is political – it has nothing to do with religion.Now, if I say it is political, it is not religious….Because what has religion to do with numbers? Religion is basically individual. You alone can be religious, there is no need for anyone else to be with you for you to be religious. It is not a social phenomenon. Its whole growth is individual, purely individual.I have to criticize religions which are obstructing human progress, in many ways. Right now all the Christian priests, Hindu priests, Mohammedan priests all around the world are doing one thing: teaching poor people against birth control, because it is overpopulation that is going to give them numbers. And it is overpopulation that is going to keep half of the earth poor, starving – and the poor and the starving are easily vulnerable to being converted. You just give them education, food, a house to live in and you have brought gifts from God – they will be Christians.Poverty should continue; otherwise who is going to be in the churches, who is going to be converted?I have to say categorically that all conversion is criminal.Nobody has the right to impose his own ideology on other people. You have the right to express your ideology and leave it for people to think about. If you have provoked thinking, that’s enough. You have done a great job if you have triggered thinking.A child was just asking, “Why is God there? What is the need?”The child must be very intelligent, he has asked a very significant question.It is because of fear.It is because of ignorance.It is because inside, you are full of darkness.Hence you are continuously afraid. Outside, you know there is going to be death, sooner or later. You know there is going to be old age, there is going to be sickness, all kinds of diseases, and you are going to suffer all these things. Humanity has to be somehow consoled: “Don’t be worried, God is taking care of you. He is the creator – you may not be looking at him, but he is always looking at you.”Don’t get afraid of the idea – because once you are alone in your room and you start feeling that he is looking from the roof…. And man is so imaginative, he can manage it that behind those two eyes there is a head, and of course you will be in a panic! You may have been talking about God but you don’t know…if you meet him, what are you going to say?For the part of humanity that is not going to try and experience its own light, society has to give substitutes. God is a substitute, a name – just a lollipop…nothing of much use, no nourishment, but sounds good: “lollipop.”Because of the concept of God, man has been able to live – not very joyously, because his whole living is based on wrong principles. But still, somehow he has been able to drag through his life.Without God you suddenly feel a cold wave around you, a dark night surrounding you. God was the great father – protection, security, hope…all are gone.This makes one mature – if you can get rid of God you are mature. According to me, twenty-one years of age does not make you mature, adult. Only one thing makes man mature, and that is getting rid of God – because God is a bundle of all kinds of fears, greeds, hopes. It is opium; it keeps you drugged. But while you are drugged your life is slipping by, and soon death will knock on the door and then it will be too late.To find the real answer to the question you have to sit silently, alert, not falling asleep, and just going inward, slowly, slowly…. First it will start becoming darker and darker and darker, and then suddenly there is dawn, and the birds are singing and the sun is rising and you are free.Your wings are open for the first time.Now you can claim the whole sky with all its stars.A man without God is an authentic man. A man with God is just a shadow, he has not entered into the world of reality yet. You have millions of priests and none of them has the courage to say that he has encountered God. Not even the representatives – the pope, the shankaracharyas, Ayatollah Khomeini – not even these people are courageous enough to say that they have encountered God. They are as afraid as you are; there are doubts in their minds as there are doubts in your mind, because doubts disappear only when you have experienced something.God is not a question of belief, it is an experience of inner light. Then you can give it any name. You can call it God, you can call it truth, you can call it love, you can call it peace. You can call it life – it does not matter what word is used, but it should be based on experience.Once you have experienced your light, you know there is no need of any other God. The whole existence is godly.Osho,I guess I have two questions. Why do we all want to be therapists (myself included)? Is gossiping among your sannyasins harmful to your work, or am I too serious?First, you are too serious.Gossiping among sannyasins is like gospels among the Christians. If I have to choose between gossips and gospels, my preference is for gossips. They are juicier, more alive.Gospels look sad, dead, heavy. If you have to listen you can manage to listen, but it is not a dance of your heart.So I am in support of my sannyasins completely. Gossip as aesthetically as possible, as religiously as possible! And gossip something beautiful, something ecstatic.Your gossiping should not be mundane and ordinary: that somebody has escaped with somebody’s wife…this kind of gossiping is third-rate; it is nobody’s business. In the first place, no woman is anybody’s wife; every woman is a woman. Husband and wife…these are social institutions, and to live in an institution either you have to be mad or you will become mad!Institutions are not places to live, but they say that marriage is a “divine institution.” It is nothing divine; it is simple, mundane business. It is a convenience; it is making a lifelong contract. Otherwise, a few people prefer temporary contracts, a few people prefer lifelong contracts – these are preferences.And nobody possesses anybody. So if somebody’s wife has escaped – great! Great for the man because he is free, and great for the woman because for a few days at least the man will not want to kill her! It is freeing and beautiful for the other man also, because somebody else’s wife is always beautiful….It is a strange thing. I have been looking into the chemistry of it.As one relationship changes – particularly if it is a marriage, which is the center of our civilization and must be a very rotten center, because the civilization is rotten….You can be serious but your seriousness shows a sickness of the soul. The healthy soul is smiling, is ready to burst into laughter.So please don’t be worried about sannyasins gossiping. In no scripture of any religion has gossiping been condemned as sin.But your instinct to condemn it comes from religions. They have been condemning everything that is pleasant to human beings; no pleasure has to be left uncondemned. This is the most ancient strategy: catching hold of people and getting them into particular religions, sects, theologies – and before you can be caught in a church you have to be miserable. Only miserable people go to religious institutions, only miserable people read holy scriptures.If you are rejoicing in the gifts of existence, it is enough to feel grateful – and gratefulness is religiousness.Secondly, you must be a new sannyasin. It will take a little time to live with my people – who are basically misfits. They cannot adjust with the society. They are so sensitive they cannot tolerate a futile, meaningless life; hence they have fallen out of the folds and they are trying to live alone, contacting existence directly.And existence is hilarious! If you just have eyes to see the hilarious points you will be surprised: in life there is no place to be serious. Everybody is slipping on banana peels – you just need an insight to see.I have heard that Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychotherapy, was following a lady elephant into the forest. Finally he introduced himself: “I am Sigmund Freud. You must have heard my name; I am the founder of psychoanalysis.”The elephant could hardly hear what he was saying. She said, “But what do you want from me?”He said, “I have a strange problem which I cannot tell to anybody – and my whole philosophy is not to repress, but I have been repressing it.”The elephant said, “Don’t be sad, just tell me – what is the problem?”He said, “I feel so ashamed. I have solved all other problems, but this problem simply goes on persisting in my head. The problem is that I want to make love to an elephant.”The lady elephant said, “Love? Are you mad? Because no elephant ever wants to make love to a human being. They are not interested at all. Beautiful women go on passing – they don’t whistle, they don’t sing a film song; they simply don’t care. This is strange – and you are a great psychoanalyst and you could not solve this problem?”He said, “I have tried hard but without a lady elephant, what can I do? I have been watching many ladies, and you look very loving, kind and very beautiful.”The lady elephant said, “Okay. It is absolutely crazy…have you brought some ladder or…because how are you going to make love to me?”He said, “Yes, I have brought a ladder. Before I had this ladder, I used to carry a couch for the patients to lie down on during psychoanalysis. For a few days, I have been carrying this ladder, because who knows where you can meet the lady of your heart? And today, the day has come.”So he climbed the ladder, and while he was making love, his disciple Carl Gustav Jung was sitting on a tree just above them. He had heard the gossip that Sigmund Freud had been seen with a ladder, going toward the forest.He had said, “What will he do with the ladder? Because a ladder does not fit with a psychoanalyst…a couch is okay.” So he had come ahead and was sitting on top of the tree and when Sigmund Freud started making love, it was so hilarious and Carl Gustav Jung himself became so excited that the branch that he was holding started moving and a coconut fell and hit the lady elephant’s head.She said, “Ah!”Sigmund Freud, who was deeply involved in making love, looked up and said, “Darling, am I hurting you?”The elephant said, “I don’t know where you are – so are you finished or not? And who is this fellow in the tree?”Sigmund Freud said, “He is my disciple, and he got so excited seeing such a beautiful scene that he started shaking the tree, doing his own thing.”One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter.Those who become silent and happy join in the laughter.Laughter is my message.I do not ask you to do prayer. I ask you to find moments, situations, in which you can laugh wholeheartedly.Your laughter will open a thousand and one roses within you.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 12 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,You have talked about the superiority/inferiority dialectic as the basis of authoritarian and fascist relationships. It is one of the miracles of being with you that in spite of having been constantly persuaded of our unworthiness by our parents, teachers and priests, you are able to shed light on all our unconscious habits without ever making us feel bad about it. You allow us to be aware of our potential for enlightenment in a way that does not make us feel superior, and yet simultaneously you never make us feel inferior because we are not enlightened. In groups, too, while you are present, we can reveal our notions of inferiority but because you are there and simply not part of the egotistic inferiority/superiority game, dependency and spiritual slavery cannot happen. But what happens in groups where you are absent? Surely, if the therapist has a trace of ego, then doesn't this kind of psychological fascism inevitably emerge?Amrito, you have seen something so significant that everybody must be made aware of it.There is only one possibility for sanity to exist in relationships so they don’t turn into inferiority and superiority games, so they don’t become sado-masochistic tortures. And that only possibility is in the presence of an unconditional love.Love is the greatest alchemy.It transforms base metals into gold. Your ingredients are the same – the murderer and the Gautam Buddha are not different as far as their ingredients, their intrinsic potentialities are concerned. It is just that man is not a one dimensional machine.Man is not one-dimensional; otherwise, his whole world would be sheer boredom.And man’s search is basically to be one with existence – separation hurts.In our other loving relationships, in small measures we are searching for the same unity. In love with a woman, in love with a man, in love with a friend, in love with some creative activity – dance, music, poetry – we are trying to have a certain synchronicity with existence.Our situation is that of a small child in the forest who has lost his mother and is searching in the forest, not knowing where to go. This situation allows many exploiters…this helplessness is used by those who are in power, by those who have money. The helplessness is used to convert you into a slave, into dependence.Hence, all the religions have developed particular programs. They begin with God – and with God, your relationship cannot be anything else but that which exists between a puppet and a puppeteer, between the slave and the owner. With God, you cannot expect more than that, because he is the creator; he has made you – he can at any moment destroy you too. Neither did he ask you whether you wanted to enter into life, nor will he ask you whether you are in favor of destroying the world.All the gods of all the religions are dictatorial. They are fascist.I don’t have any God; hence I don’t have any program for you in which you will be transformed slowly into a slave.I am fulfilled – nothing more can be added to my experience. That’s why the people who are with me will not feel in any way inferior.Nobody is inferior. People may be in different spaces, but nobody is inferior and nobody is superior. They are all made of the same stuff you call God. How can somebody be superior and somebody be inferior? We belong to the same existence, our roots are nourished by the same existence.Existence makes no distinctions, no discriminations between the sinners and the saints.My approach is existential.Hence, nobody is superior and nobody is inferior here. Naturally, by destroying this complex of inferiority and superiority, we are removing the very possibility of any kind of fascist mentality, fascist personality – because to me, it is inconceivable that a fascist can ever be religious.And your so-called religious people are more or less all fascist fanatics. They are not in search of truth; they think they have found it already – in their scriptures which are dead, in the old superstitions which even they know have no basis in reality.Just a clarity of vision dispels all darkness out of which all the monsters are born.Here with me, whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are white or black, it does not matter; nobody even takes note of it. It is enough that you are a human being. And it is your freedom to choose your own lifestyle; it is your basic right how you want to blossom. Those who love you can help in taking care of the garden in which you are growing – watering your roots, showering their warmth.It has now been scientifically proved that even the plants know who are their friends and who are their enemies. They have developed something like a cardiogram which is attached to the tree, and if a man comes with the idea to cut a branch of the tree or to uproot the tree – he just has the idea – suddenly the graph that is being made by the cardiogram on the tree starts trembling. It loses the rhythm it had…now you can see how fear is felt by the tree.And remember that the tree has telepathic sensitivity; otherwise she could not know the thought in the man’s mind. He has not done anything – visibly, nothing has happened. And when the gardener comes – with his warmth, with his love – suddenly the graph becomes the most harmonious. Now the tree is no longer afraid, the tree is immensely blissful.Loving warmth is not only a poetic phenomenon. It is a reality of great importance.Now the flowers will be bigger, the fruits will be juicier; the tree will respond. Except for man, perhaps there is no ingratitude in this whole existence. The tree cannot give anything more – she cannot give money, she cannot give gold – but she can give beautiful flowers, as big as possible, to a loving heart. She can give juicier fruits.Love has never been thought of as food, but it is a very subtle kind of food. And now psychologists have concluded that if a child gets everything necessary – all chemicals, all hormones, food, exercise, fresh air, rest, everything that is necessary for life – still he will die in three to six months unless there is someone to pour love. He will not feel that life is worth living without love; he will simply shrink and die. And in thousands of labs around the world, many animals have died in these experiments.Ordinarily, it is understood that these experiments are being done on animals first and that unless we have found safe principles we do not apply them to human beings – this has been the idea prevalent in the masses. Even the medical professionals – doctors, physicians – also believe in it. But the truth is something very different.Just a few days ago…. For almost two years, a group of senators in America were investigating about a certain amount of money…not a small amount of money; two hundred million dollars is there in the books, but where has it been spent, where has it gone? The cabinet went on denying any knowledge of it, the president went on denying. The suspicion was that the government of America today is the greatest terrorist. And the money is going to the terrorists in a small country in the middle portion of the Americas, between South America and North America.Just like Cuba, another small country has become communist. It is their right, whether they are right or wrong. Nobody else has to decide it. If they want to live a wrong kind of life, then too, they have the absolute freedom to live it; only they should not harm anybody else. They should not interfere in the lives of others.Two hundred million dollars had been given to guerrillas, terrorists, to destroy that small Central American country because it had gone into the hands of the communists. And after two years of continuous struggle, only now has the president accepted that, “Yes, that money has gone to the terrorists.”And the whole world is silent, nobody has criticized it!Governments are to save people from terrorism, and here governments are supplying money and arms and food to terrorists. And then they go on lying….I have looked into the scriptures of all the religions, I have looked into the ideological literature of all the political parties and I am amazed: they go on piling up lies upon lies. And the whole of humanity is asleep – not only does nobody object, but nobody even suspects.Here with me, you are gathered for a special purpose: the search for the truth, the search for the purest kind of love, the search for a life which is a dance of sheer joy.Nowhere else in the world are people gathering for the same reasons. They are gathering for the purpose of creating more hatred; they are gathering to create more wars; they are gathering to create more destructive activities in human life. Naturally, we have a sick world, an insane world.Here, it is impossible to feel any superiority or inferiority.I have tried my best to convince you of only one thing: that enlightenment is your nature; that it is not something achieved, you bring it with your birth. All that you have to do is not to create it but just to open the hidden secret of your life.The moment you start feeling your inner light, your whole perspective starts changing. You will feel compassionate toward human beings even if they are doing stupid things. And you will feel immensely joyous, celebrating, even though you don’t have anything to celebrate. Nothing is needed to celebrate – only excuses…my birthday is just an excuse! But if you want to celebrate, you will find a thousand and one excuses.It is your life, and whatever becomes of it is your creation.Remember, there are hidden signatures on it. You cannot disassociate yourself from what you create, from the way you live, the way you respond.Once you are overflowing with love and blissfulness, you cannot, even in your dreams, act in a way which is humiliating to another. Because the other is not really the other, it is just part of us.We are one consciousness filling the whole universe.But a little experience will help…and you will start seeing the same light in others. And to see light within yourself and light within others is to live the whole year round surrounded with a festival of lights.In the outside world, there are people who want to dominate and there are people who want to be dominated. The responsibility is not one-sided. There are people who want to be enslaved, because slavery has one thing about it: it takes all responsibility away from you. Then the responsibility is of your owner. You are just instrumental – whatever he says, you do, but you don’t feel any burden. So most human beings deep down want to remain slaves.Slavery in religion means you remain a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. And you are afraid also, because your slavery is based only on beliefs. So everybody is trying to protect his flock from coming in contact with others.Just the other day I received a message from friends in Germany. The German parliament has passed a resolution that I cannot enter Germany. Sannyasins are protesting it because it is absolutely against the German constitution, against German law. There is not a single precedent! Not only in Germany but all over the world, there is not a single incident prohibiting a man who has never before entered your country. How can you judge that he is going to be dangerous?So they asked five hundred world-famous, prominent intelligentsia from different fields – professors, scientists, poets, painters, dancers, actors. Up to now they have received one hundred and fifty letters of strong support, an absolute protest against the government.They have also received a few letters which are in support of the government. A few points in those letters were so hilarious that they have sent me those few points. One point was: One Protestant high priest has supported the government because he thinks I am a Catholic, and Germany has to be saved from the Catholic religion.Such fear shows deep doubts. You are not certain about your Protestant theology; you are afraid somebody may make punctures in the balloon of your faith.Here with me, there is a religious fragrance but no religion as such. That gives you total freedom. That makes you proud of yourself and grateful for all that existence has done for you.Remember, pride is not ego.Ego is something without content. For example, a man who cannot even draw a straight line thinks himself a great painter – that is ego, there is no content. But if Picasso thinks he is a great painter, that is simply a fact, and if he is proud of his genius there is nothing wrong in it. In fact, people should be helped to find some pride in their individuality because that pride will make their eyes shine, their faces luminous; that pride will make them unique individuals, with no more question of inferiority and superiority.And secondly, anybody who is proud is always grateful. Because the genius of Picasso or Yehudi Menuhin is not their own; they are only vehicles. It is the beyond that comes through them – in music, in dance, in painting, in scientific research, in poetry, in thousands of ways, but the real genius will know it for sure, that it is coming from the beyond.He is proud that he has been chosen, he is not proud in comparison to you. Ego is a comparison: you are higher, you are superior, but there is comparison. You cannot be superior living alone in a forest – superior to whom? You cannot even be inferior – inferior to whom?The man of pride has a deep feeling of gratitude that existence has chosen him, although he is not worthy. It is a strange phenomenon. The more worthy you are, the more you feel you are not worthy enough. You have been given so much and you cannot do anything in return.Here, there will be people with pride. I would like my sannyasins to be proud, even of the fact that they are sannyasins, that they have been courageous enough to move against all orthodoxies, traditions, conventions, all that is rotten, and come out into the fresh, into the young, into the new.You are blessed.But your blessedness will be full of gratitude.That is the distinction to be remembered between ego and pride.I destroy the ego and I create the pride. Ego is something like a cancer that simply eats you and eats others. Pride, self-respect is a creative phenomenon. It fulfills your own potential and it also shares with the world all the treasures that you have brought into the world.So here the situation is totally different.I would like it to be so in the whole world, but they are so afraid. Their fear that I can destroy their morality, their religion, their past, is a clear-cut indication that they are already uprooted from the past. They are just hoping against hope that somehow all this old garbage can be carried. Because we have respected it as golden for centuries. Now, to suddenly drop it as garbage by the side of the road hurts the ego, because it means the ego has been wrong for centuries.A sannyasin needs the courage to drop the fear – because unless he drops the fear, the ego cannot be dropped. And without dropping the ego, the whole load, the whole luggage, all rotten, has to be carried.Your whole energy is wasted in carrying the dead.Just think of yourself carrying your father, your grandfather, your forefathers, all on your back and going toward Marine Drive. Do you think you will ever reach Marine Drive? Because the people lined up on your back is going to be endless; all your skyscrapers will look like pygmies. The load is going to be so tremendous that you will not be able to carry it without the help of Suraj Prakash – you will need trucks, transport vehicles. And your whole life will be simply wasted carrying these dead people.And we are all carrying them. That’s why life becomes serious, burdensome, heavy, juiceless, dry. Otherwise, there is no reason. You can be lush green with red flowers.And there is no need for any comparison. Why not have all the people of the planet be emperors? What is the problem? It is a question of understanding the world – and if you understand yourself, to understand the world is not difficult, it is the simplest thing.And once you have understood that to be an emperor or to be a slave is your decision, who is going to choose to be a slave? When you can put your whole energy into creating something that will give you satisfaction, that will give you a deep sense of fulfillment, a sense that you have not been here unnecessarily, you have contributed something; you have made the world a little more beautiful – a few more flowers you have added to it.If everybody is adding a few more flowers, this whole world can again become a garden.There is no need to fight. There is no need for you to be superior to anybody, because I am giving you something which is far higher than superiority.I am making you unique individuals.Osho,As far as you are concerned, is your birthday just like any other day in the year? Or is it in some way special for you?Time exists no more for me.That’s why I have to go on looking at my watch, because I don’t have any sense of time. If I don’t look at my watch, I may speak for the whole night!To me, every day is the same, every moment is the same.But when I say every moment is the same, it means it has the same blissfulness, the same ecstasy, the same joy, the same silence, the same peace that passeth understanding.I don’t see any difference between two points, between two days. As far as I am concerned, all differences have disappeared.I live in absolute silence.Even while I am speaking to you, believe it or not, I am silent. Only the mechanism of the mind is being used, but my consciousness is centered in absolute beauty and silence.Osho,I imagine that if you have the faculty to predict the future, you would not use it. Yet, you do seem to know how events are going to unfold. Is this because the enlightened man is so in tune with existence that he can see how its rhythm is moving? Or is it that being thoroughly familiar with man's mechanical mind, he can fairly confidently foresee how certain thoughts and actions are going to precipitate certain other thoughts and actions? Or is it a combination of the two? Is this faculty increasingly available as one becomes more clear, or is it available only to the enlightened consciousness?Maneesha, spirituality is an explosion.With enlightenment, suddenly all the great qualities start blossoming in you. Before enlightenment, meditating…as your meditation goes deeper, new qualities start emerging. But it is something like a rehearsal. Or better to say, what emerges before enlightenment is like on a full moon night when you are sitting by the side of a silent lake and you see the full moon in the water. It is the full moon, and it is tremendously beautiful but it is only a reflection. Just throw a small pebble and the reflection is disturbed; the silver of the reflection is spread all over the lake. The moon disappears.In meditation, you become acquainted with the reflected qualities. They are the same qualities, but they are only reflections – reflections of the qualities that you will have when enlightenment has happened. But for the seeker, even the reflected qualities are so great that they transform his whole character. They prepare him for the moment when he will look up into the sky to the real moon.But before enlightenment, you cannot be in possession of the real qualities. It is more than enough that existence allows you even the qualities which are only reflections – but they give you the taste, the conviction. They bring you the real conversion; you remain in the world but your eyes start moving inward. You remain in the world but the distance between you and the world starts becoming bigger.You are coming closer to home, but the real experience will be when you enter the home, when you enter your center.Don’t think that if meditation gives only reflected qualities then why bother about meditation? Those reflected qualities are going to become steps toward the real. If you don’t have them, the temple of the real is so far away that even to conceive of any bridge is impossible.With meditation – slowly, step by step, without any hurry – you go on coming closer and closer to home. And it is good, because you have time to absorb, you have time to get acquainted, and when you reach to the real it will not be absolutely unknown. You have seen it in the reflection, you are already in love with it. It is just like a photograph….Once in a while it happens. I have received a few letters saying that somebody has seen my picture and has fallen in love. He had no money to come; it took ten years to reach here, but for ten years he has been a sannyasin. For ten years he has meditated and now he has come – a mature person. Even the photograph has helped; something in the photograph turned him on. And it must have made a great impression because for ten years he was earning money just to come here.The way, the path, is very simple and can be made even more simple. But simplicity is against the priests, they want it to be complex – so complex that they are needed to interpret it; so complex that without a mediator it is impossible to grow in your understanding.The reason why religion looks so complex is because religion became a business, and priests found that unless it is complex enough, it will not be attractive enough either. It has to be complex, it has to be challenging, it has to be far away, and then the priest becomes an absolute necessity. And they have been exploiting in every possible way.Just recently, I was reading a joke. A beautiful woman is standing in the confession box of a Catholic church. The bishop has seen the woman – the woman is certainly rare, very beautiful, and the bishop is an ordinary human being as everybody is. And the woman starts saying that she has been raped. He asks a few questions and then he completely forgets all Catholicism, all Christianity, all religion.He says to the woman, “Your thing is very complex. You come into the other room.” And there in the other room, he puts his hand around the woman. She looks a little puzzled because she was always calling him “Father” and he was always calling her “my dear daughter” – but the way he has put his hands around her, does not feel like the hands of a father. The very vibe is disgusting.The bishop asks, “Did that nasty fellow make some movement like this?”And the woman says, “This is nothing; he did something worse.”He says, “Something worse?” So he kisses the woman and asks, “Did that man do this too?”The woman says, “Father, you don’t understand. He was really the worst type of man.”By this time, the father was also sexually aroused. He forced the woman onto the bed, made love to her and then asked, “Did that evil man do this thing too?”The woman said, “Father, you don’t understand; he did even something worse.”The bishop said, “Something worse? Worse than this? My God! But I wonder what he could have done?”The woman said, “He gave me AIDS!”These poor priests are just as ordinary as anybody. They have no training in meditation, no training in yoga, no training in Tantra – which are absolutely essential for the maturity of a man. All these bishops and cardinals and priests are all amateurish. They will be saying things and doing just the opposite – they have to! I’m not angry, I’m simply stating the fact.All the religions have been telling people that anger is bad, greed is bad, sex is bad. And the list is long…almost everything that gives you pleasure is bad. Put it on the list without any fear; it will be found in all the scriptures of the religions – if it gives you pleasure, it must be counted as a sin by the religious scriptures.So all that is pleasant has been poisoned, and all that is unpleasant has become your life. And these millions of priests of different religions are living on your wounds. They are simply parasites; they have been sucking your blood for centuries, saying stupid things without any evidence, without any reason. But they have destroyed such a beautiful world.The only way is to take the world out of the hands of the priests. Man, free from priests, will have a beauty of his own. Priests have crushed and crippled him from every direction.Just remember one thing: you have to remain one. Whatever divides you is against you; it makes you schizophrenic. And almost everybody is schizophrenic in different degrees. You cannot do anything wholeheartedly, something always remains uninvolved. The action remains partial; hence, unfulfilling.Man need not be miserable unless he chooses it. He has the possibility of living at the highest blissfulness possible, but that is a little arduous because it is an uphill task. But when you get to the peak, to the sunlit peak, all the arduousness of the journey is completely forgotten. Just the very idea that “I have arrived” relaxes you. You forget all the hell that you had to pass through.In fact, you even feel grateful to all that hell because that helped you to find this sunlit peak.Osho,What you talk about can mean so much to so many people. Your message has spread. It has to bring about a spiritual explosion. That seems to be the only hope there is for us today. How do you intend to let your ideas grow and spread and blossom, to flower into something more universal, more accepted, more usual?You are asking the impossible.My ideas are universal. That is the reason they cannot be accepted. People’s minds are not universal; they are very local. First, the nation, the religion, the language – perhaps a sect of the religion, perhaps a dialect of the local language. They are very much confined. Otherwise, Sikhs asking to have an independent country would not be possible.On the contrary, there should be intelligent people around the world asking for one world. That is going to solve the problems. The world is already dissected into so many small parts that if you go on dissecting it more, your capacity to solve the problems becomes less and less.So the first thing: my message is already universal – that is one of the problems. If it were Hindu, at least I would have been at ease with four hundred million Hindus. If it were Catholic, I would have been at ease with seven hundred million people. But my message is universal – neither Hindu, nor Mohammedan, nor Christian, but purely existential; not based on the past but based on my own experience.Secondly, you are asking if I can speak, can bring my message to the people in such a way that it becomes more acceptable, that it becomes more usual. It cannot become – at least, as long as I am alive, it cannot become usual. You have so many usual doctrines, usual religions, usual ideologies. My approach is going to remain unusual, because the usual approaches have all failed. Something unusual has to be tried.I know you love me and you want my message to reach people, but your love is blind. You don’t see the implications of what you are saying. You are saying, “Can’t your message be more acceptable?” That means I will have to compromise. I will have to think of the blind people all around me and adjust to their ideas. It is betraying the truth. Every compromise is a betrayal.My message will remain universal even if I am the only person who trusts in it, because its universality does not mean numbers of followers. Its universality means that it is the foundational doctrine of existence. And I cannot conceive how it can be more acceptable.The only way is to knock on as many doors as possible, to shout from rooftops hoping that somebody may not be deaf, somebody may not be blind. But I cannot compromise on any point, because it is not a business.Who am I to compromise on behalf of truth? And a truth compromised becomes untruth. A truth is absolutely uncompromising.But that has been always the case. All the masters in the past had to face it. They are always ahead of their time. It seems to be something in the very nature of life, that the people who are going to be decisive about human consciousness will always come ahead of their time – because it takes one hundred years, two hundred years for people to understand them. If they come in their own time, then by the time people have understood them, they will be out of date. They have to be ahead of their time so that by the time human mind, human consciousness reaches the point where they can be understood, their message will be available.So the greatest work for sannyasins is to keep the message pure, unpolluted by you or by others – and wait.The future is bound to be more receptive, more welcoming. We may not be here but we can manage to change the consciousness for centuries to come.And my interest is not only in this humanity; my interest is in humanity as such.Keep the message pure, twenty-four carat gold. And soon those people will be coming for whom you have made a temple – although it is sad when you are making the temple; nobody comes. And when people start coming, you will not be here. But one has to understand one thing: we are part of a flowing river of consciousness.You may not be here in this form, you may be here in another form, but keep it in mind never to ask such a question that I should be more acceptable, more respectable, more in agreement with the masses. I cannot be.And it is not stubbornness on my part. It is just that truth cannot compromise. It has never done it; it would be the greatest sin.Osho,According to Gurdjieff, a normal man needs laughter as a means to discharge an excess of energy. Whereas, for a man like Gautam Buddha, laughter is simply no longer possible. Please comment.I don’t agree with George Gurdjieff.I love the man, I agree with him on many points, but on many points he is uninformed. Particularly about Gautam Buddha, he has no in-depth connection with the sources that Buddha made available to the world.He is saying that for the normal man, laughter is just a release of excessive energy.It is an absurd statement. Firstly, the normal man cannot have excessive energy. He is tired, he is somehow dragging himself; he does not have excessive energy.So why does he laugh?Gurdjieff’s diagnosis about laughter is not right. The normal man has to laugh just to live. Life is so miserable…it is all sadness, frustration. The normal man is burdened with only negative feelings. He needs something positive to live, and he needs some way to get rid of the negative feelings. Laughter is a great medicine – it does both jobs. It helps you not to be unburdened of extra energy but to be unburdened of negative energy – your anger, your sadness, your frustration.And because Gurdjieff is wrong about the normal man, he is certainly going to be wrong about Gautam Buddha.Gautam Buddha does not laugh, that is true. But the reason why he does not laugh is that he has seen everything, he has known everything. There is nothing more to know, there is nothing more to experience, there is nothing more to see. Life has come to a tranquillity…not even a ripple. It is so calm and quiet and collected…and because it is so peaceful, so silent, so blissful, laughter is absolutely unnecessary.What Gurdjieff is saying about the normal man…. My suspicion is that he was acquainted with many mad people. He studied madness in order to evolve his psychology for the future man.Mad people certainly laugh because of excessive energy. They don’t have anything to do. The energy accumulates, and it needs some way…. Mad people will talk to themselves, mad people will talk to walls, to trees. And mad people have their own arguments, their own rationality – you cannot defeat a madman; he follows a totally different system of logic.Because he is not involved in life anymore – you have isolated him, put him in a mad asylum – his energy goes on accumulating. What is he supposed to do? If he is a violent type, he will express his excessive energy in destruction, but if he is not a violent type then he will find other sources. One of the sources is laughter, and a madman’s laughter has a beauty, a purity, an innocence.When you laugh, your laughter has a judgment in it. If somebody has slipped on a banana peel and you laugh, you are judging – and that man will feel embarrassed. His embarrassment shows your judgment.In my high school days…. Every year in India there is a certain day for worshipping the serpent. On that day, all over India there are wrestling matches – Indian-style, not like boxing, but more human, more artful. Boxing looks just primitive, because you are hitting the other person just like an animal. Indian wrestling is far more refined and if you have seen a really beautiful wrestler, you will not forget the experience. I am reminding you.There was a wrestling match. All the schools of the district had sent their wrestlers, but our wrestler had graduated the year before. We held the shield – that’s why all the wrestlers had to come to our school. But there was nobody in our school who was ready. I just passed by a young man I loved very much for the simple reason that he was never serious.I asked him, “Would you like to try? I can make you a famous wrestler within seconds. Because the principal has given me the task to find somebody, but nobody is ready. They know they are not wrestlers, and good wrestlers will be coming here from every school.”The boy said, “You know I’m not a wrestler. I have not even had a fight with anybody. In fact, I am a Christian. If somebody slaps one of my cheeks, I will give him the other and go home – I believe Christ is right. And I don’t even know the ABC of Indian wrestling, and it is an art, an ancient art.”I said, “Nobody else is willing – but the difference between you and the others is, they are all serious so they cannot be persuaded. You are the only man who is not serious. You can even accept defeat with laughter.”He said, “That’s true, because what is the harm? If I am defeated I don’t see that there has been any harm to the world. So okay, I am ready.”I said, “Okay. Remember, you will be in the finals and you will get the toughest guy.”He said, “Don’t be worried, you have given me the key – laughter.”And that was a match which was remembered for years. Because we had been winning the trophy for almost seven years; just one time more and the trophy would have become our possession – it had to be won eight times consecutively. We had won seven times, but the man who was the reason for our winning was not really a student. He was admitted into the school and he was given some scholarship, but the only reason to keep him was for the wrestling match. There was a possibility that he might have become champion of the whole state, but then suspicions began – because for seven years this man was in the same class, and people had seen him working with a doctor as a pharmacist. The whole day he was in the dispensary, so when did he study? Because questions had started, he had to be dropped.But this gave such a beautiful opportunity. There were other wrestlers, they fought…then the finals. The other school had also brought a professional wrestler, because seeing the situation – and this was the eighth time, something had to be done; otherwise the shield would be gone. So they had brought a professional wrestler. Because of his age, his body and everything, he looked like he was a professional. This poor boy…and my principal was standing by my side.The principal said, “What have you done? You don’t even see that there are times to be serious. This is not the time to be humorous! You have put the wrong person there – he cannot do anything, he does not know anything.”I said, “Don’t be worried. He will do something, and he will do something that will be remembered for years to come. Your trophy will be forgotten.” And then the bell rang, and the student I had chosen – he was my friend – and the wrestler from the other school came, and they stood in the middle of the ring.I had told my friend to have a dance first: “You are going to be defeated, so about that we are certain. Forget all about it. Enjoy, and help this crowd to enjoy. So first you go around dancing….” And he really went dancing!And people suddenly became silent. They could not believe it! – a very giant wrestler was standing there and this small boy is dancing! He has some nerve.And then he came in front of the wrestler, fell on the ground, completely touching the ground with his whole body, and had a good laugh. The other wrestler could not understand what was happening. He had fought many times but this was a strange type…and the whole crowd could not understand. The referee went there and asked, “What are you doing?”The boy said, “All that I can do I am doing! – I am doing my best. Now it is up to him to do something! He is standing there like an idiot.” But there was nothing to do, because the boy had already done to himself what was to be done by the wrestler – he was lying down flat on the ground! The wrestler could not even touch him. When he is flat on the ground, he has accepted defeat. And now he is laughing and the whole crowd is laughing and the man who has become victorious is standing there sad, completely lost.My principal whispered in my ear, “You are right. You chose the right person.” His laughter was so out of context that nobody could have imagined…and the way he did it, lying down flat on the ground, leaving no chances for the other person – he could not even touch his body. And without fighting, he became the hero. The crowd took him up, the victor was forgotten. Everybody loved him. Nobody said anything like “You are defeated.”And when I met him, I said, “It has been a great victory because not a single person said that you were defeated. The other man has not even touched you. So don’t be worried; now we will raise the legal question. The shield cannot go to the other side.”The principal said, “What are you saying?”I said, “The shield cannot go from this school. It can wait one year longer, because our wrestler has not been defeated. He has not been touched.”The principal said, “You are something. First you brought that boy, and now you are bringing this law!”I said, “You have to stand by me and we have to fight it. The other wrestler has not done anything and even the crowd has not accepted it. We have photographs to show that he is standing completely defeated and our man is laughter – all laughter, and people are carrying him like a hero.”So the principal had to agree with me. He said, “What is your whole plan? You tell me, because this…you caught me unawares. It was wrong to ask you in the first place.”I said, “Now, I want to tell you that that man is a professional wrestler, he is not a student. But keep quiet – we also have professional wrestlers, so next time we will hire a professional wrestler. The shield has to remain once it has come to us.” And we had won seven times and we had a very good group of wrestlers in our town; it was famous for wrestling. So I looked around all the gymnasiums and found a very strong man, almost steel. If you hit him, you would be harmed. His whole life was just preparing and preparing – he was hoping to become a national champion. He was already a state champion.Seeing him – everybody knew him, he was state champion – the other wrestler started saying, “This man is not a student!” Their principal and all the staff had come this time; the whole school had come to support their wrestler because somehow the shield had to be taken. Now this great difficulty arose. They all started saying, “We will not accept this man. This man is a professional wrestler.”I said, “Yes, this man is a professional wrestler, because your man is a professional wrestler.” And we had collected all the information about the other person: where he worked, what he did, how old he was, how educated he was – and he was not a student. When we put forward all the information, they felt so ashamed.I said, “What do you want? If your wrestler is not ready to fight, you lose. Because now it is no longer a question that somebody is a professional wrestler – both are. So it is equal. So let us go into it, and whoever wins….” But the other wrestler stepped out and the shield stayed in the school, although it was not completely conquered because of that one time. Then that school dropped the idea, because it was exposed to the newspapers that they had been bringing in a professional wrestler and that because of them we had to bring in a professional wrestler, just to expose it.But one thing I have always remembered about that young man: that he could laugh in such a situation, where everything was against the poor fellow. But laughter saved him.Gurdjieff has a different system of changing the chemistry of man. So in his system, what he is saying may be perfectly right.But the way I am working, laughter is one of the most significant religious qualities. And if Gautam Buddha does not laugh that does not mean he cannot laugh. That simply means he has come into a space where all is joy.For laughter to exist, the contrary to laughter is needed, just like white chalk is needed to write on blackboards. Laughter is visible if you are sad, and dark clouds in your heart give it a background. But when all dark clouds have disappeared, laughter remains but it is no more the old form; it has taken a totally new shape.Gautam Buddha himself has become laughter. He is so joyous, each of his movements, his silence or his sermons, are all nothing but his laughter resounding into our hearts.It is a resonance. You will feel it; perhaps you may laugh. Just being with Gautam Buddha, you may start laughing. He may trigger your energies.He himself is now complete, entire, a cosmic whole.His very being is laughter – that’s why there is no question of him laughing the way we laugh.After enlightenment, every quality of life changes.We have all those qualities but in a very raw condition. Enlightenment refines them, purifies them, and it takes some intelligence to recognize that they are the same qualities.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 13 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I want to tell you that I am totally turned on to you, and it's just far out being with you. I have just one question, maybe it's nothing spiritual but for me it's quite something – my jealousy. I have been with my boyfriend for two years and we still enjoy being together, but if he goes with other women I freak out. This emotion is so strong that I'm afraid I will destroy this beautiful thing which is between us.Would you please tell me the very roots of jealousy, how I can deal with it, or even go through it? And I also want to say thank you for everything but the words don't express what I feel for you. My heart is beating with love for you.Jealousy is one of the most prevalent areas of psychological ignorance about yourself, about others and more particularly, about relationship.People think they know what love is – they do not know. And their misunderstanding about love creates jealousy. By love people mean a certain kind of monopoly, some possessiveness – without understanding a simple fact of life: that the moment you possess a living being you have killed him.Life cannot be possessed. You cannot have it in your fist. If you want to have it, you have to keep your hands open.But the thing has been going on a wrong path for centuries; it has become ingrained in us so much that we cannot separate love from jealousy. They have become almost one energy.For example, you feel jealous if your lover goes to another woman. You are disturbed by it now, but I would like to tell you that if you don’t feel jealous you will be in much more trouble – then you will think you don’t love him, because if you loved him you should have felt jealous. Jealousy and love have become so mixed up.In fact, they are poles apart. A mind that can be jealous cannot be loving, and vice-versa: a mind that is loving cannot be jealous.What is the disturbance? You have to look it as if it is not your question – somebody else has asked, it is somebody else’s problem – so that you can stand aside and see the whole fabric.The feeling of jealousy is a byproduct of marriage.In the world of animals, birds, there is no jealousy. Once in a while there is a fight over a love object but a fight is far better than to be jealous, far more natural than to be caught up in jealousy and burn your heart with your own hands.Marriage is an invented institution, it is not natural; hence nature has not provided a mind that can adjust to marriage. But man found it necessary that there should be some kind of legal contract between lovers, because love itself is dream-stuff, it is not reliable…it is there this moment and the next moment it is gone.You want to be secure for the coming moment, for your whole future. Right now you are young; soon you will be old and you would like your wife, your husband, to be with you in your old age, in your sickness. But for that, a few compromises have to be made, and whenever there is compromise there is always trouble.This is the compromise that human beings have made: to be secure about the future, to be certain about the tomorrows, to have a guarantee that the woman who loves you is going to love you forever, that it is not a temporary affair….That’s why religious people say that marriages are “made in heaven”…a strange kind of heaven, because if these marriages are made in heaven, then what can you make in hell? They don’t show the signs, the fragrance, the freshness, the beauty of heaven. They are certainly disgusting, ugly…they show something of hell certainly. But man settled for marriage because that was the only way to have private property.Animals don’t have private property – they are all communists, and far better communists than have appeared in human history. They don’t have any dictatorship of the proletariat and they have not lost their freedom, but they don’t have any private property.Man also lived for thousands of years without marriage, but those were the days when there was no private property. Those were the days of hunting; man was a hunter. And those people thousands of years ago had no cold-storage system, no technology – whatever food they got they had to finish as quickly as possible. They could only hope that tomorrow they will get some food again.Because there was nothing to accumulate, there was no question of marriage. People lived in communes, tribes; people loved, people reproduced, but in the beginning there was no word for father. The word mother is far more ancient and far more natural. You will be surprised to know that the word uncle is older than the word father – because all the people who were the age of your father…you didn’t know who your father was. Men and women were mixing joyously – without any compulsion, without any legal bondage, out of their free will. If they wanted to meet and be together there was no question of domination. The children never knew who their father was, they knew only their mother. And they knew many men in the tribe; someone among those men must have been their father, hence they were all uncles.As private property came into existence with cultivation…. With hunting, man could not survive long. People have destroyed complete species of animals. Hundreds of species which once used to dance and sing on this earth…man has eaten them up. Something had to be done because hunting was not reliable. Today you may get food, tomorrow you may have to be hungry. And it was very arduous. The search for animals did not allow man to develop any of his other talents, his genius. But cultivation changed the whole life of man.You must be reminded of the fact that cultivation is the discovery of women, not of men. The woman was confined – she was not able to go hunting. Most of the time she was pregnant, she was weak, she was carrying another soul within her. She needed care, protection…so she was living in the house. She started making the living space more beautiful – and this you can see even today, after thousands of years.If you enter into a bachelor’s room you can immediately say that it is a bachelor’s room. You may not be able to decide by seeing the bachelor whether he is bachelor or not, but his room certainly is a bachelor! The woman, her touch, is missing. The house of a bachelor is never a home, it is just a place where he sleeps. It is not something with which he feels a certain intimacy, a certain creative relationship.The home, the village, the city and the whole civilization are because of the woman, because she was free from hunting and she had different values of the heart and of the mind – she was more aesthetic, more graceful, more earthly, not at all interested in hell and heaven and God and the devil and all that crap! No woman has written a single religious scripture. No woman has been a philosopher thinking about abstract, faraway things.Woman’s consciousness is interested only in the intimate surroundings – she would like a beautiful house, she would like a beautiful garden. She wants to create a small world of her own – cozy, comfortable. She imparts a certain quality to a dead house and it becomes a living home. It is a magical transformation.Man continued to hunt, and the woman started looking around…the man had no time. He has always been busy without business, but the woman had all the time there is. The basic work of hunting was being done by the groups of men and the woman started looking around. She discovered cultivation because she saw wild fruits growing, she saw many other things growing and she also saw that every year the crop dies, the seeds fall back into the earth and when the rains come, again those seeds sprout in thousands of plants. She started experimenting to find what was edible and what was not edible. Soon, as hunting was becoming more and more difficult, men had to agree with women: “We have to shift our whole economic focus. We have to go for cultivation, for fruits, for vegetables. And these are in our hands – we can produce as much as we want, as we need it, and there is tremendous variety.”Slowly, slowly the nomads, the wandering tribes…because hunters cannot stay in one place. They have to go on moving as the animals escape. Once hunting was dropped and cultivation became our very measure of survival a new thing also happened alongside.There were people who were powerful people and there were people who were weak people. The people who were physically powerful managed to claim much ground as their property. They earned much…slowly, slowly the barter system started, because when you have too much of one crop, what are you going to do with it? You have to exchange it; then you can have many more things. Life became more complex, with more excitement.But a problem was felt: after a person dies, who is going to inherit his property? Nobody wanted their property to be inherited by any XYZ. They wanted their property to belong to their own blood.It is out of economics, not out of the understanding of love that marriage came into existence. Its very birth was wrong, under the wrong stars.And because man had to agree for marriage…. The woman was very willing for the simple reason that for thousands of years in the hunting period she was not financially a part of the society; man was all. Man continued his power, although the whole social structure changed. The hunter’s nomadic life became a peaceful life in a village but man’s concern about his property…. He wanted a contract with the woman to be certain that the son she was giving birth to is not somebody else’s, but his own. For this simple purpose all the woman’s freedom had to be destroyed. She had to live almost like a prisoner, or worse.Man agreed – under compulsion, he compromised. If the woman was losing a few things – her freedom of movement, her freedom in changing lovers – man was also ready to sacrifice his freedom. They would remain devoted to each other forever.But it is against nature. Even if you want to do it nature is not going to support you.Nature is for freedom, not for any kind of bondage.So new problems started arising. Men started finding prostitutes who were no-one’s wives, or as it was phrased in India, the prostitute was the wife of the whole town: nagarvadhu. She belongs to anybody, she is a commodity; you have to pay and buy her time and her body. Because of marriage it was very difficult to find married women because then there were more complexities: they had their husbands…. Prostitutes were good.And you will be surprised to know that in India every city had its topmost prostitute – she was the most beautiful girl born in that city. Because she was so beautiful it was not right to let her get married to one person, she had to be shared. She was so beautiful that if she got married there would be trouble, there would be problems – people would go on falling in love with her. It was better to keep her free for anybody who would pay.Marriage created suspicion. The husband was always suspicious about whether the child born to them was his own or not. And the problem is, the father had no way to determine that a child was his own. Only the mother knew. Because the father had no way of being certain, he created more and more walls around the woman – that was the only possibility, the only alternative – to disconnect her from the larger humanity. Not to educate her, because education gives wings to people, thoughts, makes people capable of revolt, so no education for women. No religious education for women, because religion makes you saints, holy people and it has been a male-dominated society for centuries and man cannot conceive a woman to be higher and holier than himself.Man has been cutting from the very roots any possibility of woman’s growth. She is just a factory to manufacture children. She has not been accepted by any culture in the world as equal to man. There are even cultures like the Chinese which have denied the soul to woman; woman is only a machine, without a soul.In China you could kill your wife, no law existed against it. The wife was your possession and if you wanted to destroy it, it was nobody’s business to prevent it.All over the world the woman has been suppressed. The more she has been suppressed, the more her whole energy has turned sour. And because she has no freedom and man has every freedom, all her repressed emotions, feelings, thoughts – her whole individuality turns into a jealous phenomenon. She is continuously afraid that her husband might leave her, might go to some other woman, might become interested in some other woman. He might abandon her, and she has problems: she is not educated, she is not financially capable of standing on her own feet. She has been brought up in such a way that she cannot go into the world; she has been told from the very beginning that she is weak….Indian scriptures say that in childhood the father should protect the girl; in youth the husband should protect the girl; in old age the son should protect the woman. She has to be protected from the very childhood to the grave. She cannot revolt against this male chauvinist society. All she can do is go on finding faults, which are bound to be there. Mostly she is not wrong; she is mostly right.Whenever a man falls in love with another woman something in him toward the first woman changes. Now they are again strangers, there is no bridge. She has been crippled, enslaved and now she has been abandoned. Her whole life is a life of agony.Out of this agony arises jealousy. Jealousy is the anger of the weak – one who cannot do anything but is boiling within, who would like to burn the whole world but cannot do anything except cry and scream and throw tantrums.This situation will continue until marriage becomes a museum piece.Now there is no need for marriage. Perhaps it was useful. Perhaps it was not useful, but it was only an excuse to enslave the woman. Things could have been worked out in a different way, but there is no point in going into the past.Right or wrong, one thing is good about the past: it is no more.As far as the present and the future are concerned, marriage is absolutely irrelevant, inconsistent with human evolution and contradictory to all the values we love – freedom, love, joy.Because man wanted the woman to be completely imprisoned, he wrote religious scriptures making her afraid of hell, making her greedy for heaven…if she follows the rules. Those rules exist only for women, not for men. Now it is so clear that to let women live any longer in this poisonous situation of jealousy is against their psychological health.And women’s psychological health influences the pyschological health of the whole of humanity – man is also born of woman. The woman has to become an independent individual.The dissolution of marriage will be a great, festive event on the earth – and nobody is preventing you: if you love your wife or your husband you can live for lives together, nobody is preventing you. Withdrawing marriage is simply giving you your individuality back. Now nobody possesses you.You are not to make love to a man just because he is your husband and he has the right to demand it. In my vision, when a woman makes love to a man because she has to make love, it is prostitution – not retail, but wholesale!Retail is better, you have a chance to change. This wholesale prostitution is dangerous, you don’t have a chance to change. And you have married for the first time – you should be given chances because you are an amateur. A few marriages at least will help you to become mature; perhaps then you can find the right woman. And by right woman I don’t mean the woman who is “made for you.”No woman is made for you and no man is made for any woman. By the right woman or the right man I mean that if you have understood a few relationships, if you have been in a few relationships, you will understand what things create miserable situations among you and what situations create a loving, peaceful, happy life. Living with different people is an absolutely necessary education for a right life as far as love is concerned.You should first graduate from a few relationships. In your college, in your university you should pass through a few relationships. And you should not be in a hurry to decide – there is no need, the world is big, and each individual has some unique quality and beauty.As you go through a few relationships you start becoming aware of what kind of woman, what kind of man is going to be a friend to you – not a master, not a slave. And friendship needs no marriage because friendship is far higher.You are feeling jealous because that jealousy you have received as an inheritance. With me you will have to change many things – not because I say to change them but because you understand that a drastic change is needed.For example, the idea has been spread all over the world that if a husband sometimes goes to some other woman then this is going to destroy the marriage. It is absolutely wrong. On the contrary, if every marriage has the weekend free it will cement your relationship more strongly, because your marriage is not disturbing your freedom, because your wife understands the need for variety. These are human needs.The priests and the moralists and the puritans first decide on an ideal. They make beautiful ideals and then they force the idea on you, for you to become like the ideals. They want to make you all idealists. For ten thousand years we have lived under a very dark and dismal shadow of idealism.I am a realist. I don’t have any ideal. To me, to understand reality and to go with reality is the only right way for any intelligent man or woman.My understanding is – and it is based on thousands of experiments – that if marriage is not such a tight thing, rigid, but is flexible, just a friendship…so that a woman can tell you she has met a beautiful young man and she is going this weekend to be with him – “And if you are interested I can bring him back with me, you will also love the person.” And if the husband can say, not as a hypocrite but as an authentic human being, that “Your joy, your happiness is my happiness. If you have found someone, forget about the house, I will take care. You enjoy, because I know whenever you come back, enjoying a fresh love will make you fresh also. A fresh love will bring fresh youth to you. You go this week, and next week I may have my own program.”This is friendship. And when they come home they can talk about what kind of man she met, how he turned out, that it was not that great…. You can tell her about the new woman you have met…. You have a shelter in the home. You can go once in a while into the sky, wild and free, and come back and always your wife is there waiting for you – not to fight but to share your adventures.It simply needs a little understanding. It has nothing to do with religion, but just a little more intelligent behavior.You know perfectly well that howsoever beautiful a man or woman might be, she starts becoming heavy on your nerves sooner or later. Because the same geography, the same topography, the same landscape….Man’s mind is not made for monotony; neither it is made for monogamy. It is absolutely natural to ask for variety. And it is not against your love. In fact, the more you know other women, the more you will praise your own woman – your understanding will deepen. Your experience will be enriching…the more you have known a few men, the more accurately you will be able to understand your own husband.The idea of jealousy will disappear – you both are free, and you are not hiding anything.With friends we should share everything, particularly those moments which are beautiful – moments of love, moments of poetry, moments of music…they should be shared. In this way your life will become more and more rich. You may become so attuned to each other that you live your whole life together, but there is no marriage.Jealousy will persist as long as marriage remains the basic foundation of society.Just give the man, with your full heart, absolute freedom. And tell him he need not hide anything: “To hide anything is insulting. That means you don’t trust me.” And the same has to happen to man, that he can say to his wife: “You are as independent as I am. We are together to be happy, we are together to grow into more blissfulness. And we will do everything for each other but we are not going to be jailers to each other.”Giving freedom is a joy, having freedom is a joy. You can have so much joy, but you are turning that whole energy into misery, into jealousy, into fight, into a continuous effort to keep the other under your thumb.I have heard about a man who was in utter rage and despair because of his wife’s behavior. It was not her fault…she was a nymphomaniac. Now what can you do? Somebody has a headache, somebody is a nymphomaniac. She was continuously falling in love with anybody! He took her to the doctor.She was a beautiful woman. The doctor asked her to go inside the examination room. He went with her and soon, after a few minutes, moans and groans…and the husband was sitting in the office listening – it was too much! He just entered the room and what he saw he could not believe – the doctor was making love to his wife.The husband said, “What is happening?”The wife said, “You idiot, you will never understand. Now you are asking what is happening! Can’t you see?”But the husband was furious. He said, “I am not asking my wife, I am asking you, doc! What is happening?”The doctor said, “Nothing is happening, John, you are doing everything. I am simply taking her temperature.”John was afire. He had suffered so much and even the doctor…and what nonsense is he talking, that he is taking her temperature? So he took out his switchblade knife and started rubbing the knife against the doctor’s shoulder. The doctor said, “What do you mean? What are you doing?”He said, “Nothing. Just be careful. When that thing comes out, remember – it had better have numbers on it!”We have created this circus instead of a culture. It goes on and on in different ways. I hope that in your life you can drop being a part of this stupid game.And it is easy: if you understand yourself, you will be able to understand your wife too. Don’t you have other women in your dreams? In fact, to see your own wife in a dream is a rare phenomenon. People never see their wives or their husbands in their dreams. They have seen enough of them! Now even in the night, even in the dream, no freedom….In your dreams you have the wives of your neighbors, the husbands of your neighbors…you should understand that somehow we have made a wrong society, a society which is not according to human nature. The desire for variety is an essential quality in anyone who is intelligent. The more intelligent you are the more variety you would like – there is some relationship between intelligence and variety. A buffalo is satisfied with one kind of grass; for her whole life she will not touch another kind of grass. She does not have the mind to change, to know new things, to discover new territories, to adventure into new spaces.The poets, the painters, the dancers, the musicians, the actors – you will find these people more loving but their love is not focused on individuals. They are more loving but to as many individuals as they come in contact with. They are the intelligent people, they are our creative part.Idiots don’t want to change anything. They are afraid of change because any change means you will have to learn something again. The idiot wants to learn something once and remain with it his whole life. It may be a machine, it may be a wife, it may be a husband – it does not matter. You have known one woman, you know her nagging, you have become accustomed…sometimes not only accustomed, you have become addicted too. If suddenly your woman does not nag you, you will not be able to sleep that night – what happened? What has gone wrong?One of my friends was continually complaining to me about his wife; “She is always sad, long faced and I am so worried to enter the house…I try to waste my time in this club and that club but finally I have to go back home and there she is.”I said to him, “Do one thing just as an experiment. Because she has been serious and she has been nagging, I cannot imagine that you enter the house smiling.”He said, “Do you think I can manage that? The moment I see her something freezes inside me – smile?”I said, “Just as an experiment. Today you do one thing: take beautiful roses – it is the season; and the best ice-cream available in the city – tutti frutti; and go smiling, singing a song!”He said, “If you say so I will do it, but I don’t think it is going to make any difference.”I said, “I will come behind you, and see whether there is any difference or not.”The poor fellow tried hard. Many times on the way he laughed. I said, “Why are you laughing?”He said, “I am laughing at what I am doing! I wanted you to tell me to divorce her and you have suggested I act as if I am going on a honeymoon!”I said, “Just imagine it is a honeymoon…but try your best.”He opened the door and his wife was standing there. He smiled and then he laughed at himself because to smile…And that woman was standing almost like a stone. He presented the flowers and the ice-cream, and then I entered.The woman could not believe what was happening. When the man had gone to the bathroom she asked me, “What is the matter? He has never brought anything, he has never smiled, he has never taken me out, he has never made me feel that I am loved, that I am respected. What magic has happened?”I said, “Nothing; both of you have just been doing wrong. Now when he comes out of the bathroom you give him a good hug.”She said, “A hug?”I said, “Give him one! You have given him so many things, now give him a good hug, kiss him….”She said, “My God….”I said, “He is your husband, you have decided to live together. Either live joyously or say good-bye joyously. There is no reason…it is such a small life. Why waste two person’s lives unnecessarily?”At that very moment the man came from the bathroom. The woman hesitated a little but I pushed her, so she hugged the man and the man became so afraid he fell on the floor! He had never imagined that she was going to hug him.I had to help him up. I said, “What happened?”He said, “It’s just that I have never imagined that this woman can hug and kiss – but she can! And when she smiled she looked so beautiful.”Two persons living together in love should make it a point that their relationship is continuously growing, bringing more flowers every season, creating more joys. Just sitting together silently is enough….But all this is possible only if we drop the old idea of marriage. More than friendship is unnatural. And if marriage is stamped by the court, is killed under that stamp in the court…. You cannot bring love under the rule of law.Love is the ultimate law. You just have to discover its beauties, its treasures. You have not to repeat, parrot-like, all the great values which make man the highest expression of consciousness on this planet. You should exercise them in your relationship.And this has been my strange experience: if one partner starts moving on the right lines, the other follows sooner or later. Because they both are hungry for love, but they don’t know how to approach it.No university teaches that love is an art and that life is not already given to you; that you have to learn from scratch.And it is good that we have to discover by our own hands every treasure that is hidden in life…and love is one of the greatest treasures in existence.But instead of becoming fellow travelers in search of love, beauty and truth, people are wasting their time in fighting, in jealousy.Just become a little alert and start the change from your side – don’t expect it from the other side. It will begin from the other side too. And it costs nothing to smile, it costs nothing to love, it costs nothing to share your happiness with somebody you love.Osho,Sitting in my room thousands of kilometers away from you, I can feel you. And if had have eyes to see, I would see you standing right in front of me. I remember when you said to us in discourse “if you don't feel me when you are not here, you haven't let me in.”It's so true – but what a gift that you really, really came when I was open, that you really filled my being. In some moments sitting in front of you I got it. In other moments it happened but I wasn't aware of it at that moment. Putting this out to you my heart is beating faster and my hands are trembling. For the first time I feel to show something of myself. This is a gift also. It makes me tremendously thankful, makes me cry and laugh at the same time. Osho, I love…Only love counts. Thank you for showing me that door.Love is the only religion, the only God, the only mystery that has to be lived, understood.When love is understood, you have understood all the mystics of the world.It is not anything difficult. It is as simple as your heartbeats or your breathing. It comes with you, it is not given to you by the society. And this is the point that I want to emphasize: love comes with your birth – but of course it is undeveloped as everything else is undeveloped. The child has to grow.The society takes the advantage of the gap. The child’s love will take time to grow; meanwhile the society goes on conditioning the mind of the child with ideas about love which are false. By the time you are ready to explore the world of love, you are filled with so much rubbish about love that there is not much hope for you to be able to find the authentic and discard the false.For example, every child everywhere has been told in a thousand and one ways that love is eternal: once you love a person you love the person always. If you love a person and later on you feel that you don’t love, it only means you never loved the person in the first place. Now this is a very dangerous idea. It is giving you an idea of a permanent love and in life nothing is permanent…the flowers blossom in the morning and by the evening they are gone.Life is a continuous flux; everything is changing, moving. Nothing is static, nothing is permanent. You have been given the idea of a permanent love which is going to destroy your whole life. You will expect permanent love from the poor woman, and the woman will expect permanent love from you.Love becomes secondary, permanence becomes primary.And love is such a delicate flower that you cannot force it to be permanent. You can have plastic flowers; that’s what people have – marriage, their family, their children, their relatives, everything is plastic.Plastic has one very spiritual thing: it is permanent.Real love is as uncertain as your life is uncertain.You cannot say that you will be here tomorrow. You cannot even say that you are going to survive the next moment. Your life is continuously changing – from childhood to youth, to middle age, to old age, to death, it goes on changing.A real love will also change.It is possible that if you are enlightened your love has gone beyond the ordinary laws of life. It is neither changing nor permanent, it simply is. It is no more a question of how to love – you have become love itself, so whatever you do is loving. It is not that you specifically do something which is love – whatever you do, your love starts pouring through it.But before enlightenment your love is going to be the same as everything else: it will change.If you understand that it will change, that once in a while your wife may become interested in somebody and you have to be understanding and loving and caring and allowing her to go the way her being feels…this is a chance for you to prove to your wife that you love her. You love her – even if she is going to love somebody else, that is irrelevant. With understanding, it is possible that your love may become a lifelong affair, but remember it will not be permanent. It will have its ups and downs, it will have changes.It is so simple to understand. When you started loving you were too young, with no experience; how can your love remain the same when you have become a mature person? Your love will also attain to some maturity.And when you have become old your love will have a different flavor to it. Love will go on changing and once in a while love will need just an opportunity for change. In a healthy society it will be possible and yet your relationship with someone will not be broken.But it is possible that you may have to change your lovers many times in life. There is no harm in it. In fact, by changing your lovers many times in life you will be enriched, and if the whole world follows what I am saying to you about love, the whole world will be enriched.But a wrong idea has destroyed all possibility. The moment your partner looks at somebody – just looking, and his eyes show attraction and you freak out. You have to understand that if the man drops being interested in beautiful women on the road, in beautiful actresses in the movies…That’s what you want; you want him not to be interested in anything except you. But you don’t understand human psychology. If he is not interested in women on the road, in the movies, why will he be interested in you? His interest in women is a guarantee that he is interested in you, that there is still a possibility that your love can go on and on.But we are doing just the opposite. Men are trying so that their women should not be interested in anybody other than themselves; they should be the only focus, her total concentration. The woman is asking the same, and both are driving each other mad. Concentration on one person is bound to lead you into madness.For a lighter life, for a more playful life, you need to be flexible. You have to remember that freedom is the highest value and if love is not giving you freedom then it is not love.Freedom is a criterion:Anything that gives you freedom is right, and anything that destroys your freedom is wrong.If you can remember this small criterion your life, slowly, slowly will start settling on the right path about everything – your relationships, your meditations, your creativity, whatever you are.Dropping old concepts, ugly concepts…. For example, in this country, millions have died by jumping alive into the funeral pyre with their husbands. It shows that the possessiveness of the husband is so much that not only does he want to possess the woman while he is alive, he is afraid of what will happen when he is dead! He will not be able to do anything – it is better to take the woman with him.And you can see that this was applicable only to women – not a single man has jumped into the funeral pyre of a woman in ten thousand years. What does it mean? Does it mean that only women love men and men do not love women? Does it mean that the woman has no life of her own? Only the husband’s life is her life – when the husband is dead, she has to be dead.Such nonsense ideas have settled in our heads. You have to do continuous cleaning – whenever you see some nonsense in your head, clean it, throw it away.If you are clear and clean in the mind you will be able to find solutions for every problem that arises in your life.Osho,I was 56 years old when I first came to you and realized what a wastage my life had been up till then, an increasing unreality. Now I am 67, and although I still feel youthful, I have to keep reminding myself that I am old so that I can it accept gracefully. So much of me still feels like a lost, little girl and when I look at your grace and beauty – ageless, young and old both together – I do not feel so sad. Will you say something to me about old age?It is one of the significant problems because the way we have lived up to now has been unnatural, unpsychological, unspiritual. It has created so many problems.For example, oldness – a person can either grow old or grow up. The person who grows old only has not lived at all. He has passed time, but he has not lived. All his life is nothing but repression.I teach you not to grow old.That does not mean you will not become old, it means I give you another dimension: growing up. Certainly you will grow old but that will only be as far as the body is concerned. But your consciousness, you, will not grow old; you will only grow up. You will go on growing in maturity.But all the religions of the world have been committing such crimes that they cannot be forgiven. They have not been teaching you how to live, they have been teaching you how not to live – how to renounce life, how to renounce the world. This world, according to the religions, is a punishment. You are in jail. So the only thing is to try to escape from the jail as quickly as possible.This is not true.Life is not a punishment. Life is so valuable that it cannot be a punishment, it is a reward. And you should be thankful to existence that it has chosen you – to breathe through you, to love through you, to sing through you, to dance through you. If one keeps growing up in maturity and understanding, one never becomes old; one is always young because one is always learning. Learning keeps you young. One is always young because one is not burdened with repressions. And because one is weightless, one feels as if one is just a child – a newcomer to this beautiful earth.I have heard that three priests were going to Pittsburg. They reached the window to purchase their tickets and the woman at the window who was selling the tickets was extraordinarily beautiful. Her clothes were almost negligible – she had beautiful breasts – and with a V-cut.The youngest of the priests went up to the window…but he had forgotten all about the journey. He was only seeing those beautiful breasts. The woman asked, “What I can do for you?”He said, “Three tickets for Titsburg.”The woman freaked out. She said, “You are a priest!”The second one pushed him aside and told the woman, “Don’t get angry, he’s just new, immature. You just give us three tickets for Titsburg.”The woman looked…”Are all these men mad or something?”“And remember one thing: I would like to have the change in nipples and dimes.”Now the woman started shouting and screaming, “This is too much!”The oldest priest came in and he said, “My daughter, don’t be angry.These fellows stay in the monastery, they don’t come out, they don’t see anything. You should have a little understanding about their life. They have renounced life. Just sit down…three tickets for Titsburg.”The woman could not believe them – all three seemed to be idiots!And the old priest said, “Remember one thing, I admonish you: use better clothes to cover your beautiful body. Otherwise remember, on judgment day Saint Finger will point his Peter at you!”This is the situation of the obsessed person. The more you deny life, the more you become obsessed with the same life. Up to now, we have not allowed man to live a non-obsessional life.All the religions and the governments are angry with me for the simple reason that I am in favor of you, your freedom and a non-obsessional life – a pure, natural flow, joyous, making the whole of life a paradise.We are not searching for any paradise in the clouds. If it is there, we will get hold of it, but first we have to make a paradise here on the earth; that will be our preparation. If we can live in a paradise on the earth, then wherever paradise is, it is ours; nobody else can claim it – at least not these priests and monks and nuns! All these people are bound toward hell, because on the surface they are one thing and inside it is just the opposite.Try to be natural.Risk everything to be natural and you will not be at a loss.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 14 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,What do you mean by “The Psychology of the Buddhas?” How is it different from the present psychology that prevails in the world?The present psychology is not yet comprehensive enough, it touches only the periphery of human individuality. It remains confined to the mind. It is not right to call it “psychology.” Psychology means “the science of the soul” and the present psychology is not only not the science of the soul, it denies even the existence of the soul.The moment you deny the soul, consciousness, something which is beyond the mind but within you…This denial is not an ordinary denial because it destroys the whole dignity of man. It takes away his very center. He becomes centerless, soul-less, just a robot.The right name for modern psychology is “robotology” because it studies only the mechanical behavior of man and the mechanics of mind. Its studies cannot go very deep for the simple reason that if mind is all and there is nothing more to life than mind, you cannot ever become one, undivided.To be divided is the nature of the mind; to be always balanced between opposites – love and hate, courage and fear, yes and no, atheism and theism.Mind does not feel at ease unless it has divided a thing in two. It cannot conceive of light unless it is contrasted with darkness, it cannot conceive of life unless it is defined by death.And because psychology remains within the boundaries of the mind it cannot help man to grow to his potential heights. Psychology will discourage you: spiritual search is nothing but a mirage, the seeking of truth is hallucinatory.It is not a coincidence that we are the most intelligent generation, because ten thousand years of growth is within us. So on the one hand it is the most intelligent generation that has ever existed and on the other hand, because of psychology spreading these poisonous ideas – that there is no consciousness, no soul, no life beyond death, and man is just matter; that mind is also nothing but a certain combination of material elements – this has created a very strange situation. Intelligence is pulling man toward more growth and the people who deal with growth are pulling man backward, telling him, “There is no beyond, just be normal – that is more than you can dream of.”“Just to be normal” is the goal of psychology.A great goal: just to be normal.People have lived for thousands of years without any psychology – and normally. In fact, as you go backward you will not find so many murders, you will not find so many suicides, you will not find so many rapes, you will not find so many sexual perversions. As you go back they start becoming less. Primitive man was more innocent than you are. He was not as intelligent as you are, but he was more innocent. You inherit his innocence but you are keeping it repressed.The combination of intelligence and innocence is meditation. The moment innocence and intelligence start growing within you…it is not that you become capable of solving all the problems of the mind, but a totally new thing happens: you start going beyond mind. The problems of the mind are left far behind, as if they never belonged to you – in fact they never belonged to you.And once you know how to slip out of your mind, a totally different psychology will be founded on the art of slipping out of the mind. A person who can get out of his mind helps the mind to cool down. The mind is getting no more energy – it cools, calms down on its own accord. That’s why I have said meditation is a medicine too – and both words come from the same root.Once your intelligence and your innocence are available to you, just like two wings, the whole sky is yours. There are no more boundaries for you.I have called the psychology that is based on meditation the psychology of the buddhas. Modern psychology is the psychology of people who are asleep.It has to be understood; the people who came to Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology, were all sick people – obviously, otherwise why should they come to the psychoanalyst? They were seriously sick, their minds were falling apart. Sigmund Freud came in contact only with sick people – that gave him the impression that man himself is sick. In a way he is logical because everybody he examined, everybody he analyzed, everybody he treated was sick. And these were high-class people, bourgeois – professors, scientists, very rich people – because a psychoanalyst’s time is the costliest thing in the world today. All these people were basically living an insane life, but because everybody else is also living the same insane life you don’t become aware of it.If Sigmund Freud denied that there is any possibility of a soul in man he cannot be blamed. He never came across a Gautam Buddha, he never came across a man who had gone beyond mind.The trouble was these people who have gone beyond mind have no reason to go to Sigmund Freud. And Sigmund Freud is afraid to go to such people because they are against the very foundation upon which he has raised a whole empire – certainly there was a great vested interest. If just a simple method of meditation can help a person…not only to be normal, because to be normal can never be accepted as the goal. That means you remain a mediocre person for your whole life; you never go beyond the boundaries of the society. In everything you remain half-hearted, there is no intensity, there is no totality.A normal person is wishy-washy, just in a limbo, neither here nor there…hanging in between.It is unfortunate that the great psychologists of the West had no opportunity to know the mystic and to become acquainted with his world – which is absolutely extraordinary. He lives twenty-four hours among you, but not with you; his kingdom is far away. He has tasted love, of which you have been only dreaming. He has experienced truth, of which you have been only thinking and philosophizing. He has encountered existence directly without any mediation of a priest, a prophet, a savior. He has seen existence in its freshness. He is not a Christian, he is not a Hindu – because these are so old, so full of dust and borrowed, they cannot give you a transformation.Remember one thing: unless the truth is your own experience, whatever you believe about truth is only a belief. And all beliefs are lies, and all believers are blind.The psychology of the buddhas means that we accept man as a three-storied building. There are a few who remain only on the ground floor, only in their bodies; all their interests are centered in the body – this is the lowest life for someone to choose, as if you are living on the porch when the whole building is yours.The second level of life is that of a well-understood mind – but who is going to understand the mind? You can see the difficulty of the psychologist: he studies the mind but if you ask who is studying the mind…. Mind cannot study itself.There must be something beyond – a witness, a watcher who studies the mind. The scientist is studying only from the outside. He is studying the behavior of other people and from their behavior he is deducting principles upon which human behavior is based. But his observation is of the behavior, not of the real being inside. He can be deceived.You can be sad but you can smile, you can hold back the tears. Or if you are a little artful, you can manage to bring crocodile tears. Your behavior is not reliable. We don’t know what is happening inside you, whether your behavior is an expression of your inside or it is a camouflage, hiding you in beautiful garbage.Buddha accepts three steps: the body, the mind, the consciousness. Even the consciousness is only a step.These three steps lead to the temple of the divine, of the immortal, of beauty, of celestial music…. You start touching heights, Himalayan heights where you can find virgin snow which has never melted.In your inner being also you are carrying greater peaks than Everest, with eternal beauty.The psychology of the buddhas is comprehensive of the whole individuality of man – and it does not end there. By studying, by experiencing the body, the mind, the consciousness, and the beyond, Buddha is preparing you to dissolve into the universal.Just like a dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf into the lake…. On a beautiful morning the sun is rising and the whole sky is so colorful…just a cool breeze is there, but it is enough for the rosepetals, for other flowers…for the lotus….In the early morning sun the dewdrops on the lotus petals look like pearls – or it will be better to say that pearls look like the dewdrops. They are slipping slowly, slowly toward the vast ocean, in which they will be lost and yet not lost. As dewdrops they will be lost, but they will emerge as the whole ocean.Unless psychology can bring human beings to this oceanic experience it is immature, it has just started its ABC’s. And in the West it is going around in a circle – because you do not accept higher realities; where can you go? You are stuck with the mind – analyze it, analyze its dreams, analyze its repressions. But it should be taken as a very significant question that there is not a single man in the whole world who is completely analyzed. This is a failure of the whole system of psychoanalysis – twelve years, fifteen years people have been in psychoanalysis and they have not moved anywhere. Yes, they have learned psychological jargon, it has become more difficult to talk with them! But they are the same persons with all the weaknesses, with all the frailties. Twelve or fifteen years of psychoanalysis has not been able to a make even a single dent in their personality.It is a rich man’s game. Just as poor people have their games, rich people have their own games. Psychology is still a game, guesswork, with no foundation in reality.The mystics in the East have never bothered too much about the mind; they have only developed methods to bypass the mind. Those methods are the techniques of meditation – they are just to bypass the mind.Once you have bypassed the mind, once you can have a bird’s-eye view of your own mind, things start settling.It is your energy that disturbs the mind, that gives it the power to be violent, to be sad, to be angry, to be hateful, to be jealous. Now you are no longer giving it any energy.It won’t take a long time. The mind withers almost like a cloud – it was there and it is no more.The moment mind disperses, your meditation has come to maturity. Now your meditation will be the medium, not the mind. The mind will be used as a mechanism by your meditative forces, but mind is put aside; it is no longer the master. And it is one of the strangest stories that for ten thousand years in the East we have worked on meditation and we have been absolutely successful, not only in becoming meditative, but also in dissolving all the problems of the mind.There is only one way to solve the mind and its problems, and that is to get out of it.But modern psychology has no idea of where to go, so they go on around and around but they remain just ordinary beings. Now Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler and Assagioli have devoted their whole lives…but you don’t see the eyes of Gautam Buddha, you don’t see the gestures of Mahavira, you don’t see the insight of the seers of Upanishads. You don’t see the transforming presence which all the mystics in all the countries have always radiated.In my way of looking at things, mind itself is sick. Unless you get out of it, you cannot help the poor mind to become healthy. You are too much identified.Not being identified with the mind is the shortest way to your own being. And your being is always healthy, it does not know what sickness is. It cannot know, it is not in its nature. Just as mind cannot know peace, your being cannot know tensions, anxieties, anguish. The question is not of curing the mind, the question is shifting your whole energy, your whole focus, from mind to being.Meditation helps you to shift.This great shift of your attention, of your awareness, is what I call the psychology of the buddhas. And any other psychology is going to be wrong, because only a man of eyes knows what light is. There may be millions of people who are blind – there are millions, but it is not a question of democracy. They cannot vote, they cannot assert a single word about light. That one man is right and those millions of people are wrong.The question is not of numbers. The only question that is significant is the transformation of your being from mind to no-mind.Modern psychology thinks it is the science of the mind.The psychology of the buddhas will be the science of no-mind.Osho,I think I am growing to love and accept myself, and then I recognize how much I hold back and keep separate from other people to hide myself, and I am ashamed. I try to show others how strong I am. Why can't I be strong, why can't I accept that I am weak? Why can't I even accept that I am not willing to show my weakness?It is the society, the culture, the civilization in which you are born which gives you wrong ideas. Those wrong ideas go on haunting you from the cradle to the grave.There is nothing wrong in being weak. But this society trains every child to be strong.Just across from my house in my village there was a gymnasium. My uncles and my father were all going to the gymnasium – it was the best in the town. They tried to persuade me.I said to them, “The idea of the strong man is primitive. It comes from the days when people were hunting. I am not going to be a hunter!”And I don’t think that you can ever be so strong that the need for being stronger disappears. Even the strongest people have found weakness, disease, old age, death…There was one man in India, Gama, who was the world champion in the Indian type of wrestling. But he died at the age of forty, and the diagnosis of the doctors was that he died because he exerted himself too much, exercised too much. The body is not made of steel – he killed himself. He became the world champion but he lost his life. And even if he had lived, he would have lived in utter misery, pain, because all his inner body functions were out of control. The simple reason was that he tried something against nature.I refused to go to the gymnasium. I told them, “To be healthy – or to be more accurate, not to be sick – is enough.”Weakness has a wrong connotation, and through that wrong connotation half of humanity, the world of women, has been condemned to weakness because they don’t have muscular bodies. But for what are muscular bodies needed? Those who need them will get them. But a poet does not need a muscular body – in fact it will look very ugly, a muscular man writing poetry. In fact, no muscular man, no great wrestler, boxer, has ever written any poetry or painted, or played on musical instruments. They exercise too much, to make the body almost steel; they also have to eat too much, and it is now a proved fact that the people who eat too much don’t live long.In experiments on mice, it has been found…one group of mice were getting as much as they wanted to eat – the American way, five times a day – and another group was kept on one meal a day, saintly, religious. It was thought that they would not be able to last long. But the mice who were getting one meal a day lived to be twice the age of the group that was eating American style. Then many other experiments proved it conclusively. And the reason is simple: the stronger you are, the more food the body needs – more nourishment, more water; your digestive system needs to work more, and work hard. They all start failing – they are not meant to work too hard.There are still tribes alive who eat one meal a day, and they live the longest. There are even a few people who are one hundred and eighty years old. They live longer and they live younger – mostly, even at the age of one hundred and eighty, in the provinces of the Soviet Union near the Caucasus these people are still working on the farms.One of my friends from the Soviet Union has sent me a photo. He thought it would be hilarious in India, and it does look hilarious: a man who was one hundred and eighty was going to marry a woman who was one hundred and seventy two – but she looks great!The idea of being strong is based on continuous fight, war, struggle…in life too it is a cut-throat competition, every day, continuously. If you are not strong, you will be thrown out of the traffic that is going to New Delhi!I have heard a story about a dog. He used to live in Varanasi – he was a very religious dog. But everybody was going to New Delhi, everybody was wearing hand-spun clothes, carrying spinning wheels which they never spun upon, but symbolic – that they belonged to the ruling party – and wearing Gandhi caps. A strange thing…have you ever seen any picture of Gandhi with a cap? This cap can be anybody else’s, but NOT Mahatma Gandhi’s. He never wore it.The dog became curious. Everybody was dying to go to Delhi, so he thought he should have a look – perhaps something was cooking. He figured out that it would take almost twenty-one days. He was a strong dog, and he went toward Delhi.Rumors reach faster than anything, and in every village there was some difficulty. Dogs are, after all, dogs. They would catch hold of that dog – the whole village full of dogs would bark at him – and they would not allow him to rest. The question of food or anything was just irrelevant.Dogs in Delhi were waiting because they thought this dog must be a mahatma, a saint, coming from the holy city, the most ancient city in the world. They were waiting…and they could not believe it, because they were also thinking that it would take three or four weeks at least. This dog reached Delhi in three days! They said, “You have done a miracle! In the whole history of dogs, you are the greatest.”He said, “First let me explain to you what happened. I am not the greatest dog, but our country’s dogs are really great. One bunch of dogs from one village chased me to the boundary of the next village. Then the next bunch took over. They did not allow me to rest anywhere, so I have been running continuously, without food without rest. And in this way, the journey that was going to be fulfilled in twenty-one days is finished in three days. And I am finished too!” Saying this, he died.We are still living under barbarous ideologies. Our education is still poisonous. Our whole approach – calling Alexander “the great,” Genghis Khan “the great,” Peter “the terrible”…these are the strong people who have overruled the world. And every child is being prepared to be the richest, to be respectable, to reach to the highest pinnacle of glory. Certainly strength is needed and weakness has to be condemned.Weakness can be seen from a different angle – that is my angle.Weakness is beauty. Weakness is a delicate structure. Women are not weak, they are more beautiful, they have a more symmetrical, more proportionate body. Why look at weakness as something bad?The rose is going to be weak; you cannot make a rose as strong as a stone. If the rose and the rock clash together, the rose is going to suffer, to die, not the rock. But it is not weakness. It is a delicate structure, a beautiful phenomenon that looks to be not of this world.I am not saying anything against those who are strong; that has a beauty of its own. But its days are gone.What you are going to do with physical strength in a world of nuclear weapons? Just don’t be foolish – are you going to do push-ups when nuclear weapons are exploding? The days of that kind of strength are gone.But whenever two persons fight, the old mind supports the stronger, the winner. This is very inhuman. The one who is weak should be praised, because in spite of all the struggles he has been able to keep his delicate body, just like a child. The strong one should be condemned because he is behaving like an animal.But it is an insane world, where Muhammad Ali can declare himself three times great, because now one time does not matter. Alexander was great, but only one time; and nobody thought of being great two times, double the amount of Alexander the Great. But Muhammad Ali has figured it out. He is not even talking about a second time, he is talking about a third time. He is saying, “Muhammad Ali thrice great.”And what is creative about him? This man has broken many people’s noses, has fractured many people. He is awarded, he is thought to be a hero. He should be kept in a cage in a circus – that is the only place where he belongs.Our values govern people and their behavior. If you are by nature strong, use your strength for your deeper inquiry; use your strength for higher flights in your consciousness. It is not right to destroy this strength in wrestling, in boxing, in being idiots. And if you are weak, unless you are sick and ill there is no problem. Your weakness should be the weakness of a flower; it should be loved, respected. And the days of strength are gone anyway.The days of beauty and the days of more delicate human beings are going to come.I have been looking into all your great heroes. None of them has been creative, none of them has increased the beauty of life, none of them has been a stepping stone for future progress. They have all been cruel, ugly, violent – murderers, butchers. The history that you are teaching to your children in your schools, colleges and universities, should be banned. You are teaching small students things in your history which are ugly.Gautam Buddha appears only in footnotes, not to mention other mystics who are not so well known. Sarmad you may not find in your history books at all; Kabir, Farid, Meera you will not find in your history books. These people don’t belong to the mainstream humanity. These people are a kind of rebellious category in themselves, rebellious spirits who have left the crowd and have moved alone.Gautam Buddha’s body was weak and delicate and beautiful, but no strong man has been able to reach higher than Gautam Buddha. That is real strength – not that you have the body of a bull.Just drop the whole idea. If you are not sick as you are, then accept yourself; don’t compare. Love yourself, because if you cannot love yourself how can you think of somebody else loving you? If you cannot accept yourself, who is going to accept you?If you are continuously feeling an inferiority complex because you are weaker, you are this, you are that…and there are a thousand and one things, it is not a question of one thing. Somebody has a more beautiful face, somebody has a sharper intelligence, somebody is taller – if you are going to look all around and compare yourself you will commit suicide because there seems to be no way….The competition is not one-dimensional, it is multi-dimensional. And wherever you are, whatever you attain, you will forget about it – you will remember only that which you don’t have. People remember only that which they don’t have. Once you have it, for one or two days you can feel the euphoria and then things settle. You cannot remain in the excited state forever; it will kill you, it will give you a good heart attack.Weakness should not be taken as weakness; it is the comparison that gives you the word. Call it a more delicate body. The moment you call it a more delicate body, your whole conception about it changes.Words become realities to people.Always remember to use words with right connotations.So I don’t see that there is any problem. Stop trying to be strong. Start to be what you are, pour all your energy into what you are. If you are a beautiful, delicate person, pour your energy into making yourself more delicate, more beautiful. There is no need for you to change places.Everybody, as he is, is needed – and he is needed as he is – that’s why you are born in a certain way. Don’t try to go astray from your nature.Once or twice I went with my father to see the gymnasium and I told him, “I hate it.”He said, “Why? You can see so many beautiful bodies there.”I said, “I cannot call them beautiful. They are trying to force their bodies, to make them almost as they must have been thousands of years before, the bodies of animals. These people should not be made heroes.” I asked my father, “Can you tell me that any of your wrestlers, any of your boxers in the world has been a genius, a great scientist, a great poet, a great painter? What have these people contributed? These are either mediocre and most probably idiotic people.”Life is not to fight.Life is to live and life is to grow.Life is to bring to the world all that is hidden in you to share. There is only one thing: you should discover your treasures and start sharing them with people. This is your only strength, because in this way you will be finding more and more roots – in people, in the earth, in the trees, in the stars. You will be finding more and more friends.I used to sit by the side of a river in my village, under a small tree. It was the same kind of tree under which Gautam Buddha became enlightened, and because of Gautam Buddha’s enlightenment, the tree’s name has become the bodhi tree. In English it is the bo tree – that too is coming from Buddha, bo. “Bodhi” means enlightenment.And a few scientists have discovered that there is a certain chemical, without which mind cannot function. The more you have it, the better your intelligence will be – sharper, quicker. The bodhi tree has that chemical. And strangely, only the bodhi tree – of all the trees in the world – has that chemical in it. It may not be just a coincidence that Buddha became enlightened under a bodhi tree.I used to sit under this bodhi tree by the riverside for hours. It must have been almost the middle of the night, a full moon night, and we had become such friends…. Just that day one of my teachers had told me, “I hear that you are saying to people that there is a possibility of communication between man and trees?”I said, “Yes.”He said, “Don’t spread strange ideas for which you don’t have any proof.”I took him with me on that full moon night and I told him, “You touch the tree and just tell me how you feel.”He said, “It is cold.”And I said to the tree, in front of the teacher, “It is a question of your friend’s word. I want you to respond in some way. And the easiest will be that when my teacher puts his hand on you, show your warmth, don’t be cold.”The teacher said, “You must be mad, you are talking with the tree!”But I said, “There is no harm in trying. The tree is willing – I feel the willingness all around. You put your hand there.”He said, “I don’t believe that there is any possibility of communication.” But he put his hand on the tree and was shocked – the tree was so warm, and it was a cold night. He said, “My God, now you have got me also into trouble! Everybody thinks you are a little bit crazy, now what about me?”I said, “You are my disciple – first disciple! Just start spreading the news that….”He said, “I have never done such a thing…but I will have to do it because I have experienced it myself.”He told others and everybody laughed. And I never wanted so many people to hear, because I was not certain how much the tree liked people, who she liked, who she did not like, whether she liked to be in a crowd or just to be alone, standing high in the sky – or perhaps just with a chosen few friends.People started asking me: “That teacher is saying this phenomenon….”I said, “I don’t know anything about it.”The teacher met me by the evening, he said, “The whole day I have been searching for you!”I said, “I have been escaping! Because now you have become an idiot; can’t you understand, trees and man cannot communicate!”He said, “My God, you are saying that? The whole day long in school I have been spreading the news.”I said, “Which news?”He said, “I never thought you were so dangerous.”I said, “Now you know…that full moon night we never met!”All around your life it is the same life, the same consciousness in different forms. You don’t need strength; the whole universe is yours, its strength and vitality is yours.All you need is more vulnerability, more softness, more openness, more receptivity. Perhaps all these things have been condemned as weakness – “become almost like a citadel, close your heart completely so nobody can harm you.” It is true – if you close your heart nobody can harm you. I can even suggest better methods: if you commit suicide, after that nobody can harm you at all! Even if the third world war happens you are saved.Naturally, to accept oneself and to love oneself are the foundations of the psychology of the Buddhas. It is only the beginning, but the whole meditative process reaches to the highest stars.Modern psychology has not even started its real work. What it is doing is just exploiting rich people.Osho,You have said that the seeker is the sought, that we are the answer to our questions. How is it that the answer can ask questions?Milarepa, you are the answer but you are fast asleep.The answer within you is just a seed. It needs the right soil, it needs a master gardener, it needs your cooperation, your willingness to die as a seed so that you can be born as a plant.Otherwise, you have the answer. Because it is in a seed form, questions arise.Those questions are really in search of the answer that is within you, so there is no contradiction.Osho,How can I come out of self-destruction? Are all unenlightened people self-destructive?Yes. Unfortunately, all unenlightened people are self-destructive.They are self-destructive because they don’t know why they are here, where they are going, what the meaning and purpose of their life is. Without knowing anything about themselves, whatever they do is going to be harmful.It is going to be harmful to you, and through you, to others. You cannot do anything but harm because your eyes are closed, you don’t have any inner sensitivity, you don’t have any creative joy. And above all, for centuries you have worshipped self-destructive people.There was a man in Alexandria who remained seated on a thirty-foot-long pole. It was a pole from an old, ancient temple which was now in ruins but the pole had remained intact. This man, Peter of Alexandria, remained for twelve years sitting on the pole. That was his only contribution to the world, but he was recognized by the Christians as a saint. The pope himself – and this has happened only once; otherwise whenever the pope declares somebody as a saint….And by the way you should know that the word saint in English is very ugly. It comes from sanction. It means the pope has sanctioned that this man is holy – it is a certificate. The saint who is going to receive the reward as a certificate travels to the Vatican and receives it there, touching the feet of the pope. It is strange…the pope is not a saint and nobody has bothered about a simple matter: how can a man who is not a saint himself recognizes anybody as a saint? What authority does he have to declare somebody a saint? And what kinds of saints are these who travel thousands of miles just to receive a certificate? It does not look saintly.But with Peter of Alexandria it was difficult. He could not come down, he had taken a vow to remain till death on the pillar. And he was doing all kinds of nasty things from the pillar, it was disgusting. For thirty years he had not taken a bath – in Alexandria, which was hot, burning hot. And he was urinating, he is doing everything while sitting on the pillar. He could not sleep – or perhaps slowly, slowly he became accustomed to sleeping while sitting on the pole, which is a very difficult thing but not impossible. If you can remain in your bed without falling out of the bed in the night, St. Peter can remain sitting. But except creating this nauseous spot he has not done anything and he has become a saint!You have always worshipped people who can do things which you feel you cannot do. Suddenly, if you cannot do it and somebody else can do it, he becomes higher, he has some superior power.A real saint need not be dependent on any pope to give him a certificate. His certificate should come from his own experience. It will be a declaration, nobody else can do it on his behalf.Take your delicacy and put your energy into creating beauty – in any direction, in any dimension.Remember one thing: that you should not leave this earth unless you have made it a little more beautiful, a little lovelier, a little more loving. To me, this is the only strength, the only power – that we can transform life, we can transform consciousness.Accept it peacefully and joyously – wherever you are, whatever you are, however you can use your energies into some creativity.Your creativeness will help you to become enlightened, just as enlightenment brings an explosion of creativity. And unless you create, you are going to remain self-destructive – it is the same energy. You have the energy, you are creating the energy, you are a dynamo of energy continuously being created from the cosmos. What will you do with it? If you don’t create you are going to be destructive, you are going to destroy.All your so-called strong men have been destructive. And the people I call the mystics have not been strong men, but they have created. They have participated with God in creation, they have known power at its highest peak.Osho,Do you hear sermons in stones?My God! Stones hear sermons when I pass them. People like me – who have been speaking continuously for decades – become deaf, because we only speak, we never listen.Stones are giving sermons – that much I know. But when I am with them the poor stones have to sit down silently and listen to a long sermon.Osho,While I was jogging on Juhu beach yesterday morning, your old friend Mulla Nasruddin met me and, by the way, has sent a lot of salaams to you on your birthday. Further, he feels that you have forgotten him nowadays. Osho, anything to convey to him on this auspicious occasion?Suraj Prakash, do you see? Jogging brought results immediately! You have started meeting great mystics.I have not forgotten Mulla Nasruddin. I heard that he died. He died in Iran – he had gone to see Ayatollah Khomeiniac – and as a proof they have made a marble memorial in Iran for Mulla Nasruddin. It has been made according to his will.His will was certainly unique, but not unexpected. His whole life is essentially concluded in his will. The will is simple. It says, “When you make a memorial, on the memorial put a door. Lock the door and throw the key in the ocean.”They were all puzzled because just a door without walls…what is the point of locking it? Anybody can go around the side. But they knew that that man was a strange type, and there must be some meaning in it.So a marble statue with a marble plaque was made, with a door – just the frame of the door. On the door is a big lock and it makes everyone curious because there are no walls – you can go around this side or around that side and at the back there is nothing, just the same grave.He used to talk with me about this will and he used to say, “I want humanity to remain puzzled about me even after my death.”So everybody who goes to his grave comes back puzzled: “Why did he do it?”It is impossible not to ask the question why he did it. There is nothing behind the door, there are no walls. Why did he ask for the door and the lock and leave special instructions that the keys should be thrown in the ocean, because the door is not to be opened again?Now Suraj Prakash has met him on Juhu Beach. That either means somebody played a joke on Suraj Prakash or perhaps Mulla Nasruddin is back as a ghost. And if he is back as a ghost, he will stay somewhere close by my side. Many of you may have the chance of meeting him!He loves me, and you are asking for something for him.I will tell you a joke, Suraj Prakash. Tell the joke to Mulla Nasruddin if you happen to meet him again.In a circus it happened. By mistake the cage of the zebra was left open and in the night, the zebra escaped and ran away to a nearby farm. As it was getting to be morning, and he was enjoying the freedom and the fresh air…he approached an old hen, saying, “What do you do around here?”She said, “My work here is to lay eggs for my master’s breakfast.”The zebra then walked over to the cow, asking, “What do you do?”The cow said, “I give milk for the farmer’s breakfast.”The zebra then spied an enormous bull, and asked the same question. The bull looked at him with a quizzical smile on his face and he said, “Listen you queer ass, take off those faggy pajamas and I’ll show you what I do around here!”Just tell Mulla Nasruddin. He will enjoy it and he will tell other ghosts. Mulla Nasruddin cannot go to heaven, obviously, and hell is overcrowded. People are on a waiting list. Many people on the earth must have died before but there is no place for them to go, so they are living.And they think they are living – it is simply that there is no space in hell. Also, Mulla Nasruddin cannot be accepted in hell even if there is space someday, because he is a character of his own type. Neither God nor the devil can manage him, so he’s going to remain in limbo – that limbo is called the world of ghosts. In the world of ghosts, you will find very rare people – people who are not allowed in heaven and people who cannot even be allowed in hell. For them, there is a special category so they don’t create trouble anywhere.It is good that Mulla has become a ghost. If you see him, Suraj Prakash, or if somebody else sees him, just tell him to come. And for ghosts, there are no passes!

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 15 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,When I came to Pune ten years ago I was a fifteen year-old teenage girl with a heart full of trust and a longing for truth. During those few months that I could stay with you undisturbed I experienced the most beautiful time of my life. When I was forced back to Germany by the legal authorities and my parents, who are not your sannyasins, something broke inside and left a wound which never healed.Now, being with you in India again, the moment I walked through the ashram gate in Pune something slid into place, and a door opened. Walking through your garden, just sitting silent, under the trees, your fragrance is still in the air. My being vibrates, my heart sings, “Home, home, this is the place where I was born.” There is so much joy that it is almost painful, and just beyond that, the silence.Osho, what is happening with me? And why couldn't it happen anywhere else?The parents represent the establishment. They love you, they have no intention to harm you, but they are unconscious beings – with all good intentions.They have joined hands with the vested interests not to allow their children to become intelligent, to become courageous, to become self-respectful, to have a certain pride that existence has chosen you to be. They have done this to their children instead of making them feel at home in existence, helping them to be more and more in tune with the seasons, with the trees, with the clouds, so that by the time they are mature enough they can have a religion….The word religion originates from a root which means “that which joins you” – joins you with what? “That which connects you” – connects you with what?If you are not being conditioned, if your mind has not been filled with superstitions of all kinds, if your search has not been killed, if your parents have really loved you – and the first requirement of real love is to allow absolute freedom, unconditional freedom to the other – then one day you will find your religion.Religion is not a commodity. You cannot purchase it in the marketplace and you cannot have it just by believing in certain scriptures, rituals. You cannot get it so cheap – just by believing in Jesus Christ, in Gautam Buddha, in Mohammed, in Krishna.Religion has to be earned. It is the greatest learning on the earth; it needs tremendous awareness, so that you are not influenced by others. And this must be the duty of the parents, to see that their children are not influenced by others, because all influences create a spiritual slavery. If you remain fresh, clean, open, searching, you will find it.There has never been any exception. Anybody who has been open to reality, available to existence, immediately gets connected with the whole. And to be connected with the whole is the greatest experience that life can provide to you.When you are born, you are disconnected from the womb, from the mother. You had lived in the womb for nine months as one with the mother’s body, mind, soul. There was no separation. You were not in any way different from your mother. Her heartbeats were your heartbeats, her breathing was your breathing, her blood was your blood.The disconnection from the mother is the most traumatic experience in life, the most painful, the most agonizing. Just think of the small child who is being taken away from his home, who is being taken away from his very world, the only world he knows; he is being taken away from love and warmth. The shock is great.Psychologically, the search for truth, for God, for home, is nothing but an effort to be again connected with the universe. It is a search for the mother’s womb. Of course you cannot find your mother’s womb, but you can find the existential womb. The whole existence can become the womb for you – nourishment, life, relaxation, silence. This is religion.Christianity is not religion; Hinduism and Mohammedanism are not religions. In the whole history of man very few people have experienced religion, although everybody has been a member of some religion.The strange phenomenon is that those who experienced religion were the people who renounced the religion into which they were born – that was the barrier. Something false was given to you when you were so innocent and so trusting that you believed – “This is the truth.” And when you think you have the truth, there is no question of inquiry, there is no question of searching.This is how the whole of humanity is blocked, remains unevolved, remains blind, dark, in a kind of coma. And these people go on producing children; naturally, whatever they know they share with their children. If they are Christians they drag you to the church, if they are Hindus they drag you to the temple.What happened with you – and this is not only your story, this is the story of most of the young sannyasins who are somehow dependent on their parents – was that you found something that felt as if “This is the path.” And the feeling was so total, there was no doubt anywhere in your consciousness. To me, this is conversion. Not a Hindu becoming a Christian; that is stupidity. Not a Christian becoming a Hindu; that is simply changing your prisons, changing your superstitions. It is just moving from one darkness into another. Perhaps the newness may have a little appeal, but for how long? The new will become old tomorrow.But you came here, and suddenly your heart fell in tune with the mysterious change that is happening here.Naturally, your parents at home forced you to drop sannyas, threatened you legally, and of course parents can threaten you. And it is a good experience; in this way you know your parents in their reality. They can take away all your legal rights to their property, they can disown you, and the whole society is with them – the government is with them, the school authorities are with them, and wherever you go you will be treated as an outsider.Naturally a child is not in a position to fight. He has to agree, although what he is agreeing to is not from love of the parents but from fear. It is not because of intimacy with the parents, but because of their blackmail.They have lived without religion, they don’t know the real taste. They have never been drunk with the divine. They are too much in the world, they know only the mundane. They have never raised their eyes upward to see the stars. There is no challenge in their life and a man is dead if he has no challenge in his life. It is the challenge that proves that you are alive – just breathing and temperature and heartbeats do not prove that you are alive, they only prove that the body is still alive. Whether you are alive or not is a different question.You are alive when faraway stars challenge you for a pilgrimage. Unknown realities, unheard-of truths, inexperienced beauties…when they become your real world you have a life with joy and with dance and with song.Out of this joy, this rejuvenation, arises the most delicate phenomenon in life: gratitude, gratitude to the whole.Gratitude is the only prayer, all other prayers are false.And gratitude need not be expressed in words.It is just a wordless fragrance arising out of you.It is good you are back. In fact, anybody who has been a sannyasin, who has known individuality, has known freedom, has known playfulness…it is impossible that anything can prevent the person forever from going deeper into the experience of sannyas.Your parents stopped you, they forced you not to be a sannyasin. That does not matter. In fact, their forcing you and taking away your sannyas has taken you away from them; they have created a gap unknowingly. Now there will not be any communion, everything has become formal. They have destroyed something which they cannot create; they have destroyed innocent trust, they have destroyed innocent love.But it has not been in any way harmful to you. You are back – with better insight into human relationships, with better insight into the fact that even parents are trying to dominate, that it is a political relationship and there is no love. Their whole effort is…in the world they may not be able to be dominating, but at home they can dominate the children. As long as the lust for domination remains, love does not appear.But to you, particularly…I would like you to remember that whatever they have done they have done almost in sleep, so don’t be angry at them. They have done to you what their parents have done to them – so rather than being angry you should feel sad for them, you should feel pity for them. You are fortunate because you have found something which your parents, their parents, and for centuries the whole line of your family, have not been able to find.Rejoice. Be silent and be as joyful as possible. Perhaps you can become a message to your parents and your family members, your neighbors. But the message cannot be delivered in words. In words, people know everything, they are all knowledgeable. And nobody wants to accept that he is ignorant.The only way to break the ice is not through words but through your life, through your very being. They will still resist, because their whole life – not only theirs but their forefathers’ – all their wisdom, all their philosophy, all their religion is at stake. You are proposing a new way of life. They cannot easily accept that all their parents since Adam and Eve have been ignorant and only you are no longer ignorant. So it will take a little time for them to come down from their egoistic attitude.You can help them. Never try to show that you know more than their knowledge; that is something which hurts people very much, because knowledge is the most nourishing element for the ego. When you challenge somebody’s knowledge, you have challenged his whole being; all that he knows himself to be is just his ego.I have heard that a Catholic priest was watching Michael, and he saw that he pulled out two ten dollar bills from the collection plate and did not put anything in the plate. The priest said to himself, “I had better be watchful of Michael.”The next Sunday it happened again. Now, this was too much! Again, Michael pulled out two ten dollar bills. The priest went outside the church and waited there for him. As the mass finished, Michael came out and the priest accosted him, asking him, “Michael, why are you doing this? Instead of putting something in the collection plate, for two weeks you have been taking twenty dollars each time, and I have been waiting….”Michael had tears in his eyes…he said, “Father, forgive me, but I was in such a situation that I had to do it. If you were in my situation even you would have done it.”The father said, “What was the situation?”Michael said, “I so much wanted a blow job.”The priest had never heard the words blow job, but nobody wants to recognize his ignorance, to admit, “I don’t know what this is.”So he said, “Okay, okay – do whatsoever job you want to do, but don’t pull money out of the plate! Otherwise I will have to expose you before the whole congregation.”But now…more than those dollars, the priest was worried about this blow job! What is it? He has read all the literature…theology, psychology – blow job? He could not do anything else, he was continuously thinking – what is it? But who to ask? because asking means you don’t know, asking means recognizing your ignorance.He couldn’t sleep. That blow job continued in his mind. Finally he got up and phoned Mother Agatha. She was an old lady, experienced, and he thought she could be asked. Many times when there had been some theological problem he had asked her, and she had always given him good advice.So he asked her, “Mother Agatha, you have always been such a help to me – whenever I am stuck with some problem you have always given me the right key. Today I again have a question for you: What is a blow job?”Mother Agatha said, “Oh, about twelve dollars.”For the poor priest nothing was solved. He knows the price, but he does not know what the job is! But it was better now to keep silent.Never make anybody feel ignorant, never make anybody feel judged, never make anybody feel inferior. Be respectful, be loving, even to those who may not agree with you. Perhaps you can create an atmosphere, and you can become the bridge for your whole family, your friends, to sannyas.Sannyas has to be shared.It is the alchemy of inner transformation.You would like anybody you love to be a sannyasin.Osho,Thank you for talking about your cool love. I've wanted something from you which is ugly, and not in you to give. But it is what I have known – the attachment and possessiveness of hot love. I have wanted and wanted for so many years for you to love me my way. I hope I am ready to learn to love your way. Osho, I feel so grateful for you. Can you forgive me for being such a relentless beggar?Sudha, one thing – in fact, you will have to forgive me. I cannot forgive, for the simple reason that I have never been angry, I have never taken any offense.For what can I forgive you? I can only rejoice in your understanding.This has been your problem – like many other people, you love me and naturally you would like a response from me.Your conception of love is very small. I cannot manage to love in such a small way. That does not mean I don’t love you, that simply means you are not receptive and open and available to me so that I need not come down, rather I can take you upward.Love can do both miracles. It can bring you down – and in all the ancient literature of all religions, love has been portrayed as bringing people’s consciousness downward. Nobody has explored the psychology behind all those stories and parables, but it is a tremendously rewarding experience to look into the psychology of them.For example, in the East there are hundreds of stories that whenever somebody is coming close to enlightenment…In Indian mythology the god Indra – who is the highest god in heaven – becomes troubled, because if somebody becomes enlightened there is a possibility that he may be chosen by existence to be Indra, and Indra may be demoted. There should not be any enlightenment anywhere; that is a protection of his power. Otherwise there will be a competitor who may be far superior.So whenever somebody is coming close to enlightenment, immediately Indra sends beautiful girls from heaven to drag that man down from enlightenment. Just a step or two and he would have been enlightened, but the beautiful girls, called upsaras…they are not just women. They are always young, they never grow old. They don’t perspire, they don’t need deodorant. They are always fragrant.And naturally, a man who has been avoiding the world, escaping deeper into the Himalayas, who has been repressing all his natural instincts – particularly sex – is sitting almost on a volcano, the sexual energy can explode.It is the same energy that was taking him to enlightenment. Enlightenment is also an explosion, but creative. It gives you a new birth.But these beautiful girls are sent to provoke the person sexually, dance sexual dances around him, create a whole pornographic atmosphere.In most cases the man falls down, thinking it is love, and love sent from heaven! But those women have come simply to destroy his meditation, to create lust in him, and once that work is done they disappear. Only when they disappear does the person become aware that he was reaching to the climax of consciousness and now he is standing in total darkness.In all the languages of the world, strangely enough, people use the phrase “falling in love.” Without any exception, in all the languages people say “I have fallen in love.” But why should you fall? Why can’t you rise in love?Love up to now has been the condemned part of humanity.To me, love is the only divine quality in you. All other qualities are part and parcel of your godliness, but love is the center.You love me. I can accept your love. But you will receive my love only by rising a little higher toward enlightenment in your consciousness.It is just the opposite from the whole of history. I want you to say one day, “I have risen in love.”Love should bring more light to you, more understanding, more maturity, more freedom, more creativity.Sudha, you need not be sad about your past. You may have desired the same kind of love; it is natural. You know only one kind of love and you can desire only that love.My whole life is devoted to you, to making you aware of a higher love – a love which replaces God, a love beyond which nothing exists. But to understand my love you will have to climb higher in consciousness.You will start feeling me only when you are close to enlightenment. It will be the same moment as when the god Indra becomes troubled: you will feel my love.And if you become enlightened you will see all the psychedelic colors of love. Only the enlightened person knows the very spirit of love.So it is not your fault but just your laziness in becoming enlightened!And remember: I cannot forgive your laziness, because I am here today; tomorrow I may not be. I cannot be here with you forever; while I exist in the body, be a little quicker. If you can taste a little love while I am alive, then even after my death your connection with me, your trust, your love, will remain valid. It will go on for eternity. And a love that is not for eternity is just a biological strategy to produce more children.Have you observed one fact, that while animals are making love, they don’t seem to be happy? Just…you know I am a little crazy; I have been studying things nobody else bothers about. My father was very much ashamed, because two dogs would be making love and I would be following them for half a mile, and my father would say, “You are a strange person. People come to us….”I said, “But that is none of their business, I am studying.”My father said, “My God, can’t you find something else to study?”I said, “This is the most essential thing.”I have watched all kinds of animals, birds…deep in the countryside near the villages it is so easy to see and watch. But nobody looks happy, that is the problem. They are making love…and just look at their faces! It seems they don’t mean it, it seems that it is a kind of torture.They are unhappy, and there is a reason for it: they feel the biological slavery. They are more sensitive than you are. They can see that it is not their love, it is just something else forcing them. They are doing it in spite of themselves.That’s why all animals just have small seasons for reproduction; it seems biology has not been able to convince the animals to make love all year round. And once the season is over the animals completely forget all about love and sex and girlfriends and boyfriends. Looking at the animals I used to wonder: is “boyfriend and girlfriend” applicable to animals? Because they look so sad that it seems “boy-enemy and girl-enemy” would be a better description of the reality.It is only man who makes love all year round, and it is only man who thinks that this love is all. This love is not all; otherwise the whole world would have been a beautiful place to live.This world is created by your love, your relationships – and you have virtually created a better hell than the one described in the scriptures! And everybody is loving – the father is loving, the mother is loving, the husband is loving, the wife is loving, the children are loving, the teachers are loving. Everybody is loving and the total result is always a world war. This is a strange kind of logic. Everybody loving, and then finally…where does the war come from?Our love is of the very lowest kind, it is animal love. This love is not going to help you. This love can only be part of your biological slavery. And you have accepted it, you have not even raised the question that it is slavery.When you come to me and you love me, your love has shadows on it of your past experiences. I cannot meet you on that wavelength. That does not mean that I don’t love you. I love you, but it just goes on above your heads. I try hard to hit your head at least, but it goes on above your heads.If this understanding settles in you, Sudha, that you should try to raise your consciousness higher, then forget all about my love. One day suddenly you will be showered by it. You have been showered by it always.But your umbrella is open, so close your umbrella!Osho,I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know what there is to do. Do I have what I need for this adventure?There is no need to know where you are going.There is no need to know why you are going.All that is needed to be known is that you are going joyously, because if you are going joyously you cannot go wrong.If you are going dancing, singing, celebrating, the direction does not matter, the road does not matter, the goal does not matter. Every moment becomes paradise.Let me repeat it again to you: there is no goal in existence. There are only moments, and the art is to squeeze the moment, its whole juice, herenow. And as moments go on coming into your hands, go on squeezing all the juices that existence contains for you.In fact, you are where you are supposed to be, so if you are going somewhere it is just a morning walk. Don’t be worried. There is no goal, you can turn back from any point. You are not going anywhere!My whole teaching is just to be here and let all the blissfulnesses of existence shower on you.Why should you go anywhere? And anyway, where will you go? Trains are there, buses are there, planes are there and you can go wherever you want – to the moon you can go. In just a few years you may be able to go to Mars; in a few more years you may be able to go to some star. But that is all stupidness – what are you going to do standing on the moon? Have you ever thought about it? You will look utterly weird to yourself: “What are you doing here?”Life is the way.Life has no goal.That’s why I love the word Tao. Tao means the way, with no goal. Simply the way. It was courageous of Lao Tzu, twenty-five centuries ago, to tell people that there is no goal and we are not going anywhere. We are just going to be here, so make the time as beautiful, as loving, as joyous as possible. He called his philosophy Tao, and Tao means simply “the way.”Many asked him, “Why have you chosen the name Tao? Because you don’t have any goal in your philosophy….”He said, “Specifically for that reason I have chosen to call it ‘the way,’ so that nobody forgets there is no goal, but only the way.”And the way is beautiful, the way is full of flowers. And the way goes on becoming more and more beautiful as your consciousness goes on becoming higher. The moment you have reached the peak, everything becomes so sweet, so ecstatic, that you suddenly realize that this is the place, this is home. You were unnecessarily running here and there.Never think of going somewhere.Think in terms of transforming yourself here.“There” is a cunning strategy of the mind to deceive you. The mind always makes you interested in things far away, there, so that you can be led away from here. Or at least your attention is no longer here, it is there. And you will never be there. Going from here to there, slowly, slowly you acquire the habit of always looking there, so wherever you reach, that place is no longer in your focus – your goal has shifted somewhere else.In India there is an ancient proverb – diya tale andhera – “there is darkness under the lamp.” The lamp gives light all around, and just exactly underneath it there is darkness. This is the situation of man. You are capable of seeing everywhere, all around, but you are incapable of seeing where you are, who you are.So cancel all the tickets you have booked! There is nowhere to go; just being here is so blissful.Close your eyes, so that you can see the reality of the here.There and then are only fictions.Here and now are the only realities.Osho,Would you please comment on what has enabled and allowed you to go into and contain so much of existence. That you have penetrated and absorbed such vast realms and inexhaustible energies is a beautiful and majestic opening, and yet seemingly so far away, so unreachable. What can be said of your reality?First: I am not far away, I am here.The difference between you and me is not of how far away I am.The difference is of depth.I am here, but at the deepest, most interior center of my being. You are also here, but just on the circumference. And the difference between the center and the circumference is not big, because they are related. The circumference belongs to the center and the center belongs to the circumference. They cannot exist separately, they are always together. Can you have a center without a circumference, or can you have a circumference without a center?But you can choose one, become obsessed with it, and completely forget your own center. It is easy to forget it, because it is obvious. It is easy to forget it because you are born with it. You have not earned it, you have not traveled to it, it has not been arduous for you. It has been the sheer grace of existence to give you a center, a soul, a consciousness.Secondly, it may seem to you and to thousands of people that I contain so much…what is my secret? There is no secret, because I am not containing anything.I am just an open space, alive, fully alert. So when you ask a question, it is not from some stored knowledge that the answer comes to you. When you raise a question, my whole being responds to it. It is not my memory. In this moment, this is my response. It is not an answer which was accumulated within me.I have been living in my room for many years, and people are naturally curious because I don’t do anything. I don’t even look outside the window! So to me, whether I am in India or in America or in England or in France does not matter. I am always in a room.Living in my room for almost twenty, twenty-five years, I am simply sitting in emptiness. But it is such an exquisite experience that I don’t want anything more…although every day something more goes on happening.But basically, I remain empty. When you ask me a question I have to encounter the question as if it is my question, and what I would do if this were my question, and then I reply to you. But the reply, the answer, was not waiting there in my memory system.I am the most empty man on the earth today.Yes, I am full only of one thing, and that is emptiness. But emptiness is not a negative state, emptiness is full of existence. The whole of existence has come out of emptiness, and whenever it becomes tired it goes back into emptiness. You are born out of emptiness and you die to again rejuvenate yourself in emptiness. You will be born again…thousands of times you have been coming and going.Emptiness is the complete, total rest, where everything ceases. But in that rest and in that cessation of everything you are becoming again ready to go for another run, another existence…thousands of lives.My answers are not confined to any religion, confined to any theology. My answers are confined only to this minute – and I am not committed. Tomorrow you cannot say to me, “You are contradicting yourself.” What can I do? It was so yesterday, and this is how it is today.I cannot lie.I can answer only that which arises in my emptiness.But to you it will seem…I must have answered at least fifty thousand questions. Anybody looking at those questions is bound to wonder how much knowledge I contain.The reality is, I don’t contain any knowledge at all.I am just a mirror, an empty mirror.You bring your question – that is, you bring your face – and my mirror reflects. The moment you are gone, my mirror is empty again; your coming and going leave no marks on my mirror.This should be understood clearly, because any wrong understanding about me and you will start following that line. You may start collecting more knowledge, more scriptures. I have done that dirty work, and I have wasted so much time on your holy scriptures and the commentaries, but they are all just words. In fact, to expect more from books is not logical; books are collections of dead words.While I am here, you have the opportunity to listen to a living word. Once I am gone, you will read the same words in books, but they will be dead. My warmth, my love, my heartbeat will not be in them.And if you cannot understand while I am behind my words, it is absolutely impossible that you will be able to understand them from a book when I am no longer behind those words. So while listening to me you have to be aware of a few more things. It is not just a lecture. It is not imparting information to you, it is not something that you have to remember. It is a totally different phenomenon.Listening to me is not listening to my words.Of course, you will hear them.Hear my words, but listen to me.And while listening to me, remember: it has to be more like drinking something, eating something, digesting something; not accumulating something in the memory.While listening to me, just be as empty as I am.The answer is coming from emptiness.And this kind of answer can be understood only if it is heard in emptiness.Osho,When I got initiated into sannyas, exactly six years ago, I didn't know how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. Today I can dance under the stars, laugh, sing, play, rejoice. So much has been happening on the way. I do not know what is going on, or where I am going. All I know is that in my heart there is a burning desire to go with you on this crazy journey.Osho, where are you taking us?I am taking you to yourself.You have gone far away from yourself. Perhaps you have completely forgotten the way back. I am persuading you that unless you discover your home, you will remain miserable.Don’t go anywhere – just stop going.If the energy is not moving toward objects and goals, the energy starts turning upon itself. That can be called enlightenment, samadhi, sambodhi, awakening.You always want to go somewhere. People are running all over the world, from Kaaba to Manali, from Manali to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu to Goa, from Goa to Bombay. They are just running, hoping that somehow they will reach. Where they want to reach they don’t know. Whether there is any need to reach anywhere they don’t know. Whether there is any place they can reach, they don’t know.I say to you, there is no place for you to reach.You are already born in that place, in that space.My whole effort is somehow to convince you – not with my words but with my silence and presence, with my love and with my joy – that you are at the very center of the universe, every one of you – because there is only one center. Only on the periphery are we separate; at the center we are one.And only at the center, the blossoming of your being happens.But people are going in all directions, doing all kinds of things. It is really hilarious how much energy is spent. Even animals are wiser…. A few days ago there was news of a bishop in Europe who was caught making love to animals. He admitted in the court that for twelve years he had seen making love to animals, and he said, “I am not the only one who does it.”The natural sexual energy has been prevented; now it will go into perversions. And it is easier to make love to an animal, because the poor animal cannot tell anybody what this priest, this bishop, this cardinal is doing. He cannot go to a police station. So the thing will remain unknown to people.I have heard that one woman had a beautiful parrot. The woman was a prostitute, but a high-class prostitute. Being in the wrong company, the parrot was completely spoiled. And particularly, whenever that woman would bring a man with her into the house, the parrot would start using obscenities, four-letter words. And he would always end up with the sentence: “It is gonna happen to somebody tonight, it is gonna happen.” It was very strange for the man who had come, and for the woman also, it was very awkward.She went to a pet shop to inquire what to do. The man said, “There is no problem. It is so simple – and even a woman like you cannot see the problem – the parrot needs a lady parrot. Right now I don’t have any lady parrots on hand. I will order one immediately, and within two weeks you will have her. And for two weeks you can take this beautiful owl. Just put it beside him. Perhaps…because he has remained a monk for years, and in a place of prostitutes! Perhaps he will get interested…and this owl is a beautiful lady.”So she took the owl and put the owl’s cage next to the parrot. But from the beginning the woman suspected that it was not going to work, because the parrot did not even look at the owl. But by the evening she had brought a gentleman home and this time she was not feeling her usual nervous self because of the parrot. She thought he must be engaged by now.But as she opened the door and the man entered, the parrot said, “Ahah, so here it goes again,” and he started all his obscenities. He ended up with the same, “It is gonna happen to somebody tonight.”The lady owl asked, “Hoo, hoo?”And the parrot said, “You sonofabitch, it is not gonna happen to you, that much is certain!”Even animals can understand that a parrot will not be interested in an owl…but a priest can be.The repressed mind is the ugliest thing in the world. And for thousands of years we have not been doing anything else – we have been only repressing and repressing, so you are full of repression.I am utterly empty.If there is any truth in my words, that truth comes out of my emptiness. It does not belong to me, I am just a passage. I allow existence to connect with you – and it is possible only if I am absolutely empty.Waking up in the morning, I have to think whether it is morning or afternoon, because I sleep in the afternoon too. And sometimes things get puzzled. One day in the afternoon, I went to the bathroom without looking at the clock – thinking that it was morning – and prepared, took a bath, got ready, because you must be coming. Only when I got out of the bathroom did I ask Nirvano. She said, “It is not time to get ready for the meeting.”Then I looked at the clock and I said, “My God, now I will have to take a third bath!”When I was in the American jails they would ask the names of my attorneys. I said, “Don’t ask such great philosophical questions. If you want to ask, you can ask about God, about heaven and hell, but about attorneys…. In one jail I was really in difficulty, because the US Marshall in the jail was insisting – in the middle of the night – that I should sign not my name on the form, but the name of David Washington.”I said, “This is illegal and you will repent for it, because soon I will be out and the whole world will know what has been done to me. On what grounds do you want me to sign under the name of David Washington? And do you think that I am not able to understand a simple thing? It means that even if you kill me, nobody will be able to find out where I disappeared – because even in the register, in your files, on my form, there is no mention of my name. I never entered this jail according to your records. So I am not going to sign as David Washington. And if you want – because I can see you are tired in the middle of the night, you want to go home – you fill in the form in your own handwriting. I will simply sign it with my signature.”He could not figure out what the purpose was, so he filled out the form and I signed my signature, which is known all over the world. He looked at the signature and he said, “What have you written?”I said, “How can I write anything other than David Washington?”He said, “But I cannot see any sign of David Washington in it.”I said, “This is your problem, but this is my signature.” I asked him, “Before you leave I want to contact my attorneys, because this paper shows your intentions.”He said, “You can phone.”I said, “My God, I have never phoned in my life! And I don’t know the numbers of the attorneys, I don’t exactly know how the phone operates, so you will have to find my attorney’s phone number and get him on the phone.”He said, “This is strange.”I said, “It is not strange because I have so many secretaries, and they are doing their work so well. And I hate the telephone; it is a nuisance.”He said, “That’s right, it is certainly a nuisance. And there seems to be no way to get rid of it.”I said, “There is a way, I can throw it out right now.”He said, “Wait, don’t do that.”I said, “Go and get into your bed because in the morning, on all the televisions and radio stations, in the newspapers, the news is going to be there: Osho has been forced to sign under the name of David Washington. You are going to be in trouble.”“But,” he said, “how could you manage it? I know the press people are surrounding the jail” – at every jail where I was kept, the press was surrounding it twenty-four hours a day, so they could not take me somewhere else in the middle of the night or any other time – “but how can you send the message to them?”I said, “I have sent the message.”One girl was going to be released, and she had filled out her forms and everything just before me. Then she came and sat by my side and she said, “We all feel so much for you. Although we don’t know much, we have heard you on television, we have been reading your books in the jail library. I would like to do something for you, whatever you want.”I said, “Just do one thing, don’t leave right now. Slip into the corner where it is darker and wait until my conversation with the Marshall is finished. Then go outside and tell all the newspapermen who are waiting there exactly what you have heard.”And she did well. She reported exactly every word. At five o’clock in the morning it was in the newspapers, on the radio. And the Marshall came running and perspiring and he said, “You are right. I could not sleep the whole night, I was turning and tossing. And it was in the newspapers – but how did you manage it?”I said, “Truth always has a way of managing things.”He said, “You get up and get ready, because you have to leave this jail.”I said, “I am not in the mood. First let all the press come here and let them see the form. Once I leave this jail you are going to destroy that form with my signature. You cannot destroy it while I am here, so I will wait. And remember, you cannot do any violence to me. You cannot force me outside, because outside are the press, all the cameras are ready – then you will be in more difficulties. I had warned you last night, but you didn’t listen.”He said, “Find some way…because I will be in trouble.”I said, “Do you have a back door?”He said, “Yes, there is a back door.” So he went out the back door, but he was not aware that the press people were all over the place. They were at the back door too.And they asked me only one thing: “What do you think about this incident? Is it true?”I said, “It is more than true, but remember that these people will destroy the documents once I have left. That’s why they are in such a hurry to take me out of this jail. Try to find the documents; their photographs should go on television.”And that man became very polite…I said, “Don’t be deceived by his politeness, because he is the man who kept me waiting for three hours in the middle of the night because I was not ready to sign under David Washington’s name. And this man’s coat has writing on it saying the ‘Department of Justice’ – I asked him, ‘Under what kind of justice or law can you ask me to change my name?’ But he didn’t listen. I even asked him to at least remove his coat, because it is embarrassing to me to see that people who are there to protect the law, to protect people’s rights, are doing just the opposite. They are destroying the law. They are destroying the constitution and they are destroying the values upon which the constitution stands. They are destroying individuals, they are not protecting them.”This is the world in which we are living. It is almost insane.And the reason for its insanity is that nobody knows where he is going, why he is going, from where he is coming and what is the meaning of it all.Unless you know the meaning of life and the significance of existence, you cannot call yourself a sane person.I want my sannyasins to be the sanest people on the earth. The earth has been very thirsty for sanity.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 16 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Can you say something about recognition? Why do we take you for granted? Why will we, your disciples, not recognize you until your crucifixion? When you said that, it was like a sword through me.Sudha, the recognition of a master depends on your becoming more conscious, more aware, more alert. Coming out of your sleep, coming out of your dreams and thoughts, in an absolutely silent mind, the recognition happens – because the master is silence.The master is awareness.The master is love.The master is not a person but a presence. The person died the day enlightenment happened. After enlightenment, there is no person as such but only a presence, a light. You can recognize it only if you have some of the qualities: love, awareness, compassion, consciousness – just a small window. Not that you have to be perfectly awakened – then, certainly you will recognize, but then recognition is of no use. Recognition is of use when you are on the path moving toward the unknown, not knowing exactly whether there is something ahead of you or you just have fallen victim to some fallacious philosophy.The recognition of the master will help you in spite of your doubts, in spite of your uncertainties, in spite of your ups and downs. The recognition of the master will keep you on the path because you know – it happens, and if it can happen to somebody else, there is no reason why it cannot happen to you.Every human being has an equal possibility of becoming enlightened. That is true communism. Only enlightened people can be really communist. The unenlightened is always thinking himself superior to somebody, inferior to somebody. He is always struggling to go forward, to be the first in the race, to reach the highest glory on this earth of money, of power, of prestige.But if you are not aware and alert, if you have not yet experienced the love that is no longer part of biology, then there is only one way you can recognize the master and that is when he is crucified.His crucifixion is bound to wake you up, at least for a moment. And in that very moment will be the recognition – and a tremendous feeling of loss, because when the master was alive, you remained asleep. Now the master is no more, and because of his death…the shock is so much that it awakens you for a moment. But even that single moment is like when lightening suddenly happens on a dark night, and you see the whole scene.I know it hurts to think that the master you have loved can be crucified. But remember one thing which has not been discussed in the past two thousand years; even Christians have not discussed it, although their master was crucified. Neither in the Greek tradition after Socrates have his disciples ever conceived of what I am going to tell you:The crucifixion of Jesus was not only the responsibility of the Jews. The real responsibility for his crucifixion was his disciples’.It was very easy not to be caught by the Jews. Judea was such a small country; you could get out of Judea any moment. And Jews were not free people – they were in slavery under the Romans. They could not do anything directly. They had to persuade the Roman emperor, the Roman viceroy, and it was known almost all over Judea that if Jesus should go to Jerusalem for the Jewish holidays when people go on a holy pilgrimage, he would be crucified.It was common knowledge. And there was no need for Jesus to go. Jews were not listening to him – what was the need? Jews were gathering and the rumor was that they would try to crucify him, they would put as much pressure as possible on the viceroy, Pontius Pilate. But if he is not there, nothing can be done. He insisted on going there.And I suspect that George Gurdjieff is right – that Judas simply performed the function of a devoted disciple; he was not the enemy of Jesus and he did not betray. It was Jesus himself who sent Judas to inform the enemies where he was. It must have been very difficult for Judas, but to follow the master, he went against himself. And Jesus was caught because of the information given by Judas.And I say that he must have done it against himself because as Jesus was crucified, suddenly he became aware of what he had done. Death is not a small matter. He had killed the man he loved, he had killed the man he worshipped. He was feeling so much repentance that within twenty-four hours he committed suicide.Christians don’t talk about why Judas committed suicide, why Jesus insisted against the will of his disciples to go on that ugly night to Jerusalem.As far as I am concerned, my feeling is that his disciples were fast asleep – and Jesus had tried everything to wake them up and they would not wake up. Hence, he had chosen the last resort of a master. Perhaps his life cannot help. There is no harm in taking the chance – maybe what life has not been able to do and perform, death succeeds in doing.And it succeeded – the shock not only made an impact on the disciples but on sympathizers, on curiosity mongers, on people who were absolutely neutral, on people who had never thought about Jesus Christ. The crucifixion made everyone give a thought to this strange young man. Where do you think so many Christians have come from? Their basic number has come from the Jews.While Jesus was alive, not even a single rabbi – and Jerusalem was full of learned rabbis; it had the Jewish university, all the scholars were there – not a single scholar, not a single rabbi recognized him. Not a single man of reputation…because everybody was afraid. Just to be associated with Jesus’ name could be dangerous to you. But when he was crucified – and crucified in such a primitive and ugly way that it shocked the whole nation – even those who were in opposition felt that what had happened was not right. Because the man was innocent.He may have been saying outrageous things but he had not done anything against any law, against any morality. And to reward him with crucifixion simply condemned the whole Judaic religion and tradition. Thousands of Jews who had never paid any attention to Jesus became Christians, and the basic number came from Judea.Perhaps the strategy of crucifixion worked. And for a man like Jesus, life and death don’t matter. What matters is that he has found something and he wants to share it – but it is so difficult to find somebody willing to share life’s greatest blessings and benedictions.Sudha, it hurts but I have to tell you the truth. And you have to understand: It is not being told to somebody else, it is being told to you, to each person individually.If you are not awake, then perhaps it is worth my being crucified. If that helps you to be more conscious, to be more loving, to be more alert, to be more integrated….My life and my death are both for you.For a single purpose, I go on continuing breathing. I hope…it is time that man should become more conscious on a worldwide scale, because except for that, nothing can save humanity from the destruction of the third world war that is looming darker and darker every day on the horizon.Osho,Meher Baba speaks about two different kinds of enlightened masters. One he calls “man becoming God,” the other he calls “God becoming man.” Gautam Buddha belongs to the first – slowly, through many lives, he has flowered into the state of buddhahood. Meher Baba asserts that he belongs to the second, “God becoming man.” I have not really understood what he means. Can you say something about this?The question is difficult because there is a misunderstanding on the part of Meher Baba.In India, there are two types of religions: Hinduism believes that God comes down and becomes man. They call it avatar – the very word avatar means descendence. Rama and Krishna, according to Hindu mythology, are gods in disguise. God is coming from above to be a man; that is the Hindu idea.In India, there are other religions – Jainism, Buddhism – which have a totally different standpoint. God does not come down because there is no God above; God is sleeping within you. It has to be awakened. So man, slowly, slowly becomes more and more conscious and finally becomes God.God is the transformed, purified consciousness of man.Meher Baba must have been in difficulty – which one to choose? He tried to console both types of people in India by making this statement that “God happens in two ways: First he descends and becomes a man and second, he ascends through man and blossoms, manifests himself.”I am not, even for a single moment, in favor of consoling anybody because all consolations are lies. And this is a consolation. The truth is, there is no God above, so the very question of him descending does not arise. Secondly, just for the sake of argument – if we accept the hypothesis that God is – what could be the purpose for him, to come down and become man? According to the same scriptures, God is omnipotent, all-powerful; omnipresent, present everywhere; omniscient, knowing past, present, future, all that has happened and all that is going to happen.God knows everything. Then what is the purpose of him descending in a human form? Can’t he do something without becoming a man? Then his omnipotence is not omnipotence. That creates a great suspicion about his powers. Secondly, he has come in many reincarnations in Hinduism but humanity is living in a madhouse. What purpose has been served?God has not been able to change anything. The world goes on and on into darker realms, into more miserable hells, into more meaningless patterns of life. What have the reincarnations of God done?Thirdly, the reincarnations of God – if seen without any prejudice – do not look divine in any sense.For example, Rama and his wife Sita, and his brother Laxmana, were sent to live beyond the boundaries of their kingdom for fourteen years. Because the father of Rama had four wives…and the youngest and the most beautiful wife certainly had power over the old man. She wanted her son…but her son was the youngest; there were four sons and her son was the youngest. But she wanted her son to be crowned and to succeed the old, dying father. She forced her husband to send Rama, at least for fourteen years, into the jungles.Dasharatha, the father of Rama, must have been a very henpecked husband, a weakling. Rama was to succeed him; preparations were being made for his enthronement. But Dasharatha, almost dying, called Rama and said, “This is my last wish and I hope you are able to fulfill it.”Rama promised, not knowing what the wish was. And the wish was that he should go outside the kingdom for fourteen years into the jungles, into the mountains. Dasharatha was so weak in his last moments…and Rama’s only quality was obedience, so he did not even ask why – “Why this punishment?”But because he was going – and he was just ordered; I don’t think gods can be so docile, so obedient to things which are absolutely wrong – his wife insisted that she would come with him. They had just got married, they had been coming home from their marriage.Now Rama could not deny her. He tried to persuade her that life would be difficult in the jungles: “You have lived as a princess of a very great king, you don’t know the life…. Fourteen years will be too long. You live in the palace and wait.”But she refused. She said, “I am married to you, not to the palace. And if you can manage to live in the forest, don’t be worried about me. I will manage.”And then the second brother, Laxmana, would not agree with Rama or Sita that he need not come. He had also married at the same time as Rama; he was married to Sita’s younger sister.But he loved Rama so much, he said, “I cannot live without him, I am coming.”In the forest, as they woke up on the first day, Rama and Sita were standing outside the cottage and they saw a golden deer. Now, even an idiot knows deer are not made of gold. And Sita became very much interested in the deer and she asked Rama to go and hunt the deer: “Either living or dead, but you have to bring him to me.”And the strangest thing is that even Rama does not say to her that “Deer are not made of gold.” There is no mention of the fact. I cannot see Gautam Buddha being befooled by a deer, but Rama is befooled.Being an incarnation of God, the mistake he is committing – it is perfectly good for human beings…. But even for intelligent human beings, it is not good; and God is behaving in the worst, most unintelligent way.If you look at the life of Rama and dissect it, you will not find anything godly in it. He may be a great king, he may be an obedient son, but these are ordinary human qualities – nothing to do with God.One day a brahmin came with the dead body of his son and said, “It has never happened that a young son has died before the death of his father. So something very serious is involved in it, you have to find the reason.”Rama asked, “Do you have any idea?”The brahmin said, “I know perfectly well what happened. I will tell my story, and then you can search and find out who caused the death of my son.” He said, “We were doing a Vedic ritual….”And the sudras, the untouchables, the poorest in India – they are one-fourth of the whole population. They are not allowed to read the Vedas, the Hindu religious scriptures. They are not even allowed to listen. If somebody else is reading, they are not allowed to listen. And these brahmins were doing the ritual and a young, curious untouchable was hiding behind the bushes and listening to what was happening and he was caught red-handed.The brahmin’s argument was that a sudra had heard the Veda, and that’s why his son had died.Do you see any kind of connection between the two? – logical, illogical, any connection? Animals are hearing, dogs are hearing, birds are hearing, trees are hearing. But a sudra – an untouchable, a poor man – cannot hear.And the brahmin proposed that his act of hearing the Vedas was the cause of the death of his son – this is absolutely unrelated. Why particularly his son? There were many brahmins in the ritual, but nobody else’s son had died. And in fact, if there was to be any punishment, the young sudra should have died. If it is something as Hindus think, a book written by God, it would have looked logical that the sudra should die, because he broke God’s law.The son of the brahmin has not done anything at all. What is he being punished for? The father has also not done anything. The punishment should be pointing toward the sudra – if that is God’s law, then there is no question.But Rama does not say a single thing to this irrelevant, idiotic, conclusion. On the contrary, he orders that the sudra be brought to his court. That poor man was brought and he said “I was listening because I wanted to hear something about God. I am also human. There is a desire for search in me.”But the reincarnated God in Rama does not listen to the poor man. Instead of listening to his absolutely rational explanation, he orders that: “Such things should not happen in the country again.” To prevent it, this young man will have to suffer. Bring hot melted lead and pour it into his ears. That will be the punishment, because he heard with those ears the words prohibited to him.” Melted lead was poured into the ears of the sudra and he became deaf for his whole life.Do you think these acts are divine?I have been to many courts unnecessarily because whenever I would say anything about Rama, somebody’s heart would start having attacks; their religious feelings would be hurt. Their religious feelings are not hurt by the act of Rama. Their religious feelings are hurt but in a wrong situation; I am simply saying what is written in their scriptures.I cannot believe that Rama is an incarnation of God. And the same is the case with other incarnations. Their life proves that they have nothing to do with God.Gautam Buddha, or Mahavira, or Bodhidharma, or Nagarjuna – these are evolving consciousnesses. They don’t believe there is a God. Their experience is that you have to create a god within you, you have to become a womb, and you have the potential to become a god. And looking at Gautam Buddha – just the way he sits, just the way he moves, just the way he speaks, or remains silent – gives valid evidence to anybody whose heart is open to understand that he has moved to the highest peak of consciousness.In his small acts you can see that.Christians are very proud of the miracles of Jesus and they are most proud of one miracle: bringing Lazarus back to life. He had died. But nobody bothers that Lazarus died and remained dead for four days. Wherever he has been, in hell or in heaven, he must bring back some report. Four days is enough time – and seeing death, seeing beyond death, his consciousness must change. He cannot remain the same old person.But he remains the same old person, nothing changes. So what is the miracle? And sooner or later, one day he has to die. So at the most his death is postponed a few years, but he will live these few years in unconsciousness, in violence, in hatred, in jealousy. And he will accumulate more sin. And you call it a miracle!No, a miracle needs a more refined perspective of understanding.The same situation arises in Gautam Buddha’s life; that’s why I have taken Lazarus’ case.One woman comes crying madly – her only son has died. Her husband has died, her other three children have died and now this child was the only hope of her life; she was living for him. Otherwise, there was nothing for her to live for. She was asking in the village, “Do you know of any physician who can help?”They said, “No physician can do anything once a person is dead but Gautam Buddha has arrived in town today. Perhaps his presence may trigger life again, perhaps his touch…. You go directly to Gautam Buddha; don’t waste time.”She took the corpse of her son, went to Buddha, laid down the corpse at his feet and said, “My only son has died. You have taken my husband – I didn’t say anything, I did not complain. You have taken my three other children – I remained silent, I accepted it as my fate. But this is too much.”And for an Indian widow there is no life. She cannot go to celebrations, she cannot wear colored clothes, she has to shave her head. She has to live only in white clothes, doing all kinds of things the whole day long that nobody in the home is ready to do. Her life is simply the life of a slave.That woman said to Gautam Buddha, “Either give life back to my son or kill me.”Buddha said, “Don’t be worried. I will bring your son back to life, but you have to do a small thing.”She said, “I will do anything, just tell me.”He said, “You go into the town, inquire at a few houses. We need a few mustard seeds, but we need those mustard seeds from a house where nobody has ever died.”She was in such misery, in such a mess. She could not see the point. She ran from house to house. They all said, “We are willing to give you as many mustard seeds as you want, because our whole village produces crops of mustard seed. We can bring bullock carts full of mustard seed if your son can be alive again, but our mustard seeds won’t work. You have not heard the condition well. The condition is that nobody in the family should have died. We are sorry…so many people in our family have died.”By evening it was clear that mustard seeds from a family where nobody had died could not be found. And slowly, slowly it became clear to the woman that death is a natural phenomenon. It happens to everybody in every family…. “Even if my child again becomes alive, he will have to die again. Asking for his life is asking for another death, it is pointless. He cannot live forever.”She came back almost a different woman and she told Buddha, “I could not find the mustard seeds. I was in such misery that I could not understand your strategy. I could have got the idea when you told me, because I know it is impossible to find a family where people have not died. Your father must have died, your grandfather must have died…it is impossible to find a family which has had no encounter with death. But now, I come with an understanding – I don’t want my son to be brought back to life, because he will have to die again. I want you to bless his future journey, so that he achieves what you have achieved.”Life is not significant. Life is significant only when you have attained the eternal light, the eternal being, the immortal continuity from the very beginning, if there has been any beginning – to the end, if there is going to be any end.“And for me,” she said, “initiate me. Because before I die, I want to know that my essential being is not going to die.”Buddha said, “Now this seems to be reasonable. You are an intelligent woman.” She was initiated and became one of the most important woman disciples of Gautam Buddha.Now, both cases are almost the same, but the way Gautam Buddha transforms the whole thing…. From death, he turns the mind of the woman toward immortal life. He has used the opportunity for a great transformation.Remember: God is the highest evolution of your consciousness. It is always man who becomes God. It is never God who becomes man. The idea of one God that is prevalent in Christianity, in Judaism, in Mohammedism, is childish.According to the Eastern mystics and seers, every being is potentially a god. And finally, when the whole garden comes to blossom, there will be millions of gods.The very idea of one God is fascist, dictatorial, monopolistic. The idea of everybody being a god brings equality to existence; it is the finest democratic foundation. All other values are secondary. This simple fact, that everybody is a hidden god and is capable of realizing it any moment he decides, makes the whole world godly – and gives you an opportunity not to wait for some God or Godot, not to wait for some savior, messiah or messenger. Because there is no God; all these messengers are lying. They are not courageous enough to say, “This is what I am saying.” They are using the name of God – “It is God who is saying it.” They are simply the messengers, the vehicles.Gautam Buddha is not a vehicle of anybody, Mahavira is not a vehicle of anybody. What they are saying is their own experience. That’s why they have a great authority. You will not find that authority in other theologians – their authority is borrowed from others. Nobody knows if those people had any experience or if they were also borrowing it.Meher Baba is trying to console this country’s mind, so he accepts both possibilities: either man can rise and become God, or God can come down and become man. But he is not aware of a simple fact: that man rising toward God has an evolutionary purpose, there is some meaning.God descending and becoming a man – that is a fall! Why should this be done? And whatever your God wants to do, he can do without becoming a man. He could create the whole world without becoming a man; now, what is the need?On the one hand, the religious people say, “Without God’s will, not even a single leaf on a tree can waver.” If this is the situation, then for all the sins and for all ugly things that go on happening – God is responsible. If even a leaf cannot move without his support, how can a man be murdered without his support? How can a woman be raped without his support? And what is the purpose for him to come here? Because he has not done anything. So many times, so many incarnations but humanity has not grown up, it has not been enhanced by their presence.So Meher Baba is simply trying so that the Hindu masses will be satisfied with him. And in India, Jainas are very few – negligible, not even one-percent. The number of Buddhists is negligible; just forty years ago there was not a single Buddhist. Even in the temple of Bodhgaya where Gautam Buddha became enlightened, the priest is a brahmin, because there was no Buddhist even to be a priest in their holiest place. This is their holiest place, their Kaaba; Buddhists come from all over the world to worship there. And strangely enough, Buddha was continuously fighting against brahminism and the priest is a brahmin! And the priest is not only a brahmin today, he has been there for fifteen hundred years – the same family. Because for fifteen hundred years, Buddhism disappeared.So there is no problem about satisfying the Jainas and the Buddhists. This country is basically Hindu – and you must be made aware that Meher Baba was not a Hindu, he was a Parsi. And because he was a Parsi, he was condemned by the Parsis – just the natural law…. So the Parsis were not ready to accept him. Now who is going to accept this man?Jainas and Buddhists are out of the question. They are such small minorities, even if they accept him it is not going to make much difference. Moreover, it is not easy for them to accept him for the simple reason that he was proclaiming, “Up to now, God has sent only his messengers, but I myself am God.” Only Hindus might be persuaded to accept the idea that God has become man. Mohammedans cannot be persuaded, because even Hazrat Mohammed is not a reincarnation but only a messenger. Christians cannot be convinced; they have their God and they have the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ. Whenever God needs, he sends his own son; that shows his concern.Meher Baba was in difficulty. He had to fall on the side of the Hindus, that was the only possibility. Parsis had renounced him and nobody else would accept him; only Hindus could give him scope. So he says, “There are two types. First – man becoming God; Gautam Buddha comes in that category. And second – God becoming man.” And he says, “I fall into the second category.”But I say to you, there is no possibility of two categories.Life knows only evolution; it never goes backward.And a god becoming a man is simply stupid. For what should God become man? What will be the purpose? All that he wants to do he can do from wherever he is. But he is nowhere – and that gives the chance to a few charlatans to proclaim that they are God, reincarnations of God.Meher Baba is certainly an enlightened person.But every enlightened person finds himself in different situations. Meher Baba’s situation was very unique, because in the history of Parsis there is no such thing as enlightenment. The Parsis were very angry when he declared that he is God himself, because to Parsis, to Mohammedans, to Christians, this declaration that “I am God” hurts very much.They want their God to remain as far away as possible, so they can go on doing whatsoever they are doing. God standing just there…and you were going to hit your husband with the pillow…it doesn’t look right. But he is standing there – that’s what millions of believers think, that he is everywhere present. So remember: when you are hitting, look around and hit some suspicious place where you think God might be, rather than hitting a poor husband!Meher Baba lived in a strange situation. Parsis were denying him, Jainas and Buddhists would not accept him; Mohammedans, Christians, Jews would deny him because he was saying he is the whole God, what to say about the only begotten son? The only possibility was that a few Hindus may gather around him, and that’s what happened. Finally, only a few Hindus were around him. And as he died, his movement died too. Because he could not manage to be a master. He remained a mystic. He tried, but as a master, he was a failure.As a mystic, he succeeded. As far as he is concerned, he has arrived, but alone – no fellow travelers, no friends, no lovers. It has not been a celebrating procession of many enlightened people, moving with him into the universal life sources. He has moved alone.Osho,I'm constantly amazed at how you use your mind like a computer – such pure and simple genius, in fact, super-genius. Lao Tzu said he was a muddlehead, yet the clarity of genius is there also. Osho, when a person becomes enlightened, is the mind so free of ego that only genius is left? Or are some people actually enlightened muddleheads?Enlightenment has nothing to do with mind.In meditation, you bypass the mind. Meditation reaches with you to the highest peak – with all its silence, with all its flowers, with all its beauty. As you become enlightened, your mind drops all the rubbish it has carried for hundreds of lives; it is an autonomous happening.As you become enlightened, the mind immediately drops all rubbish, that rubbish you were clinging to because you had no idea who you are. That rubbish had become your identity, and now you know your real identity; you don’t need that false burden on you. It simply falls naturally, on its own accord.Your mind becomes a simple, immensely powerful mechanism. But it remains now as a servant. Up to now it was the master; after enlightenment, it is a beautiful servant. And certainly, as you say, it is a computer.The people who work with computers say that we have not yet been able to make a computer of the size of the human brain which is capable of containing so much information. Your brain has seven million cells, and each cell can contain millions of bits of information. The experts say that one percent can memorize all the books from all the libraries of the world – this is the capacity of your mind.But in jealousy, in anger, in hate, in possessiveness – who has the time? Once you are enlightened, you can use the mind the way it is meant to be used, as a beautiful computer. And because you are enlightened, it is no longer clouded with sentiments and emotions; it is clean, a sky without any clouds.Its clarity is its genius. And every mind is a genius, there are no other kinds of minds in the world.So there is no possibility of an enlightened man having a muddled head, an enlightened man having the mind of an idiot – that is impossible. The enlightenment is such a transforming force, it changes everything in you; particularly in the mind.Osho,The other night, I was very touched by the singing of the Indian swami who sings before discourse. I felt as if he were playing me like a musical instrument. I felt like a big ear, just listening. Most other music I hear basically amounts to noise – it's entertaining, but it doesn't touch me. What is it about his music and the music of all those musicians who touch something inside us, that helps us to fly?Music is born out of deep experiences of meditation; it is a dimension of meditation. By meditating, you may be able to be touched by music, but the reverse is also true: If you are totally absorbed in music, your heart will be touched not only by music but by meditation too.Music is sound. Meditation is soundlessness.The highest music is where the sound does not destroy the soundless moments in between. As the musician becomes more and more refined, he can manage to create sound, and between two sounds he can give you an experience of soundlessness.That soundlessness touches the heart.In the East, music has always been part of meditation. Temples have been full of music and dance.Ashok Bharti loves me. His music is just a communication of his love. He pours himself totally into it. The same is happening with the other sannyasin musician who is present today. They are not just technicians, they are not singing because they are paid. They are singing out of love, out of gratitude.Their singing is just pure innocence. And their words are not just words – they mean it. And because they mean it, they can touch your heart, they can transform your heart.Osho,What is your definition of perversion in regard to sex?Perversion means your energy is not going in the natural way; the natural way has been blocked, suppressed, condemned. But the energy is there and collecting, it is bound to find some outlet. That outlet will not be natural. That outlet will be perversion.And the whole past of man is nothing else – from different directions, for different excuses you have been told to cut off your natural paths for energy and expression.Man is an intelligent being. Even unintelligent animals are bound to find some way. In the wild, no animals turn homosexual; there is no need because there is no priest. But man is so much conditioned against a few things – sex being the main one – that if he lives sex naturally, he feels guilty that he is going against God, against religion. If he prevents his natural expressions, then soon his energies start moving into perverted forms.Just the other day, I received the information that by the end of this century, there will be one billion people suffering from AIDS. And this is the lowest estimate. I don’t feel the number will be so low. The number, according to me, may be double.AIDS is the ultimate expression of perverted sexual energy. And the wonder is that you are surrounded with such dangerous things…. AIDS can destroy the whole planet, because we don’t have any medicine and the doctors and the scientists are openly saying that there seems to be no possibility, at least in the near future, to find a medicine. So once you have AIDS, your death is certain within six months to two years, and you cannot do anything except wait.A disease like AIDS has come through homosexuality. It is the ultimate…. And the perversion is not condemned; on the contrary, in different ways it is supported because every religion believes in brahmacharya, in celibacy. Now those who believe in celibacy are standing in the queue – first they will be homosexuals, lesbians and sooner or later, they will receive the ultimate reward, the Nobel prize – AIDS.Now religions are responsible for it. But this is what I say, human insanity….In Texas, they have made a law against homosexuality. Now it is a crime in Texas; you can get five to ten years in jail. Texas is a backward state in America. Even I was surprised that one million homosexuals demonstrated against the legislature and these may not be all the homosexuals in the state of Texas. But one million homosexuals! And they made it clear to the government that by making homosexuality illegal, you cannot prevent it. You have made many things illegal in the past, and what have you prevented? Has theft disappeared? Has murder disappeared? Is rape something of the past?You cannot stop it with your laws because you have never stopped anything with your laws. You are just befooling the masses, making a law so people feel the government is doing something. But they don’t see that what they are doing, they have been doing for ten thousand years, and things have gone from bad to worse.When I read about it, I had two ideas: one, that to make homosexuality a crime and not to make celibacy a crime…. Because these homosexuals are products of your religion. Your religion condemns sex so much…your monks, your nuns, you have put them almost in prisons. Now these one million homosexuals in Texas will go underground. Just now, they had their clubs, their discos, their restaurants; they were openly homosexual. Now you have made it a crime. They will go underground. When they were open and known, there was a possibility to check them medically, to help them in some way. If somebody had AIDS already, he could be isolated. Places could be made where only AIDS people would be living, working.Now, nobody is going to accept that he has AIDS – why should he go for an examination? This is the danger. A single person can spread the disease like wildfire because it not only transferred by sexual contact – that is something more than ordinary sexual diseases – it can be transferred by other means.Blood transfusion…now you don’t know whose blood is being transfused into you. And if the man whose blood is being transfused into you has AIDS, you will have it. It can be transferred even just by kissing because saliva carries the virus. Now for the first time, the Siberians have been proved right because they have never kissed in their whole history, and they always laughed when they came in contact with Christian missionaries, watching them kissing each other. They could not believe it. These people have come to teach religion to you and they don’t even know hygiene. Mixing each other’s saliva, playing with each other’s tongues – and these idiots have come to preach religion!In Siberia, they have never kissed. It is a dirty habit…you just think about it. Siberians rub noses with each other – that is pure hygiene. And as far as love is concerned, it can be expressed in many ways…. But repression is going to grow.In one monastery in Europe, half of the monastery has just declared that they are homosexuals, so the monastery is now divided in two parts. They are fighting among themselves – the homosexuals and the non-homosexuals. I am saying non-homosexuals because I cannot say they are celibate. It is almost impossible to be celibate unless something is wrong with your body.I have heard that Stanley was a very healthy sperm and the whole day he used to do push-ups while all the other sperm were just relaxing. And they were puzzled: “What is wrong with this Stanley? The whole day, exercises, exercises.”Finally, one of these lazy people asked Stanley, “Please tell us what the secret is? Why are you exercising so much? The whole day, from the time you wake up till you go to sleep, you are exercising, doing this, doing that. What is the purpose?”He said, “You don’t know? You guys are fools. Only one sperm is going to reach the woman’s egg. And next time when the release comes, I am Stanley, the one who is going to get to the egg. That is the purpose.”And one day suddenly they started feeling very hot and they all thought the time had come. Before they could have discussed among themselves what to do, they were released so suddenly…but they all saw Stanley far ahead. He was swimming so fast, they could not believe that one could swim so fast and then suddenly, Stanley turned back, screamed loudly, and said, “Go back, go back! It’s a blow job!”Even poor sperm are laughing at humanity.If man is allowed to be simply natural, his life can give him immense joy, peace, silence, and finally the truth – but if his energies are perverted, then he goes round and round wasting himself.I have heard about an army officer who had been around the world, posted at different places – and naturally, the monks and the soldiers are in the same boat because you don’t allow soldiers their wives, their girlfriends.This officer, Major Benson, was in Hong Kong and got into real trouble. He was going to prostitutes all over the world, but he was not aware of Chinese prostitutes. They are the most dangerous. He fell into the trap of a Chinese prostitute and seeing the situation, looking at the naked body of the prostitute, he felt that it was better to have a medical check-up: “This woman seems to be sick and one does not know what kind of sickness she is carrying.”So he went to the American section of the city and found a doctor. The doctor examined him and said, “Nothing can be done. You need an immediate operation; your cock has to be removed.”The man was shocked. He said, “My God!”The doctor said, “You have so many diseases that in this one life, they cannot be cured.”He came out dazed. He thought it would be better to have another opinion, so he went to another American doctor.He checked him thoroughly and said, “I’m sorry, the first doctor was right. It is too late. Nothing can be done and if you don’t have the operation soon, even an operation may not help; the diseases may have spread all over your body. So don’t waste time. I can do the operation tomorrow.”He said, “I will be coming tomorrow,” but he was not satisfied with the idea that he would have to live his whole life without a cock.Suddenly, he saw a Chinese doctor’s signboard. He thought, “Perhaps a Chinese doctor might be helpful.”He went in. The doctor looked. The other doctors had spent hours in checking his whole body, this and that. The Chinese doctor just looked with a magnifying glass and said, “There is no need for any operation.”Benson was very happy. He said, “Really? Is there any hope?”He said, “Every hope. First, you went to a Chinese woman – because these diseases you can get only from a Chinese prostitute. The second wrong thing you did was, you went to American doctors who are just after money, money, money – and money means you have to do something. Even if your cock disappears, they are not worried; they need money. An operation means money. You don’t be worried, there is no need of any operation.”Benson was very happy. He said, “Thank you!” He gave much money to him and the old man said, “Whenever there is any trouble, come to me, don’t go to American doctors. They are simply cheating people.”Just to have a final word from the doctor, he said, “So now I can go? There is no need?”He said, “There is no need, I have told you. Just wait two or three weeks and the pecker will fall off by itself.”

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 17 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Why is it still so difficult for me to see the worth of my feminine qualities? There is still something in me that judges them as weak and having a feeling of not being able to survive. Can you please say something about this?It is the long condemnation of feminine qualities that has gone deep into the blood and the bones of women. It is man’s conspiracy to prove himself superior to women – which he is not.Man is deep down aware of the fact that the woman has something which he does not have. In the first place the woman is attractive to him, she looks beautiful. He falls in love with the woman, the woman becomes almost an addiction to him – and that’s where the trouble arises.The feeling of dependence on women which every man feels, makes him react in such a way that he tries to manage the woman as a slave – spiritually a slave. He’s also afraid because she is beautiful;…she is beautiful not only to him – she is beautiful to whomever looks at her, to whomever comes in contact with her. Great jealousy arises in the egoist, male chauvinist mind. He has done with women what Machiavelli suggests to the politicians – marriage is politics too. Machiavelli suggests that the best way of defense is offense, and man has used the idea for centuries – centuries before Machiavelli recognized it as a basic fact in all political spheres.Wherever there is some kind of domination, offense is certainly the best way of defense. In defense, you are already losing ground; you have already accepted yourself as the defeated side. You are just protecting yourself.In India, hundreds of invaders have come – small groups of invaders but they conquered this vast country, which is a subcontinent, it is a world in itself. By the end of this century, one man in every four will be Indian. It is one-fourth of humanity.In this country, there are religious scriptures like Manusmriti, five-thousand years old, and they suggest that if you want to have peace in your house, giving a good beating to the woman once in a while is absolutely necessary. She should be kept almost imprisoned. And that’s how she has lived – in different cultures, different countries, but her imprisonment has been almost the same. And because man wanted to prove himself superior…. Remember, whenever you want to prove something that means you are not that thing.A real superiority needs no proof, no evidence, no witness, no argument. A real superiority is immediately recognized by anybody who has even a small amount of intelligence.The real superiority has its own magnetic force. Because men condemned woman – and they had to condemn her to keep her in control – they reduced her almost to a subhuman category. What fear must have led man to do this? – because it is sheer paranoia….Man continuously compares and finds the woman superior. For example, in making love to a woman, a man is very inferior because he can have only one orgasm at a time while the woman can have at least half a dozen, a chain – multiple orgasm. Man simply feels utterly helpless. He cannot give those orgasms to the woman. And this has created one of the most miserable things in the world: because he cannot give a multiple orgasm, he has tried not to give her even the first orgasm. The taste of the orgasm can create danger for him.If the woman knows what orgasm is, she is bound to become aware that one orgasm is not satisfying; on the contrary, she is more thirsty. But the man is spent. So the most cunning way is not to let the woman know that anything like orgasm exists in the world.It is only in this century that we have given recognition to a certain orgasmic state while making love. No sex manual, no treatise written on sex in the East or in the West even mentions the word orgasm. It seems to be a conspiracy. Vatsyayana, the first man in the history to write about sex energy, to explore it in a scientific way, wrote the first treatise on sexology five-thousand years ago – Kamasutras, aphorisms on sex. He has gone into the subject as deeply as possible from all directions. He has not ignored the smallest detail. He describes eighty-four postures of lovemaking. You cannot improve on it; you cannot find an eighty-fifth posture, he has done exhaustive work. But even Vatsyayana does not mention orgasm. That is simply unbelievable – that a man who inquired so deeply into sex did not come across the fact of orgasm.No, my feeling is that he is hiding a fact – and to hide any fact is a crime, because that means you allow the false to continue as if it is the truth. And it is not an ordinary fact concerning chemistry or geography; it is something which is the most important in human life.The experience of orgasm not only gives you the ultimate pleasure that the body is capable of, it also gives you the insight that this is not all. It opens a door. It makes you aware that you have been unnecessarily looking outside, your real treasure is within.Meditation has been found by people who had deep orgasmic experiences. Meditation is a byproduct of orgasmic experience. There is no other way to find meditation. But orgasm brings you naturally into a state of meditation: time stops, thinking disappears, the ego is no more. You are pure energy. For the first time you understand: you are not the body and you are not the mind; you are something that transcends both – a conscious energy.And once you enter into the realm of conscious energy, you start having the most beautiful experiences of life, the lightest, the most colorful, the most poetic, the most creative. They give you fulfillment and contentment on the one hand – as far as the body, the mind and the world are concerned.On the other hand, they create a tremendous, divine discontentment. Because what you have experienced is great, but the very experience of it makes you certain, for no reason at all, that there must be greater experiences ahead. Before you knew anything about orgasm, you had never dreamed about it; now you know it. This is going to become an incentive to seek and search: Is there anything more juicy, more blissful, more psychedelic than any psychedelics can deliver to you?This search led man toward meditation.It was a simple insight into the orgasmic experience.What happens? – time stops, thinking disappears. The feeling of I is no more there. There is a feeling of isness – pure, existential – but there is no ego attached to it. I, me, mine – they have all been left far behind. This gives you the clue for meditation. If you can manage a transcendence of time, a transcendence of mind, you will be entering into a orgasmic space alone – without a woman, without a man.To be exactly true, meditation is non-sexual orgasm. But half of humanity has not known orgasm for centuries. And because the woman has not known orgasm, you should not think that man has been in a better position. Not giving orgasm to the woman, he has to lose his own orgasm too.Something significant has to be understood: Man’s sexuality is local, it is confined to the genitals and a sex center in the brain. But with the woman, it is different. Her sexuality is all over her body. Her whole body is sensitive, is erotic. Because man’s sexuality is local, it is tiny. The woman’s sexuality is something very great. Man is finished within a few seconds; the woman is not even warmed up. Man is in such a hurry – as if he is doing some duty for which he is paid and wants to finish it quickly – making love is the same.Why, in fact, does man bother to make love I wonder? – just two or three seconds and he is finished. The woman was warming up and the man is finished – not that he has attained orgasm; ejaculation is not orgasm. The man turns on his side and goes to sleep. And the woman – not one woman but millions of women are crying tears after men have made love to them because they have been left in a limbo. You have encouraged them and before they can come to a conclusion, you are out of the game.But this fact of the man finishing quickly has a very significant background; that’s what I have been bringing you to. In not allowing the woman the first orgasm, he has to learn to finish as quickly as possible. So the woman has lost something tremendously beautiful, something sacred on the earth – and the man has lost.Orgasm is not the only thing in which the woman is powerful. Everywhere in the world the woman lives five years longer than the man; her average age is five years more than the man’s. That means she has more resistance, more stamina. Women are sick less than men. Women, even if they are sick, heal themselves more quickly than men. These are scientific facts.One hundred and fifteen boys are born while one hundred girls are born. One wonders: why one and hundred fifteen? But nature knows better. By the time they are marriageable, fifteen boys will have popped off! Only one hundred boys and one hundred girls will be left. Girls don’t die easily.Women don’t commit suicide as much as men; men’s suicide rate is double. Although women talk about suicide more than men – man ordinarily never talks – women make much fuss about suicide but they always choose to survive because they don’t use any drastic methods to kill themselves.They choose the most comfortable and most scientific and most contemporary – sleeping pills. And strangely enough, no woman takes so many pills that it becomes impossible for her to be revived. So her suicide is not suicide but a kind of protest, a threat, a blackmail to make the husband understand that this is a warning for the future. Everybody is condemning him – the doctors, the neighbors, the relatives, the police officers. He has unnecessarily become a criminal, and everybody’s sympathy is for the woman – although she was going to commit suicide.As far as murder is concerned, the difference is vast. Man commits murder almost twenty times more; a woman, very rarely.Women go mad less than men. Again, the proportion is the same: men go mad twice as often as women. And still, after all these facts established by science, the superstition continues that man is stronger. Only in one thing is he stronger and that is that he has a muscular body. He is a good manual worker.Otherwise, on every point he feels – and he has felt for centuries – a deep inferiority complex. To avoid that complex, the only way is to force the woman into an inferior position. And that is the only thing that is more powerful in man: he can force the woman. He is more cruel, he is more violent, and he has forced the woman to accept an idea which is absolutely false: that she is weak.And to prove that the woman is weak, he has to condemn all the feminine qualities. He has to say that they are all weak, and all those qualities together make the woman weak.In fact, the woman has all the great qualities in her. And whenever a man becomes awakened, he attains to the same qualities which he has been condemning in women. The qualities that are thought to be weak are all the feminine qualities. And it is a strange fact that all the great qualities come into that category. What is left are only the brutal qualities, animal qualities.The woman is more loving. The man has not shown greater love than the woman. Millions of women have died – they have jumped alive into the funeral pyre with their beloveds because they could not conceive of a life without their husband or friend. But don’t you think it is a little weird that in ten-thousand years not a single man has dared to jump into a funeral pyre with his wife? Enough time, enough opportunity…and you are stronger. The delicate woman, the fragile woman, jumps into the funeral pyre and the stronger Mohammed Ali goes on doing his push-ups. And he is still stronger!Strength has many dimensions. Love has its own strength. For example, to carry a child in the womb for nine months needs strength, stamina, love. No man could manage it. An artificial womb could be placed in man – now scientific technology has come to the point where man could have a plastic womb implanted but I don’t think he could survive nine months! – they are both going to jump into the ocean.It is difficult to give life to another soul, to give a body to another soul, to give a brain and mind to another soul. The woman shares wholeheartedly in giving to the child whatever she can manage. And even after the child is born, it is not easy to bring up children. To me, it seems to be the most difficult thing in the world.Astronauts and Edmund Hillary…these people should first try to bring up children. Then only can we accept that they have done something by going to Everest; otherwise it is pointless. Even if you have reached the moon and walked on the moon, it does not matter. It doesn’t show that you are stronger.A living child – so volatile, such an energy overflowing that he will tire you within hours. Nine months in the womb and then a few years…. Just try one night to sleep with a small baby in your bed. During that night, in your house, something is going to happen. Either the child will kill you or you will kill the child. Most probably, you will kill the child, because children are the nastiest people in the world. They are so fresh and they want to do so many things and you are dead tired. You want to go to sleep, and the child is fully awake and he wants to do all kinds of things and he wants your advice, and questions, and if nothing works then he wants to go to the bathroom! He’s feeling thirsty. He’s feeling hungry in the middle of the night….It happened…A great saint was delivering a religious discourse and one of the richest women in his congregation was sitting in front of him with her small child. But the child disturbed the whole discourse – because people started laughing…and the reason was the child.The child asked, “Mom, I want to piss.” In the middle, when he is talking about God, this idiot thinks about…. After the meeting, he took the woman aside and told her, “You should teach manners to the child. In a religious discourse, such words…and in the middle, and everybody starts laughing and I feel awkward. And you went on pushing him away and he went on again and again after two minutes – ‘Mom….’ And slowly there was no need for him to say the full sentence. Just ‘Mom’ and the whole hall was laughing. You should train him that there are situations where you cannot use such words.”The woman said, “Then what should be done?”He said, “Just tell him, for example, that if he wants to go to the toilet he can say, ‘Mom, I want to sing.’ You will understand…just a code word that nobody else will understand. Then you can simply take him out.”The woman said, “I will try.”After six months, the saint was staying in the woman’s house and suddenly one of her relatives died. In the middle of the night she and her husband had to go to the place of the person who had died. So they brought the child to the saint and asked him: “It will be a great kindness if you can let him sleep with you. It may take a few hours for us to get back.”The saint said, “There is no problem. Let him sleep here with me.”But there was a problem. After just half an hour, the child said to the saint, “Swamiji, I want to sing.”The old fellow was tired. The whole day long he was in religious meetings and he wanted to sleep. So he said, “This is stupid. This is no time to sing; keep quiet and go to sleep. You can sing as much as you want in the morning, but not now.”For a moment, the boy became afraid. He’s alone, the father and mother are gone and this man seems…he used to look very loving, very compassionate. “But his behavior now that I am alone is very rude.” But he could not contain it. He had to go to the bathroom.He said, “Swamiji….”Swamiji said, “Again? Will you let me sleep or not?”He said, “Unless you allow me to sing, I cannot allow you to sleep – because I cannot sleep without singing.”He said, “I have never in my life heard…you are a born singer. You cannot sleep without singing?”The boy said, “No.”The saint said, “But what will the neighbors think? In the middle of the night…please be understanding. And your father and mother will be coming, they can take care of you. Don’t disturb my sleep. I am an old man, tired.”He said, “You may be tired, you may be old. I am neither old nor delivering spiritual discourses but what to do about singing? Everyday I sing at this time.”The saint decided that this is not going to be. He said, “Remain silent. No more a single word; otherwise I am going to give you a good beating. Singing and singing…just go to sleep.”But how can the boy go to sleep? For two minutes he closed his eyes, and then he said, “Swamiji, now if you don’t allow me, it is going to sing on its own.”The saint could not understand what the boy was saying – “It is going to sing on its own?”“Then don’t tell me…I am warning you. Now I am at the last point of control.”The swami said, “If it is such a necessity, then you can sing slowly, just like whispering in my ear.”The boy said, “I have no problem, but it will be a little warm.”The saint said, “You are an idiot! How can singing be warm?”The boy said, “I know because every day I am singing. Perhaps you are too old and it has gone cold, but mine is real hot. Don’t say anything to me – that’s why I am making things clear.”He said, “I am not going to say anything. You sing, hot or cold as you want; just finish so I can go to sleep.”And it was too late to do anything. The boy pissed all over the saint, his whole bed…and the saint jumped out of the bed, the old man fell on the ground and he said, “You idiot! This is singing? You call this singing?”The boy said, “You have forgotten, it is your advice. Six months ago you advised my mother that pissing is not a good word. Now you know – this is a good word!”The child sleeps the whole day. In the mother’s womb he sleeps twenty-four hours; then, slowly, slowly…twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty…but he is almost always asleep. And in the night, he wakes up. The whole day he will be asleep and in the night he will wake up to torture you.I don’t think there is any man who can have a pregnancy or who can bring up children. It is the strength of the woman. But it is a different strength. There is one strength which is destructive, there is another strength which is creative. There is one strength which is of hatred and there is another strength which is of love.Love, trust, beauty, sincerity, truthfulness, authenticity – these are all feminine qualities, and they are far greater than any qualities that man has. But the whole past has been dominated by man and his qualities.Naturally in war, love is of no use, truth is of no use, beauty is of no use, aesthetic sensibility is no use. In war, you need a heart which is more stony than stones. In war, you need simply hate, anger, a madness to destroy.In three thousand years, man has fought five thousand wars. Yes, this is also strength but not worthy of human beings. This is strength derived from our animal inheritance. It belongs to the past, which is gone, and the feminine qualities belong to the future, which is coming. There is no need to feel yourself weak because of your feminine qualities. You should feel grateful to existence that what man has to earn, you have been given by nature as a gift.Man has to learn how to love. Man has to learn how to let the heart be the master and the mind be just an obedient servant. Man has to learn these things. The woman brings these things with her, but we condemn all these qualities as weaknesses. Even if you have chosen women as great individuals, you can see what you have chosen – you have chosen a man. Because you have chosen the qualities of man that were in the woman. For example, Joan of Arc had all the qualities of man. The Queen of Jhansi in India had all the qualities of man: she could fight with a naked sword, could kill people without any problem. Such women have been chosen in history and great tribute is paid to them by the historians. And they don’t represent women. In fact, that is the reason why they have been chosen, because they are just carbon copies of men.The women’s liberation movement has to learn one fundamental thing: that is not to imitate man and not to listen what he says about feminine qualities, the feminine personality. The feminine qualities are clear.Friedrich Nietzsche has a great insight into many areas of life, but he could not create a coherent, comprehensive system of philosophy. And the reason was not that he was not capable – he was the most capable of all Western philosophers. The problem was, he had so much to give that it was not possible for him to make a whole system; otherwise, much would not be part of it. Hence, he chose an aphoristic style of writing. Just as you can write in a very condensed form, many things which ordinarily you would write in an essay, Friedrich Nietzsche would write in four lines or at the most in a paragraph. But that has created great misunderstanding about the poor man. Because it is too condensed – unless you have the clarity to see into the density of his insight, into the far-reaching effects of his insights, into all the implications which are not said but are there…you will have to search for them and then you will be surprised.Nietzsche is going to come back. Now is the time that he should be understood perfectly well. Adolf Hitler misunderstood him. His followers misunderstood him, his enemies misunderstood him. But to be misunderstood is a seal from human beings, that you had something really important. Otherwise, who cares to understand or misunderstand?Nietzsche had this insight: that men have to suppress women. Otherwise, if things had gone naturally, it would be more possible that the woman would be the master and the man would be the servant, because his qualities are those of a servant – of a soldier at the most. And the feminine qualities are almost divine. They have a royalty about them.Drop all the ideas of man that he has been putting in your heads. And also drop the ideas of the women’s liberation movement, because they are also putting nonsense into your minds. Their nonsense is that they are trying to prove that men and women are equal. They are not – and when I say they are not, I don’t mean that someone is superior and someone is inferior. I mean that they are unique.Women are women and men are men; there is no question of comparison.Equality is out of the question. They are not unequal and neither can they be equal. They are unique.Rejoice in your feminine qualities, make a poetry of your feminine qualities. That is your great inheritance from nature. Don’t throw it away, because the man does not have them. To be equal, you may start doing idiotic things.And that’s what is happening in the women’s liberation movement. The women are smoking cigarettes or, if there is an opportunity, then a joint. Now in the East, the woman cannot even think – neither can the man think…if you go home and find your wife relaxing on the sofa with a cigarette, you will not be able to believe what has happened.We have a deep respect for feminine qualities and those qualities prohibit many things, encourage many other things. The woman should not try to imitate man, because even if you succeed…. It is difficult to succeed. Imitation is always imitation, it is never equal. But for argument’s sake, if we accept that you can become exactly like a man, you will lose all that you have and you will not gain anything. Because even in the eyes of man, you will not be beautiful anymore, and in your own eyes, you will be shattered. It was better to be unequal than to be equal, because now the man takes no interest.A woman should keep her separateness, should save all her feminine qualities and purify them. In this way she is going, according to her nature, toward enlightenment. Of course once you are enlightened, you have gone beyond the discrimination of sexes. Beyond enlightenment, you are simply human beings. But before that….Nor should man try to imitate woman, which he has been doing.I entered the university, and I entered the university without having any money with me, because my parents wanted me to become a doctor, an engineer, a scientist but they were all against the idea that I should go to study philosophy, religion, psychology. They said, “You will be a beggar on the streets, and we cannot support you to become a beggar. So either you choose something which will make you somebody – respectable, powerful – or we are not going to support you financially. Then you can study anything you want.”I said, “This is very clear. Agreed.”They were simply threatening me. They were not the kind of people to refuse to give me financial help. They loved me. In fact, because they loved me, they wanted me to become somebody in the world. And because nothing was working, their arguments and persuasion were not working, they threatened me. So I had to go to the university on the train without a ticket.It was eighty miles from my village. I went to the ticket collector and told him, “This is the situation. If you can help me…and I will remember. Whenever I have money, the ticket will be paid.”But he said, “Don’t be worried. So many people are traveling without a ticket, but you are at least truthful. You yourself came to me, you have not been hiding.” He said, “You rest and I will meet you at the station where you have to get down and help you to go out.”And he helped me; I reached the university. I had no money for the taxi that I picked up from the railway station so I went directly to the vice-chancellor’s office. The peon at the gate tried to prevent me.I said, “Forget it. As far as I am concerned, remember not to prevent me, because that will create chaos.”The vice-chancellor heard: “What kind of talk is going on?” He was looking from the window and he saw this new, young man. He said, “Let him come in.” He asked, “What do you want?”I put before him all the applications for fellowships, for food, scholarship, for university fees.He said, “But you have not graduated from this university. And this has been the convention: If somebody has graduated from this university, he will have the first preference.”I said, “Even though he does not have the same marks and the same qualifications?”He said, “No, your case will be considered, but I’m becoming curious about something else…you sit down. Would you like to have some coffee or some tea?”I said, “No, you just first tell me what your curiosity is.”He said, “My curiosity is about your small beard” – it was just starting to grow – “Why you are growing a beard and mustache and long hair?”I said, “You are asking a wrong question. I’m not growing them, they are growing. In fact, I should ask you why you have been shaving your beard and your mustache, because that is a positive act, and you have to be responsible for it and answerable. Nature has not given beards to women – just think of a woman who starts growing beard and a mustache! And it is not impossible; she just needs a few injections, a few of the hormones that grow the hair of the beard and the mustache.”I said, “Just imagine – would that woman look like a woman? Could you fall in love with her if, by some magic, you can again be given your youth?”He said, “My God! A woman with a beard?”“But,” I said, “yours is a similar case; a man without a beard is no different. You have been imitating women.”And there is an unconscious reasoning, because the man feels women are beautiful – perhaps if he also takes away the beard and the mustache, he may look more beautiful. He’s a hundred percent wrong. It is one thing that women go on tolerating, him because it is a man’s society and he develops ideas and enforces them on everybody else who is in some way dependent on him. But if women are free to express their feelings, a beard is as natural, a mustache is as natural as your nose. You don’t shave it.Be proud of your qualities. Increase them, refine them because they are the path toward godliness.Man is not in a better position than woman as far as religious experience is concerned. But he has one quality and that is of the warrior. Once he gets a challenge, then he can grow any kind of qualities. Even the feminine qualities, he can grow better than any woman can. His fighting spirit balances things.Women have qualities inborn. Man needs only to be provoked, given a challenge: these qualities have not been given to you – you have to earn them. And if men and women both can live these qualities, the day is not far away when we can transform this world into a paradise.Again, I remember Friedrich Nietzsche. He said that Jesus Christ, Gautam Buddha…these were not real men, because their qualities are feminine. Nobody else has said that; no follower, no enemy. But Nietzsche certainly has a knack of finding absolutely fresh insights. He is against Jesus and against Gautam Buddha, because if people follow them, everybody will become feminine. He loves the qualities of man – particularly of the warrior. He says that in his life, the most remarkable, unforgettable experience happened in a strange way…and perhaps nobody will believe it.He was sitting on the terrace of his house and a group of soldiers marched on the road by the side of the house with naked swords, their shining boots, walking in rhythm…a beautiful morning with the sun, no clouds.Nietzsche said, “Those shining swords, that music of the soldiers’ boots was the greatest aesthetic experience to me. I have never seen anything more beautiful, more musical.”He is for the qualities of man: the naked sword moving in the sun gives him the most beautiful experience. The sound of the boots gives him the greatest music. He is for the qualities of man.I am for the qualities of women. Because of Nietzsche’s insistence for man’s qualities, Adolf Hitler was born. Adolf Hitler, Goebbels, and the whole bunch of criminals who surrounded him, are pygmies compared to Friedrich Nietzsche as far as intelligence is concerned. They misunderstood him completely. They took out portions that supported fascism, murder, invading innocent people, killing innocent people.I am here to counter Nietzsche. I love the man, I love his insights, but that does not mean that I agree with him. I disagree with him.I would like the whole world to be full of feminine qualities. Then only can wars disappear. Then only can marriage disappear. Then only can nations disappear. Then only can we have one world: a loving, a peaceful, a silent and beautiful world.So drop all the conditionings man has given to you. Find your own qualities and develop them. You are not to imitate the man; neither is the man to imitate you. When I say he has to grow feminine qualities, I don’t mean that he has to imitate women.Every person, whether man or woman, is born of a father and of a mother. Half of his being is contributed by man and half by woman, so everybody is both. If you are a man, then the man is on top and underneath it, hidden, are all the feminine qualities, the contribution from your mother. If you are a woman, then your feminine qualities are on top and your male qualities are underneath it; that is the contribution of your father. And there is no need of any conflict between you, because you are man and woman together, simultaneously.Rather than creating a conflict, my whole work is to indicate to you the path, how you can create an orchestra of all your qualities together. That will be your wholeness as a human being.Osho,Why am I confused over devotion and dependence? In relationships I feel an overwhelming devotion to the other but then feel dependent and unhappy without the other. Do devotion and dependence come together like two sides of the same coin? Having tasted the beauty of the peak of devotion I feel an urge to always live there. Is dependence the valley to the peak of devotion, and to be accepted as such?The question indicates one thing very clearly, and that is that you don’t know what devotion is. Devotion and the feeling of dependence cannot exist together. The feeling of dependence arises in you when somebody enforces in a subtle slavery, particularly psychological and spiritual. Then it hurts, because these are the realms of freedom; nobody can force them upon another.Devotion is a flower of another world.It is not forced on you. Devotion is totally your act. You have responded to someone who has played on the guitar of your being.It is a love affair, and love of the highest quality.It cannot feel dependence, because nobody is making you dependent. It can make you feel relaxed, because you have found a hand and the warmth of the hand and the love of the hand and the strength of the hand…although it is all dark all around.Finding this hand, finding the master, you can relax. Now the journey is almost over. To have found the master – I repeat – the journey is almost over. And the master can only shower you with his love – there is no question of any power number; you cannot feel dependence.And you are free at any moment to withdraw your devotion. Nobody is going to prevent you except the experience of devotion itself, because you have never known so many stars in your life. You have never known so many colors in your life, you have never danced, you have never been in such an ecstasy that the dance arises out of it; not out of technological knowledge, not because you know dancing. Ecstasy brings a dance which is fresh, beyond technique, beyond learning.I have never heard that anybody who has reached the point of devotion has ever fallen back – it is impossible. For what will you fall back? What have you left behind, except misery and darkness? What was your life before devotion? – nothing but hell.Your question is only intellectual. Intellectually, you thought that in devotion there must be dependence; you are devoted, you have to be obedient. But there is a great surprise for you….The greatest master never gives orders. That belongs to the very lowest categories of teachers, not masters. A master simply creates a certain energy field in which you start changing, transforming. One day suddenly your old life is dropped, like a snake slipping out of its old skin. He does not even look back.Devotion will transform you – from a thousand and one dependencies in your life toward an independent individual. Devotion can become the door for the highest liberation possible.But people get into trouble because they’re always thinking rather than experimenting.Experiment. Experience; then your question will have a reality about it. About such questions you can have a good conversation, but these questions are not going to help you in any way. That’s why I told you from the very beginning that you don’t have any experience of devotion. You know only the experience of dependence. In love, you have found dependence. In friendship, you have found dependence. In all your relationships, sooner or later you find you are caged.In devotion you will find freedom – freedom not only from darkness, from death, but freedom from everything that you have known up to now – so that you can fly into the fresh sky, enjoying the exhilaration, the ecstasy of the new, of the novel, of the mysterious.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 18 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Here again, I find myself in the distress of a relationship finishing. It's still the same pattern. I feel that I cannot deal with it any differently than before. Is there no other way than playing the record again and again and again and just watching it? Each time, I think, “With awareness it will be different this time.” but no – the anger, the distress, the hurt, the aloneness, and also the understanding that love comes and fades away. I also am doubting that these moments of love were real. But when those moments of love and connecting are there, they do feel real.Life is a vicious circle. One things lead to another thing until the circle is complete.To go on moving in a circle is boring, is monotonous, is heavy on the heart. It destroys all playfulness, it destroys weightlessness; it takes away the charm, the magnetic pull toward life.You go again and again in the same routine, in the same circle, unwillingly. You do not want to repeat; nobody wants to repeat. Repetition is the function of a machine.Wherever there is a consciousness, there is a revolt against mechanical repetition.So I can understand your tragedy. Moreover, it is the tragedy of millions of human beings. They are all caught in a circle and then they don’t know how to jump out of it.The problem can be reduced to very simple terms: You find it difficult to jump out of the routine because you have some vested interest in the routine. If it were a hundred percent boring, a hundred percent nothing but a nightmare, you would have jumped out of it without asking anybody.You don’t need a map, you don’t need a guide – all you need is totality in whatever life you are living.Totality is the foundation of freedom.Whenever you live something totally, either it is nourishing to your being – then you start absorbing it; it is no longer routine, it becomes your love affair – or you find that it is nothing but complete boredom.To see something as a hundred percent boredom and to ask how to come out of it is just stupid. It is as if your house is on fire and you are asking people from the window, “How to come out?” Just jump out of the window!When the house is on fire, there is no question of manners, that you have to go from the right door, that you cannot go from the back door, that you cannot jump from the window. All those manners are good when the house is not on fire. Your houses are on fire, and you go on asking how to get out of it.Nobody is holding you in. There must be some subtle investments which are forbidding you from coming out of a life that you don’t like, that you don’t love, that you don’t rejoice in. Perhaps to be miserable helps you to get sympathy from people – from your wife, from your children, from your parents, from your friends. And because you have not known love, even sympathy is more than you can hope for.Sympathy is not love. It is not even a poor substitute for love. And the mind which starts asking for sympathy is sick. So you have to go inside your mind and find out what it is that is holding you in a fixed style of life.Three hundred years ago, there was, in Bengal, a very great logician. Indian logic differs from Western logic, totally – and Western logic will remain childish unless it absorbs the vast developments of Indian logic. It is a ten-thousand-year work of love and art.In the Middle Ages, Indian logic went through a revolution; a new logic came into being, replacing the old. The new was even more complex, but more comprehensive too. The man who helped the science of logic to reach its peak was a unique personality. He was so physically beautiful too, that people have forgotten his original name; they simply call him Gaurang Prabhu, “a beautiful god.”As he was getting to a marriageable age, his family was worried, because he was continuously studying, arguing…he never showed any ordinary, mundane interests. He was in his own category.They were afraid. If he said no, then it was no forever, so one had to be very diplomatic with such a person. To bring out the yes, you cannot be straightforward, just asking a question. But finally it had to be asked.They tried in different ways to work it out, but anyway marriage had to be mentioned. And knowing Gaurang very well…if he says yes, then nothing can prevent him. The whole tradition of celibacy will not prevent him – but if he says no, then there is no hope at all.They were very loving toward him, creating an atmosphere, waiting for the right moment, and Gaurang was watching the whole scene that was going on in the house.One evening, he went to his father and he said, “Why this unnecessary drama? You just be sincere and honest. What do you want from me?”The father said, “We never wanted to confront you or to put you in a position where you have to choose between yes and no – but since you are asking, the question is marriage. We have found a beautiful woman. Are you willing to marry?”He said, “I have been marrying for many, many lives. And the only result has been misery and anguish and anxiety. In my past lives, twice I have committed suicide. Once I have killed a woman – my wife! I am not such an idiot, to go on repeating the same circle – I am jumping out of it. I am not saying no, I am not saying yes. I am simply out of it. Even a relationship of ‘no’ is dangerous because ‘no’ can be changed into ‘yes’; they are not as separate as they appear. ‘Yes’ can become any time ‘no.’ So I am not saying yes or no because I am simply out of the vicious circle.”I don’t know whether the father understood him or not, but what he is saying is of great importance.You cannot solve the problems of your life remaining in the same vicious rut. You have to jump out. And the miracle is, the moment you jump out, all those problems subside and disappear.The only problem is being in the mind.And the only solution is to get beyond mind.I call it meditation.Western psychology tries to solve the problem inside the mind. It has not yet come to the understanding that the mind itself is the problem.Problems arise out of mind just as leaves grow out of trees. You can go on cutting those leaves, pruning those leaves, and they will come thicker and thicker; the foliage will become thicker than before.You cannot solve problems of the mind by getting answers to them, because they are not intellectual problems. The problems are existential.For example: you are thirsty, the problem is existential, and somebody starts giving you a discourse on thirst, on water, on the components of water; explains to you how water quenches the thirst. You will say, “That is all right, but I am thirsty right now. I am not interested that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, and that is not my problem. I am not inquiring intellectually about thirst and water; my problem is a problem of life and death.”I have heard…. On one Saturday night in a pub, there was a great crowd and people were enjoying. Suddenly, a stranger came from the street and announced in the pub: “I challenge anybody! My expertise is to tell the make of the wine, the year it was made, the company by which it was made – blindfolded, just by tasting it, I can tell you about all kinds of wines.”There was great interest; they were all wine lovers. Immediately, a black cloth was put over his eyes. Wine after wine was produced….“Lafitte Rothschild, 1938.”The pub was running out of its wines, and each time he was right, about the make, about the year – even about the year! He had developed that sensitivity for almost half a century. And in fact, that had been his family’s business for centuries – they were famous for being able to taste a wine and determine its quality, to decide the year of the wine.Then, somebody produced a glass – he sipped…looked bewildered. He sipped again. There was pindrop silence. He sipped a third time and he said, “My God, this is urine!” He pulled off the black cloth covering the glass and he said, “Hell, you men! This is pure urine, fresh – still lukewarm!”And in the crowd, from the back came a small voice, “But whose?”Mind is such – question after question, relevant, irrelevant. Now the poor man, how is he to…he is a wine expert! He’s not Morarji Desai.Morarji Desai perhaps could manage to tell whose urine this is and what year.But any question, and any answer…the question will produce more questions from the answer, and in this way you can go on thinking your whole life, never reaching anywhere, never finding anything.Try to solve existential problems by existential methods.Except for meditation, you cannot find a space within you which is questionless. And as questions disappear, what purpose do answers have?Questions gone, answers are also gone. You have come to feel the peace that passeth understanding, the serenity that becomes a song in somebody, that becomes dance in somebody else, and the ultimate feeling of being grounded, centered, which makes you part of the universe. And unless a man is a part of the universe – not theoretically but experientially – he cannot get rid of problems. Mind will go on producing questions ad infinitum.Rather than think, it is better to enter into silence. Just moments of silence are more valuable than years of your work, because the work can give you only something of the world. Silence can give you the opening into the other world, the first glimpse of godliness.Osho,While I was at Rajneeshpuram, it was discovered I had cancer. My anguish was that I would get lost in an unconscious death and not find the way back to you. I am boundlessly grateful that your presence and grace have helped in healing me. The other day, I had food poisoning – and again, the anguish. It was easy to be identified with the body in physical pain. I hear that doctors give morphine to dying patients to relieve the discomfort. Osho, please speak on meditation at the point of death. Is it possible to meditate under medication? And what about the consciousness of those dying under anesthesia, sleep or coma?A few things…first, there is no death as such. Death is the great illusion, because it always happens to the other; it never happens to you, so you always see it from the outside.You don’t know what is happening inside at the very innermost center. Something tremendously valuable is happening there, but all that you know is that the man cannot speak, cannot breathe, cannot walk. His pulse is gone, his heartbeat is lost – he is dead.It is not true. It is almost as if somebody says he loves and you dissect the man’s heart and try to find out where love is. I don’t think you will find where love is, because love is not matter. It is a quality. You can experience it but you cannot catch hold of it.Life begins in unconsciousness. It has to begin in that way, because the child has to pass through a very narrow passage from the mother’s womb to the outside world. The passage is very narrow and the child finds it almost equal to death, because he has lived for nine months in a world which is being taken away from him, where he was immensely blissful, peaceful, without any worry, no problems of employment, of education. He has lived for those nine months in a paradise.In fact, the psychologists say that the idea of paradise is nothing but a projection of the conditions in the womb. The womb is so luxurious that the child is searching his whole life for the same old golden days again, when he lived together with his mother, not even feeling any separation, not even knowing that he was separate from the environment he’s living in. The environment and he were one, and now he’s being thrown out into an unknown, strange world.In the mother’s womb he was in utter silence. Outside, it is so noisy, so maddeningly noisy. In the mother’s womb he is in darkness. Darkness is very soothing, relaxing, very essential for growth – that’s why the roots of plants hide themselves under the ground, in darkness. A child hides himself in the mother’s womb to find darkness. Now he’s being thrown into the world full of glaring lights. And he’s being cut from all the connections to the mother; the shock is traumatic. There is a possibility of some truth in the idea that he goes searching for the womb again, that the search for the womb is the search for paradise.As the child grows, he becomes more and more aware that the world is not what it is supposed to be. It is ugly, it is cunning, it is in every way deceiving, cheating. You cannot trust anybody, you cannot love anybody. Friendship is only an empty word. Love exists only in poetry. In life, everything is a pain.But you cannot jump out of this vicious circle of life for many reasons. First, you don’t have any idea that there is another possibility of life, an alternative way of living. You know only the way people are living and they are all suffering, they’re all miserable.Naturally, you start accepting misery and suffering as natural. By and by, you become immune to them. This immunity is very dangerous. It means now there is no hope for you, because now there is no possibility of any inquiry. You are not going to inquire into yourself, into your consciousness, because you have already believed what others have been telling you.A person who really wants to go through a revolution…. And only a revolution can make you free from the fear of death. Otherwise, you have experienced death in your birth, so you have some idea of it. You lost your paradise. Your birth may have been a time of celebration for others but not for you. For you, it was a terrible experience.And when you again think of death, it is very natural to infer that the coming death is going to be a bigger phenomenon than the death you knew in birth. You have lived only nine months in the mother’s womb and what kind of life was it? Although it was comfortable, luxurious, there was no adventure, no change; you were almost vegetating. For seventy years you live, you experience many things, and then again comes death. That is the circle becoming complete – you are coming back to the same zero point from where you began your life.This death looming ahead of you seems to be more dangerous, because now you are experienced. You have seen hunger, starvation, death, and it creates a deep anguish: “One day I will not be here to see the sunrise.The sun will go on rising and the flowers will go on blossoming and the stars will always be there in the sky waiting, waiting, but I will never come again.” Death will erase all your senses.You have tasted a few moments of beauty, a few moments of love, a few moments of joy – only a few moments, but a single moment of joy is enough, and equal to eternity because in the moment of joy you forget time.Your fear is everybody’s fear. And because you see death from outside, it creates the whole problem.The man is not dying, because nothing dies.Death as such has never happened.But you see it happening every day. Looking from outside, if you are told that these two persons are deeply in love, what will you find from the outside? Perhaps they are holding hands, but holding hands is not love. You can hold somebody’s hand for your whole life and wonder: what is happening? Love is not coming, only the hands are perspiring.And if you try such an experiment, don’t do it in Bombay! In Bombay, love is not possible, only perspiration. Bombay lovers have to pass through very arduous gymnastics. Love in Bombay first means the perspiration, the body odor, mixed with the smell of deodorants, all kinds of powders, all kinds of perfumes….But from the outside, what can you judge? Even if two persons are hugging each other…. You can note immediately that hugging is love – but hugging is not love. I know it perfectly. I had to stop going to Punjab because of hugging…the Sikhs are a fire test. If you can hug a sardarji, you can hug any wild wolf! They were hugging with great love, but without thinking that they can give me fractures. When I saw that things were going too far, I simply stopped going to Punjab.Watching from outside, whatever you note down – hugging, kissing, holding hands – or even if you see people making love, then too you will not find what love is.Love is an interior experience. Only those two persons know. And those two persons don’t know about both; each knows only about himself; the other is out. He may be pretending, he may be a hypocrite, he may have other purposes and love may be just a bribe.You can be certain only about your own love.And you can be certain only about your own death.All love outside is imagination for you. All death outside is fear, paranoia – not a reality for you. But as you grow old, the illusory death becomes bigger and bigger, because life becomes shorter and shorter.In the great Emperor Akbar’s court, it happened one day…. He came into the court. He used to have a blackboard in his court, just as you have blackboards in the universities, because he was himself a learned man and his court was full of learned people. He had collected from all over the country all the geniuses in different dimensions.Drawing a line on the blackboard, he asked the wise men of his court: “Can anyone make this line small without touching it?”Now how can you make it small without touching it? You will have to touch it to make it small; you will have to erase some part of it. So all the wise people were at a loss.Finally, Akbar said to Birbal, who was the most intelligent person in his court: “The court seems to be silent. Have you some idea, or have you also accepted failure?”Birbal went to the board and drew a bigger line above the line that Akbar had drawn. He made it small without touching it; just with the bigger line, the whole context had changed. Now, in comparison to the bigger line, the first line has become small.Your life goes on becoming smaller and smaller. You know every day that life is being cut short. Every breath, and you are less alive than you were before. Every day passing, and your life is becoming less and less. You don’t know exactly when death will come, but one thing is certain: whenever it comes, you will be almost at the end of your life. And life is slipping away; hence, fear goes on becoming bigger.And then, man has faculties which he can use wrongly or rightly. For example, imagination – he can use it in art, in creative works. He can contribute to the world something of beauty, something of joy, can make it more colorful, more musical, can make it a beautiful garden of human beings, blossoming in their consciousness. But imagination can do just the opposite, too.As a man comes closer to death, his imagination starts turning toward death. He thinks of death more – naturally, because that is the reality that he is going to face.I have heard…. In a park, three old ladies were sitting on a bench and gossiping.One lady said, “My husband returned two days ago and he brought two beautiful motorboats, and a yacht big enough for twelve people to live on. I am very much excited. He’s planning to go for a long journey on our own boats.”The second woman said, “My husband has not been here for a few months. He returned only last night, and he has brought me a beautiful Cadillac. He has purchased a house in the mountains, and I am dying to get into the Cadillac and go to the house as quickly as possible.”The third woman said, “My husband is not rich. He is a poor man, but a unique man. If I could swap husbands with you, I would refuse. You can have your rich husbands who bring yachts and motorboats, Cadillacs, mountain houses; you can keep your rich husbands. My husband is rare. You cannot find another person in a million comparable to him. I am so proud of him.”Both ladies became so excited. They said, “Tell us – what is the uniqueness?”She said, “The uniqueness is that on my husband’s cock, thirteen birds can stand side by side!”Of course, nobody believed it.The first woman said, “Forgive me, I was lying. My husband has not come; only a telegram that he will be coming soon. There are no boats, no yachts. Just the other day I have gone on a motorboat ride; that much is true.”The other woman said, “If you are telling the truth, I cannot be left behind. I will tell you the whole truth: I have not heard about my husband since we got married. He simply disappeared when we were on our honeymoon. We had gone together; I came back alone. There is no question of any Cadillac, there is no question of any house in the mountains. Just to console myself, I go on imagining such things. It feels good at least for the moment when you forget that it is simply imagination. All that happened is that the day before yesterday, I went in a small boat which is not even a motorboat, you have to row it with your own hands.”Now they both turned toward the third.The third woman said, “Okay, okay. If you are telling the truth, then I will tell the truth also. The business about thirteen birds standing on the cock of my husband, side by side, is not right. The thirteenth bird has to stand on only one leg.”People live in exaggerations.And about death, everybody has a very dark, black, dangerous picture somewhere in the unconscious. And the strange thing is, death does not exist at all.You have asked what happens to those people who die in coma, in unconsciousness, under some anesthesia. In fact – whether you are in a coma or under anesthesia, or in an accident, a sudden death – everybody except those who have realized themselves becomes unconscious before death. So it is not a question of only a small group dying in coma, dying under anesthesia, dying in unconsciousness on a surgeon’s table or in an accident. Everybody dies unconscious. As death comes closer – and when I say as death comes closer, I mean as your life starts slipping out of your body, getting ready to enter into another womb – nature has an inbuilt program. The person becomes unconscious, because it is the greatest surgery that is happening. His whole being has to be taken from his body, in which it has lived, identified, for seventy or eighty years.It is a natural phenomenon that before death, everybody goes into unconsciousness. In fact, Sushrut, the greatest surgeon the East has produced and the ancientmost, seven thousand years have passed since Sushrut was alive…. According to Sushrut – and he was perhaps the first surgeon of such great genius in the whole history of man – surgery learned the art of anesthesia from the common death.Seeing that everybody becomes unconscious before dying, it became a clue. It means that such a great surgery is going to happen that the man may not be able to withstand it consciously. It is better to let him go deep into sleep, and in that sleep the transfer of the soul is easier.That is why you don’t remember your past life, because that gap of unconsciousness functions as a barrier. So it has two functions. It helps you to be moved from one body to another body. It has another function also: that gap of unconsciousness is so deep – the deepest possible – that it becomes a block to the memories of your past life. Because those memories are risky….You are not able to make a beautiful life of what you have right now, and if your mind starts getting bombarded by your past lives and experiences, you are sure to go mad. You will not be able to figure out what is happening; it is almost like all the stations on your radio are turned on together. Life will become impossible, because as far as those memories of the past are concerned, when they open their doors it is not like a memory. It is not just in the mind, it is almost like reliving it. You forget completely that this is a memory; you start acting out your past life. And if you know many past lives, you are certainly bound to go mad – you cannot manage. Sushrut is right, that the first clue about operations…. He was the greatest surgeon, the first surgeon who wrote books on surgery, the first surgeon who described all the finest instruments that we have developed now.But still, the East has a totally different approach from the West. In the West, surgery became more and more important, although it is only three hundred years old. It has been replacing medicine every day and taking its place. And its ambition is to create plastic organs so that whenever something goes wrong, there is no need to cure it – just replace it with a plastic mechanism. And the plastic mechanism never becomes sick; it is hoped that it will be lifelong.For example, a plastic heart will not start beating harder if you see a beautiful woman. A plastic heart is, after all, a plastic heart, unless you have some special arrangements…a remote controller: “What are you doing? A beautiful woman is coming, go on!” Otherwise your heart will simply go on as usual.In North Carolina, when they arrested me, they tried to show the whole world that they were treating me almost as a guest of President Ronald Reagan. They were afraid that if something happened, even accidental, then the whole blame would go to the United States government. So first they put me in the hospital section of the jail. I had six nurses, and one woman doctor. Before entering my name in the register, they examined my pulse, my heartbeat, my blood pressure.One nurse was taking my blood pressure and the head nurse just joked; she said, “Whenever a woman takes the blood pressure it goes a little high.”I said, “It will not be the case with me. It may go a little low but it cannot go a little high.”She said, “What do you mean?”I said, “It is better you don’t ask me, because these nurses may feel hurt.”These nurses said, “No, we will not feel hurt; you just say it.”I said, “I have got so many beautiful women around me, and it is not so simple for me to decide who is a woman and who is a man. I have to look again to see that yes, she is a woman and this is a man.”A few of our sannyasins were also in the jail with me. The head nurse must have told them what I said: “I have so many beautiful women around me that you cannot hope to have a better and more beautiful nurse in your jail.” Our sannyasins were very happy.She told me, “Your girls are very happy.”I said, “They deserve to be!”While I was there, one man died. And I felt his death in almost all of the six remaining inmates of the cell – they were all half-dead. I tried my best: “You are not dead! And I can give it to you in writing that you will never be dead. If it happens that by mistake you are dead, then come to me with the paper.”He said, “But where will I find you?”I said, “You are stupid. The first thing is not to find me, the first thing is that you are dead!”He said, “My God, but you were persuading me that there is no death.”I said, “Yes, there is no death. But there is constant change in existence. It is a renewal; hence, there are seasons, hence there is childhood, youth, old age, death. Life goes on replacing better bodies, better minds, better consciousness. If we don’t use it, it is our fault.”You are worried about death. You should be worried about meditation.Meditation is the only way you can know, while living, that there is no death. The other way, you ask me about people who are in coma, people who have anesthesia, people who are unconscious because of some accident – “What happens to these people?” Nothing special, it is the same business. They move into another body.The people who are left behind think they are dead. They have simply moved into a new form, into a new sensitivity, into a new intelligence.This life is a university. Here, we have to learn only one thing: that death does not exist, that life is eternal.But you have to experience it.Osho,Sometimes, when I suddenly become aware of this clinging mind, which is only claiming to be aware but is actually moving out of this very moment, my being starts to laugh just for a few moments. Then my mind takes over again. It is always destroying beautiful moments where it might get lost. It looks like I'm missing trust, and now there is something I just can't understand: I feel trust in existence but I can hardly trust humans. My beloved, beautiful master, would you please say something about this? Could my trust in you be a mind game, an illusion, as long as I can't trust in so-called humans? Or could it be just a beginning?It is certainly difficult to love and trust human beings, because they will create every kind of barrier. They will give you every opportunity to prove to yourself that nobody is worth trusting, nobody is worth loving; on the contrary, they are all taking advantage of your trust, your love, your friendship. One becomes hard, one becomes closed.You love me. At least that is a good sign. If you can love one human being, you can love the whole of humanity. It is just that you have been expecting too much, demanding too much, asking human beings to be almost gods. When they cannot live up to your standards, then you are frustrated, then you are angry. It is not their fault. They are doing what they can do. You trusted them because you can trust and they deceived you because they can deceive. I don’t see the problem. It fits perfectly well: for somebody to deceive, somebody is needed to trust.Mulla Nasruddin had become an honorary magistrate and his first case came to court. He heard one party and he said, “Wait for the judgment.”The court clerk could not believe it, because the other party had not been heard at all. They were standing there with their attorneys.So he whispered in Mulla Nasruddin’s ear: “Mulla, perhaps you are not aware of the procedure of the court. The other party is here, they are the defendants. Before listening to them, what kind of judgment can you give?”Mulla Nasruddin said, “Be silent! Keep quiet! Don’t disturb me! In fact, that is the reason why I am not allowing the other party to speak, because they will say things against the first party and the whole trouble will be on my mind – confusion, who is right, who is wrong. I am avoiding everything and finishing the case immediately! Right now, I am absolutely clear. I am not certain whether, when I have heard the other party too, I will be able to make the judgment or not.”Life is very simple if you are unprejudiced. If you are prejudiced, life becomes a continuously growing complexity. Every thread becomes entangled; it becomes more and more difficult to find a way out. But the way is one. Your problems may be different, your confusions may be different; that does not matter.The path is very simple.The path is to get out of the mind as many times in the day as possible. Whenever you have time, just get out of the mind.A few things can be helpful. If you cannot be silent just by sitting, if you feel too much energy to do something and if you don’t do it then the whole energy becomes a mind game, it is easier to begin with some creativity. If you are interested in music, play music, and get drowned in it. If you love dance, dance, and let the dancer disappear. Or anything – if you know pottery, make beautiful pots, bringing your total energy to it. Because when you bring your total energy to something, mind does not get any energy, and becomes silent on its own accord.And it is only in the beginning that you have to do some work to keep yourself engaged, so the energy moves into that engagement and the mind becomes silent. Soon you will be able to sit silently, doing nothing, and the mind becomes utterly silent. In those moments you will know the eternity of life, you will know the beauty of this fragile existence around you, and also the great treasure of your own being.Knowing these things, misery becomes impossible. You don’t have any complaint, any grudge. You have only a deep gratitude toward existence. And if you love existence then there is no problem – just love it more. Love it so totally that your mind stops completely. The moment your mind stops completely, you will not find the problem that you are finding now, that you cannot love human beings.It is not a question of loving human beings or animals or birds or trees. It is a question of being loving – even sitting in your room – just being loving, just being joyous, just being always in a singing mood. It is in your hands. And don’t just go on asking questions.Remember: when I answer you, try something of it in your life, because only your effort is going to transform you in such a way that all problems, all sicknesses, simply evaporate. And a man is not alive unless he is psychologically completely healthy. The body is going to be sick sometimes, because it has to become old, it has to die too. The burden of the body is big, but you are not going to be sick because consciousness cannot be sick, and consciousness cannot be old, and consciousness cannot be dead.If you have been meditating in your life, at the moment of death you will remain aware. So very few people die with awareness. For those who die with awareness, this is their last death. Now they will not need to suffer the routine, boring, monotonous circles of life.If you are dying fully aware, you will be able to see the mystery of life and death separating – it is one of the great mysteries. And you will be able to enter into a new womb fully alert – your life has been a success.To me, this is the only success that is worth calling success.Osho,Though I search, I can find no other. Everything I find is this one, only this one. This one arises as a senseless sensation, more delicious than anything I've known before and grows into a beautiful vast aloneness. It is as if my expansion would have no end. Then suddenly I jump out of it and experience a terror of death, and I panic that time is so short and I have so far to go. Can you help me to understand this jump between oneness and separateness, timelessness and time?The experience you are going through is perfectly beautiful. You are on the right line…just a little more courage. You come to the point of merger, and that is the time when you jump off, because merger looks like death. It is just your interpretation.You don’t know merger, you don’t know death, but you have heard: all around, death-oriented philosophies, religions, life-negative theologies, philosophies, are pouring as much crap in your minds as possible. You have to see one thing: that whatever you know is not your own. Put your knowledge aside – to brag about borrowed knowledge is not right. But man has a tendency to brag. He wants to have this, to become that, and he cannot. Then he starts bragging, and the danger is that he may start believing in his own bragging. Then he has no future.I have heard…one old man went to his physician and asked for a thorough check-up. The physician said, “What is the need? You are so healthy. At this age,” – he was eighty-three; tomorrow was his birthday – “why do you want a physical, a thorough examination?”He said, “Doctor, I am going to marry an eighteen-year-old girl tonight. I want you to check my whole body thoroughly, because everybody is against it. My sons are against it, my neighbors are against it, my daughters-in-law are against it – even the small children are against it! And you are also against it. It seems nobody wants me to live a pleasant life. Are you my friends or my enemies? But even if the whole world is against me, I am going to do it!”The doctor said, “If you are determined to do it, do it. Just one suggestion: you can keep a boarder also in your house. That may help your married life. He will have his wife also, not to become a trouble to you. Find a young, beautiful boarder.”The old man thought, and he said, “Okay, if you say so, I will do it.”After six months, the doctor saw the old man in a fund raising meeting. He was looking almost like a ghost – just a skeleton sitting on a wheelchair. Somehow, he managed to come to the doctor and he said to him, “Congratulate me, my wife is pregnant.”The doctor had difficulty to maintaining his poise, but he managed, he was a professional. And he asked, “That’s very good, that’s great news. And did you follow my advice?”He said, “Of course, of course, I have a young boarder, too.”The doctor said, “That’s very good.”The old man said, “This is nothing, you have not yet heard the whole story – the boarder’s wife is also pregnant!”Now it would be very difficult to convince this man that he cannot make women pregnant – he even made two women pregnant!Man has such a subtle ego that he goes on claiming things he has not got, that he goes on knowing things that he has no knowledge of. He’s not ready to listen to someone with his heart, nor with his mind.Unless you listen from the heart, the alchemy of love cannot transform you.You are ready. Just a little push and your life will take a new turn, a new turn toward healthier values, more human qualities, more divine flowers.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 19 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,For twenty years, I have done film work. All my first films are without sound. I never could find sound for them but the muteness of these films, in fact, I could not accept. They did not seem complete and only sometimes I presented them to people. Working in this way, I could not be successful. Since I met you five years ago, everything has changed. In the last four years, I have worked more and more for German television – but most of the people who work in television are politicians and lawyers. They work only with words. They cannot accept pictures in the program without explanations or commentary. My pictures are coming from my inner silence. You have said words are containers. What is in the meaning of pictures? Please Osho, speak about the difference between words and pictures.There is a great difference between words and pictures.First, pictures are older. The child dreams, although he cannot speak. He can see, although he cannot say what it is. And the pictures in his mind are more alive, more vibrant, more radiant, more innocent.It happened in a small school…. The teacher had been explaining to the students the Christian idea of the trinity. Her whole emphasis was on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.After speaking for almost one hour, she asked the students a simple question: “Who is the greatest man on the earth?” It was an international school.An American boy stood up and said, “Abraham Lincoln.”The teacher was shocked. After hammering for one hour on Jesus Christ, this boy had not heard a single word. But she said to the boy; “It is not absolutely right, although you are very close to the right answer.”An English boy said, “Winston Churchill,” and so on and so forth it went. And then a very small boy who never used to raise his hand or stand up or answer on his own initiative, suddenly started waving his hand, almost madly. He was afraid somebody else might say the right answer.The teacher said, “You look really in a hurry, so you stand up.”When he stood, he said, “There is no question. Jesus Christ is obviously the greatest man in the world.”This was even more shocking because the boy was a Jew. All the Christians had missed – somebody was with Abraham Lincoln, somebody was with Albert Einstein, somebody was with Winston Churchill, somebody was with Karl Marx, somebody was with Sigmund Freud – strange, that a small Jew was the only one who would stand for Jesus Christ. He won the prize – there was a prize for answering this question.After the class was over, the teacher caught hold of the boy outside in the corridor and asked him, “Are you not a Jew?”He said, “Certainly, I am a Jew.”She said, “Then, why did you say Jesus is the greatest man?”The boy laughed. He said, “In my heart of my hearts, I know that Moses is the greatest man the earth has produced or will ever produce, but then business is business!”Now, Jesus Christ is only business to this boy. And he is innocent and honest and true.Man as such is covered with many prejudices. He thinks he thinks – that’s a fallacy. He only repeats prejudices handed over to him by others.Unless a mind is completely vacated, unoccupied by all kinds of prejudices, you cannot understand anything of real, authentic value. Mind can understand only that which is mundane. But in a state of having an empty mind – fully alert and aflame but with no thoughts, no desires, no imaginations – you can see the reality as it is, because the word is no longer distorting your vision.A picture comes from the object to you. If you are clean and clear, mirror-like, reflecting, your reflection can come very close to truth, to beauty, to bliss, to God. But the mind is so full of words, full of so many interpretations, so many explanations, that whatever you see is not seen exactly as it is.A picture comes to you from the object; a word does not come to you from anywhere. A word is a human creation. It is a soap bubble: while it is there, it may shine in the sun like a rainbow, but it is not there for long.Primitive people still think in pictures. Hence, they have a certain authority, a certain being, a certain centeredness. The modern man, compared to them, is uprooted.Children think in pictures. Thinking in pictures you bring with yourself; thinking in words is a social arrangement. Words and language are our manufactured commodities, and we have manufactured them for convenience, not for truth.There are a few languages – for example, Chinese, Japanese and other far Eastern languages – which are pictorial. Because they are pictorial, they have more authenticity, more vitality, more resonance – but the language is very difficult to learn. Chinese needs at least thirty years to learn because it has no alphabet, it has only pictures – pictures for everything in the world. Now to remember those picture-grams…you need at least a million words, a million pictures to be a scholar. Just learning a few words will not do.Other languages, which are no longer pictorial, which have found a new way, are alphabetical. Learning those languages is simple – twenty-six letters and the whole language is finished. All the words will be combinations of the same twenty-six letters. But in Chinese, there is no limitation. They have millions of picture-grams, and every day new things are happening, new discoveries are being made. China and Japan have to find new pictures for them.It is closer to the heart, but certainly anything that is closer to the heart becomes automatically incapable of searching into the objective world. The heart cannot be just a bystander and go on watching the scientific experiment without interfering, without coming in.For almost seven years, the Senate of America has been denying the fact that they have been supplying millions of dollars worth of weapons to the terrorists. Only just this week, they have been forced, simply by the facts, to admit that they had been supplying millions of dollars worth weapons to the terrorists.The question might not have arisen except that President Ronald Reagan asked that two-hundred million dollars immediately be sent to a country, to the terrorists there, because the country has become communist. So now the society has to be destroyed, order has to be turned into chaos. And it is none of America’s business.If somebody wants to be a communist, if some country chooses to be communist, it does not matter whether you agree with it or not. Your agreement is simply not the question. I may agree, I may not agree but on this point, I am absolutely certain: they should be given the opportunity to be, whatsoever they want to be. I can show my disagreement, I can place all the evidence against them, all the arguments against them – but terrorism is not an argument, it is a defeat.And when a great country, the greatest power in the world, starts using such third-rate strategies, then it seems there is no hope for humanity.The day the German parliament passed an order that I could not enter Germany, they allowed on the same day…. And the reason given to the parliament was “ because this man is dangerous.” A man who has not even a paper knife is dangerous…. And in the same week, they allowed terrorists from around the whole world to have a world conference in Munich. It seems that just out of fear, they could not say no to the terrorists. And they are not dangerous!One night I was denied a six-hour stay at the airport’s first-class lounge in England – which is made for that. There is no opening from the lounge into the city; it is completely closed, you cannot get out of it. It is for passengers who have to change planes, for their rest. They did not allow me, and for the same reason. The officer had a file from the parliament saying that “this man is dangerous and he should not be allowed in England.”I said, “You are not allowing me in England, but six hours’ rest outside England – this is an international airport.”He said, “I cannot argue with you. Perhaps you are logically right, but the problem is that the orders come from above – I have to follow them.”And the same English government, the next week allowed Ronald Reagan a base to bomb Libya – the base was in England. America bombing an innocent country, a poor country, and completely out of a misunderstanding. Is this not dangerous – is this something very cultured, civilized, something without which we cannot evolve?People go on thinking in words, and then they become heartless because the words have no connection with the heart. Then they can do strange things.In the last week, America has also admitted one great crime – and I simply cannot believe that the whole world simply remains silent. They were not admitting it for two years. And we never say to our politicians and leaders and priests that “You are continuously lying – how long we can trust you? You are demanding something inhuman and impossible. Your behavior does not allow anybody to trust you.”For two years they were saying that nothing like this has happened. How can it happen in a democracy? The problem was, there were rumors that the American Senate had given permission that on two hundred patients first, and then on five hundred more patients, a certain experiment could be done. It is part of the preparation for the coming atomic war. Seven hundred persons, without their permission – and this is democracy! – had their brains operated on! And all seven hundred patients died.The government continued to deny that they had anything to do with it, but finally it has come to the light. And now, without any shame, they accept that yes, they have done it, because it is a question of saving the whole of humanity. Men have to be used as guinea pigs. This is the first time that any government has said that, and has already killed seven hundred people – without their permission. And the whole world goes on!Nobody raises a hand to say that “This is not democracy, and this is not even human!”And if the government can do this, the government can do anything – every child’s brain can be fixed with an electrode. He will never know, but because of that electrode, the government can know what is going on in his mind. The government can change gears, it can change the thinking that is going on in his mind. Government becomes all-powerful. Man is reduced to below the level of machines. And the whole thing has happened because we have been living for thousands of years in the head.The head cannot think in pictures.The heart cannot understand words.Both are needed – but the heart should be in power and the head should be in service, because love is the ultimate law. No law can be above it.Osho,Is there anything like destiny in life or do we create our future moment to moment?It all depends on you.If you behave mechanically, unconsciously, life has a destiny. Then you are simply following a certain program that your biology, your physiology, your chemistry, your hormones, have given to you. You appear to be free but you are not.And you know – when you fall in love, you know you are not free. It is not your choice. Suddenly you feel you are in love and there is nothing that you can do either to improve upon it or to get away from it. In either case, you will destroy the delicate phenomenon of love. Almost everybody has done that.Either people are trying to do too much…and love is not something that you can do. You can be loving but you cannot be a doer. Loving is a relaxed state of non-doing. You simply are. You cannot increase it; you cannot have more love or less love – it simply happens.In life, everything that is important only happens. Things that you have to do are unimportant things – utilitarian, needed, but not essential to your being.One of the greatest things to learn on the path is to discriminate between these two different worlds: the world of doing and the world of happening. They are all mixed up in your minds.There are things that can only be done – you cannot just wait for existence to do them for you. And there are things that, whatever you do, you are going to fail. Only in your utter failure, when you give up, they happen. They happen from the beyond.A whole man is available to both, to doing and to happening. But remember: whatever you do is momentary; and whatever you do is lower than you, it cannot be higher than you. Action cannot be higher than the doer. And in happening, whatsoever happens is higher than you; it comes upon you from above. It showers on you as if it is a rain of flowers, blessings, benediction.So if a man can sort out that which is doing and that which is happening, his life will have a clarity, a great intelligence, and a tremendous possibility of fulfillment. As you move toward happening, words will start disappearing. Pictures, visions, colors that you have never seen, fragrances that are unknown to you….In doing, pictures are not needed, so pictures slowly, slowly disappear from the conscious mind. They start living in the underground, in the unconscious mind. That’s why there are no words in your dreams. In your dreams, there are pictures. Those pictures are saying something but you have forgotten the language. You cannot interpret your own dream; you have to find a psychoanalyst, and that too is pure guesswork.If you go to a few psychoanalysts, analytical psychologists… psychosynthesis – and there are hundreds of schools of therapies – you will be amazed that they all interpret your dream in different ways, almost contrary to each other. And your dream cannot have so many meanings – your dream has only one meaning, and that one meaning has not been possible to discover through psychoanalysis, because psychoanalysis is basically a thinker’s game, a word game. It is head-oriented.Now, words cannot interpret pictures. What can you do if you see a beautiful sunset, so glorious in color, so silent and everything becoming more and more silent and still? You are enchanted with the beauty, you are overwhelmed, but what can you say about it in words? Just saying “a beautiful sunset” does not carry much meaning. And this sunset is something outside, so everybody knows – even if you say “a beautiful sunset,” something is understood – but about the experiences of the inner world, which will all be pictorial, no word is capable to express them. Hence, beware of words.In silence you will have revelations, not words.You may have colors, you may have light, you may have beautiful darkness. You may have flowers, you may have the silence of the midnight sky. You may have all kinds of experiences, but the moment you start speaking about them, you will find yourself falling dumb. This is a good sign. This is a sign that what is happening to you is true.Osho,The idea of you leaving the body makes me very sad and shaky because even now, I feel wanting but never reaching you completely. Something invisible, untouchable and very beautiful always happens between you and me, but whenever I feel it is there, it is already gone. The joy of these very bright moments creates more and more longing. Then I feel you are the only one who can trigger that process again until I feel really free and flying. I think I have to hurry. Osho, what is the right speed for our meeting? What is needed to make it last forever?It is a beautiful question.First, the right speed to meet me is no speed. Just sitting silently, doing nothing – let the spring come, and I will be there.It is not that you have to go somewhere. It is not an achievement. There is no goal.It is within you.If you want to be acquainted with yourself, you have to learn the simple art of being silent. The moment you are perfectly silent, life goes through a radical change. Beautiful moments come to you even now, but they are only moments – you become aware and they are gone. You always see them going. You always see their backs; they are putting on their shoes.You have to be a little more alert.Events that will be happening to you and to everybody else – you have to be alert to see the face, not the back.Once, Henry Ford was asked: “How did you become so rich?” because he was born a poor man and became the richest man in the world.He said, “Very simple. I never missed any opportunity.”Those people said, “That kind of wisdom everybody knows, but the problem is how to recognize that this is opportunity? In our lives, by the time we recognize it, it is gone.”In fact, you have to recognize before it has come. You have to be a little prophetic, you have to be a little predictive. You have to see a little ahead, what is going to happen, so that you can be ready.But the future remains unknown. You become aware of something only when it has become present. This is a very difficult and tough situation. By the time you can grab hold of it, it is gone, and you cannot bring any moment back.Henry Ford said, “My method is different. My method is to go on jogging continuously so whenever the opportunity comes, you simply jump on top of it – but keep on jogging because one never knows. It is a little difficult, but it has worked for me. I hope it can work for you.”The man said, “But it looks crazy – the whole time jogging!”Ford said, “I don’t know any other method.”What he’s saying is of some great value. He simply means you have to be very alert, as if your life is in danger.A Hindu priest was tired of a man – not because he was creating any trouble for him, but because he was so obedient and was such a perfectionist that he was doing everything the Hindu monk was saying to do and nothing was happening. With others, it was easy – the monk could tell them, “You are not doing it rightly. You are not doing it totally; you are half-half, wishy-washy.” But he could not say that to this man – he was so total, and he had never said no to anything.Finally, the monk said to him, that “I am getting old and I’m sorry that I have not been helpful to you. You have to move to another master. Just one thing you should remember; this is my present to you: you have been such a rare disciple, that nothing else matters. What matters is your depth of awareness. If you are fully aware, you can change everything. Once something has happened, it has happened; you cannot do anything. If it has not happened, you are still the master. You can move it in any direction; give it any mold, any meaning – but only before it has happened. You have to be ready.”Painters are continuously ready for the moment when something will strike their intelligence, will open a door, a vision. Poets are continuously aware of when something clicks in them and they become silent and the beyond starts raining on them. All creative people are aware that only during moments of awareness, creativity happens. When you are not aware, you cannot create – you are just a driftwood.The question about destiny, I said, depends on you. If you are living a somnambulistic life, almost asleep, then your life is predictable, because you are not using consciousness. You are being dominated by unconscious forces within you, and those forces don’t have eyes – those forces are blind.It is because of this that there are things like astrology, palmistry, the I Ching, and a thousand other methods and scriptures. They depend on your mechanicalness.Only a machine is reliable. A man, because he is conscious, can choose any moment a different direction, can choose to be something else than what the astrologers have predicted.I was in Jaipur, and one famous astrologer there…he was the astrologer of the Maharaja of Jaipur, and I was staying in the Maharaja’s palace. The Maharaja was very curious and wanted his astrologer to look at my hand.His astrologer came, of course with great expectations of receiving a good reward. Before putting my hand into his hand, I asked him: “Are you aware, what kind of man you are going to encounter?”He said, “Of course, I am aware.”He looked into my hand. He worked out some charts, some arithmetic for half an hour, and then he was going to say what he had found.I said, “Before you say anything, I want to say one thing to you: I will not give you any money because I think this is all nonsense. You are predicting my future and you don’t know your future: that this man is not going to give you a single rupee. You should have let go of my hand, knowing that ‘this man is not going to give me a single rupee.’ That would have proved to me that there must be some validity in astrology, in palmistry. But you missed the chance. Next time, when I come again….”Any action done unconsciously is a mechanical act, done under mechanical laws. Then you have destiny.Any action done with consciousness is beyond the powers of mechanical, robot-like functioning. Any act done with alertness is beyond the powers of destiny. And that’s why we call the man who is enlightened, liberated – liberated from the chains of destiny.Osho,Listening to you has changed. I used to remember what you say; the words were important. Now I cannot follow anymore. I feel like a child whose daddy is talking to some visitors in a cozy atmosphere and I am sitting at his side – contented, at home, no excitement, but everything is as it should be. No needs, no questions. Is this childish, Osho? Am I missing some insight given in your words?No. You are not missing anything, because I am not in my words.I am just around my words. Go on throwing my words away and collecting the nothingness that surrounds my words.Collect that music. Collect that hum.You will become more and more like a child. The day you have become completely, entirely a child – that means you don’t even remember that you are a child – you simply are. When innocence has reached its peak, the purpose of existence in you is fulfilled.You were born a child; that’s the way God has sent you into the world. You should go back more innocent than you came, more beautiful than you came, more silent, more ecstatic, more divine.Your life is a preparation for meeting the ultimate, and only a child is capable of meeting the ultimate. His truthfulness….Remember one thing: even qualities are different. An old man may use truth in such a way that it harms somebody; he has been following his religion to be truthful, but a cunning man is a cunning man. He will speak the truth when it harms somebody; he will remain silent if that harms somebody.But the real criterion of a value is the ultimate flowering. A cunning man cannot flower. His cunningness is almost like a poison that he’s taking slowly, slowly and committing suicide.One woman had been out for two days with a friend who was sick. When she came back home her little boy ran toward the door and said, “Mom!” He was very much excited. “I have a surprise for you.”She pulled him aside and asked, “What is the surprise?”He said, “The other day I was playing in your bedroom, inside the closet, when suddenly Daddy came in with the woman next door. Afraid of being caught, I stayed, breathing as slowly as possible but also looking from the keyhole at what was happening. Something was certainly happening. They undressed!”The mother said, “What? Say it just in my ear – undressed?”He said, “Yes, they undressed – both. Not only that, they jumped into your bed and Pop was on top of the woman.”The woman said, “You wait. Just you wait, not a single word more. Just wait. Let that son-of-a-bitch, your father, come home. And when he comes, the first thing is that you have to relate the whole thing you have told me, word by word.”Finally the father came, and they were waiting at the door. The mother said to the boy, “I have packed everything,” and to the husband, “I am leaving you. But before leaving you, I want you to hear what the boy has to say.”The boy said, “I was playing in your bedroom, in the closet. Daddy came in with a neighborhood woman. They undressed. They both went into your bed. Daddy was on top – and Mom, they were doing exactly the same thing you did last year with Uncle John when father went for a holiday! I don’t know exactly the name,” he said, “of what they were doing, but you must know, because I’ve seen you doing the same thing from the same closet where I used to play. Playing is just an excuse; that’s the place from where I see great dramas.”The moment you become innocent, you have found a direct line to the divine. Your heartbeat synchronizes with the heartbeat of the universe.The world may condemn you as mad – don’t be worried about the world. What you have to be always concerned about is what is happening within you. Blissfulness, peace, silence, tranquillity…ecstasy, an invisible dance in your energy. A song without words all over your body…every fiber of your body participating in it, as if in an orchestra. If you feel this, you are right – against the whole world.You have to learn one simple thing: blissfulness is the criterion of your sanity. Miserableness shows your madness.Osho,While I was sitting quietly this morning, an overwhelming feeling of not knowing when I am, where I am, or what was happening, overcame me. While feeling so lost, you appeared as a guiding light in my heart, not saying anything, just being with me. With tear-filled eyes, I felt a happiness I have never known before. Osho, can you please comment?Searching for the truth, seeking the eternal life, you will find many moments which are unbelievable. Even though you are in those moments, completely soaked – still the moment and its beauty is such, its golden glory is such that it seems too good to be true, and it is too good because it is too true.Many people have lost their path, stuck in a kind of fear. Anything overwhelming, like a great cloud surrounding you – if you don’t know that it is a friend, you are going to be so much afraid that you won’t allow the same experience to happen again.Remember that every experience on the path, in the beginning is a great shock. Your very roots are shaken. Whatever you have believed to be true is no longer true. Whatever you have been thinking of as real, is dream stuff, and whatever you have never thought about seems to be the ultimate reality. The change is so much and so quick, that it is natural for human beings to be afraid. But the fear is only because you are ignorant of the experience.These are the moments when the master is needed to say to you that the overwhelming cloud of unknowing, of innocence, is a good sign, is indicative that greater things are going to happen. It shows that you are on the right path.And you have to learn not to feel a stranger in a situation which is unknown to you, because now every day more and more unknown will open itself to you. That too, is a training for a further and final step: the unknowable.Everything is very systematic. There is no chaos inside you. If you can pass one step, you will necessarily reach the second step.The second step is going to be even bigger, because you will be melting into the unknowable. In the unknowable you cannot remain separate. You can have a separate flame of light, but in the roots you will be joined with the whole. Only the flame will be free, but in the roots you will be universal.And the question of freedom is meaningless, because there is no one except you in the world. It is only you – in different faces, in different eyes, in different people, in birds, in animals, in trees. It is your consciousness.And unless one knows that he is the whole, he is not religious. He has not touched the nectar which makes him an immortal, which makes him a god, part of the innermost reality of existence.We have only forgotten.Nothing is lost – nothing can be lost; it is your very nature.That overwhelming experience was not coming from outside, it was your own fragrance. Because you cannot see it, you felt it as outside yourself. It was your own joy, your own peace, your own silence that was radiating.It takes a little time to be acquainted with the inner territory of your being. But once you are acquainted with it, you have found the center of the world.One great scientist, Archimedes, used to say: “If I can find the center of the world, I can revolutionize the whole existence.” Unfortunately, it is very difficult now to find out where Archimedes is. Otherwise, his only fault was that he was looking outside for the center of the world, and the center is within him.Your religion, your temple, your God, your holy book – all are within you. Go without fear.Go with fearlessness. You have nothing to lose, and you have the whole universe to gain.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 20 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I am becoming aware more and more how much I focus on the other, whether it is a friend, a lover, a mountain, or music. One thing remains always the same: the other is a longing within me because without the other, I can never feel complete, reconciled. Osho, who is the other? Is it imaginary?Surabhi, the other is one of the most significant questions to be solved in life. Millions of people with great intelligence have escaped from life, renounced life, just because they could not solve the problem of the other – and these were the giants of humanity.Even in the twentieth century, a man like Jean Paul Sartre could say, “The other is hell.” This assertion is an acceptance of failure: you have not been able to solve the problem; now you are calling names – “the other is hell.” But who are you? – because for others, you are the other.First see the real situation, because any solution that is going to work out has to arise out of the real. The other has become a problem – particularly, the more intimate the relationship is, the more problematic it is. The husband and wife, the children and the parents, the students and the teachers…wherever there are two wings, rather than having a beautiful flight under the stars, your wings are fighting with each other.A man is a failure if he has not come to dissolve the other completely into himself or, in other words, dissolve himself into the other completely. But it has to be complete, entire, total…. If this is not the situation, then people are going to suffer in a hundred and one ways, because they are connected with so many others. And each “other” is a problem for the simple reason that everybody is trying to dominate everybody else.We have been raised as politicians. We have been filled with ambitions, desires – to possess, to become powerful, to have as much money as you desire, as you dream of. These are the problems, not the other – the other only reflects your problems because he’s so intimate and close by.The husband, if he is a human being, should stop calling himself a “husband.” A wife, if she understands, should stop calling herself a “wife.” More than friendship, you are bound to fall into a ditch; more than friendship, it becomes a bondage. Then both are fighting tooth and nail, directly and indirectly, with a single aim: to dominate the other, to reduce the other to the status of second. It is not possible. If it were possible, people would have solved the problem – although the solution would not have brought blessings. It would have stopped the continuous fight for monopoloy – although even if the fight stops, you will not be blissful. You will be almost dead, sad. At least before, there were excuses for your fight; now even those excuses are gone.The very word husband is ugly; it means a farmer. It was thought that the man is the farmer and the woman is the earth, so he sows his seeds in the woman and she goes on reproducing. He created the myth that he is the real producer, the farmer; and he pushed the woman – who is the real creative force – to a status that is almost to the point where it becomes inhuman and starts hurting.In many countries, the woman has never been given voting rights. In many countries, the woman is not accepted as having a soul; she is just to serve nature. In almost all countries, the woman is not expected to enter certain temples, certain sacred holy places, because she is unholy.For thousands of years continuously, the woman has been crippled, crushed, exploited – almost murdered. And yet, she is still the backbone of humanity. Without her, there is no humanity. Without man, there is a possibility for humanity to exist, because the function of man biologically is negligible. It is the function of a doctor’s syringe. And the syringe can do it more hygienically than you could ever do it.This situation for thousands of years has gathered too much revolt in the unconscious of the woman. That revolt comes out in small matters – in nagging, in fighting. The matters are almost immaterial, and people are continuously fighting for them. It seems the fighting is material. They need any excuse to fight, it doesn’t matter what the excuse is.It is a painful stage, because half of humanity is not even accepted as human.The remaining half cannot be free, either.One Sufi mystic, Junnaid, was going to the mosque with his disciples. On the road, they saw a man who was trying to move his cow. It was apparent, clear that the man was absolutely new at the job. He was doing hard work, pulling the cow with the rope, but the cow was stronger. She was backward. He would manage somehow to pull her one foot, and she would back up two feet.Junnaid and his disciples stood there…because that was the method of Junnaid, to use actual situations in life for teaching. He said, “This man has done no harm to the cow. He is taking her home, where food will be ready, shelter will be ready; a cozier, warmer place will be ready – but why is the cow reluctant? Why is she feeling annoyed, irritated, humiliated? Rather than going home with him, she’s fighting!”Junnaid said this to his disciples and the servant who was taking the cow was also listening. Junnaid said, “There is an art that, even in the smallest job like this, is needed. This man has good intentions but has no understanding of how the mind of man or animals functions. He’s creating a reaction. He’s making the cow an enemy.”He said to the man: “This is not the way. You are new; you just stand aside and I will show you what has to be done.”And he went into his house, brought out a bundle of green grass, and just walked ahead of the cow – not even a rope on the neck of the cow. He simply walked. Sometimes he went slowly, and when the cow would come too close he would go fast, almost running. The cow would start running.When he came back, he said, “This is the situation of every human being. Society has created so many reactionary attitudes that he goes on doing things which are harmful to himself, and he goes on doing them the wrong way.”Each relationship first has to be based not on the choice of the parents, not by the situation of the stars when you were born, not by the lines of your hand…and there is no writing on your forehead! You come into the world completely clean, unburdened, ready to learn. You come with a self-respect. If your self-respect is crushed, your whole joy in learning and living and loving disappears.Women have lost the joy of life, and man is responsible for it. And he has already suffered, because if the woman is miserable, in suffering, the man cannot be blissful – it is impossible.The woman is spread all over the house; she is the home. Without her, you cannot call it home, it remains only a house. It is the woman, with her song and dance and love, who transforms the quality of the house. From a material thing, it becomes something romantic, something poetic, something spiritual. It becomes, if everything goes right, a Kaaba, a Mecca, a holy land.But things start going wrong. Perhaps they are wrong from the very beginning. Already when you meet a woman, you are wrong; the woman is wrong – both have been taught all kinds of superstitions and stupidities. Both have lived in a family, in a society, in a crowd which is almost insane. So naturally, one starts accepting one’s life and its hell. One becomes tolerant, patient. One drops all great hopes of living in a beautiful way. One forgets all utopias. One accepts the desert of a life with not a single flower in it, not a single bird in it, not a single green plant in it.But man is capable of adjusting to any situation. That is one of the great qualities in man. There is only one competitor, and that is the cockroach. She has the same qualities of surviving in any situation, anywhere. You may understand or you may not understand, but you are cousins, because wherever man is found, the cockroach is found. And wherever you can find a cockroach, man is not far away. This partnership in life is millions of years old, and scientists say perhaps it will remain forever, because something in their nature is similar.I don’t know much about cockroaches, but I know much about man and I agree: there must be much which is similar. I am saying it from the side of man. Those who understand cockroaches can say it from the side of cockroaches.A man grows with dreams. He has a vision of his future, his life, the way he wants to live. But once he has found a woman…the woman also has her own dreams, her own hopes. The first problem is, their dreams and their hopes clash; they are not the same. They cannot be the same, they are two different individuals.Now, to keep peace, there are only two possibilities: either one becomes so dominant, so threatening, that the other simply becomes, out of fear, enslaved…that’s what has happened with women. The other way is to see the situation and to change it completely.Our life is valuable and it is not to be wasted. And if you try to understand your life and the problems that arise with the other, you will find it hilarious, because all your problems are so tiny that to fight for them is possible only if you have a retarded head.If the man has the right to fulfill his dreams, the woman has also the same right to fulfill her dreams. And when you have decided to be together, now it becomes something of a sacred duty to be careful that you don’t trample on the dreams of the other.Nothing hurts more than when a dream is crushed, when a hope dies, when the future becomes dark, when all the great ideas that you have been thinking your life to be made of seem to be impossible because this woman, or this man, is continuously destroying your mood, destroying your peace, destroying your silence. And when these things are destroyed, you cannot be creative. You can only be destructive, you can only be violent.Life has immense treasures, which remain unknown to people because they don’t have time. Their whole time is engaged in some kind of fight with someone – the other. The other contains the whole world. And the greatest calamity that happens is that when you are fighting with the other, you slowly, slowly forget yourself. Your whole focus becomes the other, and when the focus becomes the other, you are lost. Then when are you going to remember yourself? When are you going to find your innermost source of life? When you are going to search for beauty and truth and poetry and art? You will miss everything, just quarreling with a woman or with a man! Are you together to quarrel? Perhaps…because to be alone and without anybody to fight is very difficult.In madhouses, I have seen people fighting with themselves, boxing in the air! I have asked the superintendent, “What is happening?” And he said, “These people used to fight. They were brought into the madhouse thinking that when there was nobody to fight, they would stop fighting. But logic goes one way, life goes another. Instead of stopping fighting, they have started fighting with themselves. Now they don’t need the other. They have divided themselves into two persons: they are themselves and the other.”In a way, in a very roundabout way, they have come very close to reality. Surabhi, your desire for the other, your longing that without the other you will never be complete, is absolutely true. And this is the insight of every human being; they are all right about this fact: that without the other you are not going to have a feeling of wholeness, of completion, of arriving home. This feeling is all over the world.But why doesn’t it happen? Because man needs a new psychology to understand himself. The old psychology does not give him much understanding.The new psychology will be based on the experiences of a certain, most ancient school – Tantra.There are very few great discoveries in the world. Tantra can claim the greatest discovery. Even after nuclear weapons, Tantra’s discovery has been standing there for ten thousand years unused; an insight of such great value.The insight is that man and woman are not just one – man just man, woman just woman – no. They are both together: man is half man and half woman, and the same is true about women. And this seems to be very logical and very scientific, because every child is born of a father and a mother. The father contributes something, the mother contributes something, and that’s how the child is – a combination, a synthesis between man and woman. If the child is a boy, then the man is on the top and the woman is in the unconscious layers of the mind. If the child is a woman, then the woman is on the top and the man is hidden just underneath.And this is the great contribution of Tantra: that unless the man and woman inside you become one whole, you will remain discontented, with something always missing. And because you always look outside, you feel that feminine qualities are missing; you don’t know that there is a world within you too. You know only one world, and that is outside you.You start looking on the outside, finding a woman or a man who can make a certain organic whole, a unity in your life, so that this constant gap, this something missing, this heavy incompleteness in your being will be removed. You go on looking for women outside, for men outside. But nobody has ever found any woman outside, or any man outside, to fulfill the desire, the longing to become one complete whole.But the basic understanding is right, that somehow man and woman have to merge their energies into one. Just one thing is missing: that miracle can only happen within you, it is not something outside. It is something that as you become silent and peaceful and joyous, as you enter deeper into meditative states, as your intelligence becomes more sharp, you will see: the other that you have been searching for is within you.And there is no problem with the inner woman, with the inner man. Once you recognize them, they start melting into each other without any effort on your part. Just your recognition is enough to trigger the process of merger.Surabhi, you are too young perhaps for this experiment. It needs a certain background of frustration with the other who is outside. When you are utterly frustrated, when you have lost all hope – only then you close your doors and you close your eyes and you go in. Frustration also plays a tremendously valuable part in man’s spiritual growth.But meanwhile, before you meet your inner woman or man, find a man or a woman. You will learn much. This is not going to be the end; all men are experimental for women and all women are experimental for men.Experimenting with a few relationships, you will be mature enough to recognize your own woman or your own man.And that day is the day of great celebration, because you are free from the other. You have found the other within yourself; now there is no need to be dependent on anyone. The man is free, the woman is free – and this does not mean that you cannot love, you cannot have friends on the outside.In fact, now you can very easily have very smooth-going friendships, very beautiful love affairs, because it is no more a necessity for you. As far as you are concerned, you are fulfilled. Now it is not a need such that you have to be dependent.And remember: anybody who is dependent on somebody hates that person. Nobody likes dependence. Even though it is hidden behind the beautiful garb of love, obedience, belief, respect for the ancient, respect for the old, but behind everything is slavery. Once you are free from the slavery of the other, once you can live alone and joyously, you have entered into the world for the first time. Before it, you were only dreaming; now you will be facing the reality.And the reality is just ecstasy. Now you can love, but love will have a totally different quality. It will be simply sharing because you have too much, an abundance, overflowing, and you would like to share it. And sharing is always unconditional. You are not giving it as a deal, as a business. You are not giving it to get something in return – you are simply giving it because your hands are too full. If you don’t give it, it will fall by itself.The day you are capable of sharing love, and being alone and absolutely blissful, the slavery of women is finished. And the bigger slavery of man is finished too.It is strange that women are fighting for liberation and man is just standing, looking awkward. Do something! You also have to become free. A men’s liberation movement is as much a necessity as a women’s liberation movement.In fact, both movements should be two wings of one movement for freedom.Osho,Having read recently several books on the master-disciple relationship, I was struck by the immensity of suffering, physical endurance tests, dark nights of the soul and hardness of training the disciples had to undergo. There seems to be a tradition – regardless of school – of suffering and hardness. Looking at my eleven years with you, Osho, it has been a bed of roses – the ample amount of thorns being provided by my ego only. You certainly are no bullshit, yet so light, delicate, humorous and joyous that I never think of you as a hard master. And even when you were hitting me, you have never been as hard as my conditioning had taught me to be on myself. You seem to prefer, whenever possible, to dissolve and melt the thorns and corns rather than hacking them off. Over and over I have the feeling that I am just starting. My question is: am I just extremely slow and insensitive and are the really tough times still to come? Or, have you created a way of working with us which is very different from the ways other masters and enlightened beings used to work with their disciples?There is no need to fear, because no hard days are ahead; the hard days are behind.The masters in the past were working on their disciples, but at the same time they were making every effort so that their teachings, their disciples, their lifestyles, didn’t come in conflict with the old society, with the old religion, with the conventions.The journey to truth becomes very difficult if you are prepared to live a life which is unnatural. Truth is simply the experience of the purest nature. But if you are trained from the very beginning to be unnatural, then by the time you start your search for truth, you are in a dilemma: if you follow truth, you are going against your conditioning. And that is very difficult, because your conditioning is the conditioning of your society.If you follow truth without any fear of the consequences, then you will be crucified; then you will be given poison, like Socrates. Seeing this, most of the people forget all about truth. It seems to be very abstract, and the troubles and the antagonism of the society seem to be very real.Very few people have the courage to go after truth even if life is in danger, because truth is a higher value than life. Truth means eternal life.All the old religions have tried to make the path of the pilgrim as arduous as possible. Their whole scholarship has been devoted to a single point: that the path to truth should be very roundabout, full of difficulties, dark nights of the soul, ups and downs which drive you crazy. And you are alone. The society, the crowd, which has been a shelter for you – a subtle shelter which you may not have noted – the very feeling that so many people…”seven hundred million Catholics are with me”…one starts feeling that seven hundred million people, for two thousand years, cannot be wrong. The weight of tradition, the weight of time, the weight of conventions, the weight of your conditioning, is so heavy that to drop it, one feels afraid. You will be cut off from the society, from the parents, from the family. You will not be getting any more warmth from people; on the contrary, they will all become cold. They will suspect that you have gone crazy; they may even say it to you.Why has this been done? because I see that the path to truth is just a single step. There is no question of any arduousness, any austerities, because they are absolutely irrelevant. You are fasting – what has your fasting to do with truth? Your fasting has nothing to do with love. Your fasting will not make you a better man, because your fasting is a psychological sickness, it is masochism. You are enjoying torturing yourself. And once a person starts enjoying torturing himself, it is very difficult to pull him out of the sickness in which he is caught. When somebody tortures somebody else, naturally, the other person defends himself, fights, and the whole society condemns it: “Why did you attack the person?” The police are there, the lawyers are there, the court is there, so that nobody is harmed.The man who tortures himself is full of violence, but he starts attacking himself. One finds wonders and wonders in the history of man. I have been looking into books of law and books about laws and their evolution and I was surprised: there is not a single law that prevents a man from torturing himself. It is strange, because it does not matter who you are torturing – torture is torture. Whether I am torturing you or I am torturing myself, in the eyes of the law we should be equally criminal.In fact, I am a greater criminal because I am torturing my own body which is dumb, cannot say anything, cannot go to the police station to report against me, cannot go to the court to appeal.On the contrary, the more I torture myself in the name of religion, the more people worship me. That’s how your saints are manufactured. These people are psychologically sick people, but they are worshipped by the society. They are part of the society, they support everything of the society. They support the whole past, without exception – remember my words: without exception. And they are not only saying those things, they are practicing those things.People have the maxim that “Whatever you say, do it!” And the saints are doing things which look almost impossible to you. To avoid the feeling that you are inferior…just watch the delicate strategy of the mind. To avoid the fact of feeling yourself as inferior, you have raised these people to incarnations of God, sons of God, messengers of God; they are not ordinary human beings.Do you understand the strategy? The strategy is that man is saying, “If we cannot do such things – lying down on a thorn bed, fasting for months, standing naked for years, not sitting, not sleeping”…because you cannot do it you certainly feel these people are superior. And as you respect them more, as you worship them more, and you call them saints and divine, their ego becomes bigger and bigger.They enjoy only one thing: their ego. And they start torturing themselves more and more because they see that the more they torture, the more respectable they become. They are becoming almost part of history.Sick people have ruled over humanity.Politicians are sick because they are nothing but the will to power – and the very idea of having power over somebody is mean, and it happens only in a very sick mind.The religious saints are sick people – they are masochists, they are torturing themselves, and they are receiving so much respect and honor that they are ready to torture themselves as much as possible. Here, the ego is fulfilled – and in the other world God is waiting, with all the pleasures for them.I am not a part of this old company of dodos. I am not psychologically sick. I have never felt myself inferior because I have never compared myself to anyone. I have never felt myself superior for the same reason. You can feel superior and inferior only when you compare. But how can I compare? I don’t see another person who is like me. I see every person as unique. And if every person is unique then there is no question of comparison; then there is no question of equality either.These people who have been torturing themselves…naturally, the question arises in your mind: with me, there is no self-torture. You are not told to stay awake for nights together, you are not told not to eat for weeks together, you are not given any discipline, any certain character.I cannot impose any character or discipline on you. I am not your enemy. I can only help your being to blossom. And unless it blossoms, we don’t know whether it is a rose or a lotus. We will have to wait and see when it blossoms.In the past, nobody had the patience to wait and see what happens when a person blossoms. They were all trying to force things – with all good wishes, but they have created this crippled humanity. Nobody is blossoming because nobody is accepted in his nature, whatever it is. You are told how you have to be to be accepted, to be respected, to be honorable in this society – how you have to be.But then, you may be the chief justice of the Supreme Court or the president or the prime minister, but you will never be happy. You will never smile with the heart, you will not have the quality of laughter and love and life. You can have all the money in the world and all the power in the world and still you will be only a beggar.My effort here is totally different: I want you to be just yourself, and allow your hidden treasures to surface. It will be a surprise to others and it will be a surprise to you, too. And one of the most significant things is that whatever you have brought to the world, nobody else has brought and nobody else will bring it again.It is the only worship which I can call religious – that whatever you have brought in your being, make sure that it blossoms, and you can shower those flowers in deep gratitude to existence. You have prayed, you have worshipped – remember, just once and it is enough.Three or four hundred years ago, there was a great grammarian…. And Sanskrit is absolute grammar – it is just mathematics. There is no other science, no other language which can claim such qualities. It is very flexible. One word may have twelve meanings. Because it is so flexible, the flexibility gives it a potentiality for being the best language for poetry, because poetry needs a flexibility of meanings, vagueness of meanings.Very solid meanings can only make prose.Sanskrit has the perfect grammar because for five thousand years at least, scholars have not been able to find any loophole, any way to improve upon it.The grammarian looks at the same poem with a different eye than you look at it. And when a musician looks at it, he looks at it from a very different angle. If a dancer looks at it…certainly their visions cannot coincide.Each individual has a unique individuality.Once this is accepted, you will be able to be compassionate, to be human.Whenever you are looking at the other, you will not be judgmental. Jean Paul Sartre is, when he says the other is hell. If you have experienced your inner, orgasmic unity, you may even say that the other is the door to the divine.It all depends on you.Osho,Am I a hypochondriac? I'm also worried about my sex life in old age.Milarepa, you are a hypochondriac!Just now you are not here because others in your bungalow have a cold. You are a very superior category of hypochondriac because I have heard about hypochondriacs who are continually having this trouble and that trouble. But I have never heard that just because others have a cold…what are you doing there?He has raised a significant question, because hypnotherapy has come to the conclusion that thirty-three percent of people are very vulnerable, very suggestible. Thirty-three percent is not a small percentage – it is one-third of all the masses. One person in three is suggestible: somebody just says that you are looking very pale. You deny it immediately because you are not looking pale. You have seen in the mirror; you are not looking pale. You have met many people; nobody has mentioned it – this guy seems to be strange. You say to the person, “Perhaps you are suffering from jaundice, I am not pale. I am perfectly healthy.”The man says, “It is up to you. If you are feeling perfectly healthy, there is no problem,” but he goes on looking back and starts creating doubts. Perhaps others did not say anything out of politeness.And then another man comes and he looks and he says, “My God! What happened? You look like a ghost.” Now you don’t have the same courage to deny it, to say, “I am perfectly good; something must be wrong with you.” That courage is gone.Now you say, “Yes, I have not been feeling well for a few days…looking pale. I think I must go home and not to the office, because if I am looking like a ghost….”The man says, “I will call a taxi, don’t walk. Or if you are feeling too much difficulty, I can phone for an ambulance.”And you say, “That will be better; an ambulance will be better, because it seems I am at the last stage. Looking like a ghost and being a ghost is not very much different. You just call an ambulance because going home looking like a ghost…what will the children think? What will my wife think? It is better in the hospital, and if I can manage just to give some baksheesh to the doctors and to the nurses and to the pharmacist…”And they all go on emphasizing: “You are finished!” And then the doctor says, “Listen, nothing can be done now; you are dead.”“I am dead? and I did not even feel it when I died.”The doctor says, “Nobody feels it.”You say, “Then where am I to go from here?”The doctor says, “That is not my business. You go to the temple that is just nearby here and ask the priest where to go now. You are dead.”You go two, three steps, and think again: “Dead? And I am walking!”You come back, you say, “Listen, I want a second opinion. Is there another doctor in the hospital?”They say, “There are many; you can have as many opinions as you want. But about you, there is no problem. It is very simple: You are dead! Now, no sickness is possible for you, no infection, no tuberculosis, no cancer, not even death is possible. Everything has happened!”You ask the other doctor but they are all ready, so the other doctor looks at you and tries to escape from the room.“Where are you going?”The other doctor says, “Listen. I am not an expert about ghosts. You have come to the wrong place. You go to some other doctor. Find out from the inquiry office, who the doctor is who deals with ghosts.”You say, “My God! I have never heard that in any hospital there is a department that deals with ghosts. I think it is better that I go to the priest and ask, ‘Now show me the way: where is hell, where is heaven and where am I supposed to go? – some address? some phone number?’”Thirty-three percent of his people are that type. Any disease, any epidemic and these thirty-three percent are the first to catch hold of it. They can’t miss. These thirty-three percent of people are continuously having diseases, illnesses, and they are torturing doctors all over the world because you cannot cure them. They don’t have any disease, so the question of curing them simply does not arise. And every doctor becomes fed up, because they go on and on…somehow you manage one disease and another disease starts….There are many “pathies” in the world: allopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture; Chinese medicine and Greek medicine; ayurveda, Indian medicine, and they all work. I was puzzled…all cannot work; because their prognosis is different, their medicines are different.Still, every medicine succeeds with seventy percent of people. It is a shock that allopathy also succeeds only with seventy percent; homeopathy also succeeds only with seventy percent.It has been found that seventy percent of illnesses are only in the head. They don’t have anything to do with your physiology, with your biology, with your reality. They are hallucinations. But once you have them, once it has been emphasized again and again, then you are going to suffer.There are millions of hypochondriacs. They need all these medicines and they need all the miracle mongers because ordinary allopathy, which is the only scientific medicine, cannot help them. They don’t have a real disease. They need as imaginary a medicine as their disease is imaginary.Milarepa, it is not only you, but almost everybody who suffers once in a while from imaginary sicknesses.In my university, I had one student with me who had been in the same class for almost five years. I said to him, “It is too long and the course is too short.”He said, “What to do? I am constantly sick – and particularly at the time of the examination, I always fall sick.”And when examination time came, he fell sick.I went to the warden and I said, “This sickness seems to be just in his mind, because for five years he has been falling sick exactly on the date the examination begins. And I don’t say that he is befooling anybody or that he’s trying to cheat. He’s really sick. If you show him to a doctor, he will find that he has fever, and that is enough proof. But for five years, exactly on the same day as the examination begins…. Yesterday he was perfectly okay, and now he’s suffering from fever.”“I don’t believe in this fever,” I said to the warden, “and I don’t want the doctor to be called. I am going to treat him. The doctors have treated him for five years, and what is the result?”The old man said, “But you may put me into difficulty sooner or later, because if it is known that I have allowed you to treat him…. You are not a doctor – you are not even a student of medical science.”I said, “I am not a doctor and I am not a student of medical science, but I know man. And this disease is not a disease, this is only imagination. So you don’t be worried. If we have to go to the court, I will manage to fight the case, so don’t be worried. I am not treating the disease, I am treating the man; nobody can prevent me from that. And I am treating only an illusion. Is this criminal?”That old man slipped away. He thought, “It is better to go from this place so nobody else sees him.”I gave the boy a good cold bath. He shouted, he tried to escape, but I said, “You are too sick, you cannot. You just get into the bathtub.”He said, “What are you doing? By morning I will be finished!”I said, “By morning you will be in the examination hall.”He said, “But what about today’s paper?”I said, “I will manage everything, don’t be worried. First, you get better. Either you get better, or you get into the bathtub.”It was ice cold. He touched it and he took his finger out. He said, “I think it’s better I should leave this fever.”I said, “It is up to you; I have no preference. You can forget the fever and go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, go to the examination. I am going to the vice-chancellor to make arrangements for the one paper you have missed, so that this paper can be arranged at the end.”I told the vice-chancellor, “Five years is long enough. Now don’t do anything that will force him to remain in the same class.”The vice-chancellor agreed. He said, “I was worried how it was going to happen, because every examination he is sick. I was always wondering how to get rid of him, and you have brought a beautiful plan. So he’s not getting into the bathtub?”I said, “He’s not getting in.”He asked me, “Do you need some ice cubes?”I said, “That’s a good idea! You send some.”When I was pouring the ice cubes in, the boy asked, “What are you doing?”I said, “Preparing your whole night’s rest in the bathtub.”He said, “I will die!”I said, “You are ready to die but you are not ready to drop your fever?”He said, “I have dropped it – just look! When you were gone, I tried a few times, dipped my hand into the water…it is too much! It is better to drop the fever. I don’t have any fever.”I said, “Do you have any other disease?”He said, “What do you mean by other disease?”I said, “I mean the same treatment. I’m not interested in your diseases – my treatment! I am determined to send you tomorrow morning to the examination, so if any disease happens, this is the cure!”He said, “No, no disease will happen.” And then he told me, “It is the fear of the examination” – he becomes paranoid, he starts having fever. “Now you have created a more dangerous thing.” So now he will go to the examination. He cannot remain in this bathtub for a whole night. He will die. Certainly, he will die. “And I am too young,” he said. “This is not the time for me to die.”I said, “This is time for you to pass the examination!”Seventy percent of sicknesses can be cured by anybody who has your trust. It is your trust that cures. Only thirty percent of diseases – which are true diseases – need medicine, need surgery. Seventy percent simply need a doctor you trust.One thing not to be forgotten: your sicknesses, your failures in life, your undeveloped intelligence, your messed up situation about everything is simply your doing.If you can understand just a simple thing: your life has an abundance of energy. You only need to know how to provoke that energy to function in your favor, how to make that energy a dance, not a destructive lifestyle.Meditating, watching your mind, you can get free of much that is only your imagination. The moment you are aware inside, no imagination can survive. It is bound to die.And Milarepa, the second question you are asking…before I answer the second, I have remembered a small incident.A doctor was tortured by a hypochondriac, more so because he was very rich and he could not say to him, “Get lost!” For months he was treating him, but he could not find any sickness. But now it was becoming boring and the man was there every day.Finally, the doctor decided to bring things to a head – something has to be done, because this is not going to be a lifelong boring relationship with this man. So when the rich man came in, he asked, “Is there some trouble?”He said, “Some? There are many, because they go on increasing and you have not been able to treat any.”The doctor said, “I have found the treatment. See that cup there? Urinate in it.”The man looked around…because there were other patients, nurses, doctors…but what to do? If the doctor says…. He closed his eyes and urinated, somehow managed. And he was feeling very happy. At least he had done it!The doctor said, “Now defecate in the same cup.”It was a little difficult, but he did that too.And the doctor took a wooden ladle out of the drawer, mixed the concoction in the cup, and told to the man: “Open your mouth.”The man said, “My God! For what?”He said, “Don’t speak! Just open your mouth!”And he poured the whole cup into his mouth. The man vomited.The doctor said, “Ah ha! So now we know what the disease is! Upset stomach! For six months I have been trying and trying to find out what the disease is. Now there is no problem, you will be cured. Your medicine is ready.”The man said, “Now there is no need of any medicine. That shock was so much that I cannot afford to be sick anymore. You can keep your medicine for somebody else. But I have never heard,” the rich man said, “that this kind of concoction is made.”The doctor said, “Finally, for a hypochondriac, that is the only medicine.”So Milarepa, be aware!The second question is: you are worried about your sex life in old age. First, I will tell you one story.And old man, must have been nearabout eighty-five years old, entered a reception room and said to the girl, with trembling hands: “Is this not Joe’s Famous Mustang Ranch?”The woman at the counter said, “Yes. What do you want? What are you looking for?”He said, “Isn’t this the place which has fifty beautiful girls, ready and able?”The woman could not understand what…she said, “I don’t understand. What do you want exactly?”He said, “You don’t understand what I want? I want a girl! I wanna be laid.”The woman could not believe it. She said to the old man, “Pop, how old are you?”He said, “How old? Must be eighty-five.”The woman said, “Pop, you have had it.”The old man said, “Had it? My God! So quick?”And he pulled out his wallet with trembling fingers….I can imagine Milarepa opening his wallet, asking the woman, “How much do I owe you?”In old age, Milarepa, you will forget all this nonsense – long before old age.People who are with me are going to become, before old age, mature enough so that sex becomes to them just a wastage. And the people who are meditating…their sexual energy starts moving in new dimensions. Up to old age, do you want to remain stuck where you are? If you go on growing, by the time you are eighty-five, you will have forgotten all about sex.People remember sex in their old age only if while they were young, their sexual urge was inhibited.About another old man, I have heard that he went to his doctor and said, “You have to do something now. You have to bring my sexual urge a little lower.”The doctor said, “There is no sexual urge, nothing. It is all in your mind.”The old man said, “That’s what I mean! Bring it a little lower – what the hell is it doing in the head?”Either you remain in the dark bondage of biological energies…then sex continues to the very last breath. The last idea in most people when they die is of sex, and that is the great contribution your society has made to you!The last moments should be of peace, it should be of remembrance of one’s own being. It should be of a deep experience with existence, so that death does not look like death but only a changing of the house.And Milarepa’s sex urge will disappear soon, so be quick! But don’t complain to me later on that I did not warn you. Be quick! Your sexual urge will be gone nearabout the age of forty-two.If you want the exact date, I can give it to you.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 21 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Who was the master who discovered or invented the latihan meditation technique? Would you like explain this meditation technique?Latihan is a unique method – unique in the sense that it is the only method that has come out of this century, and unique also because it happened to a man who was not searching for truth, who was not a seeker. It is also unique in that it has no parallel in any old methods of meditation.Latihan was found by a Mohammedan in Indonesia, Bapak Subud. He was not in any way involved with the other world, with life beyond death, or with life herenow. He was just chopping wood on his farm and suddenly it happened: his ax fell from his hands and he started to make gestures, postures which he had never done. He himself could not believe what he was doing and why, but the force was so tremendous that in spite of himself, he had to do it.He went into something almost like a dynamic meditation – shouting, running, jumping, just a pure play of energy for no reason at all.And then he fell into a deep silence, the deepest he had ever dreamt of, and when he woke up in the afternoon, just three or four hours afterward, he was totally a new man. That happening changed him. He was no more a Mohammedan, he was no more his old personality, his old self.He started teaching his close friends. To whomsoever he said this was a meditation, they laughed. But his intimate circle of friends were persuaded by him…”At least you should give it a try.”A few tried, a few succeeded – and this happened just thirty years ago.After the experience, one feels utterly relaxed, no tensions in the mind, no tensions in the body. And a great joy arises from your interiority, not dependent on anything outside you. You are for the first time a universe unto yourself. For your happiness, for your joy, you are no longer dependent. You alone can live on a deserted star, joyously.Slowly, latihan became a world movement. But there were a few basic flaws in it; hence, the movement has disappeared – like a fashion that has come in vogue and now it seems to be some historical fact – and it has happened just within these thirty years.First, Bapak Subud could not explain it, or why it happened to him. He was not religious, he was not philosophical, he was not interested in the esoteric side of life. The mysteries of life had never been a challenge to him. He was a very earthly man. He simply said, “It descended upon me from beyond. I don’t know why – I have no explanation for why I was chosen.”But because it happened to a man who knew nothing about meditations, who never meditated – at least according to his conscious memory – it was natural that the method, the technique, must have some weaknesses, some loopholes. It is not a device created by a master; it is a very accidental thing.Mohammedans cannot explain it for the simple reason that Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews don’t believe in a series of lives; they believe only in one life. That cuts their wings, that cuts their time, and there are many things they cannot go into because of their religious conditioning. The past life does not exist; hence, to go into it for an explanation will be absurd – where are you going, there is no past life! And the wonder is, they don’t have another answer. Why should it happen to Bapak Subud who has no qualifications at all?The only explanation is in his past lives. Past lives and the theory of rebirth is not just a philosophical hypothesis in the East – it is based on the experience of thousands of years, because there were happenings which were impossible to explain without the hypothesis of a past life.Bapak Subud may not have any religious qualities but he must have worked upon himself, his consciousness, in some past life. He must have come to a point very close to the goal. But unless you achieve something, when your death occurs all that you have learned will have to be learned from ABC. But if something has matured in you, if meditation has not been an abortion in you but you have given birth to yourself, then let death come. Your consciousness will carry the work on yourself from where you are leaving in this life, and you will remember it.The method of latihan is simple: you have to stand in a room, just to stand loose as if you are just a coat hanging on the wall, so relaxed. And wait. You are not supposed to do anything, you have simply to wait. Things start happening to most people. Hands start moving, somebody starts rotating his head, somebody starts jogging, somebody starts dancing.Somebody starts singing. Somebody starts speaking gibberish, a language that does not exist.After half an hour, they lie down and just rest – the exertion is great. They do latihan sessions twice a week, at the most thrice a week. It is a catharsis. You throw out all kinds of anger, jealousy, greed – all the muck that you are full of, you start throwing it away – and when you come out of latihan, you are clean; you feel the freshness of the early morning, the crispness of the air. Not only has it refreshed you, renewed you, it has given you a new sensitivity. The same roseflower looks so psychedelic…it is no longer ordinary, it is radiating with color. It has a certain aura around it.And in the same way, the whole of ordinary life suddenly takes a change, because you have a new pair of eyes, a new heart to feel, a completely clean mind to see as clearly as is humanly possible.The movement died down because of faults in the method. And it was beyond Bapak Subud’s capacity and understanding to find those faults, because this was his only experience; he had nothing else to compare it with. And to him, it happened; those faults were not a deterrent to him. But many people doing latihan have gone mad. That was the reason why the movement slowly, slowly died out.The people who have not gone mad are just on the borderline. A few people, certainly, have attained to meditation, but of the lowest kind. They feel silent, they feel a certain togetherness; they are more rooted, more centered. But more than that…they have not experienced anything of the beyond. They have not come in contact with the gods, the god of truth, the god of love, the god of beauty, the god of bliss. They are absolutely ignorant of what spirituality really means.They are in a kind of limbo. Latihan has created a certain space in them which makes it clear to them that this world is not enough. But remember: it is a negative feeling that this world is not enough. This world is denied, negated, but the other world is not visible yet. The person is in a difficult situation. This world does not appeal to him, he has seen something superior; but just to remain in the small space that latihan has created is boring. It has no excitement, because it is not like a river, continuously growing and becoming bigger, reaching the ocean to become the ocean itself.Latihan almost creates a pond which goes nowhere, which simply dries out, evaporates. And only mud, a muddy puddle is left behind.Dynamic meditation has everything that latihan has – and more, because it is a device, deliberately made, considered from every possible angle, not to harm anybody in any situation. Latihan is almost a primitive thing in comparison to dynamic meditation, which has everything of latihan plus.In latihan, you have to do it in a small group. Women and men are not allowed to do it together in one room. From this point the mistakes of the method begin. It is the old fear, the old Mohammedan mind – why can’t women and men meditate together? In fact, they should only meditate together, because while you are meditating, you need the presence of the other which is your other half. It does not matter whether the woman you love is present. What matters is that feminine energy is available, male energy is available. If they are both available, the total effect is of wholeness, and the mind which starts feeling even a little bit of wholeness cannot go mad.Madness means you are in fragments, you are a crowd. There are many of you; even you cannot recognize who is the true one.Latihan gives no idea of what is going to happen. You need not believe in that but you should be aware of it, because as it starts happening, if you have been aware beforehand, you will not be scared. You will know: this too will pass away.Just the other day, one of my German sannyasins – a topmost model in Germany, Gayan – has sent her latest photograph. She has really a beautiful face, extraordinary in its innocence. That gives it its unique beauty. She must have felt I would like the picture. I have seen many pictures of her, but this was something different. Perhaps she was in a certain state of mind; perhaps the photographer was in a certain state of mind, but somehow the picture is far better, shows a state far higher than that in which Gayan is, in reality.I have always wondered about her and about many other people. She looks so beautiful in her pictures – so innocent, so agelessly beautiful, agelessly young – but in reality, these qualities are not in her. It is possible that while she’s being photographed as a model, she brings herself together. The camera, the studio…the photograph is going to be seen by millions of people. Perhaps all that creates the situation in which she becomes silent, just looking at the camera for a few seconds. But she realized that sending me the picture is not the full act, so she wrote by the side of the picture: “Osho, this too will pass.” That is one of my old stories she is referring to.I would like to remind you of the story because sometimes, if it hits the right place in your heart, it becomes a tremendous help in your evolution of consciousness.A king was getting old and of course, worried and concerned about death. One day, he could not sleep the whole night long; he was continuously thinking of death. He has killed thousands of people himself; he has been a great conqueror – what has happened to him? Why has he become so cowardly? The death of the other does not matter to you, but your own death matters.In the morning, he called his wise men and asked them: “If I fall into a situation where you are not available to advise me and I don’t see any way out, I would like you to make a small suggestion that I can put under the big diamond in my ring.” The ring was made with an opening device, so he could look underneath the diamond and read the message.They were at a loss. This was something very difficult – just one sentence, for millions of situations. How can there be one answer for all the questions? Only a man like me can say, “Yes, not only that – there is only one answer for all questions; there cannot be even two.”They were worried and puzzled, but one old man suggested something and that appealed to them, so they brought it to the king. He was not to see it – the condition was that he was not to see it. He was not to open it just out of curiosity. He was to open it in a real danger, when there is no other possibility for him, when he cannot figure it out, when he’s simply stuck and knows nothing about what to do. Only in such emergencies, when life is at stake should he open the ring and read the message.And by chance, the time to read it came very soon, just after fifteen days. The neighboring country invaded. They had been invaded by this king many times, defeated many times. They were boiling with anger and violence and humiliation and insult. For ten years, they had been training their people and this time they were determined: “Either we take over the kingdom of the enemy or we are not going to come back home alive.”And when somebody, even if he is beaten, has such an idea in the mind, he’s no longer weak. He is far stronger than your strongest people.They fought as the king had never seen anybody fight…because the king and his soldiers were just fighting to defend, but the enemy was fighting to gain self-respect. They had lost their integrity, and even at the cost of life it had to be regained – even if the whole country dies!The king lost the war. Somehow he escaped to the mountains on his horse, but the enemies were following. He was alone and he could hear many troops of horses following him and the noise was coming closer and closer. He was running as fast as the poor horse could run, because he was wounded, almost at the point of death. But the greatest difficulty came when they reached the end of the road – that road was not going anywhere! It only came to this spot where tourists used to come. It was a very scenic situation, but it was death to the king – he could not go anywhere. Underneath, there was a rocky valley thousands of feet deep. If he jumped into it, he would be finished. And he could not return because it was a small road….Then he suddenly saw the diamond shining in the sun, and remembered, opened the diamond, read the message. The message was very small but very great. The message was: “This too will pass away.”Just let the idea sink in your heart: This too will pass away. So there is no need to be worried. In life, there is nothing permanent.Everything is changing. You could not have thought, fifteen days before, that you would be in this situation. You cannot think what your situation will be after fifteen days. Don’t be worried: This too will pass. Everything passes by.It had a great effect on the man. He relaxed, he forget all about those people following him. He said, “I have never come to this spot. It is perhaps one of the most beautiful spots around the capital and I might have missed it if I had not been defeated by the enemy. This beauty is worth losing the whole kingdom for.” He enjoyed the beauty…and after a few minutes he became aware that the noise of the horses and the enemy coming was receding: “Perhaps they have moved into some other part of the mountains, but certainly they are not on this footpath.”He gathered his armies, he fought again. He won his kingdom back, and when he was received at the elephant gate of the capital, the whole capital was just festivity. Everybody was rejoicing the victory. Flowers were being thrown on the king from every house, from every place. People were dancing, singing, playing on their instruments. And for a moment the king said, just inside himself, “It is not so easy to defeat me.” And he saw a subtle ego arising with all this reception and celebration.Again, the big diamond was shining in the light and he remembered it. He opened it. He read it again: “This too will pass.” He became silent. His face went through a total change – from the egoist he moved to a state of utter humbleness.If this too is going to pass, it is not yours.The defeat was not yours, the victory is not yours.The death was not yours, the life is not yours.You are just a watcher. Everything passes by.This is what is missing in latihan. There is no place for the witness, for the watcher, and that is the essential part of meditation.Latihan prepares the ground, but never sows the seeds and then waits for roses and lotuses. And nothing comes up – just wild grass.Meditation has two parts: one, a cleaning part. You are going to invite the greatest guest into your life. Clean the whole house, make it pure, fragrant, make it an aesthetic phenomenon inside you.Catharsis is perfectly good and right, but it is incomplete. After catharsis begins the real work. When you have cleaned the ground of weeds and wild grass, then is the time to sow the seeds of flowers and wait for the spring.Latihan is gone. It will be remembered in the footnotes of history but it has lost its grip. And the problem, the reason why it had to go was that it was only the beginning part of meditation.I have given you many meditations, but each meditation is complete in itself.Osho,The other day, I heard you saying that Jesus' disciples are responsible for his crucifixion? Osho, it wakes me up at night to think that we are responsible for you having been dragged around in prisons and being persecuted and thrown out of so many countries. I love you more than my own life. How is it that my awareness and my responsibility seems so far behind my love?Love is not far behind your responsibility and awareness. And if something like Jesus happens to me, which is probable, you will not be responsible for it. If it does not happen, then you will be responsible for it.The people who can be responsible for it, I have been weeding out continuously. I have my own very simple ways so that the other person never becomes aware that he is being thrown out. I go on giving him the idea that he is leaving me. I don’t want the poor fellow to feel guilty that he has betrayed. And if something happens to me then he will feel guilty his whole life, that he was responsible. Just to make him free of responsibility, I have never told anybody to leave. But it is very easy, without saying, to make someone leave.It is so easy that you will not believe me. There is no great esoteric principle behind it.One old woman in the commune was a negative presence, and she was creating the same vibes around her. We tried our best here in India, in America, but the problem with the woman was first, that there was a language difficulty. She did not understand English or any language that I understand. Secondly, she was 70 years old – almost all her ideologies, Christianities…church…had all become so frozen that it seemed impossible to reach her. You could shout but her ears were full of prejudices, and something else would reach her.Seeing that now she was being destructive to the commune…. I used to go every day for a drive, and sannyasins used to meet me on the road, both sides, dancing, singing. I stopped looking at her.The first day, perhaps she could not figure out why I had not looked at her. The second day, it was absolutely certain that I had not looked at her. The third day, she was certain that I was not going to look at her anymore, unless she changed. On the fourth day she left. But she left on her own decision; I had not said anything.So some small strategy has to be used for the person to go without feeling guilty.Those who are with me are the reason why I am alive.I’m not alive for myself – my work is done.I’m alive only to see a few of my plants blossoming, a few of my trees bringing fruits. I have devoted my whole life. I have never bothered about respectability from the society, I have never bothered about anything. But one thing is very close to my heart: my only concern is to see you ecstatic, blissful, fulfilled. And if so many people love me, and feel their responsibility, it is the greatest security I have.All the governments of the world are in conspiracy against me. All the religions, all the political parties are in the same conspiracy: to destroy me, to destroy my ideology, to destroy my people. But they will not succeed. If even a single person loves me unconditionally, I have more protection, more love, more friends, than nuclear weapons can destroy.So you need not be sad about it. I am talking of those people who have not only left, but who were perhaps very happy that the US government and the Christian church together destroyed a small commune of five thousand people. They have all the forces, all the money. They have all the news media to spread whatsoever they want. It seems the people who have betrayed me are rejoicing that now, the commune will not be possible.For the first three months after the closure of the commune, these people remained silent because they were weighing the possibilities: “Perhaps the commune continues. If it continues, then it is better not to say anything that may make it difficult for you to enter the commune again.” So for three months, they were completely silent. After three months…and for these three months they were using their sannyas names, they were using the mala, they were using orange clothes, although I have freed you. But they were using them.Once it was certain that America could not tolerate the commune, they all started changing to their old names. When they saw that the European countries, their parliaments, have decided that I cannot enter any European country, then they came out more clearly, saying that they are independent and they are doing the same work as Osho is doing. They are enlightened.Just a few days ago, Santosh, one of the therapists in the commune…. I have worked on him twelve years to create a whole therapeutic science of dehypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy has been in existence, but a reverse process of hypnotherapy, so those who are hypnotized can be dehypnotized…. And everybody is hypnotized – by some culture, by some religion, by some politics – so everybody needs a deep spring cleaning, and dehypnosis can do it.Now he is in California, and has started publishing a small newspaper. Even my name is not mentioned anywhere in the institute for dehypnotherapy that he has created there. And in this newspaper, just two days ago I saw: he has an announcement that all the European countries have prohibited the entry of Osho into their countries, so those who are waiting, hoping that sooner or later Osho will be coming to Europe, should drop the hope. “And we are already doing the same work.” Now, their whole fear is, if I come back to Europe then they cannot go on being mini-gurus – just like mini-skirts, nothing much material.And Santosh is happy that I cannot enter America for at least five years. But they are wrong. It makes no difference whether I am in Europe or in America, Australia, or in India.Those who have loved me and those who have drunk out of my well, will not find another who will be satisfying. At least right now, there is nobody else. There used to be one – J. Krishnamurti. Unfortunately, he is dead.These people, at least ninety percent of them, will come back. The ten percent, the very hard-core egoists, may find it difficult to come back – although they need not find it difficult, because I never even asked you why you left. That is your business. Why have you come? That too is your decision, and you have all the freedom to join or not to join.I am not at all disturbed or annoyed by anybody. Because here, with me, you are not supposed to give anything in return for whatever you feel I have done for you. And in fact, I don’t need anything to be returned by you because it is not a bargain, a deal, a business. It is simply my love.I love the truth – I have found it.I have loved you – I have found you also.Now my only remaining work is somehow to turn your eyes toward the truth. Once that happens, then there is no need for me to be here.But I am not a serious man, I can still be here. So you don’t be worried; most probably I will be here.Osho,Sitting silently, suddenly, softly, slowly, soundlessly, peacefully, something peeled off which I could see was my illusion for a better world and good people. Osho, can you say something about the difference between a vision and an illusion?The difference between a vision and an illusion is very delicate and fragile, but the difference is very big.The dream is a mind phenomenon; it happens in your mind. It happens because you repress, and whatever is repressed comes up in the night when the conscious represser is asleep. Then the unconscious releases itself in dreams. Dream is the language of the unconscious.Through the dream, the unconscious is doing many things: one is catharsis, second is giving messages to the conscious. If you don’t hear, the same dream will be repeated again.It has happened in very rare cases that a dream was repeated almost every night for years. And it happened to a very intelligent, great creator – Leo Tolstoy. He used to have a dream – which was a nightmare, although there was no violence, no torture – but the set-up of the dream was such that he always woke up perspiring, breathing heavily, heart beating faster. And the dream was very strange, so he tried hard….Perhaps he is one of the greatest novelists in the world. He has a very sensitive intelligence to find out even about others, but with his dream, he was simply helpless.The dream was that he would see every night a vast, infinite desert – no greenery; just desert and desert, sand and sand, and it goes on and on in every direction. It is burning hot, and he sees a pair of shoes – his shoes – going away from him. They are walking. He’s not in them. The shoes alone are going and going and going, and this continues. It can continue forever, there is no essential need for it to stop. There is no essential need for it to come to a conclusion. There is no question.He told many of his friends, he told many psychoanalysts. They said, “Strange. We have heard thousands of people’s dreams, analyzing them. We have read about the dreams of other people who have been analyzed, but we have never come across such a dream.” Just the shoes go on walking and it is so tortuous, and every day you know; the whole day you know that the night is coming. Going to bed, you know: soon those two shoes…and how long it will continue nobody knows. Unless it comes to a peak, and just from the heavy breathing and perspiration, he wakes up.One day, he was telling it to two of his friends, Chekhov and Gorky – both of the same caliber, both great novelists. He said, “I have asked psychoanalysts and others, and they don’t seem to find any meaning in it.”Chekhov said, “You have said it – they cannot find the meaning – that is the problem. You also cannot find the meaning in your life. Your life is a meaningless life, just like those two shoes, going for no reason, not knowing where, not knowing why, but continuing in a desert where there is not even a tree to rest – it is all hot fire. But one has to reach, so they are going.”And suddenly Tolstoy became aware of the fact that it was true. His wife was from the royal family, he himself was a count. His wife was a sadist, a disciplinarian. And you cannot expect a man like Tolstoy – a painter, a musician, a poet, a novelist, a dancer – to behave the ordinary way people behave; they live in their own world.Because Tolstoy could not manage, there was continuous fight…life was so miserable, and the dream was simply a representation, a very hidden, symbolic dream. But from that day, the dream disappeared. The meaning had been understood. It means that for ten or twelve years, the unconscious was trying to send a message to the conscious; the conscious could not get the message, so the unconscious went on and on and on until the day he understood. Then the message stopped.Mind is full of repressions which need release. There is a certain capacity – you cannot hold more than that.Dreams are your unfulfilled desires, your repressed longings, your incomplete experiences, but they are all of the mind.The vision is when the mind has gone, when the mind is in a state of silence and stillness, when there is not even a small stir of thoughts. The lake of the mind is absolutely calm and quiet. When the mind is absolutely calm and quiet, you can see – not through the mind but from a totally different source. In the East, we have called it the third eye. It is simply symbolic.When these two eyes which function for the mind are closed and the mind is no longer working, suddenly you start seeing with a clarity that you never had before.This is vision.It has nothing to do with your repressions, nothing to do with your unfulfilled desires, nothing to do with your repressed instincts. It has something to do with the coming future. It is your clarity that has given you the opportunity to have a glimpse into the future.And if your meditation goes on deepening, your vision will go on becoming more and more clear, in detail.The vision is possible any time – day, night, waking, asleep. The dream is possible only in sleep.The dream belongs to your small mind. The vision belongs to the universal mind.The vision is an indication that you are coming closer to home. The dream is an indication you are going farther from home.One strange thing, it is simple to make the distinction: dreams are always in black and white; visions are Technicolor. So if you forget everything else, you can remember this much. Because dreams are very ancient, they don’t know the new technology. They are still working with old photography and old plates, and everything is dim and dark. But visions are absolutely radiant and clear and full of color.After dreams, you will find yourself tired. After seeing a vision, you will find yourself so full of energy…because the vision has been a contact with existence itself. Existence has refueled you, has given you more life because you have deserved it by going deeper in meditation.A dream is indicative of a sick mind, a sick psychology.Vision comes out of your inner health.Osho,For the last two years, I have been doing karate-do and I love these awake moments where all thoughts disappear out of my head. Karate has the addition “do”, the Japanese meaning for the Tao of Lao Tzu. I ask you whether there is a connection between karate and enlightenment.There have been many mergings of different traditions, religions: Jews and Christians, Christians and Mohammedans, Mohammedans and Hindus. But except for the Buddhist, all the conversions and mergers have been through force of some kind or other. Mohammedans and Christians have been fighting – killing living people, burning living people in thousands. They call it holy war, jihad.Of course if your life is at risk, very few people will be fanatic enough to die rather than be converted, because anyway you are not much of a Hindu – what does it matter if you become a Mohammedan? You will not be going to the temple, you will be going to the mosque. You will not be reading Gita, you will be reading Koran. But these are superficial things. For these superficial things, why lose your life? Even if these people are mad, you are not mad.Mohammedans converted millions of people to Mohammedanism through the sword, and those who refused were killed.Christianity converts people by giving them bread, butter, houses, schools, hospitals. That is not very much different from the sword, because these people don’t understand at all the religion in which they are, and neither are they going to understand anything of the religion to which they are converting. Their interest is in material things.I had a friend, a principal of a Christian college. I asked him, “How do you feel about conversion?” because his father had become a Christian when he was a young kid.He took me inside the house. In his bedroom, he had a picture and he showed me: “This is my father.”I said, “My God! But he looks like a beggar!”He said, “Yes, he was a beggar. This is my mother. They had to become Christians just to survive and just to take care of us. They were very much interested that their children should be educated but they could not manage it.”And he was in the same picture. You could not think there was any connection between those two old persons and this man. He is a principal, well-educated in the West, has the highest degrees, great respectability even among the Hindus.And then his son-in-law, who is an American, is a psychoanalyst. For six months he practices in America and six months in India. And his daughter is one of the most beautiful women I have seen. Just a small thing is wrong, but that has nothing to do with anybody except her husband. She has a small beard that she is continuously shaving. But the more she shaves it, the more it grows. Her husband was saying to me, “I feel a little embarrassed to go with her anywhere, because people immediately see the first thing – her beard.” And she is such a beautiful woman…but perhaps nature was trying to see how a beard fits on a woman. It does not fit.He said, “You can see what Christianity has done to us, what Hinduism has done to us. These are the Hindus – my father, my mother. In tatters…you can see they are hungry, you can see they have suffered their whole life.”“And then,” he said, “you can look at me. You can look at my daughter, the doctor” – the daughter is also a doctor of psychology – “who also goes to America to practice. And she has married an American. Now they have cars, they have houses, they have bungalows in the hill station.”I said, “I can understand. It is perfectly right, there is no problem, but this is not religious conversion, because religion does not seem to play any part in it.”Conversion happens only when you experience something that you have never experienced before, and the experience is so radical that it does not allow you to continue, to remain the old self. It forces you to change your habits, to change your thoughts, to change everything, and be reborn.The conversion that has happened through Buddhism is the only one that can be called religious. And because it was religious, there was no question of the sword, there was no question of bread and butter, or any kind of bribe. No violence…not even an invitation that you should become a Buddhist, but only sharing their meditations, their joys. And people seeing them, feeling them, became attracted, became followers of Gautam Buddha. But it was their own decision; no one has interfered in it.Because of this phenomenon, the same happened in Tibet and the same happened in Japan. The old religion of Shinto in Japan dissolved into Buddhism, just as a river meets an ocean – no conflict, just a welcome merger.What I want to emphasize is that because of the difference in conversion, something very great has happened. And that is that many things are born out of the meeting of Buddhism with Confucianism, of Buddhism with Taoism, of Buddhism with Shintoism. Many creative things have happened which have not happened in Hindus becoming Christians, Hindus becoming Mohammedans, Mohammedans becoming Christians, Jews becoming Mohammedans or Christians – no change like that has happened.And that is going to be the criterion: the change that has happened is that they have all produced new methods that were inconceivable before. It was a friendship – nobody was higher, nobody was lower.When a Hindu becomes a Christian, the Christian priest guides him in what to do. When a Taoist becomes friendly with Buddhism, nobody is going to guide him; they both have to share their experiences. And out of this sharing, a loving, friendly….In China, Ch’an was the crossbreed between Buddhism and Tao – and Ch’an is certainly higher than both. Each child has to be higher than both the parents; otherwise, there would be no evolution. Evolution depends on the simple fact that every child has to defeat his father, his mother, in every possible way, in every possible direction.Ch’an is far superior to Buddhism and Tao both. It is not out of conflict and violence and blood; it is out of sheer love and joy. It is an inquiry: what you have found, what I have found…perhaps they can be one whole. And that one whole is Ch’an.In Japan, the thing happened even on a bigger scale. Ch’an reached a higher form, even more delicate and more superior, when Buddhism and Tao became acquainted with the old Japanese religion of Shinto. When Shinto dissolved into Buddhism, they refined Ch’an because they had a few new experiences which Buddhists had never encountered, which Taoists had never known.Zen is the highest peak of meditation that has ever been reached.Not only Zen…but in Japan almost a miracle has happened. Japan has tried the insights of Zen in other fields of life, for example, swordsmanship – a very faraway subject. Nobody can imagine what meditation has to do with a sword, but they developed swordsmanship in Japan. You learn it in the temple of Zen.And this swordsmanship is not the same as it is all over the world. It is totally different in Japan; it is a method of meditation, because with swords you have to be very alert. You are fighting with swords – you have to be very alert; otherwise you are gone. In such situations, you cannot afford to be sleepy.Swordsmanship has been used to develop that quality of awareness, and in the same way, the other martial arts – aikido, jujitsu, karate. All these are arts of the warrior, but the Japanese have transformed them for the war that you are going to fight inside yourself with the darkness, with your own ego, with all that is ugly in you.Karate is connected with Tao, is connected with Gautam Buddha, is connected with Confucius. But neither Confucius nor Gautam Buddha nor Lao Tzu were aware that their meditative techniques would bring such a transformation that even martial arts, which have been developed to destroy man, to murder, to commit suicide…but they can be used because the situation of death facing you in any form makes you alert, aware.And listening, and practicing jujitsu, karate, aikido…slowly, slowly you become more and more silent, more and more peaceful. The question of war and destruction disappears.But this was possible because these religions met in a human way. The other three or four religions have met also, but they have met from the very beginning as enemies. So the Far East, where Buddhism has been the root, has been very creative. It is different from the rest of the world.I would like you to understand meditation in such a way, that you can use it not only while you are meditating but while you are doing anything. Just do it more consciously, more gracefully, more lovingly and you have changed the very quality of the action.And once you know to change the qualities of your actions, your whole life becomes the life of a meditator.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 22 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,You have not only a profound understanding of human nature but also you have the know-how to transform it. You are a perfect master. How is it that western and eastern psychologists are not recognizing you? Do these human scientists feel jealous and offended by you? Please comment.There are many things to be understood.First, the psychology that prevails all over the world is Western psychology. Eastern psychology has been completely forgotten. Even in Eastern universities, everything is from the West – borrowed, second-hand – particularly with psychology.But the East has devoted thousands of years to human consciousness and it has come to very basic realizations about human evolution. To ignore Eastern psychology is to ignore man’s future and his evolution. Because nature has completed its work. Nature cannot go beyond man; it has come to its ultimate production. Now, the whole burden of evolution is on human shoulders.But unfortunately, Western psychology is materialistic, which means it denies man a soul, a spirit, a being which is immortal beyond this framework of your body.This happened because of a natural historical coincidence. All the sciences are about matter. Physics is about the most interior constituents of matter – so is chemistry, so is the whole panorama of human scientific endeavor. Psychology is in wrong company. All these sciences are studying objects. Psychology’s world is the subjectivity of man, not the objects around him.But because in these three hundred years sciences have been developing on a materialist basis…and they have been succeeding, the very word scientific has become prestigious. Just to say that something is scientific is enough to say that is right. Once you hear the word scientific, you have already agreed, there is no question of argument anymore. If science has established something, then there is no need to doubt it. The scientists themselves have doubted enough and have tried from every possible angle; if they have come to a conclusion, it must be so.In the midst of scientific progress, psychology was born. Naturally, it chose to be part of scientific growth.Another thing has been happening for three hundred years: Christianity has been behaving with scientists and science in a very crude, primitive, superstitious, illogical, violent way. And because science went on succeeding in spite of the opposition of the religions, the religions lost their prestige, their credit, and science became the only rightful search for truth. In such an atmosphere, psychology was born.Everybody was trying to prove that whatever he was doing was scientific; unless it was scientific, it would not be accepted by humanity at large.And you can see the dichotomy in the very name of psychology. Psychology means the science of the soul. But the scientific attitude is to deny the existence of the soul, because there is no possibility of catching hold of it. There is no possibility of dissecting it, no possibility of taking it into the lab and doing all kinds of experiments before they can say yes, there is something like the soul, which is immortal. Because it is invisible. All forces are invisible, all energies are invisible. Energies and forces are known not by themselves, because they are not visible. They are known by their effects, because the effects are visible.Nobody knows what electricity is – not even Thomas Alva Edison, who discovered it. But everybody knows how to switch it on, how to switch it off. Electricity, as energy, is not visible. You are seeing the light but the light is not electricity, it is an effect of its presence. We infer that electricity must be there because the light is on.And there is enough evidence that the soul must be there in man because there are so many effects indicating toward it. Without a soul, man is a machine. But have you ever heard of machines revolting? going through a communist revolution? – machines throwing away one government, creating another government? No, machines are not concerned. They are not even prejudiced. They will work perfectly under communism, they will work perfectly under capitalism…to them, there is no question because there is no consciousness. A machine cannot say: “I cannot do this because this is immoral, criminal.” If machines could do that, there would be no war – because no weapon will agree with your politicians.If the atom bomb had been asked whether it wanted to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bomb would have laughed: “Why should I destroy? They have done no harm to me. In fact, I don’t know those people; there is no reason at all for me to destroy them. And I refuse to be a slave in an act which is irrational.”Machines don’t think, don’t have consciousness, don’t have a heart, don’t feel.It is certain that man is not a machine because he has qualities which machines don’t have. Those qualities are indicative of a certain mysterious phenomenon inside, at the very center of our being – a flame of light, a flame of awareness. But science will accept it only if your consciousness can be put into their test tubes, if they can play around with your consciousness. But this, by the very nature of consciousness, is impossible.Psychology accepted a very stupid definition: that it is a science. If I am allowed to rename it – and I have the right because I have renamed more people than anybody has ever done in the whole of history! so renaming is something which I have been doing continuously for years – I would call it parapsychology. In the East, it has been parapsychology: psychology of the beyond. And man has so much space beyond himself – the whole universe – that to give him a definition, to say that he is just matter, is to reduce him to the lowest denominator. Only his body is matter, the house in which he lives.He is not the body and he is not the mind: he is beyond both.Western psychologists, thinkers and philosophers are very well acquainted with my thinking, but strangely enough, very few of them seem to have guts to stand against the vested interests.One of my sannyasins, a world-famous economist, received the Nobel prize three years ago and naturally, when he received the Nobel prize and the honor, the first idea in his mind was: “Will it ever be possible for these people to understand Osho and recognize him?”He asked the president of the Nobel Prize Committee…and now that he is a Nobel prize winner he can propose anybody’s name – only a member of the Nobel committee can propose a name. So he asked the president: “You have also been reading Osho, why is everybody silent about this man? We should take the matter in hand. His books should be considered for a Nobel prize.”The president of the committee said, “Say it in such a way that nobody else hears – at least, his name should not be heard by anybody. I love the man. I know you love the man, and I know a few more people love him; but it is almost impossible for the committee to decide to give him a Nobel prize because this committee consists of people who have already brought names given by their governments.”“Osho has no government. On the contrary, all the governments are against him; all the religions are against him. And these people here cannot gather enough courage to be against the religions and against the governments, to go against the rich people who are dominating and to propose Osho’s name. But I would suggest you not get into trouble, because there will be international pressure not to give him the Nobel prize. I have received a few suggestions to give him the Nobel prize but I have received a hundred times more letters saying, ‘Be alert! This man should not get the award!’ And I don’t want to get involved in a worldwide controversy.”“The moment you offer this man’s name there will be a worldwide controversy about it. I am a non-controversial man.” All politicians are non-controversial. They cannot afford to be controversial. It needs a lion’s heart, and your politicians are simply rats.There must also be some jealousy involved in it, because I am the only man, with the whole world against him, homeless…. They can manage to crucify me. And in fact, I belong to the category of people who have been crucified. I don’t belong to the Nobel prize winners. My prize can be only like the poison to Socrates, crucifixion to Jesus, death to Al-Hillaj Mansoor – those are my rewards.So they are unnecessarily jealous. Even if they decide to give me the Nobel prize, I refuse it beforehand – in advance. I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t have any respect for your rewards or your prizes.I was a student in the university, participating in an all-India debate – almost fifty universities were participating. Knowing that I cannot speak very loudly, that if there are ten thousand people, I cannot reach them, they played a trick: they removed the microphone. At least one thing became certain: I am not going to get the first prize. Because only the first two or three rows in front of me could hear me, and the judges were sitting behind – they would not be able to hear a single word. The mike was there. When I arrived it was being used – the president, the vice-chancellor of that university, were speaking.And then they started whispering to each other.I was sitting just behind them. I figured out that they are thinking to remove the mike so that at least I could not get the first prize. Anybody else could get it, that did not matter.They had put my name first, so I said, “I am not interested in any prize, so include me out!” And I took the mike and I said, “I will use my time to talk to the students and to the staff. You need not be worried, just cancel my name on your list of people who are going to win the prize. I think now there is no problem for you if I use the mike.”I used the mike. I reached every judge and every person and in the end I said: “This was a conspiracy, because I speak slowly. I am not a street orator. I would ask you – the ten thousand people: students, professors, invited guests – what do you want? Should I remain on the list or should I drop the idea of the prize?”They all raised their hands saying, “You should remain on the list.” And the whole thing turned completely upside down because only I used the mike and nobody else used the mike, so the judges could not hear anybody.One judge told me: “This has been so hilarious! What they wanted turned out just the opposite. We were very happy that you managed well.We wanted to hear you; we have come to hear you – not to hear all these childish debaters.”The same is the situation with awards all over the world: childish people, for reasons of politics, are getting Nobel prizes. These people may be famous intellectually but they are not people of genius. They are not people who have love in their hearts, justice, fairness. There is jealousy, and it takes such stupid forms that you cannot believe it.One man has written a letter to the German parliament that I am a hidden Catholic and in fact, I am working to spread Christianity, Catholicism. Now even Christ must have laughed, although he is not a fellow who would even smile, but at this point he must have laughed. Because I am a hidden Catholic, I should not be allowed in Germany. This is the intelligentsia! But because I have been against our so-called intelligentsia too, the problem has become more complicated.I am all for intelligence and not at all for intellect and I make a very clear-cut distinction between the two. Intellect is part of the mind – you can go on becoming bigger and bigger and more and more knowledgeable by accumulating information: you will be thought a great intellectual. These are the people who constitute our intelligentsia. All that they know is borrowed.Intelligence arises only when meditation has blossomed. It is the fragrance of your silence – the song of your silence. It is a totally different thing because its source is different.Intellect functions as part of the mind, intelligence functions when mind stops functioning.Intelligent people around the world are with me and that’s what counts. I don’t care about the crowd. My only concern is about those few people who have intelligence enough to enter deeper into their being, because as they open up more and more inside they start changing on the outside. One day, suddenly there is an awakened being and all his actions are full of the light, of the beauty, of the truth of what he has attained within himself.They are with me. They have been coming from all over the world. All the governments are preventing them, but whenever there is something valuable, something so valuable that all those powerful people look like pygmies in comparison, they are naturally afraid. They would not like me to exist.But now it is too late. If they do any harm to me they will destroy their own society, their own economic structure; they will destroy their own prestige, their own credibility. And they will not harm my cause, they will help it immensely.I don’t want their Nobel prizes – just a small crucifixion will do. I would have preferred an electric chair but to carry an electric chair to the place does not suit me. And it is less dramatic too. A wooden cross is far more dramatic.They are full of jealousy on every point because none of them has been able to answer all my criticisms of the past and its history. They are irritated also because they cannot find any way to somehow put a stop to my increasing number of friends and increasing number of enemies. Both are mine; they both relate to me. Without me, both would be at a loss. Somebody would lose a friend, somebody would lose an enemy – the whole world would be at a loss.But my people are going to change the whole situation – not by any effort, but just by living the way I have been showing you. You are going to be my ultimate witnesses. Whether I was right or wrong will be decided by your actions, by your being.Osho,You seem to mixing together all of our questions. It's like puzzle pieces, where all the pieces fit together perfectly in the end. Is this one example of the oneness of all?The truth is, with numbers, at the most I can remember up to three. After that, I don’t know what number comes.Secondly, all the questions that I choose have a certain coherence, a certain inner unity. It may not be apparent to you.When I speak, if I go into one question in absolute detail, then I cannot deal with another question on that day. One question will be enough for two and a half hours. So I have my way; I introduce the first question, answer its essential points; then I take the second question, answer its essential points, and if there is any point there that can emphasize something in the first question, I bring in the first question again. And it is not done in any systematic way because I have not prepared it. It is just my sensitivity and my spontaneity. I simply go with whatever response arises in me.So my answer to five questions is like a spiral: I may come to the first question many times but in the end, all those five questions and the answers given to them will make a whole answer. Perhaps those five questions were five aspects of one question that you are not aware of. Because in fact, there is only one question. We can ask millions of questions but the answer is one – there is no way to have many answers.Because the basic question is one, hence the basic answer is one – the remaining is just play.Yes, they will all fit like a puzzle in a deep harmony – but while I am answering you, I’m more concerned with you than with your question. I am more concerned with the answer than with the questions. I am more concerned to bring all the questions to a certain synthesis so that the one answer can be acceptable.And these problems are there: I cannot remember. I try my best…up to three I somehow manage. By that time, it is enough. Then I start using the wrong numbers. My memory is not very good.So while I am answering a question – and your questions are not simply one question. Each of your questions can be divided into three or four or five questions. So I start answering one – by the time I have answered it, I have forgotten the other three or four. Rather than waiting for them to come back, I proceed to the second question.Sometimes, while answering the second question, I start remembering what has been left incomplete in the first, so I have to complete it in the second. By that time, I have forgotten what the second question was all about. So I wait – perhaps in the third question, when I am answering it – some word, some sentence, some story, may remind me.It has been working perfectly well.So you get all the answers – even those which are not visible on the surface. But this is not a prepared sermon. This is not a lecture in a university. I know professors who have been using the notes that they have taken in class when they were students. They have been using the same notes in teaching for thirty years. So much water has gone down the Ganges in thirty years, but they are not aware.I also feel it’s really amazing that by the end, slowly, slowly everything that has been forgotten anywhere comes to my mind, and I say okay to Maneesha only when I feel okay.Osho,Sitting with you, every cell in my body starts dancing and singing “He is here! He is here!” and I feel how long I have been waiting. And then slowly, slowly my deep longing and the fulfillment of it touch each other and something very deep in me starts relaxing. Still now, after being a sannyasin for four years, I sometimes can almost not believe it – that this is really happening, that this is not a dream and that now, today, I really sit at the feet of my master and my heart is overflowing, tears and laughing melt together. Osho, I do not know if I have been with you or any other master, but I know I have been waiting, waiting for so long. If somebody has been with a master, can he fall back again in darkness, like I was in before taking sannyas? Thank you, Osho and friend. Every day you are still here is a gift for me.The first thing: Anything achieved in any life as far as conscious growth is concerned, remains with you. And whenever you start the search again, you will start from the point where you had stopped in some past life.But it depends on a very subtle point – whether you have achieved something or just believed that you have achieved. If you have just believed, it is not going to be with you in the next life. You will have to start from scratch.As far as you are concerned, because you feel this tremendous quality of waiting, that you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for long, that means you have never been with a master in the past but you have been a seeker, a long time seeker in the past. But you were seeking on your own, a lonely wanderer in search of the miraculous. Because you were not with any master, not with any school where many people were working together for their inner consolidation, you don’t have any memory of such a thing. You have only one feeling, of waiting. That shows that for many lives you have been waiting.And perhaps the time has come and now you may not need to wait anymore because I am ready to give you that which you have been seeking – whether you know or not. You may not know exactly, precisely what you are seeking, but one thing is certain: that you are incomplete, you are hollow, you are utterly, negatively empty. This much is certain: that you are not complete and entire. Hence, you are waiting for something to make you whole.That time has come.Your love, your gratitude, your trust in me shows that unknowingly, you were searching for a master who does not belong to the old but belongs to the future.Every intelligent person is searching for the master who belongs to the future. Idiots are searching for masters in the past. The more ancient they are the more valuable they are thought to be.Now you can relax. It may have taken many lives to come to me – now remember, going away from me will take even many more lives. So it is better now to settle. Wandering is good, but only to a limit. You have wandered enough. It is time to retire from this wandering.Osho,It is said “If you meet a man on a higher level of being than your own, you will not understand him.” The distance between you and us seems so infinite. What are we doing here, Osho?It is true. If you meet a man of a higher development in consciousness, you will not be able to understand the man; communication will be almost impossible. But you are saying and seeing only one side of the phenomenon.You will not be able to understand a man of higher consciousness but he will understand you – more than you understand yourself. He has passed through the same stages that you are passing. He’s well-acquainted with the whole territory and he is standing on a high place from where he can see far and wide.On your part, if you can understand only this much – that understanding will be difficult because his consciousness is higher – then your question will be: “First raise my consciousness so that I am at a point from where communication is possible.” You will not ask other questions because his answers will not make sense to you. The only question you can ask is: “I am here, ready. Give me a lift!” And this can be done.This is actually what is being done here.Your meditations, my sittings with you, your own individual efforts – all together are creating only a higher consciousness in you. And whether you understand me or not is immaterial – I understand you perfectly well.You may be blind, I am not. And I am holding your hand tight – so you may not be able to find the door yourself, but just don’t try to escape!Allow me to hold your hand. I will take you out of the door into the open.The greatest problem is not that you don’t understand what comes from a higher consciousness. The greater problem is, you think that if you cannot understand him that means he is talking nonsense. You have closed the doors. The sun has come even up to your door – you close the door in the very face of the sun.The sun will come again tomorrow morning. People like me don’t get tired because you have not been listening, you have been closing the door, you have been rejecting. The person with the higher consciousness understands it – that these are all childish ways of protecting one’s ego. He is not going to be angry with you.In these thirty years, I must have passed millions of people – talked about their problems, given them every help they wanted for their further growth: instructions, disciplines. But while the person was listening, I was also aware to what category the person belongs: Is he listening or is he just being polite, and deep down he thinks he knows everything? He need not bother about meditation. He need not think about changing his lifestyle so that the new consciousness becomes easier to grow.With the old lifestyle it is difficult, it is almost like a rosebush growing in stones and rocks. Once in a while it happens, but that is not the rule – that is the exception. And you should always remember the rule, not the exception.I can see while I am talking to you whether you are closed. If I see that somehow your closed doors can be opened, that perhaps you can be persuaded – if not for spiritual growth then for something else; perhaps for a Tantra group…just get caught in the net, then I will see – once you are caught things go on becoming easier.There is a point of no return. And you all have to remember when that point comes in your life that you cannot go away from me, that it has become impossible. That even if I leave the body, it will not make any difference.You have found your master, and the master has found his disciple. And this is the greatest discovery there is.Osho,My father says that you cannot be an enlightened person because you tell so many dirty jokes. Do you have a joke to tell my dad?Your father is right. That’s why I have gone beyond enlightenment – now I can tell dirty jokes. Just because of enlightenment, I am not going to leave telling dirty jokes. But tell your father that to an enlightened man no joke is dirty. Either it is meaningful or meaningless, but no joke is dirty.Why have jokes been called dirty? Just small things, but they carry so much past history. Because man’s body below the belt is dirty. It is a stupid idea, because your whole body functions as a single unit, it is not divided anywhere. Your blood is circulating continually, twenty-four hours a day. The blood that was in the brain is now in the feet. In the brain, it was not dirty. In the feet, my God! And it is the same blood!Because sex has become condemned by religions, any joke that has any relationship with sex has become dirty. It is their attitude about sex that makes the joke dirty. Otherwise, ask your father what is dirty in it. Ask him to pinpoint it.And the greatest miracle in the world is that your father could give birth to you. Perhaps he has given birth to many others. He can make love but a joke about love becomes dirty. The action is perfectly alright, your father doing all kinds of gymnastics is right. Without those gymnastics you would not be here, but a joke about it is wrong.What kind of society are we living in? There seems to be no rationality.A young boy went to the bathroom in the night. He had to pass through his parents’ room and the boy saw the mother was performing fellatio on the father – look up in the dictionary what fellatio is, because I will not tell you the meaning – and the boy came out of the room scratching his head and saying, “These people sent me to the doctor because I was sucking my thumb!”And these are the people – in the morning they will be in church, all holy. But an innocent joke will be condemned as dirty.Why are so many jokes related to sex? Why have they become dirty? Because sex has been suppressed and condemned. This condemnation and this continuous repression has made everything related to sex, dirty. But the whole condemnation is wrong.And your father must have suppressed his sexual instincts, because in my books, he found only dirty jokes! He could not find any method of meditation? He could not find something that could give him more maturity, more integrity, more individuality?It happened that Dr. Johnson wrote a very exhaustive dictionary of the English language. Of the old dictionaries, his is the best. The book was published and on the second day – it had just been in the stores for one day – on the second day, three old women, seventy, seventy-five, eighty, they reached Johnson’s house and they said, “So you are the fellow who has written that dirty dictionary!”He said, “Dirty? What do you mean by dirty dictionary? Everybody is praising it, saying that it is the best dictionary!”The women said, “Those people don’t know what is inside. There are three words which are dirty!”A twelve-hundred-page dictionary…. Those three old women did a great search – the whole night it seems – and they found only three words!Dr. Johnson said, “It seems you were looking only for these words. There are thousands of words in that dictionary, how did you manage to find these three words? Unless you were looking for them, there is no other possibility.”But why should a seventy, eighty-year-old woman look for some dirty word, some obscene word? It gives some kind of satisfaction. Even when old people become unable to experience love in the biological sense, still the urge is there. But that urge starts expressing itself in condemnation. So you remain holy, pure and you can condemn. But your very interest in it shows something deeper about your mind.A joke for your father…especially for your father!An old man went to a doctor and he said, “Do something! Give me some injections to make me sexually powerful.”The doctor said, “Pop, how you old are?”He said, “I’m only ninety.”The doctor said, “Ninety?” He said, “Okay, let me first examine you. Show me your sexual organs.”The old man took out his tongue and one finger.The doctor said, “What is the matter? This tongue and this finger?”He said, “Yes, doctor. These have been my sexual organs for forty years.”So tell your father that before such a condition comes, enjoy a little!

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 23 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I'm often tortured by the idea that I have to do something special to realize myself. A few years ago, I was on the point of becoming a psychoanalyst. Fortunately, I dropped this idea and I took sannyas. I tried to work as a doctor, but I was getting so tense that I was no longer loving with the people who were coming to me. Now I do simple jobs but still the idea is there: am I wasting my time? Am I running away from my responsibility? On the other hand, every time this idea of doing was dropped, I experienced days of bliss. Can you please tell me something more about the difference between doing and being?It is one of the most significant questions for a seeker: the difference between doing and being.You are born as beings. In your mother’s womb, you are just a being. Then life begins to teach you how to do things: how to be successful, how to be rich, how to be famous, how to be powerful. There are a thousand and one “hows”, and you see around you a whole world engaged in doing something or other.And in a way, there are things which can only be done. For example, if you want money, you will have to work hard for it – or you can go the easy way, but that will be criminal. If you want to be a powerful politician, you will forget all about morality, humanity. You have to forget all great values of life, you have to concentrate only on one thing: your ambition for power. And you have to do everything – right or wrong, good or bad, anything that helps you to achieve your ambition. You are not to be worried about means and ends; once you are successful, whatever you have done will be known as right. Your success changes the wrong means into right means, and your failure changes your right means into wrong means.Seeing the situation, one starts following the ways of the world. One starts running for goals, for recognition, for respectability – one is ready to do anything. But the more one gets involved in doings, the more one starts going away from oneself.Each act takes you away from yourself, and the further away the goal is, the further away you have gone from yourself.No doing can help you to realize yourself, to know yourself, to be yourself. It is not a question of doing; you have to learn a totally different art than the arts which are based on doing. You have to learn just to be – silent, not running anywhere, no goal in the future, no desire to possess mundane things.Relaxing into yourself – to such an extent that time stops, mind stops – you simply are. A kind of isness…this is your being. In its purity, it is the most beautiful flower in the whole existence. Lotuses and roses are very jealous of it.The moment you have tasted just a little bit the nectar of being silent, cool, centered…your whole life is going to change from this moment. Because this taste is not something that anybody has ever been able to forget; on the contrary, this taste of your own being makes you forget the whole world.In fact, right now you don’t have any inner world, or even if you have, you are not aware of it – which is almost the same. Whether it is there or not makes no difference to you; you know only the world of matter and objects. You know everything around you, except yourself.You are illusory and the whole world is real; money is real, power is real. You…even you don’t know who you are. You have never come to encounter yourself.I have heard…. In a train, two Englishmen were traveling. Then the train stopped and one of them got out of the train. His wife had come to meet him…but he looked very pale, sick.She asked, “What is the matter, is something wrong with you?”He said, “Yes. Whenever I have to sit, not facing toward the direction the train is going but facing the opposite way, then my whole body goes through a kind of feverish throbbing.”The wife said, “But you could have changed your seat rather than getting sick.”He said, “I wanted to, but another Englishman was sitting on the other seat.”So she said, “What is the matter in that? You could have told him your problem and he would have considered it; it is not a problem for everybody.”He said, “You are right, but how could I have said anything to him? because nobody has introduced me to him, and without an introduction….”But it is not only about the Englishman – as far as the world of being is concerned, you have never entered it because nobody has introduced you to it. Nobody has given you a challenge to explore yourself.Man has accepted challenges from the moon, from Everest, from Mars…and man goes on and on without knowing himself.Until the moment all action – even the movement of thoughts is action – stops, you will not be able to know what being is, because action functions like a thick smoke around you. There are so many thoughts, so many emotions, so many sentiments, so many moods…you are surrounded by an invisible wall, but very thick – almost as thick as the Chinese wall; a car can go on top of it, it is as wide as a road. But it is invisible. So you go on carrying all this weight for your whole life, getting more and more miserable and not knowing that misery is not the nature of existence.Misery is manufactured by man – existence is just playfulness, bliss. It is a song, it is a dance, it is a continuous celebration all the year round.When you stop acting, doing, when you collect your consciousness at the very center of your individuality, you will be able to see a door opening into another world – the other world, the sacred world.Outside you is the world of action.Inside you is the world of being.Action is mundane – it is necessary, but it cannot make your life a joy unto itself. It is necessary for survival – but just survival is not enough for a dance. For a dance, you need energy overflowing; you cannot contain it anymore. And one of the miracles of life is that by great action, you produce small things of no intrinsic value, and without any effort, being opens doors upon doors of treasures which you have never dreamt of. You have only heard the word – blissfulness, ecstasy, samadhi, nirvana, enlightenment – different names for the same situation.You have come home so totally that the outside world, which used to be very real, is almost like a dream that you had seen somewhere and forgotten.That’s why the mystics have been calling the world illusory, maya, and they call the world of being the ultimate reality.Osho,You said a few days ago, “I love you like nobody could ever love you.” I know in my heart that it is true. I would also like to tell you that I love you more than anyone I could ever love. Without you, my life is absolutely meaningless. When I took sannyas, I used to say I would die for you, I'm ready to give my life to you. Now I say I would like to live for you and I'm ready to give my life to you. Thank you for the life you are giving me. I bow down to you with inexpressible gratitude.There is a great insight in your question. For the whole of the past, people have been told by religions, by politicians, by other kinds of fanatics, that if you are dedicated to any ideology – religious, political, social, philosophical – if you are really dedicated to an ideology, then you should be ready to die for it. The readiness to die is an indication from your side that your dedication is total.This is not so, according to me. Your dedication is total if you are ready to live for me, not to die – because death is so easy, it is so simple to jump into the ocean. Even others can help. But to live, year after year, in an insane world, needs great dedication and great love and great devotion.Your love should be so great that it can tolerate the whole insanity of the world; it is still worth living because of your dedication, because of your love. Your love creates a small, cozy corner in this insane world, a cozy corner of your own life which is sane.I teach you life, not death, because to me, death does not exist at all. If you have lived – and lived with intensity, lived with totality, lived with your whole being, not holding anything back – you will know not only life and its eternity, you will also know simultaneously death and its illusoriness.In the past, the people who were teaching that your death is the only proof that your dedication is total were really exploiting you, destroying you, encouraging your suicidal instinct.Man has a suicidal instinct – this is one of the latest discoveries by psychoanalysts and other psychologists – just as there is a deep lust for life. One wants to live – and people are living in such conditions; just go around Bombay and see the beggars, see the people living in slums. Somebody is blind, somebody is crippled, somebody is starving; somebody has no medicines, is sick; somebody is old and still dragging, there is no point in living. But why do these people go on? There is such a deep lust for life that one can tolerate anything.It happened…in an Egyptian monastery, a monk went into a coma. But it was misunderstood by the other monks and the chief monk; they thought he had died.The monastery had a graveyard, underground. They simply used to open the door…and it was a deep hole, sixty feet deep, with miles of tunnels inside, because the monastery had been there for thousands of years. All the monks who died were dropped into the underground tunnel.This young man was also dropped – and the door was sealed, because it was not something to be opened every day. Once in a while, somebody dies…but the man was not dead. After a few hours, his consciousness returned. He could not figure out where he was. By and by, he became accustomed to the darkness, started groping, and then stumbled against corpses. Then he understood what had happened, they had misunderstood: “I have fallen in a coma.”It was a disease he had suffered since his childhood but it came only once in five or six years, so he had never mentioned it to anybody. But now it was too late. He tried his best – shouting, screaming – but in a sixty-foot hole, completely closed, who was going to hear him? It is difficult to hear even if the person is sitting in front of you; who is going to hear this dead fellow?After a few efforts, he dropped it, but he could not drop the lust for life. But how to live in that graveyard? – no sunlight, no fresh air…it was disgusting. The smell of thousands of bodies which had become rotten…but man has the capacity to survive, to adjust in any kind of situation.For a few days it was difficult, but slowly, slowly he started eating the rotten flesh of the corpses. The hunger was too much; it was not a time for being a snob, for saying “I cannot eat this.”From the gutters of the monastery, water used to leak down the stone walls of the graveyard. He knew it was from the gutters, the dirtiest water in the monastery, but there was no other way. He started drinking from that water. And slowly, slowly he forgot about the bad smell, he forgot that the water was dirty. He even forgot about the monastery and the world; he had found a new business, a new life. First his business was to find a corpse, in the early morning, for his breakfast.And in Egypt, since the ancient days of the pharaohs, this has been the convention. You must have heard about the mummies of the queens and kings of Egypt. Their bodies are preserved, covered with gold. And when a king or a queen died, it was not a single death. It was the death of almost fifty persons, because all the people who were taking care of the king – his physician, his masseur, his cook – everybody who was taking care of the king had to be buried with him in the graveyard because he might need them at any time, and much money, gold, precious stones, so that he’s never out of money. If he needs some money, he has enough.Poor people did the same, in a poor way. Soon this man discovered…and it was not a smaller discovery than that of Archimedes when he jumped, naked out of his bathroom, shouting in the streets of Athens, “Eureka! I have found it!” He was solving a problem; the king had given him a problem and he solved it when he was resting in his bathtub. The joy of finding a new truth was so much, he forgot completely. He reached the court naked.The prime minister was very angry, but the king understood. He said, “Don’t be angry. I can see that the discovery means so much to him, he has forgotten everything – even right now he’s not aware that he’s standing naked.”Only then Archimedes saw. He said, “My God! I was in my bathroom!”This monk’s discovery was even greater. He also shouted, “Eureka! Eureka!” although nobody heard it. Because he discovered that all these corpses were very rich. They all had something – even the poorest had some money, some new clothes, some foodstuff – and he started collecting. He was hoping that, “One day I will get out, and then with all this money and gold and diamonds, I will be the richest monk in the whole country.”He lived in that graveyard for fifteen years. His only prayer was, “God have mercy on me. I cannot say exactly what I want but you know: one monk needs to die. Unless somebody dies, the graveyard will not be opened – and I cannot say it. Being a Christian, how can I ask you to kill some monk? No. But you know everything, you know my heart, there is no need to say it. You know what is right for me. Do it, and do it quickly, because I am growing very old.”One day a monk died and the graveyard’s stone was removed. This old man – now he was old, his beard was touching the floor – shouted: “I am alive! Take me out!” They could not believe it, because for fifteen years, nobody had died and they had completely forgotten about him. Fifteen years is a long time, particularly in a monastery. It looks like eternity, boring…boredom makes time elastic. You can go on and on stretching it; it seems unending.They pulled him out but they were surprised: he was bringing with him almost a great treasure. He had even collected clothes from the dead people; he had taken them off, because dead people are given fresh new robes, so they were perfectly good. He had pulled them out. He had nothing else to do…the whole day exploring, and it was a long, long tunnel. In thousands of years, so many people had died…and he found such antique things.Nobody could recognize him. He said, “You can’t recognize me?”They said, “You look like a prophet from the Old Testament. Please tell us more about you – how did you manage to enter our monastery’s graveyard?”He said, “I was here, I know you all. Fifteen years ago, I died…and I shouted, but you did not hear. Then finally I had to adjust life according to the situation. And I cannot say that I have not been happy. In fact, I have never been happier than I have been for these fifteen years – no anxiety, no fight, nobody to insult you, nobody to humiliate you. And every day, new discoveries….”What has been given by nature to man is a great faculty to adjust in different situations. It is a flexibility – nature has not made man rigid. But man has misused it: rather than going on a spiritual search for the secrets of life, the miracles of existence, he has become completely adjusted with the mundane, with the meaningless. He has misused his great faculty.Every faculty has that danger – you can misuse it.A meditator has to remember: he has been given many powers and he has to be careful, watchful, alert not to misuse those powers.And what do I mean when I say not to misuse them? I mean if you are going outward, it is misuse. If you are going inward, it is the right use, because the ultimate joy is hidden within you.Life is not just what it seems. It is tremendously much more, it is incalculably much more. But you will have to turn your face toward yourself.The day you are alone in your inwardness, you have come home.And the whole of nature and existence celebrates it, because even a single man’s becoming enlightened is a celebration to the whole universe. A part of the universe has become enlightened – you are not apart, you are an essential part of existence.But don’t waste your energies in futile things.I was staying in a home. The man was rich, and he was very eager to show me something. I said, “In the morning. I have just come – forty-eight hours of train journey – you just let me take a bath and go to sleep.”He said, “First you have to see my collection of postal stamps.”That day I understood the proverb, “the last straw on the camel’s back.” I am dead tired, and this idiot wants me to see thousands of postal stamps that he has been collecting from all over the world.I said, “What are you going to do with these? You have wasted money; you have wasted time. You go in search of postal stamps to faraway countries; you go to exhibitions where you can get extraordinary, unique postal stamps – but for what?”He said, “I never thought about it…for what?”I said, “Now you go to sleep and think about it, and let me also go to sleep – and I don’t want the answer in the middle of the night! You can give me the answer in the morning.”Life is simple if you have just a little clarity.About doing…that is the extrovert side of your being. I am not condemning it. I am simply saying it has its uses but it is not what we are here to get.Inside you is your divinity – that’s what we are here to get. This whole world is just an experiment, a training school to make you aware of your being.Your being is the being of the whole existence. Your being and my being are not separate. Your body is separate, my body is separate, your mind is separate, my mind is separate, but your being and my being are one.To know oneself is to know the whole existence, is to know all.Osho,A boy cockroach was talking to his grandfather. He said, “Grandpop, my teacher says in school that no matter what people do, we're always gonna be here. He says we're going to be the only ones around after the atomic bomb explodes.” The grandfather said, “Well, son. Let me tell you what my grandfather told me. He said, ‘Roaches won't croak when the world's up in smoke and though they step on us now, we'll have the last joke.'”It is really hilarious that even cockroaches are more intelligent than your so-called powerful politicians, priests. No animal in the world eats his own species except man; only man is a cannibal. However bad the situation may be, no animal eats his own brothers and sisters.Man seems to be the most bloodthirsty animal. Without man, the earth will be more peaceful, more silent, more joyous, with more flowers, more birds, more songs. The sun will rise the same, the wind will bring fragrances the same….I don’t think anybody – trees or animals or rivers – is going to miss man, because man has not has contributed anything to the beauty of existence. On the contrary, he has been continuously destructive. All his science is nothing but manufacturing more and more destructive weapons. It seems we are here just to fight, as if in life there is no other blessing than fighting.The cockroaches are far more intelligent. They have lived as long as you have lived, but not a single world war. There are different species of cockroaches. One species has a very developed sense of aesthetics. It has a very strange way of lovemaking: Each time a male cockroach makes love to a female – and remember, no male cockroach makes love to another male; no boyfriends, all that kind of nonsense has been left to man, and particularly to religious man, to churches, to monasteries, to monks – the male turns the cockroach on her back. And he has a small instrument – it looks like one of the hairs of his mustache; only two hairs are there, but one is not a hair, it is an instrument to dig a hole…just a screwdriver. He makes a new hole. First he looks…because how many other fellows have made love to the woman? Scars are there, but why should he be worried? he always finds fresh ground. What is the need of being worried that you should get married to a virgin girl? Those cockroaches are always on virgin ground.Every time a cockroach makes love, it makes its own hole and then makes love. And until the hole heals itself, no other male will disturb the poor woman because she still has a wound. Unless that is healed, there is not going to be another lovemaking.There are hundreds of species of cockroaches but they all have one thing in common: they have lived everywhere where man has lived. In Siberia, they are there; with the Eskimos, they are there. Once, a few explorers had gone to the South Pole and they were puzzled when they found cockroaches there. They were puzzled because there are no human beings. From where have the cockroaches come?Their captain was an old, experienced man. He laughed. He said, “You are idiots! They have come with you in your shirt – it is full of cockroaches! And they are better explorers than you; they got down before you.”If man can show only qualities which are natural to animals, to birds, to trees, this earth can become a paradise. But how can you make this earth a paradise with nuclear weapons? Your nuclear weapons, if you knew where paradise was, may have destroyed it, because then for Russia to destroy your paradise would have been a priority. America would have been number two, because with the paradise, all your old saints and all your gods would be finished, and we could have an existence totally free from the domination of some unknown, unseen, unbelievable God.Man can change his qualities into creative forces. And my whole effort is to make religiousness the foundation of all our creativity.Up to now, religion has been against life, against joy, against laughter. It has been in favor of a sick humanity – serious, sad. But no religion has supported life-enhancing qualities. They have not been creative, they have not added to man’s intelligence. They have crippled man’s intelligence, they have stopped his growth. They have left the whole humanity retarded – and you can see every day how retarded man is.Just now I saw a clipping. In America, the churches were going to have conferences and meetings in churches all over America to find out ways and means to prevent the disease AIDS. They had declared their program; experts could explain, and how it can be avoided would be made more available to the public. But the archbishop of America has condemned this kind of thing, because in those programs of preventing AIDS, birth control is mentioned. Rubber condoms are mentioned. And he has taken it very seriously: “In a publication by the church, condoms are mentioned – not only mentioned, but pictures are shown to explain how they have to be used.” He has declared, “No such conferences can be allowed to take place in my churches.”The church is absolutely against the condom. Strange…the condom is just a piece of rubber. Why should the church be against the condom? And just because of the condom, the whole program against AIDS is in jeopardy.AIDS can be prevented, but either the condom will have to be used…and the condom freaks out all the religious people of the world. Strange. Just a small piece of rubber, it is not harming anybody.The condom is not doing any harm to anybody. It has nothing to do with Christianity – it is a question of the whole of humanity’s survival. But those idiots are not concerned about humanity and its survival, their strange interests are a rubber condom. But if you don’t in some way stop the meeting of the sperm and the female egg, it is impossible to prevent AIDS. Even if you stopped that, then too, it is going to be very difficult to get rid of this disease, because you can kiss somebody and you can transfer it.There are a few scientists who think it is possible that the disease and the virus may be infectious just by talking with a person who has AIDS; just the breathing can bring the virus to you.In the commune, I was the first man in the whole world who proposed all the preventive methods. And in the commune, we managed perfect control. And I was criticized by Christians, I was criticized by all kinds of journalists, I was criticized and laughed at by the politicians, who said that I was unnecessarily creating fear. And now they are all thinking on the same lines. exactly the same program is being given to all the countries all over the world. And the dishonesty is such that not a single country has said that I was the first to tell the world that at least two-thirds of the world’s population can die if immediate steps are not taken to prevent AIDS.The steps that we have taken are now being accepted by every government in the world, and nobody is laughing and nobody is criticizing. And nobody is mentioning who the person was who first brought this whole program. We not only brought the program, we practiced it for three years, and the whole commune was perfectly capable of rising above the ordinary masses.In five years’ life of the commune, not a single child was born – and it was only out of sheer understanding that the earth is overpopulated. We had put condoms in every public bathroom, toilet, so there was no need for anyone to feel embarrassed. Because if you have to go to the chemist, to the druggist, to purchase a condom, you feel a little embarrassed. You might not be able to go openly into the market and purchase condoms and other things. We placed everything in all the public bathrooms for five thousand people. It was out of their understanding to pick them up – or if they were determined to commit suicide, then too, they were free. Nobody was forcing them.But man seems to be very stupid. Now this archbishop declaring that condoms – even the word condom or the picture – cannot go into a church pamphlet.And these churches are responsible for all the pornography that exists in the world because they repressed sexuality, they forced people into unnatural ways of living, celibacy. Naturally, people started having unnatural relationships – and AIDS is just the culmination of all your religions and their teachings about celibacy. They have created this disease! The whole credit for AIDS goes to religious monasteries, it was born in religious monasteries.Now it is absolutely clear that homosexuality is the cause, so there are governments who are making homosexuality a crime. But homosexuality is not the cause – the cause is the teaching of celibacy. No animal is homosexual, but teach any animal celibacy and see; he will start masturbating, he will start practicing homosexuality, he will start making love to chairs, furniture, shoes – anything! You have turned him into a Christian. And soon the poor fellow will be suffering from AIDS. And nobody sees the whole link.I have heard…. A young man, who looked like a monk, was moving along the pavement in front of a shop, looking again and again into the show window. When every customer had gone and the time to close was near, he entered the shop.They said, “But we are closing now.”He said, “It won’t take much time.”In the show window, there was a rubber cock in which he was interested. He said, “How much is that piece?”They said, “It is very cheap.” They were in a hurry to close the shop so they said, “What do you want? Should we pack it as a present or should we pack it just ordinarily to take home?”The man said, “No, there is no need to pack it. Just give it to me; I will just eat it here. What is the need to take it home?”These insane ideas…however you repress them, they will come up.One priest, a rabbi, went for his usual circumcision. He was given anesthesia and when he came back to consciousness, he saw that the doctors were a little disturbed, tense, and puzzled.He asked, “What is the matter?”They said, “We are sorry, but a small mistake has happened.”He said, “What mistake?”They said, “First, we committed a small mistake. But when we tried to correct it, we messed up the whole thing. And before you came back to consciousness and could see what happened, our colleagues suggested that it was better to clean up the whole mess, so finally, instead of only doing a circumcision, we had to do a sex change operation. But you are a priest, and old” – he was seventy – “so it does not matter to you, although we are sorry. It was our mistake.”“But,” the man said, “this is not right! It means I will never have the joy of erection.”The doctor said, “Well, you will have, but the cock will be somebody else’s. It is a slight change, not much to be worried about. First, you used to have it on this side, now you will have to have it on that side. You will have it…but we thought you were a priest, and celibate.”He said, “Everybody thinks that. But the reality is not what is propagated to the masses.”Nobody can be celibate, it is unnatural. It is just as stupid as somebody coming and saying, “Here is a great saint – he never urinates!” Are you going to believe it, that he never urinates? And even if he manages it, then he’s the man everybody should escape from. He must be disgusting; from every pore of his body, urine must be coming out.That’s what perversion is. You stop your energies at one point – they find some other way. But the other way is unnatural and is full of dangers. You don’t know where you are going.Osho,Since I have been here with you this time, I have felt a great longing, a great thirst, a great urgency to go into meditation. I love you and I know that this is the only thing you ask of us and this is the only real thank you I could give – to one day know what meditation really is. I see you so alive, sitting here right now with us in this very moment, and I long to become so drunk with you that there is no turning back. I'm drinking you as much as I possibly can. Doubts arise and I feel fear about going back on Wednesday. I'm afraid I will not find you there and will slip back again. Oh, Osho – what does it mean to risk all for a single moment of love?First, you will not be missing me wherever you are. We miss only our attachments, not our love.Attachment is to the physical body. Naturally, from far away you cannot touch the physical body, you cannot see the physical body. And you have never known anything more than the physical body. You have never known that which is there but cannot be touched – whether you are here or thousands of miles away.Only love reveals to you things which are immaterial, experiences which are immortal, spaces which are beyond time and mind.So the first thing I want to emphasize to you: don’t have any fear. Wherever you are, whenever you are silent, inside yourself, you will find me. And once that experience happens, then the question of separation disappears. Even death cannot separate us, because love is not of the body. And that which is of the body is only attachment, biological lust.Learn the secrets of love. Go into the depths of the poetry of love, move in the music of love, get centered in the consciousness of love, and there is no fear of losing anything.And you have asked, “What does it mean to lose everything for a single moment of love?” It means exactly what it says. All things of the world can be put on one side and a single moment of love on another side – still, the side of love will be weightier, will be more valuable.The things – all the things that you have or you can have – only have prices on them, they can be purchased. Love has no price, it cannot be purchased; all those things can be purchased.Love is a prayer, not a commodity. You can offer it…and your being is full of it, you have just never looked at the inner springs of your life sources.All the things of the world are nothing in comparison to one second of love, because that one second is enough to give you ultimate contentment – beyond which you cannot spread your ambitions and desires. Just that experience is enough to fill you with all that is beautiful, with all that is deathless, with all that is part of truth, part of bliss, part of benediction.Just remember a small criterion. In life, there are two kinds of things – things which have prices on them and things which have no prices. Things that don’t have any price are values.This whole world is full of commodities. Only your hearts are full of a quality which is invisible, but is the most precious experience of life.A man who dies without knowing love has never lived. And a man who knows love needs no other lives anymore – he has passed the examination of life.Osho,Do you have something to say about Gandhi's fourth monkey?In China, based on almost twenty-five centuries of the teachings of Lao Tzu, some sculptor made a statue of four monkeys. Lao Tzu used to say, “Don’t see anything wrong, because even by seeing it, you become in some subtle way a participant. And moreover, just by seeing it, it leaves an impression in you which may become a seed and some day it may explode into action. It is better not to see it.”It is not my philosophy, remember. My philosophy is to see it as accurately as possible from all sides, so you know it perfectly well and there can be no misunderstanding, and you are free of it – not because you have not seen it, not because you are ignorant about it, but because you have understood it, that it is useless. So this is not my philosophy. I’m simply explaining the four statues of monkeys to you.One monkey is keeping his hands over his eyes; that is indicative of not seeing that which is not worth seeing. It is better to keep your eyes closed.The second statue is: Don’t hear that which is not worth hearing. So the second statue is putting its hands on both ears.And the third statue is putting its hands on the mouth: Don’t speak anything that is not absolutely necessary. Don’t speak anything that is going to hurt somebody. It is better to be silent than to be unnecessarily in quarrels and fights and violence, because most of your violence begins with your words, with your mouth.And the fourth was…all the monkeys are naked, as they have to be. The fourth was also naked. He was keeping his hands on his cock, hiding it. The message was that sex is a great energy, and you should not spoil it. It has to be transformed, it has to change from going downward to going toward the highest center in your mind, the third eye. It has to move toward the third eye from the lowest center, in your genital organs.When sexual energy starts moving upward, you also start moving upward with it. And the moment sexual energy reaches the third eye between your two eyes, you will be capable of seeing more clearly – without any distortion, without any possibility of any mistake – your path, your life, your achievements, your possibilities, your potentiality. Everything for the first time will be lighted up; darkness disappears.It was a beautiful statue – transformation of sex into spirituality. The same statues are made in Japan, more artistically, more beautifully.One friend of Mahatma Gandhi sent him these statues, thinking that he would appreciate it. And he did appreciate it, but when the statues arrived, there were four monkeys and when the statues were cleaned and put on Mahatma Gandhi’s table, there were only three monkeys. The fourth monkey had disappeared.You are asking me about the fourth monkey. You will find him somewhere as a sannyasin, because I don’t see any other place to escape to.But it shows the level of understanding of Mahatma Gandhi. He was sex-repressive. He could not understand Lao Tzu. He was worried that people would see this naked monkey. So it is better from the very beginning if people don’t know anything about it. In India, those statues don’t exist; It is better to cut the fourth monkey separate. Now those remaining three monkeys Gandhi can manage: “Don’t see what is not worth seeing. Don’t speak what is not worth speaking. Don’t hear what is not worth hearing.”But all these are nothing in comparison to the fourth. These three may make you a little more civilized, sophisticated, but these three will not transform you for the simple reason that you are not trying to understand. You are trying to avoid, not to look at. It is as if you have a cancer but you don’t want to look at it, so you don’t go to the doctor.I used to know a man whose wife came to me, saying, “You have to come to my house, because my husband will not listen to anybody except you. We have tried our best. He has been sick for almost two weeks and we think something is seriously wrong. He’s becoming weaker and weaker, but he is not ready to go to a doctor. And he is not ready even to say why he’s not willing to go the doctor.”I went. I told everybody to go out of the room and I closed the door. I asked the man, “What is the matter? Why are you avoiding the doctor? If there is any problem, just tell me.”He said, “I can tell you. The problem is not with the doctor, the problem is with me – I am worried that perhaps I have cancer. My father died of cancer, my grandfather died. My wife, my first wife died of cancer, and I have seen so many cancer deaths in the house that it has become impossible to forget it. So I feel I have cancer.”I said, “Do you think not being examined is going to help you in any way?”He said, “No.”I said, “But there is a possibility – if the doctor says you don’t have any cancer, you will be immediately cured. Secondly, if he finds there is something else, then medicines can take care of it. But fifty percent, the chances are that you may not have the cancer. You are missing a fifty percent chance. It is up to you, it is your life. I will not disturb you. Should I go or wait for your answer?”He said, “Wait.”After a moment he said, “It seems right. There is a fifty percent chance. It is only guesswork.”The doctor was brought, and he had the cancer. He told me, “Look!”I said, “No harm. To know the enemy is always better than not to know, because knowing the enemy you can fight it better. Now we know it is cancer, we can fight it. There is no problem, you are not going to die.”There are people all over the world who are afraid – if a medical check-up turns up some calamity, a psychological check-up turns up some calamity…they go on living in fear. And out of their fear, they go on creating a thousand and one more fears. They may not have the cancer, they may not be really sick but their minds will create sickness – and their minds are capable of creating the cancer too.One thing has to be remembered: you are, in your essential being, beyond all diseases, all old age, all deaths. In your non-essential parts – the body, the mind, the brain – you are vulnerable to all kinds of diseases, to all kinds of accidents. But they are not happening to you. They are happening almost as if in a dream, to somebody else.The whole work of the mystery school is to somehow introduce you to yourself.That introduction is the introduction to existence itself.For centuries, man has lived in ignorance, in darkness. And in that darkness and ignorance he has been spinning and weaving dreams, nightmares, and he is suffering them. His nightmare may be just a dream, but his suffering is true.To me, the definition of a religious man is one who has come out of dreams, one who has come out of sleep, one who is awake, one whose eyes are open. And he lives with this awareness. His every act is full of his awareness, is luminous with his awareness. Then nothing can go wrong.I don’t teach you any morality. I don’t say “this is good, this is wrong, this is moral, this is immoral” – that is all childish.I teach you a single criterion: awareness. If in awareness you do something, it has to be right, because in awareness you cannot do anything wrong. And without awareness, you may be doing something very good, appreciated by everybody, but still I say it is wrong because you are not aware. You must be doing it for wrong reasons.I am reminded of a small story. There is a big fair, somewhere in China. A man falls into a well, because in those days in China, wells were not made with a protective wall around them. So it was an ordinary, everyday accident – people falling into wells.This man was shouting, hanging onto a root of a tree inside the well but the fair was so noisy that nobody heard him. By chance, a Buddhist monk was passing by the side of the well, and he heard. Perhaps because he was accustomed to meditation and silence…that may have been the reason he heard the man shouting from the well. He asked, “What is the matter? What is the trouble, why can’t you be silent?”The man said, “You seem to be strange. I am dying and you are saying ‘Why can’t you be silent?’”The Buddhist monk said, “At the time of death, one has to be silent. Don’t miss a single moment. Just close your eyes and be silent. If you die in this tense and anguished state, you will be born into a very ugly species. If you want to go higher, this is the moment – don’t miss!”The man said, “I don’t want to go anywhere, I simply want to come out of the well.”The Buddhist monk said, “I know everything about higher consciousness. I can take you to the ultimate.”“But,” he said, “who wants to go to the ultimate! Just take me out of the well!”The Buddhist monk said, “That I cannot do, because it is forbidden to us for the simple reason that if I take you out and tomorrow you rape a woman, or a murder a man, then I will also be responsible for your act, because without me you would not have been able to do it; we are partners. Just excuse me.” And he went away!He said, “I don’t want to become a partner to any kind of action. I am trying somehow to finish my own load, and I don’t want to take on anybody else’s load.”The man said, “Strange kind of people…I am dying, and he teaches me to be silent and die. He does not try to bring a rope and get me out.”Just at that moment, a Lao Tzu monk, a Taoist monk came by. He also heard. He looked in and he said, “Listen man – my master used to say that you should act in awareness, walk in awareness. Now you see? – you have not been aware.”The man said, “I will learn awareness but first – this time – take me out!”The Taoist monk said, “That is beyond me, because nobody can save anybody else. That’s what my master has said.”The man shouted, “It is said in a different context! It is not said in the context of a man dying in the well.”The man said, “If you talk about context and reference, then I will have to bring the scriptures and show you.”The man said, “I don’t want to see any scriptures. And I am ready to take my words back – just bring a rope!”He said, “No, neither can anybody save you nor can anybody destroy you. It is always you, deep down, who are responsible for every action. So take the responsibility, be brave. And…see you next life!”He said, “My God! All these religious people….”And then came a Christian missionary with a bucket, with a rope…and he immediately threw down the bucket with the rope and told the man, “Sit in the bucket – it’s a big bucket – and I will pull you out. Don’t be worried.”He came out and he said, “You seem to be the only religious person in this whole crowd. What religion do you follow?”The man said, “I am a Christian.”The man who had been rescued from the well was very much impressed. He said, “This is real religion! Just one question: why were you carrying a bucket and a rope?”The Christian missionary said, “We have to be ready for any emergency. And because so many people fall into wells, all Christian missionaries carry a bucket and rope and we always look into every well – ‘Has somebody fallen or not?’ – because our master Jesus Christ has said: ‘Those who help the poor, the sick, the miserable, will be received with great honor in the house of God, in the kingdom of God.’ Up to now, I have saved thirteen men from wells…but my number is not much. There are many other missionaries who have gone beyond sixty, seventy. It is very difficult to find a person in a well.”The man said, “This is a strange philosophy – even stranger than those two…the Buddhist, the Taoist. You are using us as stepping stones; you want us to be in the wells.”He said, “Of course, because unless there are poor, how can we help? Unless there are sick, how can we serve? Unless there are miserable people, we are out of employment.”The man said, “Anyway, I thank you that you pulled me out. I cannot agree with your philosophy, but whatever your philosophy, at least my life is saved.”The missionary said, “This is not enough, this is not the right gratitude. The right gratitude will be to fall as many times into wells as you can. And if you can, inform me in advance; that will be really wonderful.”We are living in an insane world, and you have to find some sanity within yourself. You cannot find it in the world, you can find it only within yourself.That sanity will be your ladder toward higher states of consciousness, bliss and ecstasies.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 24 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,What is charisma? All sorts of people have it, both aware people and unaware people. Its such an intangible quality, I can say when someone is charismatic but can't define what it is.Sudha, charisma is a mystery. It happens only to those people who have centered their being, concentrated their energies, who are no longer falling apart, who are consolidated, who have become one – the very meaning of the word, individual.Every individual has charisma. But individual means that which is indivisible. You cannot divide that person into fragments; you cannot say to that person that “this part is wrong in you, this part is right in you.” You cannot create a schizophrenic psychology in that person; he’s one and whole. This very phenomenon of being one, centered and whole, creates a magnetic pull.Now, you cannot see a magnetic pull. You can see the magnet, you can see the small pieces of metal which are moving toward the magnet, but you cannot see magnetism, you cannot see any power.All power is invisible. All energy is invisible.Charisma is the energy of the consciousness which is settled in itself – at ease, at home – which has arrived. Now there is nowhere to go. Utterly relaxed, with no tensions, with no anxieties, with no desires – in short, with no bickering, torturing the mind – one has arrived at the point called Being with a capital B. The moment you touch your Being, you are no more a separate entity from the universe – you have become part and parcel of this tremendously alive existence.But the problem arises…if you see it in a Gautam Buddha, there is no problem. You can understand – the man has blossomed. You can see it. In his eyes you can see the depth; you can see in his gestures, the grace. You can see in his words an authority which can come only through experience, not through knowledge.The problem arises when you find some charismatic qualities in an ordinary man who has never meditated, who has never gone inward, who is as ordinary as everybody else. But sometimes it happens – you feel a magnetic pull. And because you have not arrived at your own center, it is very difficult for you to make a distinction between the man who is centered – hence, has a magnetic pull – and the man who is not so centered and yet you still feel a certain pull. You cannot make the distinction, for the simple reason that you have not experienced it in your own being.The ordinary man sometimes has something similar to charismatic power, but you will be surprised to know it is not charismatic power at all. It is something just the opposite – it is overflowing sexual energy. In a charismatic experience, the energy in the person is at the highest center. It is at the seventh center, sahasrar, beyond which you enter into the infinite, beyond which you are no more and you are all. It is the same energy.Man has seven centers, prominent centers. The energy is stored as a reservoir at the lowest center – naturally, because of gravitation. Water goes downward because of gravitation; it pulls somewhere, but it is always the lowest place. Water cannot go upward unless some effort is made. Unless some device is created to cancel the effect of gravitation, water is bound to go down and down and down.The sex center is the lowest point in your being. All energy accumulates at the sex center. The moment the child is born, he brings all his life energy, stored at the sex center. But the sad thing is that 99.9 percent of people also die in the same situation – the energy is still at the sex center, although it is no more that overflowing energy of a child; it is the dying energy of an old man. But it is still at the lowest center.The whole science of religion is nothing but an effort to create methods, devices, techniques to cancel the effect of gravitation and allow the energy a freedom to rise upward. As the energy starts rising upward, you will see changes happening on their own accord. Your behavior will change, your actions will change, your directions in life will change. You will be surprised, and others will be surprised, too. What has happened? – they have seen your anger, they have seen your rage, they have seen your jealousy, they have seen your hate – suddenly you are radiating love.If the energy reaches to the heart center, which is the fourth, your whole life becomes so sweet, so fragrant, and so beautiful – and you have only moved half way. If the energy moves still higher, and as the energy goes on moving higher, your charismatic power will become more and more apparent – even to those who are deaf and cannot hear, even to those who are blind and cannot see, even to those who are heartless and cannot feel. But the charismatic energy is so powerful that the blind has to see it and the deaf has to hear it and the heartless has to feel it. It all depends how high the energy has reached.After the heart center, the charisma will be felt by many but not by all.The fifth center is in the throat. When the energy moves to the throat center, your words start having something of the charisma of your being because they arise out of your heart, they come from your interiority, they bring with them some fragrance from your innermost being.It was said about Jesus by his contemporaries…. Jesus was not educated, was not cultured – he was a poor man, a carpenter’s son. His father could not afford to educate him. But people were amazed: he could not read, he could not write, but when he spoke there was no comparison. Then the greatest rabbis of that day, the great scholars, great orators, great religious leaders, even the arch priest of the great Jewish temple of Jerusalem – they were all pygmies before this young man. He was only thirty years of age when he started teaching and he was crucified when he was only thirty-three. He had not even reached the prime of his life. But whoever heard him, whether he agreed with him or not, had an absolute sense that when he speaks, you cannot disagree, at least in his presence. The idea of disagreeing does not arise. You cannot have doubts in his presence; something deeper convinces you. It is not logical. It is not his reason, it is his authority. It is the charisma that his words are carrying.It was known all over Judea that no man had ever spoken like Jesus. It was said even by his enemies, that no man had ever spoken like Jesus. And he is saying nothing special – but the way he is saying it is certainly special, the state in which he is saying it is certainly special.I have come across thousands of articles around the world in different languages, written for and against me – mostly against, but they all have recognized one thing which I was surprised that they all should recognize and yet not give a second thought to it…. And these are our intelligentsia. They all have mentioned – almost without fail – two things. One, that “You should not go to hear Osho. Because it does not matter what he’s saying, when you are in his presence, it seems to be right. By the time you have reached home it may look suspicious, doubts may arise.” A few have suggested: “You have been hypnotized.” Only very few have suggested – and none of them has heard me – that the words have a charismatic influence.I know only one thing – that I am not a speaker, that I don’t know the art of oratory. All that I know is that if I have experienced something, I can convey it to you with my total authority, with my whole being behind it. And if you are open and available, perhaps the word may reach to your innermost shrine of being. And it may reach there with something of a charismatic energy.As the energy goes on moving, the sixth center is the third eye – between the two eyebrows, exactly in the middle. It is when the energy is at the sixth center that the presence of the person…It is not just that he is here; it is not just a physical presence. There is no word for it, but we can manage…it is spiritual presence that you start feeling. His body becomes less important, his words become faraway echoes, but his presence, pure presence becomes such a tremendous pull that you know only one experience which can give you some idea of it, and that experience is falling in love – irrationally. You cannot give any explanation, but you know. You cannot say but you feel.And if the energy reaches the seventh, that is the point where one becomes awakened. The energy has come to the highest peak of evolution. Then that person is pure charisma.Whatever he touches becomes gold.Wherever he sits becomes a holy place.Whatever he says becomes scripture. His actions take on a tremendous beauty. His inactions also open doors to the miraculous. He speaks the truth and even when he is silent, his silence also speaks. Those who can understand the language of silence rejoice, are blissful, know perfectly well that this is the man they have been searching for centuries, for many lives.Charismatic power is the same sexual energy transformed, purified. It was poison at the lowest center; it has become nectar at the highest center. But at the lowest center also, it has a tremendous power. And you know that sometimes you feel a great attraction to an ordinary man. Remember, that attraction is sexual, and sexual attraction is blind. But ordinarily people only know that attraction, so when by chance they come across a man who has some charisma, they don’t have any way to distinguish between the two.That’s why Sudha is asking why sometimes in people who are awakened, and sometimes in people who are not awakened, this power is felt. It is not the same power – although it arises from the same energy. But from the lowest center it is crude, primitive, animal. Its influence will drag you into lower realms of being.But if you find really a charismatic person, you are fortunate. Just to sit at his feet is enough, because he’s showering his energy whether anybody is there or not. If you are receptive, open, available, just being close to a charismatic person is the first taste of religion. I am calling it taste; I am not calling it understanding, I am not calling it knowledge. It is actually a taste. Your whole being feels it. Each fiber feels it – a nourishment, a nourishment which is divine.Let us summarize:The charismatic energy is divine nourishment flowing from those who have arrived home.Osho,I feel a strong urge to create something in my life. I write songs and would like to sing them. They express my feelings and maybe because I feel you inside me, they also express a little bit of you. Can you please say something about the dividing line between expressing neuroses and the creation of something of beauty? Is it good for me to go on this trip?The urge to create anything is the first ray of light in the dark night of your soul. The urge to create is the urge to participate in the work of God.There is no God as a person, but there is tremendous creativity going all over the place. God is not a creator to me, God is all this creativity – and whenever you feel some urge to create, it is an urge to meet God. It is an urge to be a small God in your own right. Only by creating something, you can feel fulfilled.You write songs – it is beautiful. You want to sing. For whose permission are you waiting? – sing and sing madly! But remember only one thing, creativity has two possibilities. One is that it arises out of your silence, love, understanding, your clarity of vision, your intimate friendliness with existence – then creativity is healthy. But if it does not arise out of meditation, out of silence and peace and understanding and love, then there is a danger. It may be arising out of your confused mind. It may be arising out of your insanity.Anything that comes out of your tense mind, helps you anyway. It gives a relief. Something that was going round and round inside you – you have released it, but it will torture somebody else. It may torture many…because the song that was imprisoned within you was a personal matter; you have made it public. And if the song has come out of some kind of madness, some kind of confusion, you will certainly feel good, but at a cost which is too big. Millions of people for thousands of years can be affected by it. You are relieved but you have not behaved responsibly. You have not behaved sanely, you have not behaved humanely. Your songs, your paintings, your dance will have all the qualities of your mind, from which they came.Look at the paintings of Picasso. That poor fellow does not need worldwide recognition as a painter, as a creator – he needs psychiatric treatment. His paintings are like vomitings, he’s sick. He is a genius; he has great insight into color. But he is not at ease. He is not feeling joyful. He’s not feeling life as a gift. His paintings show his rejection of life. His paintings show his utter frustration, despair, anguish, confusion – you cannot figure out what the painting is all about. But because he is a genius, even though his creativity is not that of a Gautam Buddha, he has a great artistic, aesthetic sensibility.He has everything except a little meditation. Instead of a little meditation, there is a little madness.Almost all the great painters of the contemporary world have been, one or two times at least, sent into psychiatric hospitals, and they lived – all of them – one year, two years, three years in madhouses. Great poets have been in madhouses. Great dancers, like Nijinsky, have been in madhouses.It is strange that the West is not yet aware that something is wrong.Why do your scientists, your artists, your painters, your singers, your poets, your dancers – all creative geniuses – fall victim to madness? This has never happened in the East. And it is not that we have not created – we have created more than any other country in the world. But there has not been a single instance of a great artist, a great novelist, a great poet, a great mystic going mad. This is absolutely unknown in the East.On the contrary, you will be surprised that in the Far East, particularly in Japan, mad people are brought into the Zen monasteries to be treated. They are given a beautiful place, a small cottage by the side of a pond, with swans in the pond, birds, flowers, trees, rocks, rock gardens – which is especially Japanese. Nobody has ever thought that rocks can make a garden. People throw away rocks to create a garden. In Japan, they collect rocks to create a garden! Unless you can create a garden out of rocks, what kind of an artist are you?They put the madman in the most comfortable place. If he’s a painter, they give him all facilities to paint…but he’s not allowed to talk to anybody, he is not allowed to show his paintings to anybody. There is a fireplace – after painting, he has to put it into the fireplace. For three weeks he has to remain silent, and the master in the Zen monastery goes every day to look at his paintings – whether the paintings are changing, whether they are becoming more and more sane. The day he sees that a painting is perfectly sane, the man is released. They have used paintings to release his madness, but the paintings have all gone into the fireplace. They are not to go to the public – you are mad and you would be spreading your madness.Before you start making your songs and singing and dancing, create the right consciousness, the right awareness, so whatever comes out of you is a blessing for humanity, not a curse. That is the criterion. Unless it can be a blessing, throw it into a fireplace. You are released, but don’t burden somebody else.I used to live in a city across from a homeopathic doctor. He was a Bengali. In India, Bengalis are addicted with homeopathy – strangely enough, because there seems to be no reason why Bengalis should be so interested in homeopathy.Homeopathy was discovered in Germany by a German scientist. So if in Punjab people are interested in homeopathy, we can understand – but Bengalis? They could not even run if somebody were going to kill them. They cannot run, their dress is such, their dhoti would fall down – it is so loose that how they manage is a miracle. Now these are not the people who fight.This doctor was opposite me, so we became friends. But he was a torture. Usually, homeopaths don’t get many patients, so he was torturing me as much as possible. But I used to take my revenge, and my revenge was: whenever my father would come to visit me, I would take him to the doctor.He would say, “I am perfectly okay. Why do you always drag me to that idiot? I know more homeopathy than he knows.”He was also a homeopathy addict.But I would say, “No. Now you have come here, it is good just to have a check-up.”He said, “This is strange. I go on postponing coming to see you because of this doctor! Because I know you will leave me with the doctor and you will escape.”But that was my revenge. In homeopathy, they ask you…if you have a headache they will start asking you what diseases you have had since childhood, in what side of the body all your diseases were.My father was a lover of homeopathy, and the doctor, seeing my father, would almost go through a nervous breakdown – because my father used to start from his grandfather’s diseases. It took almost the whole day. And he may have had just a slight headache and the doctor would tell him, “Wait, I have listened to all these things. I know! Three generations – I know everything. And you just have a slight headache? Take the medicine!”But my father would say, “That is not right. Follow your science. First listen to the whole thing, because everything is connected.”That’s what homeopathy believes: that everything, every disease is connected with another disease; there is a pattern. A headache cannot come just from the sky, it must be coming from your grandfather! Although he is in the sky too….But somehow it has to be connected. And after three or four hours describing it…and the doctor just pulling at his hair because he has heard all this so many times, naturally he will start having a headache. By the time my father had completed his story, he would tell me, “Now we can go.”I said, “But what about your headache?”He said, “My headache is gone.”And the doctor said one day, “It is not gone, it has come to me! Whole hours listening to you – the same story! And I know no medicine can work because it has not come from my grandfather it has come from your grandfather, and in the whole literature of homeopathy, there is no mention of what to do if some disease from somebody else’s grandfather comes to you. Now I have to suffer. How long will you be staying here?”I said, “As long as you want,” because he was free and there would have been no problem. But the next morning the doctor had left to a nearby hill station.After seven days, he phoned. “Is your father still there? Because I am a poor doctor and I cannot manage to stay in this hill station, it is too costly.”I said, “He has gone, you can come back.”Life is an interconnected whole. Everything is interconnected. If you want to sing, just look into yourself – why? If you want to dance, just watch within yourself – from where is the urge coming and why?I am not preventing you. You can dance, you can sing, you can do whatever you want, but remember not to interfere in anybody’s life – even with a song, even with a dance.Life is very delicate and very fragile.A small thing can become a great disturbance.My suggestion is, your urge is beautiful. Just now, what you need is a little more silence, a little more peace, a little more relaxation, a little more no-mind, so that you can become just a hollow bamboo. And the song that wants to come out of you can come, and the dance can come, but they are not your creations. Your mind has not contributed anything to them, they are coming from the beyond.You have put the mind aside.Meditation simply means putting the mind aside, opening the door to your consciousness, an immediate relatedness to existence.Out of this, let the songs come, let the dances happen. They will be blessings to you and they will be blessings to the whole world. Share them.But share only when it has come out of silence, out of health, out of an integrated being.Osho,The real question is, am I a coward if I don't just put everything at stake in spite of those who wait for me back there? – my girlfriend, my sick old mother who may die out of grief if I don't come back, my job and my colleagues, whom I might put in trouble…. And in spite of the utter insecurity I would put myself in, am I a coward if I don't just stay in this beautiful garden of your presence, the only place where I really feel alive? Am I missing another beautiful opportunity or is it just not yet the right time still?The old mother is waiting for you and she’s so old that she may die if you don’t return home. The woman you love is waiting for you. Your whole family, your friends, your job – you will be a coward if you don’t return.But I can understand your longing to be here.You are not a coward in that sense, because if I say to you “Be here,” you will be here. Mothers, after all, die – you cannot help it. Whether you go or not, the mother will die at exactly the same time, on the same day. Although if you do not go, you will feel guilty your whole life that you killed her. Do you think those people who never leave their parents…that their parents live forever?Everybody dies. I am just trying to make it clear so that you are not burdened with guilt. Mothers will die, fathers will die. Everybody has to die. To me, the more important thing is that you are clean of guilt.Your girlfriend is waiting there. If you stay here, you will feel guilty – you must have promised her you will be coming back soon, and you will going against your word.No, I will not suggest that.I will tell you: go back home, don’t be a coward. Now…and it is not certain that you will find your girlfriend there. She may have already moved on. If she is intelligent, she will be enjoying her time there – with somebody, of course, hoping that you don’t come back!Staying here will be very cowardly at this juncture. You have to go and see what is happening. Where is the girlfriend?My feeling is, even if she has not left you yet, she will leave you. The average time for intelligent human beings to be together is three years. I don’t know how many years you have been with her…in three years, you start getting utterly bored.Go back.I have another suggestion to you: I am coming with you! This way, it is simple. Just your love for me, just your trust in me and your determination, your commitment to find out what this life is all about….You can practice meditation anywhere you are. You need not be here. In fact, it is far better to go back into the world, and once in a while just come for a refresher course.In this way, you will avoid the feeling of guilt. If you reach home and the girl has eloped, you will not feel guilty. You will feel unburdened, relieved, free to move to another girlfriend.You will find your mother also. Whatever has transpired within you here, if you love your mother, this is the time to be close to her. And just being close will not help. This is the time to help her to be silent, to be meditative, so that she can understand the beauty of death. So that she can disperse herself into existence without any resistance, without any fight, without any struggle.If she can welcome death, there is no death. Death is in your resistance. The moment you allow it, you are surprised: death has no reality. You are simply changing the house, from one body into another body.So go and share your meditation with your mother. That is the greatest gift and present you can give to her before she leaves the world. And share your meditation with your girlfriend too, before she moves to another boyfriend. She is going to move, even meditation cannot stop that. On the contrary, meditation helps because meditation makes you clearly aware of things.I have seen people living together for years, their whole life, thinking only of divorce – just thinking, but never being courageous enough to be alone without the wife. Because she is your whole misery – how are you going to live without misery? When you come home, it will look so empty, with nobody there to nag you.I have heard, one man entered a restaurant and ordered lunch. The waitress was puzzled because the order was strange. The order was: “Four chappatis, all burnt.”The woman looked at him.“And two vegetables with no salt, finishing with a cup of coffee, completely cold, with no sugar, no milk.”The waitress said, “It is a strange order. I have been here….”He said, “It is not a strange order. Look at the front of your restaurant, what you have written on the board outside” – on the board was written: Here you will feel completely at home. “I am trying to feel completely at home!”The woman said, “It is up to you.” She prepared his lunch, brought it, put it before him, stood nearby in case he needed anything more.He said, “Why you are standing there? Sit in front of me!”She said, “Why?”He said, “Nag me! Unless you nag me I will not enjoy my food!”Just lifelong habits…it is not so easy to divorce. Rather, people become accustomed. That’s why meditation is dangerous; it does not allow you to become accustomed. It keeps your intelligence always sharp and you can see when something has gone sour.It is stupid to bother about the spilled milk. That which has lost its joy, its beauty, its romance, its poetry – now why drag each other and torture each other? Most probably, the girl will have moved.Man is not an unmoving property. Man is a movable, intelligent animal. You are meditating here. What will the poor girl be doing there? She must be eating, she must be drinking, she must be sleeping, she must be taking a shower. So what is wrong in having a boyfriend too? just to continue the old habits, just to continue the routine smoothly.But if she has not moved on yet, afraid that you may be coming any day, share with her also your meditation. That will help immensely to make both of you absolutely free.Then love is a free gift with no conditions attached to it.Teach your mother, teach your girl, teach your friends, and next time, those who can come, bring them.But if you stay here, then I will certainly call you a coward because you have not faced the reality.Learn whatever is available here. Practice it anywhere. And whenever you feel that you need to be reminded of many things you are forgetting, come back – and next time don’t come alone. It is not right that you have left your girlfriend there. If you love her and you have come in search of meditation here, you would have brought her because it would be a shared adventure.Next time, this girl or another girl. Just remember one thing: that girls don’t ask me whether it is courageous to stay here or to go away. They simply remain here!So be careful. If you want freedom from any woman, bring her here. No problem for you, she will make you free on her own accord. And a miracle is also possible, that your girlfriend and you may be able to enter into meditation together. And that will be the real meeting. Otherwise, only bodies meet – which is not a meeting. That is only a hit-and-run affair.If you can also be consciously together in silence, in meditation, in peace, then you are putting down the right foundations of a friendship that can last – not only this life, but that can last for lives together. And you can be immensely helpful to each other in understanding problems, hindrances.So my suggestion is: be here, learn meditation. Go home, share your meditation, and whenever you can come, come back. This will be real courage: facing life, not escaping from life, and also making every effort to evolve your consciousness – not allowing life to create obstructions. You were thinking that courage is a simple matter – whether to stay here or go home. It is a little complex.Go home but don’t forget me. I am coming in your heart with you. So whenever you start forgetting me, put your hand on your heart, close your eyes, and immediately you will be connected with me.My sannyasins are all over the world. It is impossible to bring them together in one place. It would have been great to bring all of them into one place, one million sannyasins in one place, but all the governments consist of cowards. They are afraid of people. If they see one million people listening to one person, loving him to such an extent that even if their life is needed, they will give it…. Around the world this is the fear in the minds of all politicians: I have such a great strength around the world that it should not in any way be allowed to be in one place, because then it can become dangerous to the vested interests, to the governments, to the churches.And they are right!But they are cowards. They should face it, they should allow me. They should help me to create an alternative society. They have failed – ten thousand years of continuous failure; what more do they want? They have failed, and now there is no possibility that their system can succeed. It can succeed only in destroying life on the earth.They should think that if an alternative society can be created, then a chance should be given to it. People can live in a different way that perhaps is better. And perhaps other people would also like to live in this different way. But then again: the fear that in the new life, they will not be powerful. In the alternative life, everything would be so different that right now the people who are presidents, prime ministers, governors, senators, and are enjoying their egos, will be simply nobodies.In my vision, I don’t see any place for these people. I see singers, dancers, musicians. I see painters, poets. I see all kinds of beautiful people living, loving and having a good laugh about everything in life – because everything is hilarious, we have just forgotten our sense of humor.And these politicians, these priests, teachers…these are the people who have crushed man’s sense of humor. To the people who are in power, humor seems to be against them – people are laughing at them, so it is better that laughter should be destroyed. And they have destroyed laughter. They have made man a long face, sad, and they have convinced humanity that this is what life is.Go into a church. It looks like a graveyard. In fact, it is a graveyard, because worshipping Jesus on the cross…and have you observed that people – from the pope to the smallest priest – have crosses, golden crosses, hanging around their necks, but Jesus is missing. It is very strange. That cross is there because of Jesus, but where is Jesus and why should the cross be given preference over Jesus?You could have a beautiful, smiling Jesus. But the society does not want any smiles anywhere. Hence Jesus has been removed, only the cross has been chosen. Now the cross is a symbol of death, not of life. And crosses are not made of gold, and when you are crucified the cross is not hanging around your neck, your neck is hanging on the cross. What have these people been doing – cheating the whole of humanity?Osho,The other day, you talked about pride. It felt as if you were talking about a long-lost friend. The way I have been brought up, pride and humbleness are contradictory characters. My heart tells me that I can only become whole when they both meet. Is it that humbleness is my female part and pride, my male part? And can they meet in a loving heart? Please comment, Osho.You are born man and woman together – aradhanarishwar. We have the statues, five to seven thousand years old, of Shiva – half-man, half-woman. When the West came to know about those statues for the first time, they laughed. In fact, any idiot would laugh. But strangely enough, just in the beginning of this century, Carl Gustav Jung discovered that psychologically man is both, has to be both, because he is born of a man and a woman. Your father has contributed something, your mother has contributed something; you cannot be just a woman or just a man.You are both. But all the societies have been trying to enforce the idea that man is man, woman is woman, and they are separate.Why are they insisting on this separateness? They insist on this separateness because unless the woman is separate, she cannot be enslaved. She cannot be exploited. She cannot be forced into prostitution. But because they were so concerned to keep the society in the hands of men, all power in the hands of men and no power in the hands of women, they did not allow a deeper search: What is in a woman that attracts a man – or vice versa, what is in a man that attracts a woman?Carl Gustav Jung discovered that everybody is carrying the opposite sex in himself; half his being is made of the opposite sex. And it is this half of the opposite sex which creates the phenomenon of love – the love you are acquainted with.Every man has his mother, her contribution, in his blood, in his bones, in his marrow. He is still carrying in the unconscious the idea of a woman: his mother. And whenever he finds a woman that in some way resembles his mother, he falls in love. That’s why he cannot say why he has fallen in love. He does not know. In the unconscious is the ideal of the mother, but falling in love is a conscious thing. The unconscious knows the ideal, the conscious knows the woman he has fallen in love with.And the unconscious and conscious are not on speaking terms. They don’t talk with each other, they cannot – one is conscious, one is unconscious. While somebody is asleep, you may be sitting by his side but you cannot talk with him.The woman within you and the man within you are already meeting. It is not that there is a partitioned wall; you are both together – every inch, every atom, every cell. So the question is not how to create the merger, the question is just to remember: the merger is already happening, you cannot live without the merger.Sitting silently, just watch inside yourself and you will be surprised to see that feminine qualities, male qualities are all mixing without any effort on your part. In fact, their mixing is the very dialectic of life. You go on living a healthy life…it is healthier if the merger is close to perfection; it is not that healthy if the merger has been disturbed by your social upbringing.Have you watched? The societies that are opposed to sex – their life span is small, their average life is not long. Societies which are not opposed to sex, their life is longer. And societies which are aboriginal, which have not yet heard of your great preachers and priests and philosophers, and are still living naturally – they live the longest.There are even thousands of people who have passed the line of one hundred and eighty years. There are even more who have passed the line of one hundred and fifty years.I may not have come to know about it, but a friend from Caucasus just sent me a picture. One man was going to marry a woman. The man was one hundred and eighty and the woman was one hundred and seventy-two – marrying! I love the idea. This is the time, the right time to marry! In life, there are so many other things to do – do everything, and when you are one hundred and eighty, get married! Prepare the grave and get married, because after marriage there is nothing. So have a good honeymoon. And because after the honeymoon is the grave, it is bound to be total, intense.Why do people who don’t have any condemnation of sex, live longer? Because the merger of their feminine and male qualities is more natural – unhindered, unobstructed, not condemned, not repressed.You don’t have to do anything. Your chemistry is doing it. All that you have to do is be watchful, peaceful, and just see the miracles of nature that are happening in your body.You have the most miraculous thing in you – life, consciousness, love, and finally God – and you are searching here and there like beggars.Each man is born an emperor; he just has to claim it.I want my sannyasins to be emperors, not beggars. And once you remember your glory, you can claim it – it is already there. It is within you. Nobody can prevent you.So it is not a question of doing anything for the male and female within you to mix. You don’t need a mixture, you need just a silent awareness of whatever goes on happening in you. And you will be surprised that everything is right, nothing wrong happens unless you interfere.Except for your interference, there is no sin.Osho,The other day you said that as long as we are dependent on the other, we are bound to hate them. Are you also my “other”? I know that right now I depend on you and I say yes to it with all my heart, but it drives me to tears to think that I should ever hate you because I am dependent on you. Can you please fill my heart with understanding and ease the pain?Nobody is dependent on me. I am not creating a mob of slaves. My whole effort is just the opposite: to drag you out of the crowd of the slaves and to make you independent individuals.But from your side, I can understand. From your side, you may be thinking you are dependent on me. That is a misunderstanding.You are absolutely free. Free to be with me, free not to be with me, free to be for me, free to be against me – it is your joy.Don’t make it heavy. Keep it light and playful.You love me; hence the fear has arisen that one day you may fall into the opposite and you may start hating me. Don’t be worried, because your love is not just love. You love me not for any biological reason, you love me for some spiritual growth. Your love is part of your meditation. Your love is nothing but a gratitude for someone who has opened a door to the beyond.I don’t think there is any necessity for your love to change into hate. I am ready to make you free at any moment without creating the whole drama of hate.The drama of hate is a necessity – you love someone, then the natural process happens: you start getting bored, you start feeling stuck, you start looking all around. There are so many beautiful people and you are sitting with this woman, this man. You are the most unfortunate man on earth. Now, how to separate?And you have been giving promises to the woman – “I will love you. Others love people only in life but I will love you even after life.” Now what to do with all those promises? You cannot suddenly change. You cannot say, “I take my promises back.” What about all those love letters? “I will die without you. I cannot live a single moment without you. You are my life, you are my soul.”So now you have to go back, step by step, from love to hate. Only when hate is ripe, will you be able to separate. Otherwise, how to separate from a woman without whom you cannot live a single moment? First you have to create just the opposite situation, that “I cannot live with you anymore, even for a single moment – enough is enough!”But with me there is no problem, there is no need to create hate. You can love, that is your joy. You can turn off the switch, that is your joy.As far as I am concerned, neither your love affects me nor your hate affects me, it is just the same. So drop that idea completely.Don’t get into unnecessary problems, because they take energy, they take time. That is the time, that is the energy that has to be put into meditation. And you are throwing it away all over the place.Remember only one word: if you love me, your love has to be for meditation. If you love me, that means you have fallen in love with yourself; for the first time you are making an effort to realize your potential. How can you hate yourself?And if you are meditating then it becomes more and more difficult to hate. You cannot hate even your enemies; you will feel a deep compassion. So everything else is going perfectly right – just drop this idea that love may turn into hate.These are hypothetical questions, sheer wastage of time.Love while love is there. And when the hate comes, if you cannot manage to avoid it, then hate! But hate totally and intensely and you will still be following me, because my teaching is for totality and intensity.Who cares about love or hate?

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 26 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,It feels strange when the establishment, worldwide, which is ever busy with all its efforts and resources to make sure in every possible way that man cannot remain man, asks us to celebrate “Human Rights Day.” Goodness, what is all this that's going on? Osho, would you care to explain?One of the most fundamental things to be always remembered is that we are living in a hypocrite society.Once, a great philosopher was asked: “What do you think of civilization?”The philosopher said, “It is a good idea, but somebody has to change the idea into a reality. Civilization has not happened yet. It is a dream of the future.”But the people who are in power – politically, religiously, socially – are in power because civilization has not happened. A civilized world, a mature man, needs no nations – all those boundaries are false – needs no religions, because all those theologies are simple fictions.The people who have been for thousands of years in power – the priests, the politicians, the super-rich, they have all the powers to prevent human evolution. But the best way to prevent it is to convince man, “You are already civilized,” to convince man, “You are already a human being. You need not go through a transformation, it is unnecessary.”And man’s weakness is that knowing perfectly well there exists no such thing as civilization, there exists no such thing as human sensitivity, still he starts believing in all the lies that the politicians have been speaking, the priests have been preaching, the educationists have been teaching – because it seems simpler to just believe, you don’t have to do anything for it.To recognize the fact that you are not yet a man creates fear. The very ground underneath your feet disappears.Truth makes you utterly naked – naked of all lies, naked of all hypocrisies. That’s why nobody wants truth; everybody believes that he has got it.Do you see the psychological strategy? If you don’t want to give something to someone, convince him, hypnotize him, repeat again and again, “You have got it.” And when thousands of people around you – your parents, your teachers, your priests, your leaders – are all believing it, it seems almost impossible for new arrivals in the world, small children, not to be convinced of this thousands-of-years-old idea. Millions of people have lived and died believing that civilization has happened.So the first thing I want you to understand is that we are still barbarous. Only barbarians can do things that we have been doing for thousands of years – not human beings. In three thousand years, five thousand wars…and you call man civilized?In the twentieth century – exactly in the middle of the twentieth century – you can produce Adolf Hitler, you can produce Josef Stalin, you can produce Benito Mussolini, you can produce Mao Zedong, and still you believe man is civilized?Adolf Hitler alone killed six million human beings, and killed with great sophistication. Science and technology have been used. One million Jews have been simply burned in gas chambers – within seconds thousands of people are nothing but smoke going out of the chimneys. He killed so many people that it was impossible to give each person the conventional grave.Man has never been so poor – even beggars have graves, but he had killed so many people that to make graves for all of them…the whole of Germany would have became a graveyard. So he had deep ditches prepared, and people were simply thrown into the ditches and covered with mud. Before throwing their bodies in the ditches he destroyed even those dead peoples’ dignity. Their clothes were taken away; their heads, their beards, their mustaches were shaved so you could not recognize the face of the person. Their heads were cut off; so you would find somewhere the head and somewhere the hand and somewhere the leg and somewhere the remaining parts of the body. And thousands of people – it was impossible to figure out who you were looking for.Why did he do that? So that nobody could be recognized. Even if somebody was found dead, he could not be recognized; he did not even have his whole body. And you say that man is civilized?And this is not the end of the story. Seeing the second world war, one would have thought that just a little intelligence is needed and the second world war should be the last world war – seeing what man himself has been doing to man. But no, we are preparing for the third world war – and the last.Albert Einstein was asked, “Can you say something about what is going to happen in the third world war?”And Einstein said, “Excuse me, I cannot say anything about the third world war, but I can say something about the fourth.”The questioner could not believe it. He said, “You cannot say anything about the third – and it is so complicated – yet you are ready to say something about the forth, which will be even more complicated!”Albert Einstein said, “You don’t understand. I can say something definitively, categorically, about the fourth. And that is that the fourth is never going to happen, because the third will destroy all life – not only human beings, roses too. All that is living will disappear from the earth.”And you say that humanity has become civilized?No, you have been deceived and this declaration of human rights by the United Nations is nothing but the same hypocrisy.George Gurdjieff used to tell a small story – but it is about humanity. The story is that there was a magician. He lived deep in the mountains and the forests, and he had thousands of sheep. But the problem was that the sheep were afraid of the magician because every day the sheep were seeing that one of them was being killed for his breakfast, another was being killed for his lunch. So they used to run away from the magician’s place, and it was a difficult job to find them in the vast forest. Being a magician, he used magic. He hypnotized all the sheep and told different sheep…to some, “You are a man, you need not be afraid. It is only the sheep who are going to be killed and eaten, not you. You are a man just like I am.”Some other sheep were told, “You are a lion – only sheep are afraid. They escape, they are cowards. You are a lion; you would prefer to die than to run away. You don’t belong to these sheep. So when they are killed it is not your problem. They are meant to be killed, but you are the most loved of my friends in this forest.”In this way he told every sheep different stories, and from the second day, the sheep stopped running away from the house. They still saw other sheep being killed, butchered, but it was not their concern. Somebody was a lion, somebody was a tiger, somebody was a man, somebody was…. Nobody was a sheep except the one who was being killed.This way, without keeping servants, he managed thousands of sheep. They would go into the forest for their food, for their water, and they would come back home, believing always one thing: “It is some sheep who is going to be killed, not you. You don’t belong to this mob. You are a lion – respected, honored, a friend of the great magician.” The problems of the magician were solved.I am telling you this story because it is literally true about you. You are being told things, and you accept them without even looking all around to see whether those things coincide with the reality or not.The first thing…My first objection to the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights is that rights exist only when there are duties. Duties are roots, rights are the flowers: you cannot have rights without duties. And to celebrate a day in the year for human rights…but they don’t celebrate a day for human duties, which comes first.Why are they not talking about human duties? Because they don’t want to give you your human rights. Without duties, rights can only be talked about, but you won’t have them in your hands. And about duties, these politicians who have made this declaration have no notion at all. I will give you a few examples.They say that every human being is equal. And of course it satisfies the ego of every human being – nobody objects. It is one of the most dangerous lies to tell human beings.I say to you, equality is a myth.There are not even two human beings who are equal – in any way, in any dimension. I don’t mean that they are unequal, I mean that they are unique, incomparable, so the question of equality or inequality does not arise. Are you equal to these pillars in the hall? The pillars may be beautiful, but you are not equal to them. But does that mean you are inferior to the pillars? It simply means you are not a pillar – pillars are pillars, you are you.Every human being is a category unto himself.And unless we recognize the uniqueness of each individual, there are not going to be any human rights, and there is not going to be a civilized world – human, loving, rejoicing.In the declaration they emphasized the fact again and again that you should love all human beings; you are all brothers. But have you ever seen brothers being in love? Have you ever seen brothers being friends? The way brothers fight, nobody fights.And just saying, “You are brothers,” does not make it a reality. These people who declared these human rights – what authority have they got? Who are they? Politicians…and they are the cause of all the wars, they are the cause of all kinds of violence happening all over the world.These are the people who have kept almost half of humanity – womankind – in a state of slavery. But looking at the declaration I had really a great time…because it does not talk about sisters, only brothers.Sisters don’t count – yet they are half of humanity.They are not even mentioned.These politicians are articulate, clever, cunning…mostly coming from the legal profession. They are saying there should be no discrimination between man and woman, between black and white. Between races, religions, political ideologies, there should be no discrimination. And who is making the discrimination? These are the same people who are making the declaration.They have enslaved the woman for centuries, and they are not yet willing to give her freedom – which, according to their declaration, is a basic human right.The blacks are being treated as animals. Just at the end of the last century, the blacks were still be sold, auctioned in marketplaces like a commodity. And even today, they are not respected as the white people are respected.And these are the white people – all these politicians are white. These white people have been driving the whole of humanity, for three hundred years, into slavery. They all had their empires. England had the biggest empire; it was said that the sun never set in the British Empire. Somewhere or other in the British Empire the sun was shining and it was day – all around the earth. But other white people were not far behind: the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish – they all had vast empires, exploiting the whole earth. They have been the parasites: and it is hilarious that all these parasites are now declaring human rights.This is a deception. It is not meant; what they are saying they don’t mean. It is just to give you an idea that you are equal to everybody, you are a brother to everybody, that you have all the human rights.But I know – all these human rights are just hypocrisies.I know by my own experience.There is one human right enumerated in this declaration: Nobody can be arrested without a warrant. I was arrested exactly like that in America – without warrant, without any arrest warrant or search warrant. Not even verbally did they inform me what crime I had committed. And when I asked them, “What crime have I committed? I must know at least,” the answer was loaded guns – twelve loaded guns surrounding my jet airplane.When guns are answers, then you can be certain civilization is far away.They did not have any arrest warrant. The simple thing for the court would have been…but they not only arrested me, they were clever, they had deliberately arrested me at such a time that I would have to be in jail for at least two days. On Monday the court would open – only then could I be bailed out. They themselves were certain that I would be bailed out because there was no reason to hold me; they didn’t have any proof, any evidence against me. They had chosen a certain situation in which for two days the court was closed – so at least they would have the satisfaction of torturing me for two days. On the third day…I was not amazed when the court refused to give me bail.The magistrate, a woman, did not even allow my attorney’s to question the fact that I had been arrested without any arrest warrant. In a democratic country which claims to be the greatest democratic country in the world, the court would not allow them even to discuss it, because to discuss it would be an exposure. There was no question of giving me bail. In the first place I had been arrested without any warrant, and even after three days they didn’t have the warrant – the question of bail does not arise. The bail was not given.In the second court, in a higher federal court, again the question, what about my arrest? – which is the basic question – was not discussed.Everything else is secondary. First, you arrest somebody without even telling him why he is being arrested….And in these human rights, these same politicians sitting in America, say that nobody can be arrested without an arrest warrant; this is a fundamental human right. If I was not arrested, I might not have known.They say nobody should interfere in anybody’s philosophy, religion, political ideology – that is every individual’s birthright. But my commune in America has been destroyed for the simple reason that Christianity – my being not a white man, my commune being universal…. There were black people, there were people from all over the world. It was the only place where there was no discrimination of any kind. They destroyed a commune which was fulfilling human rights in every detail.On the surface man has become civilized, but deep in the darker parts of his unconsciousness he is still barbarous.In the introduction to this declaration it says, we are determined to eliminate all forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief. And this is not true in any country. Religions are fighting continuously, and if the government consists of fanatic, religious people, the minority is crushed and destroyed in every possible way. The desire is good, but the people who are desiring it are all wrong.In the convention at which the UN declared these fundamental rights, the Soviet Union was absent; eight other communist countries were absent. America was present. Unanimously the declaration was adopted – all in favor and nobody against. I am mentioning it because it was basically an American initiative to make this declaration. And America is the first to be going against every human right.Just now, America has given two hundred million dollars to the terrorists in Nicaragua, a small country which has become communist, just like Cuba. To destroy the country, America has flooded it with terrorists. Now millions of dollars are being poured in continuously, to support the terrorists with weapons and with everything. And in this declaration it says that every country is sovereign, and no other country should interfere in any other country’s life, religion. That is their business – how they want to live, what they want to believe or not to believe. It is nobody else’s business at all. If in some small country people have accepted communism as their lifestyle and their social structure, who is America? – and what right have they?Nicaragua appealed to the world court; and the world court is full of American judges. Still the world court said to America, “Your act is against the human rights declaration, it is criminal.” Ronald Reagan simply canceled it. He said, “We don’t care about the world court or their decisions.” Now these are the people who have made the declaration. They have created the world court to decide in situations where some conflict arises. And these same people are not ready to listen.Do you see the politics behind it? The World Court, the declaration – all are facades to hide things. If some small country was doing it, then the world court would be right, and America would have taken action in favor of the world court to destroy that country because it was doing a criminal act. Now, because America itself is doing the criminal act, it simply can say, “We don’t care about the world court.”And what can the world court do? It has no armies, it has no power. It has all the power that has been given to the politicians; but if those politicians themselves go against the law that they have made, what can the court do?And the UN is silent. Its Court has been insulted. If the people in the UN have any dignity they will dissolve the UN and dissolve the world court – because what is the point? Today America is doing it tomorrow the other countries will. And the Soviet Union is far better, and is right, because it never participated in this declaration. It is not part of this declaration; no communist government participated in it. So at least they have shown from the very beginning that these things are all bogus: “Who are you trying to cheat?”All the rights are, in a way, not very rational. For example, in this long declaration, the right to leave the body when one has lived enough and is now weak, sick, old, a burden, and of no use…One is suffering unnecessarily and waiting for death. Why wait? Why put this man unnecessarily in torture?The society is responsible for thousands of people who are in torture – in hospitals or in nursing homes. They don’t have any possibility of coming back to life healthy, creative, of any use. But they can go on vegetating; and medicine is developed enough – you can keep them in the hospitals for years. Artificial breathing…perhaps the man is already dead, but because of the artificial breathing you are deceived.In this long list, one of the most important human rights is not included; and that right is the right to leave the world, to give the ticket back, to say, “I want to go back home? Who are you to prevent me or anybody?”But that right, which is very significant today because in the advanced countries, the average life has gone to such lengths that more and more people will be in a situation where their sons and daughters are already old – eighty, ninety…. The fourth or fifth or six generation has already arrived, and that fifth or sixth generation cannot have any connection with a man one hundred and twenty years old, just vegetating in a hospital. Those new arrivals have no relationship, they don’t have any respect.Now, months pass and those old people are hanging around in the hospitals waiting, hoping that somebody may come – a friend, a child, an old acquaintance – to meet them. Nobody comes. People avoid them. They are boring, naturally. It is almost as if you are reading a fifty-year old newspaper. They don’t have anything new; everything is fifty, sixty years old. If you go to them they will talk only about those golden days when they used to be young, and life was an adventure. You cannot connect with them, and you feel simply bored. Everything has changed in fifty years, and those people are not even aware of what has changed.But no government in the world accepts euthanasia, the right to die. In this long declaration it is not included.Politicians are very, very cunning. They don’t want to be controversial, so they say only things which you like or everybody is going to like. They are not concerned with the actual situation, and the changes it needs. Their whole effort is in how to make you happy just by giving you bogus words.Nowhere in the world are any of the basic rights being applied.I will go through a few important rights.Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights has resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind….It has two implications in it. One is that the people who made this declaration have accepted that humanity is civilized. That’s why once in a while if there is any barbarous act, those human beings in the world – the whole of mankind – suffers in conscience, feels the pain, the anguish. Both are lies, because I don’t see humanity having any conscience.When Mohammedans kill Hindus, no Mohammedan thinks that he has done wrong – the question of conscience does not arise. In fact, according to his religion he has done some virtuous act. He was trying to convert the Hindus to Mohammedanism, because if you are not a Mohammedan you cannot enter paradise.He was trying to help you in every possible way, to smuggle you, rightly or wrongly, into paradise. From the front door or from the back door, it doesn’t matter. But you are resistant, you don’t want to go to paradise, you are determined to go to hell – that’s why he prevents you, he beheads you: It is better to be killed by the hands of a religious Mohammedan. The Koran says, “The man who is killed by a Mohammedans will enter paradise, just as the Mohammedans who have killed him will enter paradise.” So they are really trying to save people from going to hell – why should they feel any pain in their conscience?No Hindu feels it, no Christian feels it. Christians have killed more people than anybody else, and particularly they have burned living people. Others have been killing and then burning; Christianity has a shortcut. Why make it in two parts? When the book can be published in one book, why make two volumes? First kill the man and then burn him? – burn him directly! Thousands of people have been burned alive.I don’t see anywhere that anybody is outraged.If people are outraged things will change – because who is doing them? We are doing them.This sentence in the beginning of the declaration is such a lie. First it says, “Barbarous acts….” In fact, in these fifty years we have done more barbarous acts than in the whole history of man. In ten thousand years we have not been able to do so many barbarous activities as we have done just within fifty years. We are becoming more and more barbarous – of course with a style and method.Hiroshima and Nagasaki – what do you think? Are these barbarous acts, or an effort to send the beautiful people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima directly to paradise together? Whole cities, more than two hundred thousand people, entered within five minutes. I don’t think there was ever such a crowd at the gates of paradise. And it was America that was responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.It is now absolutely confirmed by the people who understand military science that dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was absolutely useless. Japan was already surrendering – Germany had surrendered and now there was no question that Japan could go on fighting; not for more than one week, or maybe not even that long.Seeing that Germany was finished, Japan could not fight alone. It is a small country of very courageous people, brave people but a very small country. It was fighting with the support of Germany, and when the main support disappeared…. Japan was going to surrender.And this was the fear of President Truman of America: Japan may surrender tomorrow; then he will miss the chance to drop the atom bombs. And they had put so much money and energy and genius into creating atom bombs, they wanted to try them.Man is not important, but money…. Their bombs had to be tried.And you say that because of barbarous acts, the civilized people feel a prick of conscience. Was President Truman a civilized man or not? Even his own military experts had told him that it was absolutely meaningless, unnecessarily destroying human life. But he went ahead.The next morning hundreds of journalists had gathered at the White House to see President Truman, because world’s greatest catastrophe created by man had happened. Their first question was, “Mr. President, did you have a good sleep in the night?” – because he had gone to bed only after he had received the message: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in smoke, they are no longer on the map of the earth.” Then he went to bed; otherwise he waited for the news to reach him.He said, “Yes, I slept more peacefully than ever, because our experiment has succeeded. Now we are the greatest power in the world.”And you are talking about conscience?More than two hundred thousand people died within three minutes, and the man whose order killed them, slept very “peacefully,” as he had never slept before. And if this is the situation of President “True-Man,” then what about the people who are not such true men?As far as I am concerned, civilization is still a dream, a hope, a utopia. And if we don’t get into the tricks of the magician, and start believing that we are civilized people, the hope can become a reality, the dream can become a concrete experience.And conscience arises only after meditation, never before it. You are not born with a conscience. You can watch small children: if they see an ant they will kill it. Do you think the small child has some conscience? Do you think the small child is a criminal, a murderer? No, nothing like that. It is just out of curiosity, he’s just exploring his world. He has entered into a new world, and he is exploring it. But there is no question of conscience. He does not feel that when he has been beating a dog for no reason, the dog also feels pain. Children don’t have any conscience; they have only seeds.All these politicians are trying to convince humanity: “You have a conscience.” You don’t have. You will have to grow it, you will have to work upon yourself. You will have to learn how to be silent, and how to listen to the still, small voice within.I don’t think any of the politicians who made this declaration have had any experience of what conscience is, of what consciousness is. It comes only after a long, long pilgrimage inward. You are not given everything by birth. You are given by birth only the necessary things for survival; everything else is given only as a seed. If you are intentionally interested in evolving your consciousness to its highest peak, then it is up to you.Nature provides only for survival – not life, not joy, not silence, not ecstasy, not love. Nature can manage itself with only lust – what is the need for love? Why create complications? Love you will have to find, consciousness you will have to grow. You will have to become a gardener of your own being – your being is your garden.Your being is the Garden of Eden talked about in the Bible. That Garden of Eden is not somewhere else on some other star – it is within you. You have been thrown out of it, and you have been running all around but never going in. The moment you go in, you are back in the Garden of Eden.But now, nobody has taken care for thousands of years. You have never been back inside. Everything has gone to seed; now nothing blossoms, no foliage, no greenery. But you can bring it back to life because everything is potentially there.These people don’t understand what conscience is.They have learned only words.I have heard…a psychologist was appearing for an oral examination for his doctorate. There were three examiners. The first question they asked was: “What are the most important qualities of the human mother’s milk?”The psychologist was a little puzzled: “What has psychology to do with mother’s milk? I have not come here to be an expert in milk products or anything. But what to do, I have to answer….”So he said, “First, it has all the nutrients for the child’s growth – it is perfect food. Second, it comes from within the mother’s body, so it is warm, easily digestible; and because it comes from within, it cannot be carrying any infection, any disease which may be around. The child is protected.”They said, “Right! Now, the third?”There was a moment of silence because he could not figure it out – what is the third? The first two also he had made up. The third was coming up again and again in his mind, but he was repressing it. When he could not find anything else he had to say it. He said, “The third is that it comes in nice containers!”Now, these idiots are going to be psychologists! And that was the first thing that had come to his mind – “nice containers.”Looking at the declaration, my first feeling was that these people are articulate, they can play with words. They can use beautiful words which influence you and deceive you, and hide the reality.Article one: All human beings are born free.This is absolutely nonsense.If all human beings are born free, leave a child in freedom: he will die within twenty-four hours. Man’s child is the most helpless child in the whole world – what freedom can he have? He cannot walk, he cannot talk, he cannot fly….In fact, one scientist had the idea – and I feel some sympathy with his idea – that human child is born earlier than he should be. He needs at least nine months more in the mother’s womb because he is not complete, he’s still growing. You see animals, kids – they are born and they start walking around and searching for food. They are more independent and they are more complete. For the human child it is impossible to survive without the support of the mother and the father and the family or other human beings.What freedom can he have?This is what I say is the most cunning part of the politician’s mind: He is giving you the idea that you don’t need freedom. “Don’t ask for freedom. You are born free; all human beings are born free.”All human beings are born utterly helpless and dependent. It may take years for them to be free. Then too, millions of people never become free. This declaration is saying that they are born free. I am saying millions of people die – even then they are not free. And you know it from your life: you are not free.The husband is there, the wife is not free. The wife is there, the husband is not free. I have seen husbands and wives walking on the road – the husband is not even free to look here and there! He looks straight ahead, like a Buddhist monk, just four feet ahead. And his wife is looking out of the corner of her eye – where is he. What kind of freedom is this? The moment the husband reaches home, the first question is: “Where have you been?” – and you are a free man – “Why are you late?”When I was in school, I was usually late. Life outside was so beautiful, and around my school there were so many mango trees. And when the mango season comes, just to pass by the side of mango trees – such fragrance, such sweetness in the air. The mango is certainly the king of all the fruits. There were other fruit trees too, and I was mostly in those trees rather than in class.On the first day when I reached middle school, I was half an hour late. The teacher said, “This won’t do. At least with me, this will not do. If you have to study my subject, you have to be here before I come into the class – five minutes earlier. Why are you late?”I said, “Listen – just because of this question I am not going to get married!”He said, “What? The question of marriage?”I said, “I will explain to you: I have been hearing it everywhere in my neighborhood; every wife is asking, ‘Where have you been? Why are you late?’ and I have decided that these questions I am not going to answer. So I am sacrificing my whole life – I’m not going to get married – because of this question, and you think I will answer it for you? I would rather change the subject. Good-bye!”He said to the class, “This is a strange boy. Irrelevant things he brings in – marriage? What has marriage to do with my subject, geography?”But he became interested in me. After school he caught hold of me and he said, “Now, we can sit. I want to understand what is the matter. Why?”I said, “Nobody has the right to ask me why I am late, where I have been. It is my life: If I want to spoil it, it is my right. You are only a servant, to teach geography. You are not there to ask such questions to create dependence in me. I hate such questions. I can leave the school; I can completely forget about being educated, there is no need. Because if Jesus, without being educated, can experience himself; if Kabir, without being educated, can know the ultimate…. I am not interested in any business, in any service, in any employment. So if you want me in your class, you will have to be a little more human – not continuously interfering in my freedom.”This first article says: “All human beings are born free.”These are the strategies of hypnotizing and conditioning humanity. They have given you the idea that you are born free – now there is no need to fight for freedom, there is no need to create an inner revolution which makes you really free – free from everything, free from the body…because the body is a bondage.The East is far more truthful. It says you are born in bondage, not that you are born free. Your body is a prison and your mind and your brain are prisons. Your consciousness is confined in a very small space, and your consciousness is capable of spreading all over the universe. Because you don’t know the potential, you think this is all you are.These people, according to me, are criminals – greater criminals than those who go to the gallows – because they are deceiving the whole of humanity. But the deception is very clever: “You are born free.” Naturally, freedom is not a question, not something to be created, to be deserved, to be earned, to be worthy of; you are already free!George Gurdjieff is the only man in the whole of history who has said such a tremendously significant thing: “You don’t have any soul.” Now, throughout the whole world, all the religions believe that you have a soul, that you come with a soul. George Gurdjieff’s voice is alone in the whole of history, saying that not all man are with a soul; the place of the soul is empty. There is a possibility – you can work, you can create the soul – but you are not born with it.I know, and Gurdjieff knows that you are born with a soul – but the idea that we are born with a soul has not been helpful. It has made man more asleep: We are born with a soul, God is within you, the kingdom of God is within you, so what do you have to do? Things that are not within you, work hard to get them – money, power, respectability – because nobody says, “Every child is born with money, every child is born with political power, every child is born with respectability.” Nobody will say that. These things have to be earned.Freedom, consciousness, God, whatever you call it, has to be discovered. It is hidden, dormant; it has to be made dynamic, has to be made fully mature. It should be brought to flower and fruition. But to tell people, “You are born free – and equal in dignity and rights”…. People can go on lying so smoothly, with such beautiful words – destroying those words.Nobody is equal.This is a psychological truth.Neither in your body nor in your mind nor in your talents…nor among your geniuses – nobody is equal. A Sigmund Freud is a Sigmund Freud; a Bertrand Russell is a Bertrand Russell; a D. H. Lawrence is a D. H. Lawrence. There is not even one other D. H. Lawrence, and never will be.Each individual is unique.This idea of equality is so ugly, but it has become almost the religion of the contemporary man – “equality.”I say to you, it is the most destructive idea that has penetrated into the human mind. You have to be reminded about your uniqueness.All human beings are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.These are all assumptions without any validity. All human beings are not born with reason, are not endowed with reason.For example, there are people, very few…I have just named Bertrand Russell – he can be said to be endowed with reason. A J. Krishnamurti…but ordinary people are living with all kinds of superstitions. Unless you have dropped all your superstitions, you cannot be said to be a rational person. What does reason mean? For the Hindus, the cow is the mother. This is “reason.”I was talking to a shankaracharya – the equivalent of the pope to the Hindus – and I asked him, “Are you sure that the cow is your mother?”He said, “What do you mean?”“Now,” I said, “just entering your temple, I met your mother. So I was puzzled: who is your mother, this woman or the cow? Or perhaps one is your step-mother?”He said, “What are you talking about? The woman is my biological mother, but the cow is my spiritual mother.”I said, “My God! What about the bull? You must have some relationship with the bull or not? – your spiritual father? And who are you? – just a bull; or perhaps castrated, not even a bull.”You live with superstitions, and you talk about reason.All Christians believe – and the whole group of politicians who have drawn up this declaration, ninety percent of them are Christians – they all believe that Jesus is born of a virgin mother. And they are rational beings….It happened: One college girl got pregnant. She tried to hide it, but there are a few things you cannot hide. Truth is one, pregnancy is another! It is just impossible; it goes on becoming bigger and bigger.Finally her mother discovered it. She said, “What is the matter?” And the girl had to confess. The mother took her to the doctor.The doctor examined her and said, “Even without examining her…she is pregnant – and eight months. Now abortion is not possible.”The mother started shouting and screaming at the girl: “You have blackened our name, destroyed our respectability in the society.”But the girl said, “Mom, I have not even touched the hand of a man. How can I be pregnant? This is impossible!”Hearing this, the doctor got out of his chair, went to the nearby window and looked at the sky.The mother said, “Why you are looking there?”He said, “I am looking for the three wise men from the East.”She said, “What do you mean?”He said, “And I am also looking for the star because it happened once – when Jesus was born. The star came, leading three wise men. It seems it has happened again – a virgin birth!”But ask these Christians, “Where is your rationality?” Jesus is born out of virgin mother. He is crucified and he’s resurrected too, he makes dead people come back to life – and these are the fundamentals on which the faith of a Christian depends. You just take a few things out – it is very strange – and you will find Christianity to be the most irreligious religion, the poorest as far as religiousness is concerned.The virgin birth – cancel it, if you have reason. Resurrection – cancel it, if you have reason. Walking on water – cancel it. Raising the dead back to life – cancel it. Changing water into alcohol – not only cancel it, but find the guy and give him to the police, because it is a crime, it is not a miracle. But if all these things are canceled, what remains in Christianity? That is the poverty of Christianity.In Buddhism, you cannot cancel anything because nothing is based on superstition. Buddha himself has canceled anything that smells of superstition – it is just pure rationality.But to say that man is endowed with reason by birth…. It doesn’t seem so. Looking at the world, it doesn’t seem that it is a rational world. We have not been living according to reason, we have been living according to all kinds of irrational things.But these are sweet words to believe: that you are endowed with reason. The more idiotic you are, the more you will believe it, and sooner.…And conscience, and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.Conscience arises only after deep meditation – never before it. It is a flowering of meditation. Only very few people in the whole world, in the whole of history, have been conscious, have had conscience. Both the words mean the same, but because of religious people, in all the languages except French they have created different meanings for the two words. Only in French is conscience and consciousness one word, it means the same thing.Religions around the world have tried to take conscience separately from consciousness for a certain reason: consciousness comes only after meditation. How long can you deceive people?It is just like when you bring light into the room, and darkness disappears. The moment you are in a meditative state, you have consciousness, awareness.They created another word, conscience. And conscience is what the priests, the church, the religion, teach you about what is good, what is bad, what is virtuous, what is sin – all these teachings make your conscience. It is a very clever trick to separate conscience from consciousness.There can be no conscience without consciousness.But they have created a false, artificial conscience.For example, I was born in a very ancient religion – perhaps the ancientmost. It is a small religion as far as numbers are concerned, but they have their superstitions.Up to the age of eighteen I had not seen a tomato in my house. Do you think tomatoes are dangerous people? But because the color of the tomato is the color of meat, that was enough to debar it. Up to the age of eighteen I had never eaten in the night, because it is prohibited by that religion – you can eat only between sunrise and sunset. Eating in the night you may eat some insect, some ant: some violence may happen. So it is better to eat in light, in full light.When I was eighteen my friends were going to see a beautiful castle very close by, a few miles away. I went with them. I had no idea, I had not even thought about it, but going up the hill to the castle…and it was so beautiful, so old, and there were so many things to see, that nobody was ready to prepare food.I asked, “Do something – soon the sun will be setting and I am feeling very hungry, you are feeling hungry. The whole day long we have been moving on the mountain…it has been tiring, but it has been an experience.”They said, “As long as the sun is there, we don’t want to miss. There are a few more things to see.”I was the only one who was not accustomed to eating in the night. They were all eating at night so there was no question. By nine or ten o’clock in the night, they had prepared such delicious food – and particularly after the whole day’s hunger, starvation, and moving on the mountain, I was in a dilemma – what to do? Then I told them: “There is a great difficulty. I have never eaten in the night, and the religion in which unfortunately I have been born, thinks that if you eat in the night, you will go to hell. I don’t want to go to hell just for one night’s food, but I cannot sleep either. Moreover, the smell of your food is too much!”They persuaded me, saying, “We will not tell your parents or anybody.Nobody will ever know that you have eaten in the night.”I said, “That is not the point – I will know. The question is not my parents or anybody. You can tell the whole world, that’s not the problem. The problem is that I cannot conceive of myself eating at night, after eighteen years of continuous conditioning.” But they persuaded me – and I had to be persuaded. I ate, but I could not sleep; I had to vomit the whole night. Now, nobody else vomited. Twenty persons were with me; they all slept – they were tired, they had eaten good food. They slept well. I had to remain awake the whole night, vomiting. Unless I was completely clean of the food, I could not sleep. It was just in the morning nearabout five that I went to sleep. That gave me the idea: perhaps eating in the night is dangerous. Just one time and the whole night became hell! And those who have been eating in the night for their whole lives…perhaps the idea that they go to hell is right. But the whole world is eating in the night. If it is true, then everybody will be going to hell. And these twenty friends are sleeping so beautifully – nobody has vomited so nothing was wrong with the food, and nothing is wrong with these people. Something is wrong in my conditioning; I have been brought up with a wrong idea. But once you accept something, this creates a false conscience that goes on telling you, “Don’t do this, do this.” This is not consciousness. Consciousness simply knows what to do, what not to do. There is no question of choice. Consciousness is a choiceless state – you simply know what is right. You are not born with conscience. It has been created by the religions, and they have exploited man through creating conscience. It is time that we should drop the word conscience because it has become associated with a long past and has wrong connotations. You should use the word consciousness. But consciousness is the fragrance of your becoming absolutely silent; it does not come with your birth. Yes, if you can attain consciousness, you will have a new birth; you will be reborn. That’s what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus, “Unless you are born again, you will not understand me.” He does not mean in your next life. He means that you will have to transform your being, rise in your consciousness: “Only then will you be able to understand me.” If you have consciousness and silence and meditativeness, there is no need to say that the whole of humanity is one. It is – it is your experience. And it will not be only a brotherhood, it will be a brotherhood and a sisterhood! But it will be just a byproduct; there is no need to declare it as a fundamental right.Article two: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.All these are bullshit. The first question I was asked as I entered America was that I had to declare under oath that I am not an anarchist. If I am an anarchist, I cannot enter America. Anarchism is a political ideology. I cannot conceive that these people go on declaring these things. Who is going to ask them: “When are you going to practice them?” Everywhere there is discrimination – in different ways in different countries, but discrimination is there. Mankind needs a great uproar against these so-called humanitarians. They think they are doing a great service. For example, in India, for the same amount of work the woman will be paid less. And in this declaration it is said that for the same amount of labor, the same rewards should be paid – whether it is man or woman, white or black does not matter. But it is not true. In America, I was in six jails, and in all the jails there was not a single white man. In six federal jails – which were huge, six hundred people, seven hundred people in one jail…but all black people. And you say discrimination is not there. It seems strange – in a white country all the criminals are black. And that was not all. I inquired of a few black inmates – because they all loved me; they had been watching me on television every day for five years, and they had become involved in controversies themselves. They were reading my books, and they were happy that I had come at least for one day to their jail – they would remember this day for their whole lives. I asked them, “What is your crime?” They said, “All these people you see have not committed any crime. They have been arrested the way you have been arrested – without any arrest warrant. And we have been told again and again: ‘You will be taken to the court next week, tomorrow,’ but that tomorrow never comes.” One man told me that he had been there for nine months without being taken to court. Now this declaration says nobody should be arrested without an arrest warrant, nobody should be kept in jail unless he is proved a criminal. Innocence needs no proof; you have to prove a person criminal, only then can you keep him in jail. Otherwise you cannot keep him in jail. But people have been there for nine months, eight months, six months in jail – and all young people. So I started figuring out the reason: it is not that they have done anything wrong. The reason is that they are young and revolutionaries. They want rights for the blacks, equal rights for blacks. That is their crime. But they cannot be taken to court because the court will release them, so they go on keeping them in jail. But this is absolutely criminal on the part of the government of the US I have seen only six jails and nearabout three or four thousand young black people. Perhaps thousands of people are in other jails. They told me, “Because there is too much pressure from all over the world, that’s why they are taking you to court. Otherwise, if the world had remained silent, if the news media had not spread all over the world that the whole government is doing everything criminal against an innocent person…. The pressure is too much and the eyes of the whole news media are focused on you. They are, under compulsion, reluctantly, taking you to court.” Still, they took twelve days. That too is against human rights. From the place where I was arrested, the court where I had to be present was only five hours’ flight. My own jet was there. We offered them our jet; we said, “You can have your pilots; you can have your people, and you can take me to the court. What is the need to keep me here in your jail?” They would only take me in their own airplane. The whole strategy was: “Today the airplane has not come…something is wrong with the airplane” – they had only one airplane, it seems. “The pilot is sick…” They took twelve days to make a five hours journey. But looking at other inmates I thought, “It is very quick, only twelve days….” Every government goes on doing everything illegal and everything against human rights. And these people are the representatives of governments and without any shame they can make this declaration – perhaps without even feeling what they are doing. They are lying utterly – white lies!Article three: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.But death is not included – and it is important. Because birth is not in your hands – you are born without your consent – now only death is there. And you have the choice: either to die without your consent or to die with a dignity of a human being, with your own consent – not to give death a chance, but to move, yourself, when you have lived. But they are worried about putting death into it because then all the religions and all the political parties will be creating havoc for them. Everything has to be consolatory: “life” – but what kind of life? Just in the last year, six months ago, in Europe the common market had accumulated mountains of butter and other foodstuffs. People were dying in Ethiopia – one thousand people per day – and they had a surplus but they would not give it to Ethiopia. That surplus had to be drowned in the ocean. Just in drowning it, two billion dollars were wasted – that was not the value of the food, it was just the labor of shifting and drowning it in the ocean. And they are doing it every six months, because every six months the surplus is there and you need more warehouses. And what will you do with it? – fresh crops are coming. But you will not give it to Ethiopia. In India, fifty percent of the people are living below the medical standard of nourishment and twenty-five percent of the people are almost starving. Fifty percent of people in the villages are eating only one time a day – and when I say eating, don’t think of the Taj Mahal Hotel. It means just bread, salt, a little sauce from mangos or from other fruits – that’s all. This is not food. Unless the world is one, we will not be able to give everybody enough nourishment. And what does it mean to say that you have the right to life? Because people are there; and people are dying, people have died. America is doing the same, Stalin’s Russia was doing the same. It is not something happening only in Europe. Every three months America drowns its surplus – and that is worth billions of dollars. In the days of Stalin, Russia was using wheat instead of coal in their railway trains because wheat is cheaper, it is surplus and coal is difficult and costly to obtain in Russia. People are dying – that is not important. People are starving – that is not important.Article nine: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.I have been subjected, so I am a witness to it, that this declaration is not being used by any government – and particularly by America, which was the sponsor for this declaration. I have been in detention in England – not even for an arbitrary reason. I wanted just to stay for six hours at the airport in the first-class lounge because my pilots had flown their time and they wanted to rest. It is against their laws to fly more than twelve hours, so we had to stop. My pilots said, “They may create trouble; they may say that the first-class lounge is for first-class passengers and you are not a passenger; you have your own plane. Now what class is it, how can they decide?” So I said my people to purchase two tickets, two first-class tickets for the morning flight: “We will go with our plane, but purchase two tickets in case they bring up this point” – and they brought up that point. Then we brought up the tickets! The officer was shocked. He had not thought that we would have tickets too. I said, “Now what do you think?” He said, “I cannot do anything. I will have to ask the higher authorities.” And who was the higher authority? It seems it was the prime minister herself. When the man was gone I looked into his file; he had left it on the table. The government had given him orders. I have never asked for any entry visa into England. They should not have bothered. But they decided in Parliament that I should not be allowed in the country – in case I should ask to enter. When the man came back I told him, “I do not want to enter England, even if the whole of England wants me to enter England, I am the last person to do it. I have no business in England, I just want to sleep in the lounge. And from the lounge you cannot enter the country. It is closed; you will remain only at the airport. And the airport is international. It is not England.” But he said, “What can I do? The insistence is from the top: ‘If he insists then put him in detention. That’s the only way. He can remain in jail for six hours.’” I had to remain in jail for six hours – not even for an arbitrary reason. I had not committed any crime, I had the tickets, I had the plane, I just wanted to rest. But the politicians – because I have been exposing them continuously – now have become so frightened that even my sleeping six hours in the lounge at the airport is dangerous for the religion of England, its morality, its character. I can corrupt the youth just by staying in the lounge! These people are not lovers of human beings. Nor do they have any respect for human dignity.Article eighteen: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”“Freedom of thought and expression” – I have never done anything except to express my thoughts. If that is a human right, then no government has anything against me. I am not active in any politics; I am not interested in any power. I am simply saying whatsoever I see more clearly than all these blind politicians. What is the fear? Just now the pope has called a World Conference of Religions. All the chief priests and leaders of other religions have been called. My sannyasins from Italy have been writing to me: “We are insisting to the pope – and his secretary is very much interested in you and is willing to extend an invitation, but the pope is against it.” In fact for eight months the Italian government has been thinking about whether to give me a three weeks’ tourist visa or not. And the pope has been the cause of the whole delay. And these people go on saying, “We love freedom of thought, freedom of expression.” Nobody loves freedom of thought. It has to support him, then it is loved. “Freedom of expression….” The pope has put my books on the black list so that no Catholic should read them. They have a black list. In the Middle Ages, whenever a book appeared on the black list it was burned all over Europe. Now they cannot do that, but this much they can do: no Catholic should read it. And Catholics are not a small minority – seven hundred million people, a world in itself. Now, preventing them simply means you have accepted defeat; it simply means you don’t have any answers to me. But then why all this nonsense about a declaration of human rights?Article nineteen: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.This is not right. The Indian parliament has urged Indian journalists and news media people not to give any space to my ideas. The American government has been pressuring the Indian government so that no news media people from the West should be allowed to take my interview. The American government has been doing two things: telling all the governments of Europe, and Australia, that I should not be allowed to reside in their countries, that I should be sent back from everywhere to India. So all the countries of Europe have passed resolutions in their parliaments that I cannot be allowed in their country even as a tourist for three weeks. The American idea is that I should not be allowed to enter any other country and nobody who wants to see me or meet me should be allowed to come to India. In this way they feel they can destroy the sannyas movement. This goes on in reality. And in words, beautiful and great slogans…but empty.Article twenty-two: Everyone has the right to the free development of his personality.I don’t see that you are allowed to have freedom to develop your personality. In the first place, the people who wrote this don’t know that personality is the false part of you, and it has not to be developed at all. Your reality is your individuality, which has to be discovered. But they don’t talk about individuality. They may not have ever thought of it. Because they are only personalities, they don’t yet have their individuality awake, alert. Naturally, they are writing the word personality. Personality is an ugly word. It means a mask; the very root of the word is mask. And we don’t want people to have masks. People should be natural, spontaneous, themselves.Article twenty-five: All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.Now, if this is true, it cancels marriage! If a child born from a marriage and a child born outside of marriage have the same rights, then marriage loses all meaning. What is the meaning of marriage? But they don’t have the courage to say that. And this too is not true, because nowhere are children born outside marriage respected. They are condemned in every possible way. I gave this much time to this rubbish because these are the people who are controlling the whole world, and these are the people whose heads should be hammered as much as possible. They have kept humanity in slavery – this should not be allowed anymore. They don’t have any right of declaration. We have the right to declare. We are the people. As far as my people are concerned, we declare that we will live freedom, love, humanity. We will grow into our individuality and we will help anybody who is inviting and welcoming us. The only basic right is to become god. And unless you have found god within yourself, everything else is mundane. Finding godliness within you, everything else is found simultaneously.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 27 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,As I am an artist, I can easily put my feelings of love and bliss into making sculptures. Why can't I express the same feelings to human beings and be as open to them as I am in making sculptures?It is easy to be a sculptor because you are working with lifeless objects. You can create beautiful statues but those statues are dead. You cannot relate with them, you are alive. There is no dialogue possible between life and death.You can appreciate; you can enjoy – it is your creation. You can feel fulfilled – whatever you wanted, you succeeded in doing it. But remember one thing: on the other side, there is no one. You are alone.Because of this situation, there are people who can love their dogs, who can love their gardens, who can love their cars, who can love anything in the world except man. Because man means you are not alone, the other is there. It is a dialogue. With a statue, it is a monologue. The statue is not going to say anything, is not going to criticize you, is not going to possess you. You possess the statue; you can sell it in the market. But that you cannot do with a human being. That is the problem.When you start relating with human beings, you have to take into consideration that they are not things, they are consciousnesses. You cannot dominate them – although almost everybody is trying to do that, and spoiling their whole life. The moment you try to dominate a human being, you are creating an enemy, because that human being also wants to dominate. You may call it love, you may call it friendship, but behind the curtain of friendship and love and brotherhood there is a deep will to power. You want to dominate; you don’t want to be dominated.With human beings, you will be in constant conflict. The closer you are, the more the conflict will hurt you. There are thousands of people who have been so wounded by human relationship that they have dropped out of all human love, friendship. They have turned toward things. It is easier – the other party is always willing, whatsoever you want to do.You are an artist, you sculpt. But have you ever thought about what you are doing? You are cutting chunks of the marble – that you cannot do to a human being, but people are doing that to human beings too. Parents are cutting their children’s wings, their freedom, their individuality. Lovers are cutting each other continuously.To be in love with a human being is not an easy affair. The love affair is the most difficult affair in the world for the simple reason that two consciousnesses, two alive beings, cannot tolerate any kind of slavery.When the parents say to their children “Don’t do this!” even the small child feels hurt, humiliated, insulted. And he’s going to do it if he has any guts.Near the village where I was born, just ten miles away, every year there used to be a very big religious fair, by the side of the river Narmada. That is one of the sacred religious rivers in India. Perhaps it is the most sacred, for a mythological reason, because all other rivers are married – only Narmada is still virgin….There is a beautiful place where Narmada comes out of the mountains and falls in a beautiful waterfall to reach the ground. I have seen many waterfalls but that waterfall has some uniqueness of its own. It is a very black stone, extraordinarily black, ugly…and the Narmada falls in one thousand currents. It is not one fall, it is one thousand falls; it is the whole mountain.Because of those one thousand rocks that the Narmada has cut, there is a mythology thousands of years old. There was a very monstrous king. He wanted to marry Narmada because, he said, “All rivers are already married. In my kingdom, I cannot allow Narmada to remain unmarried.”So he went to marry Narmada. But because of the purity of virginity…a curse from Narmada turned him into stone. Those one thousand rocks are nothing but one thousand hands of that monster. He wanted to grab Narmada from everywhere; she’s still falling out of those stone hands.So a very beautiful fair happens every year. I wanted to see those one thousand hands, and how Narmada managed to remain virgin for millions of years. You will be surprised that the land where Narmada flows is the ancientmost land in the world. It came first out of the ocean – because in the mountainous regions from where Narmada comes, you can still find, very easily, dead sea animals. And from Narmada, the sea is thousands of miles away. Certainly one day the mountain was under the ocean, and then the ocean receded and the first piece of earth came out of ocean. It is the most ancient part of the earth.I wanted to see the most ancient mountain…but I knew that if I asked my parents, they would say no. The place is dangerous because of all those rocks; many people have died. The whole river is full of rocks and to swim in it is dangerous, and they had said to me, “You will not be able to resist the temptation of swimming there.”So I did not ask them, I simply went. They were very much concerned…reported to the police, sent a few people to look around, inquired at the railway station, the bus station where I had been seen last. But they could not find me. After three days, I came back. They were really angry. They said, “Where have you been?”I said, “Where? I have been to the fair.”They said, “You should have at least asked us.”I said, “No, because I wanted to go. If I did not want to go, I would have asked. So remember, whenever I don’t want to do something, I will ask you because I know the answer is no. And whenever I want to do something, I will simply do it. Now you can do whatsoever you want. If you want to beat me, you can beat me. If you want to punish me in some other way, you can do that. But this is going to be my whole lifestyle. I will never ask for a thing that I am going to do. I don’t want anybody else’s advice about it.”My parents said, “Are you crazy or what? You will ask us only about things that you don’t want to do?”I said, “It is very simple. It is so simple that even God missed it. It is so obvious that even God forgot about it. He said to Adam and Eve, ‘Don’t eat the fruits of wisdom and eternal life.’ Every father has been doing that since then, and every Adam and every Eve has to rebel.”If you are interested in doing something, you can do it without any problem if there is no other consciousness.You are working on objects, on things. They cannot say yes, they cannot say no. Whatever you want to do with them, you can do, but not with man.It is your fault that you have not yet become mature enough to understand that with human beings, if you want a loving relationship then you should forget all power politics. You can be just a friend, neither trying to dominate the other nor being dominated by the other. It is possible only if you have a certain meditativeness in your life. Otherwise, it is not possible.To love a human being is one of the most difficult things in the world because the moment you start showing your love, the other starts going on a power trip. He knows you are dependent on him or on her. You can be enslaved – psychologically, spiritually – and nobody wants to be a slave. But all your human relationships turn into slavery.No statue will make you a slave. On the contrary, the statue makes you a master craftsman, it makes you a creator, an artist. There is no conflict. The real test for love is with human beings.And a man is really intelligent if he can make a human relationship work smoothly. It needs great insight. Creating a statue or making a beautiful painting is one thing – those paints won’t say, “I don’t want to be put on this corner of the canvas, I simply refuse!” Wherever you want it, the paint is available. But it is not so easy with human beings.Every human being has a birthright not to be dominated by anyone – but also a birth duty not to try to dominate anyone. And only then, friendship can flower.Love needs a clarity of vision. Love needs a cleaning of all kinds of ugly things which are in your mind – jealousy, anger, the desire to dominate.I have heard…in a marriage registrar’s office, a couple came to get married. They filled out the forms. The woman looked at the man – they were lovers, and they had come to the registry office against their family, because in India, marriage is not done in the registrar’s office. It is available. Legally you can do it but that happens only when you are doing something against the family, against the society.Those two people must have been in deep love. They had revolted against the society, against the religion, against their parents, against the family. They had risked everything and they were going to be married. And the woman looked at the man who was filling out the form – because she had filled out hers – and then she suddenly said to the registrar, “I want an immediate divorce.”He said, “What happened? You are filling out forms for marriage. Even the honeymoon has not happened. In fact, even marriage has not happened because I have not sealed it. Why do you want a divorce so suddenly?”She said, “I hate this man!”The registrar said, “This is strange – you brought him here?”She said, “Yes, I brought him here. I used to love him, but when I saw his form…he has signed in such big letters! He was watching when I was signing. I signed just the way I always sign, and he has signed in letters three times bigger – almost half of the form is his signature. I don’t want to live with this man, he has shown his domination, his power.”The registrar said, “Then there is no need of any divorce. Just throw away your forms in the wastepaper basket, because I have not sealed them, and get lost.”Such a small thing, that the man was signing in big letters but it is indicative. It shows that he’s a male chauvinist.What about your whole life? Everything is a problem, everything is a conflict. And the reason is that we have accepted a false idea that we know how to love. We don’t know. We are coming from animals. Animals don’t love.Love is a very new thing in human life. Animals reproduce but they don’t love. You will not find in buffaloes, Romeo and Juliet, Laila and Majnu, Shiri and Farhad, Soni and Mahival. No buffaloes are interested in such romantic things – they are very earthbound, they reproduce – and nature is perfectly satisfied with buffaloes, remember. Nature may be trying to destroy humanity but nature is not trying to destroy buffaloes and donkeys and monkeys, no. They are not problems at all.Love is a new phenomenon that has arisen with human consciousness. You will have to learn it.Creating beautiful paintings, poetries, sculpture, music, dances – that is all in your hands. But when you come into contact with a human being, you have to understand that on the other side is the same kind of consciousness. You have to give respect and dignity to the person you love. This is the reason why you cannot relate with human beings.Forget about human beings and love – you simply meditate. That will release in you the insight, the vision, the clarity, and the energy to share.Love is another name of sharing your abundant energy. You have too much, you are burdened with it. You would like to share it with people you like. Your love – what you call love – is not a sharing, it is a snatching.Everybody’s trying to snatch more love. The wife goes on saying, “You don’t love me enough!” The husband goes on saying, “It seems you don’t love me!”Mulla Nasruddin had gone with his wife to see a movie. In the movie, the hero kisses the heroine very tenderly, and the wife nudges Mulla Nasruddin…”You never do that.”Mulla Nasruddin said, “Don’t disturb me. That woman is not his wife.”But Nasruddin’s wife said, “You are wrong! I know the couple; the woman is the wife of the hero.”Mulla Nasruddin said, “My God, then he’s really an actor! Only an actor can do that. I am not an actor, you just forgive me. If it is his wife…I was thinking it must be somebody else. I can also kiss somebody else’s wife, but kissing one’s own wife? This must be the greatest actor we have in our country.”You will have to change the meaning of love. It is not something that you are trying to get from the other. And this has been the whole history of love – everybody is trying to get it from the other, as much as possible. Both are trying to get, and naturally, nobody is getting anything.Love is not something to get.Love is something to give.But you can give only when you have it. Do you have love in you? Have you ever asked this question? Sitting silently, have you ever observed? Do you have any love energy to give?You don’t have; neither has anybody else. Then you get caught in a love relationship. Both are pretenders, pretending that they are going to give you the very paradise. Both are trying to convince each other that “Once you get married to me, a thousand Arabian nights will be forgotten – our nights, our days will all be golden.”But you don’t know that you don’t have anything to give. All these things you are saying just to get. And the other is doing the same. Once you are married, then there is going to be trouble because both will be waiting for a thousand Arabian nights and not even an Indian night is happening!Then there is an anger, a rage which slowly, slowly becomes poisonous.Love turning into hate is a very simple phenomenon, because everyone feels betrayed. You show one face at the beach, in the movie hall, on the dance floor. It is perfectly okay for half an hour or one hour – sitting on the beach, holding each other’s hands, dreaming about the beautiful life that is ahead of you. But once you are married, all that you have been expecting, dreaming, will start evaporating.I have heard of one couple. They were entering a hotel with their suitcases, with the labels saying “Just Married.” They were on their honeymoon. The man immediately went to the bed and covered himself with the blanket. The wife went into the bathroom to prepare for sleep.The man said, “Please, put the lights off. I cannot sleep with lights on.”She said, “It is only a question of five minutes. I am coming, and then I will put them off.”He said, “First you have to put them off!”And the quarrel started. The woman said, “Why, in the…why can’t you wait for five minutes? And you have been waiting for me for five years!”The man said, “Forget about all that. You first put the lights off!”The woman said, “I cannot do that. I will put them off when I come under the blanket.”The man said, “Strange…what is the reason?”The woman said, “If you are so rational, first tell me your reason – what are you going to lose in five minutes?”He said, “It is better to tell you the truth…because now it is going to be twenty-four hours together. How long will I be under the blanket?”The woman said, “What do you mean?”The man said, “The reality is, one of my legs is false, so I want darkness to remove it so you don’t see it.”The woman said, “That relaxes me because my hair is false, my teeth are false, my breasts are false…now there is no problem, light or no light.”Listening to this – that the hair is false, the teeth are false, the breasts are false, the man jumped out of the bed and escaped, and he has not been found since. And he was dying to marry this woman!Human relationship needs understanding.My suggestion to you is: meditate. Become more and more silent, quiet, calm. Let a serenity arise in you.That will help you in a thousand and one ways – not only in love, it will also help you to create better sculpture. Because a man who cannot love human beings…how can he create? What can he create?A loveless heart cannot be authentically creative. He can imitate, but he cannot create.All creation is out of love, understanding, silence.Osho,Although nothing is really clear to me, how can it be so clear to me that the truth is in you? I don't know it, but I see it in your eyes. I feel it in your being.It is one of the most fundamental questions.One does not know what truth is. But when one comes across it, a few things become clear: that whatever he has believed up to now was not truth, because it has not given him this depth in the eyes, this silence in his presence, this authority in his words, this poetry to his life.The false is barren.So although you do not know what is true, when you come across truth, you immediately know what is false. And if you understand what is false, a vague insight into truth starts arising in you. Because the truth that you see in my eyes is also in your eyes, just asleep. You have never awakened it.Let the false go, and your eyes will have the same truth. Your words will have the same music, your presence will have the same charisma.Nobody comes to know truth first. Everybody comes to know first the false, and as the false is dropped…because in the very understanding that it is false, it slips out of your hands. And when the false is not there, what remains is the truth.You may not have seen beauty. But looking at a sunset with all the colors on the horizon…you may not be able to say that this is beauty, but you feel an awe. You know something is there that touches your heart, and perhaps even reaches to your very being. Seeing this, you will start thinking – if this is so impressive, so deep-reaching in you, so touching that you want to dance and sing, then what was your whole life? Because before this, you have been dancing too, but it was only a sociality. The dance was not coming from you, it was only a social custom.People were asking you to sing…and you know the technical side of singing or playing music, but the technical side is not the real thing. You may sing, but your heart is not singing. You are simply being polite to the friends who are insisting that you sing. But when you see a sunset and you start singing…nobody has asked. The sun has not asked, there is nobody around. Even you are surprised: from where is this song coming? Why are you feeling a tremendous urge to dance? Knowing this dance and this song, all your dances and songs will become false, and you will know for the first time something of the truth.In the East, it has been the oldest tradition: people used to go walking thousands of miles just to look into the eyes of Gautam Buddha, or Mahavira. Just to sit for two minutes close to Gautam Buddha, holding his feet in their hands…and people have traveled thousands of miles. All those people were not fools – just these two minutes transformed their life. Now they know what a true man, what an authentic man means. They have touched his feet, they have felt his vibe, they have been showered by his love and compassion. They have looked into his eyes and seen the whole universe opening up. Those one thousand miles, walking for months, were worth it.The day Gautam Buddha died, ten thousand sannyasins had gathered from all over the country, because this was the last time they would be able to see this man. Once he is gone, people will not even believe that such a man ever existed. They will not accept that Gautam Buddha is a historical person.Ananda was Gautam Buddha’s constant companion for forty years, but he had not become enlightened yet. Many who came later on became enlightened, but Ananda was stuck somewhere. He asked about it many times.Gautam Buddha said, “I know where you are stuck. I knew it the very first day you came to me.”Ananda was Gautam Buddha’s cousin-brother and elder. When he came for initiation, he asked Gautam Buddha: “After initiation, I will be a disciple. Whatever you say, I will do it, there is no question of any doubt. So before I get initiated, I want you to promise me three things. As your elder brother, I demand it – right now, I am not your disciple.”Gautam Buddha laughed. He said, “Okay, what are your conditions?”He said, “Not very great conditions, very small. One is that I will always be with you. You can not send me to spread the word, to faraway parts of the country, no. Twenty-four hours…even in the night, I will sleep in your room. Granted?”Buddha said, “Okay.”“And my second condition is that howsoever stupid a question may be, if I ask it, you will have to answer it. You cannot say, ‘This is stupid, meaningless.’ You cannot avoid it, you cannot change the subject. You have to answer it. And third, if I bring someone to meet you, even in the middle of the night when you are asleep, I am entitled to wake you up because I have brought a friend to see you and meet you.”Buddha said, “Perfectly okay.”Ananda was initiated. After forty years, on the last day, when he was dying, Buddha said, “Because you made conditions on your master – just because of an ordinary relationship of being a cousin-brother – that’s where you are stuck. You cannot forget that you are the elder brother of Gautam Buddha. Although you are a disciple, deep down you are still older than me. And in India, old age is very much respected. But don’t be worried. The moment I die, within twenty-four hours you will become enlightened. Only my death can help. For forty years, you have been trying – nothing has happened. But even if it were just for you that I had to die, I would have died.”Ananda was crying.Buddha said, “Don’t waste time, don’t waste your tears. Because of your egoistic idea of being an elder brother, you have not even seen into my eyes. Although you are holding my feet in your hands, I don’t see that there is any communication.”Buddha died, and within exactly twenty-four hours, Ananda became enlightened. And for forty years, he had been sitting by the side of the river, thirsty.If you can see me, not as a body…if you can see into my eyes, if you can feel my presence, if something stirs in your heart, then certainly you will know that the life you have lived up to now is a life of falsity.But once you have known even a little bit of the truth, you cannot go back. Then, there is only one way and that is to go ahead.What you have seen in my eyes, others will see in your eyes soon. What you have felt in my presence, others will start feeling in your presence. Because whatsoever I have got, you have got. It is just that, you have not unpacked; your suitcases are locked.Osho,I have been experiencing such an abundance of your beautiful love and energy these past two months. It is so precious to experience you. During meditations, especially dynamic, it has flooded me with intense feelings of all sorts, beyond anything I've known. The pure energy that trembles through my body leaves me singing, dancing, laughing, crying, and I feel so spacious within. When I experience male energy, I feel very playful but not sexually attracted. Is there something wrong with me? Could you please say something about sexual attraction and the mind?Something is right in you for the first time in your life. Energy is a playful phenomenon. If you are feeling joyous and happy with your own feminine energy – and you feel good, harmonious with the male energy; you love to play with the male energy and it does not turn into sexuality, it is a spiritual growth.If men and women who are in deep love can be playful with each other’s energies, there is no need of indulging in sex, because sex cannot give you anything – it simply takes something away from you. It brings your death closer. It is your life force.But if the woman and the man can just be playful, then they are enriching each other. Then the dialectics of life works, and they both are more than they were before. Both have gained; nobody has lost anything.What is happening to you should happen, has to happen to every sannyasin. You just have to be aware of one thing: people are very much in a hurry, and they want to finish a job as quickly as possible – but it is not a job. In fact, people have completely forgotten the foreplay before making love, and they have absolutely no idea of afterplay when you have made love.But one of the most insightful men into sexual energy is Vatsyayana, in his Kamasutras. He wrote them sometime three thousand years ago, and those people among whom Vatsyayana must have lived were really innocent, but intelligent – not knowledgeable, but wise.If I talk about sexual energy then the whole world condemns me – and Vatsyayana was the first person in the whole history of man to write a treatise on sex energy, Kamasutras – aphorisms about sex. But three thousand years ago, people called him a seer, a man who has realized himself. Because unless that realization had happened, he could not say what he was saying. His treatise, Kamasutras is exhaustive; he has said everything that is significant to be said about sex. And one of the things, in reference to your question, is that if a couple is in love and just goes on playing and is not in a hurry to finish, it then you will be surprised: The energy starts from a certain level where you are, moves upward, and reaches to a peak without any sex. And it is so peaceful, so blissful, so silent, that you disappear into each other, that you become one energy. And then slowly, it becomes more and more absorbed, but no sex is involved.If it is happening, it is something to be greeted, welcomed.I have heard…. A man went to a doctor, his friend, and asked him: “It is too much! I want to kill my wife in such a way that I am not caught; you have to advise me.”The doctor thought for a moment and then he said, “The easiest way is to make love to her so much that within six weeks she will be dead.”But the man said, “Six weeks and too much love? I will be dead before that! So you will have to give me some medicinal help.”He said, “Yes, I’m going to give you these tablets. Take six tablets, two at a time every day, and you can make love six times every day.”The man said, “My God! You had these tablets and you never told me? And you pretend to be my friend!”He rushed home with the bottle. Just on the way, he swallowed two tablets. A month passed…there was a fundraising campaign in the church one Sunday, and the doctor saw the man – he was in a wheelchair! Somehow, with difficulty, he was trying to reach the doctor.The doctor said, “What happened?”He said, “Don’t be worried, doctor. Only two weeks more and she will be finished!”Sex is your energy, it is your life. If you can absorb it back into your system, you will have a new feeling of well-being. But if it is released, leaks out – that’s what you call making love; energy leaking out – a plumber is needed.If you can – and a meditative person can – absorb the energy back, it rises to a peak and then subsides and goes to your blood, to your bones, to your marrow. It is a tremendous nourishment.So don’t say that something wrong is happening to you – people must be telling you that something wrong is happening to you. Something right is happening to you. Remember it and tell those people, “I am feeling so joyous and so full of love, how wrong can happen to me? You are looking so miserable, so British, hangdog British – something must be wrong with you!”You enjoy your play. And once you have learned – with your friend, with your lover – it is not a very big step. One day you may be able to play with your sexual energy alone – dancing, singing. There is no need of the other; you will absorb the energy yourself. Only in the beginning, the other is needed. That does not mean that you have to drop the other. He has been a great help, and there is no harm in being playful with anybody you feel loving toward.Sex has to disappear.The moment sex disappears, the same energy starts rising in you, transforming you into a new man: the man who knows no death, the man who knows every mystery of life, the man who has come home.Osho,I have hoped to become more sure of myself, stronger and more relaxed through meditation. On the contrary, although I am less anxious, I feel more and more empty, uncertain and vulnerable. Why does this happen?Every desire leads not to the goal it has promised you; it leads to just the opposite of it. You want to be special? you have already accepted your ordinariness. One who is special does not want to be special; he’s not even aware that he is special.Whatever you want, one thing is certain: you are not that. And from where are these desires and wants coming? – imitation. All around, you see people: somebody is so rich, somebody is so intellectual, somebody is a wrestler, somebody is a boxer. And you are nothing – it hurts. It hurts because of your wrong conceptions about life.So you have to note down a few things in your being: one, you cannot be anybody other than who you are. If you try to be somebody other than who you are, you will never be somebody else, but you will miss being that which you were destined to become.It is almost as if a roseflower wants to become a lotus. His whole energy will be in how to become a lotus; he will forget all about the roses. All his energy will become misdirected. He will never become a lotus because he has no seeds, no potentiality to be a lotus. Only one thing is certain: now he will not become even a flowering bush of roses.And who said that a lotus is better than a rose? They are both beautiful and they are both needed. Even the smallest blade of grass is as much needed as the biggest star in the sky. This whole universe is one organic unity. Here, nothing exists that is not needed, and the most-needed persons are those who simply accept themselves as they are and enjoy themselves as they are – nobodies.But to be a nobody is the highest point of bliss in existence. Don’t try to be special. Just allow nature, wherever it leads you. Don’t go upstream; otherwise, your failure is certain. Go with the stream, let go. Don’t even swim! And the stream will take you joyously, dancingly, to the ocean.As far as I am concerned, from my very childhood I have been told…how many times it is difficult to enumerate, because everybody was telling me: “The way you are behaving, the way you are living, the way you are doing things, you will turn into a nobody.” And they were all right! I have turned into a nobody, but I don’t want to be anything else. I never wanted that, because by being nobody, I don’t have any worry, I don’t have any tensions. I don’t even have dreams, because nothing is repressed.I am living moment-to-moment, and life is such an ecstasy.And because I am nobody, I can contain the whole universe within me. Nobody, nobodiness, has no boundaries.The more special you become, the more you shrink. The more special you become, the more hard you become. The more special you become, the more you are against existence – and nobody can win against existence.There is only one victory, and that is just to be nobody, and the whole universe is within you. You are victorious. You will not know it, but birds will talk about it. Flowers will say, “Yes, it has happened.” The whole universe will know it except you.So it is good that you have failed in becoming special – you are blessed.Now try my way. And it is a shortcut – you have not to go anywhere, you can be nobody just sitting here right now.I don’t promise you anything for tomorrow.I promise you only this moment.Just be silent, and nobody, and see the beauty of it, the truth of it, the glory of it.Osho,Shunyo is seeing ghosts again. Any suggestions?Milarepa, she must have seen you!A few other people have also reported that a ghost has been seen around who looks like Milarepa.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 28 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Whenever I read Friedrich Nietzsche, and feel quite relaxed, it appears as if I have a connection with a spirit which is alive and I talk to him. He is not dead but a living friend and it doesn't sound absurd at all that all the great spirits are in deep communication with one another whether they are dead or alive. But with you, all names and words disappear and I feel bright and enlightened. I love this state of being with you like this. What is your secret?My secret is simple: I don’t have a name, I don’t have a form, I don’t have any kind of identity. I am one with the whole. So the moment you remember me, you will not find somebody appearing on the screen of your consciousness, but only an empty sky.Friedrich Nietzsche or others are tremendously important, but they are not one with the whole. On the contrary, they are super-egoists – particularly Nietzsche. I love him, too. He has a tremendous insight into things; great revelations have come through his mind. And he’s the one most neglected all over the world – perhaps out of fear, because once you are deep into Nietzsche, you cannot be the same person you have been before. Nietzsche is going to change you.His thoughts are rational; his insights have no parallel in the whole history of philosophy but still, he is not a meditator. It is all mind.And this is the distinction I would like you to remember: There have been two types of influences in the world, people who have changed millions of lives. One belongs to the mind – all the philosophers, all the thinkers; they have great genius as far as mind is concerned. They have impressed millions of people for thousands of years and they are still fresh. But there is an different line of people like Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, Jesus Christ, Lao Tzu – these are not philosophers. What they are saying is not coming from the mind. It is coming from beyond the mind. They have put the mind aside.To understand them, just intellect is not enough. To understand them, you will have to go on the same path as they traveled.Mind goes nowhere.All philosophers are playing with words. Sometimes there is immense beauty even in words, great poetry, logic, that you cannot deny. Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant, Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, Jaspers or Martin Heidegger are pinnacles of intellectuality. You are bound to be impressed – but you are not going to be transformed. And to be impressed is to be enslaved. Unless a transformation happens, your slavery goes on deeper and deeper.You say that Friedrich Nietzsche, although dead, is still alive in spirit. Not only that, you talk with him. You have not said anything in your question but I assume that he must be answering too.Both the things have to be done by you – the asking and the answering. But look at the life of Friedrich Nietzsche, not just his philosophical approaches toward reality. His life is one of utter misery. You would not like to be Friedrich Nietzsche if you knew his life. He lived absolutely alone, without friends, because he was such an egoist that to make friends with him was impossible. He was high above; you are just creeping on the ground. What friendship? – he does not consider you to be even a human being. He considers you as a subhuman species. And his whole philosophy is how to create the real human being which he used to call the “superman.” But he himself was not even an ordinary man, what to say about a superman? – physically ugly…but that can be pardoned; he could not manage in his whole life to love a woman, because love to him was domination and nothing else. He wanted a servant, not a beloved – a slave to dance according to his tune.Looking at his life, one feels deep compassion. He lived his whole life alone with his sister. The sister sacrificed her own life because somebody was needed to take care of Nietzsche. And finally, he went mad.And remember, nobody goes mad suddenly. Madness is something that grows slowly until it is too much and everybody else becomes aware of it. He was mad from the very beginning, but it was not known; it was within the normal insanity of humanity. But soon, he crossed the line. In the end, even though he was declared mad, he had forgotten all his philosophy, he had not forgotten one thing – even in his madness. And you will be surprised: what is that one thing? That one thing was that he would always sign his signature as “Anti-Christ, Friedrich Nietzsche.” That “Anti-Christ” was the only thing that remained even in his madness. Not a single letter has he signed without writing “Anti-Christ” before his name. If he had been born in India, he would have been anti-Gautam Buddha; if he had been born in China, he would have been anti-Chuang Tzu.It doesn’t matter, these names are not the point. Why was he anti-Christ? – because Christ is not a philosopher. Christ does not give any reasons for his assertions, he speaks on his own authority. He gives no arguments, there is no need. Because he feels the truth, he expresses it. He does not argue. In fact, only lies need arguments. You can see in any court, so many arguments….Truth is naked. Its very presence is enough to convince you. And if truth can not have self-validity and depends on arguments, it is not truth. Arguments may change. Somebody may be more logical than you are….I am reminded of one great logician, Keshav Chandra. Perhaps in this past century in India there has been nobody else with such a sharp mind and with such perfect arguments. He lived in Calcutta, at the time when Ramakrishna was also living outside Calcutta.Keshav Chandra had a small following of intellectuals, but they were all puzzled: “Thousands of people go to Ramakrishna…that idiot! He’s uneducated, he cannot even make his signature. Why are these people going to this madman?” Finally, Keshav Chandra could not resist the temptation to go and see with his own eyes – and he knew that a few arguments would finish this man forever.He sent a challenge saying, “I want to argue with you. When can I come?”Ramakrishna said, “Keshav is coming? There is no need to postpone; today is as good as any day. Go back and tell him: Come, and argue as much as you can!”Keshav Chandra had forgotten. In giving the challenge, he had said, “I want to argue with you,” but if the other person simply listens and tells you – “argue!”…. You cannot force somebody to argue. But Keshav Chandra had no idea, because he had never come across such a man.He went to Dakshineshwar where Ramakrishna used to live in a temple. His disciples were very much afraid. They knew – Keshav Chandra’s arguments are like spears, they go directly to the heart. They can kill a man. And Ramakrishna is so simple…perhaps he does not understand the meaning of argument. Perhaps he does not understand the meaning of the challenge. But from the side of Ramakrishna – he was coming out of the temple again and again and asking, “Keshav has not come?”Finally, Keshav Chandra came with a group of his intimate followers. Ramakrishna hugged him, although he could not respond to Ramakrishna’s hug; he was withdrawing backward. Ramakrishna said, “Keshava, you don’t know how to hug people? You know only how to argue? You are missing much that is valuable – human warmth, human love – but it is good that you have come. I am so happy, I have always wanted to listen to your arguments.”Keshav Chandra could not make any sense of it. He started: “There is no God.”Ramakrishna said, “What a beautiful statement! Can I hug you again?” And he hugged him again.Keshav was feeling very embarrassed. His following was feeling very embarrassed – what is happening? And Ramakrishna said, “Did you receive my answer or not?”Keshav said, “You have not said anything. You have simply hugged me.”Ramakrishna said, “That is a way of saying things which cannot be said. You said, ‘God does not exist.’ And I say you are the proof that God exists; otherwise, from where such beautiful intelligence?”Now, how to argue with such a man?After ten minutes, Keshav Chandra was at the feet of Ramakrishna – “Just forgive me, I had no idea of a man who is not in the mind but in the being. You have made it clear to me. You are not a man of logic, you are a man of love – but love is far higher, logic is mundane. Please accept me as one of your disciples.”Nietzsche is a great logician, a great philosopher, but he knows nothing of reality. All that he says is mind – guesses, inferences. Assumptions supported by argument may befool people but they cannot befool a man who knows. Nietzsche does not know. But he writes beautifully. He writes very consistently, he reaches to the very heights of argumentation. But these are not things of real, authentic value.The only thing valuable is experience, not argument. And Nietzsche is absolutely without any experience. He has never meditated, he has never been in his own being. He has never contacted the vast, beautiful universe that surrounds us. It is our womb. We are in it, continuously being nourished.The West is rich as far as useless things are concerned and poor as far real values are concerned. Nietzsche was “Anti-Christ” for the simple reason that millions of people follow Jesus, and Jesus has not given a single argument to prove his philosophy. And to disprove his philosophy, Nietzsche goes on giving, one after another, hundreds of arguments – beautiful arguments, very refined arguments, but arguments are just arguments. You can go on arguing about love your whole life, but that will not give you the experience of love.The West has produced only philosophers. The East knows nothing of philosophy, it knows only mysticism. And mysticism is based on the simple phenomenon that experience needs no argument.Experience is its own validity.Go inward.Find your inner space, and suddenly, you will find an explosion of light, of beauty, of ecstasy – as if suddenly thousands of roses have blossomed within you and you are full of their fragrance.You say that when you think about thinkers, philosophers like Nietzsche, you are almost in communication, as if they are not dead – but with me you feel a difference. Whenever you remember me you feel silence, you feel joy. You may burst into a song, you may start dancing or playing on a flute. But you will not find me there. You will find there the whole existence showering all its ecstasies on you.This is the difference between the mystics and the philosophers:Philosophers live in words; mystics live in authentic experience.Philosophy has been a curse to the West. All the geniuses turn toward philosophy because the whole tradition is of philosophers – from the ancient Greeks up to now. The philosopher seems to be the highest peak of human evolution. It is absolutely absurd! The philosopher is just playing a mind game. He’s as poor in consciousness as you are.The East never got into that trap. The East is poor as far as material things are concerned, but the East has touched the highest peaks of luxury as far as spiritual experiences are concerned. And that is the only thing that counts in the ultimate reckoning. You will not be asked how many houses you had, you will not be asked about your arguments. You will be asked, “Has your heart opened up and become a lotus? Have you blossomed? Has your spring come, or not?”The East has seen the spring, people flowering. It is perfectly good to read Nietszche, Hegel, Kant, Feuerbach, Karl Marx…or you can go to older philosophers – Aristotle, Plato – but you will not get anything except empty words.And words mean whatever you want them to mean.They don’t have any content of their own.I have heard…. One masochist – a masochist is a person who enjoys being tortured and a sadist is a person who enjoys torturing. And there are a few very complicated people who are sado-masochists; they enjoy both.One masochist is sitting by the side of a beautiful lake. A sadist, his friend, is also sitting there but he has not said a single word. Somebody passes and asks the sadist: “You are friends, but you are sitting like enemies, back to back. And you have not spoken a single word.”He said, “That’s what he enjoys – torture.”This is a subtle torture, that somebody is sitting with you and will not say a single word.I have also heard that one optimist, who sees in everything, something beautiful – silver lines in the black clouds. And these are not just fictions. He was standing in a park with one of his friends who was a pessimist – a pessimist sees in the smallest silver line, a big, black cloud. They were friends.The optimist said, “Our world is the best world out of all possible worlds.”The pessimist said, “You are right!” It is a little delicate…you will have to think over it in the middle of the night.Just the same word, the same statement, in a different context, on different lips, takes a different color, a different meaning. Many philosophers have written beautiful sentences, but they are dead.When a man like Jesus or Buddha or Bodhidharma or Kabir speaks – ordinary words, but they are so full of juice. They are so full of truth that it is overflowing.Read the philosophers – it is good exercise for sharpening your intelligence. But don’t get too much involved with them. They are drowning, or they have drowned. In their own words, they have lost their light.Go deeper into mystics, because they are the people who have reached the sunlit peaks of consciousness. They are the people the world needs.I want my sannyasins to become a Noah’s Ark.When the world is drowning, a Noah’s Ark is needed.You meditate. You experience your own life’s sources, and only when you have experienced your own life’s sources and juices, will you be able to see them all around.This universe is such a mystery, is such a miracle – if you can contact the miracle, you will also become part of it. Your life will become a dance, your every breath will become a joy.I am not against the philosophers. I am simply making it clear that they should be kept in their place.Mystics have been forgotten, for the simple reason that they are not argumentative. They don’t say much. They have nothing to say. They have something to show and those who are courageous enough to put their hands in their hands…they will take them to the place from where you can see the unbelievable.After that, there is not going to be any misery in your life, any anxiety, any anguish, any death. You have become part of the eternal flow of life. No philosopher can give you anything.Osho,After fifteen years of trying all kinds of different spiritual techniques and two years doing groups and your meditations, I've now decided to take sannyas. Even so, I don't feel that absolute inner certainty which I have been waiting for. Osho, could you please say something about the difference between being a sympathizer and a sannyasin?A sympathizer is on the way to becoming a sannyasin. There is no difference. The sannyasin has reached, the sympathizer is coming.But your question is very interesting, that you had been waiting for so many years for an absolute certainty to take sannyas. Have you waited in the same way for other things? Getting married? Falling in love?…waiting for fifteen years, falling and falling and falling and falling…. Just watch your life – if you start waiting that long…fifteen years is a long time. You are hungry. Will you eat only when you are absolutely certain that this food is not going to give you food poisoning? Absolute certainty!…You are sitting here – are you certain that this roof is not going to fall? Have you waited for fifteen years to see that the roof is okay?Now it is time to get in.Life is so short that unless you start, even though you are not absolutely certain…. In fact, how can you be absolutely certain about something you have not experienced? In what way?I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin wanted to learn swimming. He went to a teacher who used to teach swimming and they both went to the river. Just on the steps – he must have been very much afraid, because he was not absolutely certain that he wanted to enter this dangerous water, and who knows about this man with absolute certainty, that he is trustworthy? He must have been thinking fast, so he slipped just on the steps, got up and started running back toward his home.The teacher said, “Where are you going? You had come to learn swimming.”Mulla Nasruddin said, “Forget all about it. I will come only when I am absolutely certain.”The teacher said, “But how are you going to be absolutely certain?”He said, “First, I will try on my bed – no danger – and when I am completely satisfied, I will come to you.” He never came, because nobody can learn swimming on the bed. You have to go into the water. And going into the water, you cannot go with absolute certainty. You have to go with an adventurous spirit, accepting that risks are there, dangers are there, failures are there.In sannyas, you will be moving into deeper realms of existence – how can you have absolute certainty right now? You will have to trust somebody – somebody who knows the path, who has been traveling the path.And it is not difficult to find whether the man is authentic or not. Just look into his eyes. Just watch his movement, just listen to the authority of his words. Just feel his presence.Otherwise, fifteen years or fifteen lives makes no difference; you will remain in the same situation. Absolute certainty comes at the end, not before it. The beginning…the beginning has to be not with absolute certainty, but with absolute interest.If you are interested to explore your own being and the secrets of existence, that’s enough. Certainty will come as your experience matures. But if you are waiting for absolute certainty to come first, then forget all about it.Osho,Since Germans make the largest national number of your sannyasins, what is hidden in their roots that push and drag them to that controversial relationship with you?I am a German!And soon Germany will be the first sannyas land. No politicians can prevent it, it is just destined to happen.Osho,When I am with you, I feel like a boat on the wide ocean and the waves go higher and higher. And then the question arises: are you me or am I you?Two sides of one coin – both are right. You can see this side, you can see that side. The higher you go, the closer you come to me. At the highest point, certainly this question arises: Who are you? – me or yourself? In fact, those two entities have disappeared into one organic whole. This is what I call devotion, the ultimate state of disciplehood.Osho,I feel so guilty when wanting to express myself and when I finally take courage to do so, it feels more like a no to others than a yes to myself. Then the guilt returns because of this. Postponement or defiance are the only ways I know but they seem part of a circle anyway. Osho, is there a way to transform guilt?My God!Nobody has ever transformed guilt. It has to be simply dropped.Why transform it? Do you want to preserve it in some form or other?Guilt is not something that you are born with, it is not part of your nature. Guilt is created by the society.For example, every religion creates guilt – in different ways, but the technique is the same. All the religions live, thrive, on guilty human beings. First make them guilty – once you have succeeded in making somebody feel guilty, you have almost killed his spirit. Now he will be a soulless slave to you.As far as I am concerned, my whole work is in how to free you from guilt – not to transform it.I was born in a Jaina family. It is a very orthodox religion. You cannot conceive – small things become guilt. You cannot eat in the night, that is guilt. If you have eaten in the night, you have gone down toward hell; you have taken one step downward.I don’t see any problem. The religion is very old – at that time, there was no light, no electricity, and it was understandable to prohibit people from eating in the night – but why make it guilt? Just a rational explanation is enough, but religions are not interested in rational explanations. They don’t miss a single opportunity in which they can make you feel guilty. Guilt is their power over you.If we can remove all guilt from humanity, all the churches will be empty, all the temples will be empty. There will be nobody praying, nobody carrying Holy Bibles. But anything can be made into guilt. Sometimes it is very hilarious….Up to my eighteenth year, I had not eaten in the night, and I was praised for it and I used to feel higher and holier than all the Hindus who lived around me – they are eating in the night, poor fellows. They are all bound to go to hell. I was feeling tremendously happy that I was saved and these people were destroyed. But eating in the night…whenever you eat, somewhere it is night! So what difference does it make whether the night is here or the night is in London? The night is around.In the Sikh religion, a Sikh is expected to follow five principles and each of those five is simply hilarious. A Sikh must have long hair…in the Punjabi language, these are called five “K’s.” The first K means Kesh, hair; you cannot cut any hair of the body. The second K is katar. Katar means a special kind of sword – now, what has a sword to do with a religion? – every Sikh has to carry a sword. The third K is even more strange. I have been trying to find the religiousness of it but I have not been able to yet. It is called kachchha. Kachchha means underwear – without underwear, you are finished.My God! As far as I know, God himself has no underwear…because in no religious scripture is it described that God has underwear. But these poor Sikhs are having underwear. I was thinking, what is the matter? Why did underwear enter into it and become a religious principle?Those were the days when Sikhism was born. India was under Mohammedan rule. And in war, if you use something that falls – you are running and your dhoti falls away – then kachchha is needed. Otherwise, katar will not do anything and you will become unnecessarily a laughingstock. But now there is no war and nothing is a problem. You can put the kachchha to rest!But a Sikh cannot cut his hair. If he cuts it, he feels guilty. You have never felt guilty – cutting your hair or shaving your beard, you have never felt guilty – not even a far away, faint idea of guilt. What is there to feel guilty about?But once the idea is put in your mind, and from the very childhood conditioned continuously, then it becomes difficult.One Sikh driver used to drive me, he was my chauffeur. One night, when he was snoring, I cut his hair. In the morning he came running, crying, tears…he said, “I resign from the job.”I said, “What has happened?”He said, “Can’t you see? Somebody has cut all my hairs. He has destroyed my religion, my spirituality.”I said, “Just sit down. How, by cutting your hair, can your religion be destroyed?”He said, “I don’t want to listen to anything. It is written in the scriptures, and I don’t want to listen to anything against my scriptures. So please, give me my kachchha and I am going.”Because while I was cutting his hair, I thought it would be good to take his kachchha also. So I pulled his kachchha out and he was so deeply asleep….I said, “Kachchha? Who has taken your kachchha? You never take a bath – I can say that my chauffeur is within a one mile radius, your kachchha sends such disgusting radiations. If somebody has taken it, be finished with it!”He said, “No, it is my religion! And first I want to know who the person is.”And he had his sword in his hand. I said, “Calm down. I will bring you a new kachchha.”He said, “What about the hair?”I said, “False hairs are available.”He said, “Then it is good.”These fools are all over the world, and they feel guilty. So you have to understand the psychology of guilt. Just understanding is enough, and it drops.You have to understand that people, to make you spiritual slaves, have put ideas in your mind that “these things are wrong.” That “if you do these things, God will be angry and throw you into hell.” And naturally, nobody wants to go to hell – except me, because I am immensely interested in hell. I don’t want to go to heaven, for the simple reason that in heaven, you will find only dry bones, ugly saints, somebody holding his kachchha. In hell, you will find the best company possible. All great artists are there, all great poets are there. All great philosophers are there, all great mystics are there. In fact, anything that has happened on this earth and is beautiful, you will find in hell, not in heaven.In heaven, you will find dusty old saints who are now suffering – why have they made so much effort to come to heaven? And remember one thing that shows the situation: from heaven there is no exit. You can only enter, and finished. From hell, there are both doors – entrance and exit. If you want to go, you can go. But nobody goes out. All the beautiful women, all the beautiful men – it is twenty-four hours a celebration.So I told my chauffeur, “Don’t be worried. If you are going into hell, I am coming with you. You can remain my chauffeur there too!”He said, “But I don’t want to go.”But I said, “You don’t understand. In heaven, there is no car – what will you do?”He said, “That is a real question – I know only one job. Are you sure there is no car?”I said, “Never heard…you can look into all your scriptures, in all the religions’ scriptures. There is no car.”He said, “My God! Then it is better – be finished with this kachchha and this Kesh, I am coming with you! If you are going to hell, then there must be something in it.”Guilt has to be dropped.Simple understanding, that’s all.You have been befooled, you have been conditioned.Just drop it.The moment you understand that this is something absurd, drop it. Transformation is not needed. And transformation is not possible either, because guilt is not a real thing. It is just an idea enforced in your mind. It is like a person who by mistake has learned that two plus two are five. Now, do you think some transformation is needed? All that is needed is to tell that person: “Two plus two are not five but only four.” Just put four chairs before him – two chairs on this side, two chairs on this side – bring them together and tell him to count, whether they are five or four. And do you think he will have much difficulty in dropping the idea of five? There is no question. The moment he sees that two plus two is four, the five is finished.Guilt is exactly like that.It is the greatest crime against humanity done by your religious people. They cannot be forgiven.Osho,Either way, you have finished me. The prospect of joining the ranks of the unemployed nearabout the age of forty-two has got me into very hot water with my beloved. She's wanting all manners of guarantees and assurances, and in writing! On the other hand, if I really do have nine more years to go, that exact date you mention will not only be the end of my sex life, but the end of me, full stop! Osho, you got me in this dilemma; kindly get me out.Milarepa, my business is to put people into dilemma. It is not my business to take them out. But for you, I will make an exception. You have only one misunderstanding in your question – the full stop. It is not a full stop, it is a semicolon.Everything will continue but on a higher level, on a better level. The moment sex disappears it does not mean that you don’t have life anymore, unless you have this wrong idea that sex and life are synonymous. They are not. The moment sex starts disappearing, a great spiritual revolution starts happening in you. The same energy that was moving downward starts moving upward. It is the same energy that has brought you into the world. It is the same energy that can take you to the other world – called by different religions, different names – nirvana, moksha, paradise, the kingdom of god…just different names.Sex energy is the only energy there is. Either you can destroy it, spoil it, throw it away, or you can be more articulate, more wise, and transform it.I said guilt cannot be transformed because it is not part of your being, but sex can be transformed because you are nothing but made of sex energy. All the cells of your body are sexual cells.So don’t be worried. Looking at me, you could have dropped your worries. I’m not dead. I have passed the full stop you talk about and I have found it was a semicolon.The full stop never comes. It is always a comma or a semicolon, but life goes on and on without any full stop.And about your beloved – who must be freaking out that at just forty-two, you will be finished with sex? So give her all the kinds of documents she wants, in writing, because I know your beloved. She will be in the semicolon before you. In fact, you will be in trouble, not she. Your beloved is no one but Shunyo. You can give her any kind of guarantee, any kind of stamp, signature, writing – don’t be worried.In fact, I have been forcing her to ask you – “give me in writing….” Poor Shunyo herself would not do such a thing, it is all my doing.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 29 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,On December 25th, you spoke to us on the declaration of human rights. You exposed it as a political device to maintain man in his current state of physical and psychological slavery, and to ensure that he remains ignorant of his true potential for godliness. Would you, tonight, make your own declaration of human rights for the new man?The Declaration of Human Rights basically means that mankind still lives in many kinds of slaveries. Otherwise, there would be no need for the Declaration. The very need indicates that man has been deceived for thousands of years. And he has been deceived in such a cunning way that unless you rise above humanity, you cannot see in what invisible chains humanity is living, in what bondage, in what invisible prisons everybody is confined.My declaration of human rights consists of ten fundamental things.The first is life.Man has a right to dignity, to health; a right to grow, so that he can blossom into his ultimate flowering. This ultimate flowering is his right. He is born with the seeds, but the society does not provide him the soil, the right caring, the loving atmosphere.On the contrary, society provides a very poisonous atmosphere, full of anger, hatred, destructions, violence, war. The right to life means there should be no wars anymore. It also means that nobody should be forced into armies, forced to go to war; it is everybody’s right to refuse. But this is not the case.Thousands of people are in prisons – particularly young people, sensitive and intelligent – because they refused to go to war. Their denial has become a crime – and they were simply saying that they don’t want to kill human beings.Human beings are not things you can destroy without a second thought. They are the climax of universal evolution. To destroy them for any cause – for religion, for politics, for socialism, for fascism…it does not matter what the cause is; man is above all causes, and man cannot be sacrificed on any altar.It is so strange that the UN declares the fundamental rights of human beings and yet says nothing about those thousands of young people who are wasting their lives in prisons for the simple reason that they refused to destroy life. But it has deep roots which have to be understood.The right to life is possible only in a certain, different atmosphere which is not present on the earth at the moment. Animals are killed, birds are killed, sea animals are killed, just for game. You don’t have any reverence for life. And life is the same whether it is in human beings or in other forms. Unless man becomes aware of his violence toward animals, birds, he cannot be really alert about his own right to life. If you are not caring about others’ lives, what right have you got to demand the same right for yourself?People go hunting, killing animals unnecessarily. I was a guest in Maharaja Jamnagar’s palace. He showed me hundreds of lions, deer – their heads. The whole palace was full, and he was showing them: “These are the animals I have killed myself.”I asked him, “You look a nice a person. What was the reason? What have these animals done against you?”He said, “It is not a question of reason or a question of them doing anything against me. It is just a game.”I said, “Just look from the other side: If a lion killed you, would that be a game? Your wife, your children, your brothers – will any one of them have the guts to say that it was a beautiful game? It will be a disaster. If you kill, then it is a game; if they kill, then it is a calamity. These double standards show your dishonesty, insincerity.”He said, “I have never thought about it.”But the whole of humanity is non-vegetarian; they are all eating other life forms. There is no reverence for life as such. Unless we create an atmosphere of reverence for life, man cannot realize the goal of getting his fundamental right of life.Secondly, because the UN also declares life to be a fundamental right for man, it is being misused. The pope, Mother Teresa, and their tribe are using it for teaching people against birth control, against abortion, against the pill. Man’s mind is so cunning. It was a question of human rights – they are taking advantage of it. They are saying you cannot use birth control methods because they go against life; the unborn child also has the same right as you have. So some line has to be drawn, because at what point…?To me, the pill does not destroy human rights; in fact it prepares the ground for it. If the earth is too overcrowded, millions of people will die of starvation; there will be wars. And the way the crowd is exploding it can lead humanity into a very inhuman situation.In Bengal, there was a great famine in which mothers ate their own children. People sold their own children just for one rupee, two rupees. And do you think the persons who were purchasing them were purchasing human beings? No, they were purchasing food.The pope and Mother Teresa will be responsible for all this.The pill simply does not allow the child to be formed in the mother’s womb, so the question of human rights does not arise. And now, recently, science has found a pill for men too. It is not necessary that the woman should take the pill, the man can take it. The child is not formed in any way; hence, this fundamental right is inapplicable in that case. But these religious people – the shankaracharyas in India, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran…and all over the world, all religions are against birth control methods. And they are the only methods which can prevent man from falling into a barbarous state.I am absolutely in favor of birth control methods. A child should be recognized as a human being when he is born – and then too, I have some reservations….If a child is born blind, if a child is born crippled, if a child is born deaf, dumb, and we cannot do anything…. Just because life should not be destroyed, this child will have to suffer – because of your stupid idea – for seventy years, eighty years. Why create unnecessary suffering? If the parents are willing, the child should be put to eternal sleep. And there is no problem in it. Only the body goes back into its basic elements; the soul will fly into another womb. Nothing is destroyed.If you really love the child, you will not want him to live a seventy-year-long life in misery, suffering, sickness, old age. So even if a child is born, if he is not medically capable of enjoying life fully with all the senses, healthy, then it is better that he goes to eternal sleep and is born somewhere else with a better body.The right to life is a complex thing. Nobody is entitled to kill anyone, either, in the name of religion. Millions of people have been killed in the name of religions, in the service of God.No one should be killed in the name of politics. Again, the same has happened. Joseph Stalin alone killed one million people, his own people, while he was in power. Adolf Hitler killed six million people. And thousands of wars have happened.It seems that on this earth we are doing only one thing: reproducing children because soldiers are needed, reproducing children because wars are needed. Even to increase the population, Mohammed said that every Mohammedan can marry four women or even more. He himself married nine women. And the reason is war, destruction of life. It is not out of love for nine women that he has married them, it is simple arithmetic. If a man marries nine women, he can produce nine children in one year. If nine women marry one man, this is okay but vice-versa, nine men marrying one woman may not be able even to produce one child. They will mess up the whole thing. Most probably they will kill the woman!It seems man is nothing but a necessary instrument for more destruction, more wars.The population has to be reduced if man wants to be, to have his dignity, honor, his right to live – not just to drag, but to dance. When I say life is a fundamental right, I mean a life of songs and dances, a life of joy and blessings.My second consideration is for love.Love should be accepted as one of the most fundamental human rights, and all societies have destroyed it. They have destroyed it by creating marriage. Marriage is a false substitute for love.In the past, small children were married. They had no idea what love is, what marriage is. And why were small children married? For a simple reason: before they become young adults, before love arises in their hearts, the doors have to be closed. Because once love takes possession of their hearts then it will become very difficult….No child marriage is human. A man or a woman should be allowed to choose their partners and to change their partners whenever they feel. The government has no business in it, the society has nothing to do with it. It is two individuals’ personal affair. The privacy of it is sacred.If two people want to live together, they don’t need any permission from any priest or any government. They need the permission of their hearts. And the day they feel that the time has come to part, again they don’t need anybody’s permission. They can part as friends, with beautiful memories of their loving days.Love should be the only way for men and women to live together. No other ritual is needed.The only problem in the past was what would happen to the children; that was the argument for marriage. There are other alternatives, far better. Children should be accepted not as their parents’ property – they belong to the whole humanity. From the very beginning it should be made clear to them: “The whole humanity is going to protect you, is your shelter. We may be together – we will look after you. We may not be together; still we look after you. You are our blood, our bones, our souls.”In fact, this possession by the parents of the children is one of the most dangerous things that humanity goes on carrying. This is the root of the idea of possessiveness. You should not possess your children. You can love them, you can bless them, but you cannot possess. They belong to the whole humanity. They come from beyond; you have been just a passage. Don’t think more than that about yourself. Whatever you can do, do.Every commune, every village should take care of the children. Once the commune starts taking care of the children, marriage becomes absolutely obsolete. And marriage is destroying your basic right to love.If man’s love is free, there will not be blacks and whites, and there will not be these ugly discriminations, because love knows no boundaries. You can fall in love with a black man, you can fall in love with a white man. Love knows no religious scriptures. It knows only the heartbeat, and it knows it with absolute certainty. Once love is free, it will prepare the ground for other fundamental rights.In fact, if you ask the scientists, people falling in love should be as different as possible. Then they will give birth to better children, more intelligent, stronger. We know it now; we are trying it all over the world as far as animals are concerned. Crossbreeding has given us better cows, better horses, better dogs. But man is strange. You know the secret, but you are not bettering yourself.All the royal families are suffering. They create the greatest number of idiots, because they go on marrying among themselves. Royal blood cannot mix with a commoner’s blood – even in the twentieth-century we think in terms of royal blood. Blood is simply blood. But if just a dozen families go on marrying among themselves continually, they create many kinds of diseases.Retardedness is one. Just have a look again at the picture of the Prince of Wales and you will see what I mean by a retarded person. They are fed up, but they cannot go out of their small circle. I have never come across any person belonging to a royal family who has intelligence, and in India I have been acquainted with almost all the royal families. It is not only that their minds remain retarded, their bodies lose many things.You must have heard the name of Rasputin. Before the Russian revolution he had become the most important man in Russia, for the simple reason that the child of the czar had a disease – if he wounded himself accidentally then the bleeding could not be prevented. No medicine could prevent it, there was no way; the blood would go on flowing out. And that is one of the symptoms of marrying close relatives.Rasputin was a great hypnotist. He was not a saint and he was not a sinner, he was simply a great hypnotist. He managed with hypnosis to prevent the blood from flowing out of the child. What no physician was able to do…and the child was going to be the successor to the greatest empire of those days. Rasputin certainly became very important. Without him the child’s life was in danger.But still those royal families, although they have lost their kingdoms, their empires, continue to marry among themselves. It creates a very weak personality.Have you ever seen somebody from these royal families being declared as the beauty queen of the world? Do you think Queen Elizabeth of England can even be declared a beauty? All over England there is a rumor. I don’t know whether it is true or not; hence I don’t take any responsibility for it. The rumor is that Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, is a homosexual. I feel sorry for poor Philip. In fact anybody marrying Elizabeth would have been homosexual, so he should not feel worried about it. It is just natural.And just two weeks or three weeks ago, one of the bodyguards of Prince Charles died of the disease AIDS. Now you cannot get AIDS from the sky. One does not know who the holy ghost is, but he must be in the royal family. And soon many more will die, because it is a chain disease.There should be no boundaries – that a Hindu should marry only a Hindu, or a brahmin should only marry a brahmin. In fact, the rule should be that the Indian should never marry an Indian. The whole world is there; find your spouse far away, beyond the seven seas, and then you will have children who are more beautiful, more healthy, long living, far more intelligent, geniuses. Man has to learn crossbreeding, but that is possible only if marriage disappears and love is given absolute respect. Right now it is condemned.The third most fundamental right…because these are the three most important things in life: life, love, and death. Everybody should be given the fundamental right that after a certain age, when he has lived enough and does not want to go on dragging unnecessarily…. Because tomorrow will be again just a repetition; he has lost all curiosity about tomorrow. He has every right to leave the body. It is his fundamental right.It is his life. If he does not want to continue, nobody should prevent him. In fact, every hospital should have a special ward where people who want to die can enter one month before, can relax, enjoy all the things that they have been thinking about their whole life but could not manage – the music, the literature…if they wanted to paint or sculpt….And the doctors should take care to teach them how to relax. Up to now, death has been almost ugly. Man has been a victim, but it is our fault. Death can be made a celebration; you just have to learn how to welcome it, relaxed, peaceful. And in one month’s time, people, friends, can come to see them and meet together. Every hospital should have special facilities – more facilities for those who are going to die than for those who are going to live. Let them live for one month at least like emperors, so they can leave life with no grudge, with no complaint but only with deep gratitude, thankfulness.Between these three comes the fourth: the search for truth.Nobody should be conditioned from childhood about any religion, any philosophy, any theology, because you are destroying his freedom of search. Help him to be strong enough. Help him to be strong enough to doubt, to be skeptical about all that is believed all around him. Help him never to believe, but to insist on knowing. And whatever it takes, however long it takes, to go for the pilgrimage alone, on his own, because there is no other way to find the truth.All others – who think they are Christians, or they are Jews, or they are Hindus, or they are Mohammedans – these are all believers. They don’t know.Belief is pure poison.Knowing is coming to a flowering.The search for truth…you should not teach anybody what truth is because it cannot be taught. You should help the person to inquire. Inquiry is difficult; belief is cheap. But truth is not cheap; truth is the most valuable thing in the world. You cannot get it from others, you will have to find it yourself.And the miracle is, the moment you decide that “I will not fall victim to any belief,” you have already traveled half the way toward truth. If your determination is total, you need not go to truth, truth will come to you. You just have to be silent enough to receive it. You have to become a host so that truth can become a guest in your heart.Right now the whole world is living in beliefs. That’s why there is no shine in the eyes, no grace in people’s gestures, no strength, no authority in their words. Belief is bogus; it is making castles of sand. A little breeze and your great castle will be destroyed.Truth is eternal, and to find it means you also become part of eternity.Fifth: to find the truth, all education systems from the kindergarten to the universities will create a certain atmosphere for meditation. Meditation does not belong to any religion, and meditation is not a belief. It is a pure science of the inner.Learning to be silent, learning to be watchful, learning to be a witness; learning that you are not the mind, but something beyond – the consciousness – will prepare you to receive truth.And it is truth that has been called by many people, “God,” by others, “nirvana.” By others, other names have been given to it, but it is a nameless silence, serenity, peace. The peace is so deep that you disappear; and the moment you disappear you have entered the temple of God.But strange it is, that people are wasting almost one-third of their lives in schools, colleges, and universities, not knowing anything about silence, not knowing anything about relaxation, not knowing anything about themselves. They know about the whole world – it is very weird that they have forgotten only themselves. But it seems there is some reason….In India there is an ancient story. Ten blind men pass through a stream. The current is very forceful, so they hold hands. Reaching the other side, somebody suggests, “We should count ourselves. The current was so forceful and we cannot see – somebody may have gone with the wind, gone with the river.”So they count. Strangely enough the counting always stops at nine. Everybody tries, but it is always nine. One man sitting on the bank of the river starts laughing – it is hilarious! And those ten blind people are sitting there crying, tears in their eyes because they have lost one of their friends.The man comes to them and he says, “What is the matter?”They explain the situation. He says, “You all stand up in a line. I will hit the first person – he has to say ‘one.’ I will hit the second person – he has to say ‘two,’ because I will hit twice. I will hit the third person three times; he has to say ‘three.’”Strangely enough, he finds the tenth man who was lost. They all thank him, they touch his feet; they say, “You are a god to us. We were thinking we had lost one of our friends. But please, can you tell us…we were also counting; all of us tried, and the tenth was not there. How has he appeared suddenly?”The man says, “That is an ancient mystery which you will not understand. You just go on your way.”What is the ancient mystery in it? One tends to forget oneself. In fact, one lives his whole life without remembering himself. He sees everybody, he knows everybody; he just forgets himself.Meditation is the only method in which you will start counting from yourself: “one.”And because it is not part of any religion, there is no problem – it should be all over the world, in every school, in every college, in every university. Anybody who comes home from the university should come with a deep, meditative being, with an aura of meditation around him. Otherwise, what he is bringing is all rubbish, crap. Geography he knows: he knows where Timbuktu is, he knows where Constantinople is, and he does not know where he is himself.The first thing in life is to know who you are, where you are. Then everything in your life starts settling, moving in the right direction.The sixth: freedom in all dimensions.We are not even as free as birds and animals. No bird goes to the passport office. Any moment he can fly into Pakistan; no entry visa. Strange, that only man remains confined in nations, in boundaries. Because the nation is big, you tend to forget that you are imprisoned. You cannot get out of it, you cannot get into it. It is a big prison, and the whole earth is full of big prisons.Freedom in all dimensions means that man, wherever he is born, is part of one humanity.Nations should dissolve, religions should dissolve, because they are all creating bondages – and sometimes very hilarious bondages.I was in a city, Dewas. For twenty years the Jaina temple there has not opened. There are three locks on the temple: one lock from the digambaras, one of the sects of Jainism, one from another sect, svetambaras, and the third from the police. For twenty years poor Mahavira has been inside – no food, no bath, no light. One wonders whether he is really alive or dead, because he does not make any noise…at least he could knock and shout, “Open the doors and let me out!”When I saw it, I asked, “What is the matter?” I was just passing by and I saw three locks – big locks, bigger than you may have ever seen – and I came to know the story.In Dewas, there is only one Jaina temple, and this was the temple. Jainas are few; they don’t have enough money to make two temples, so they have made one temple and divided the time. Up to twelve o’clock in the morning, Digambaras will worship, and after twelve, Svetambaras will worship…but there was a fight every day.The differences between Svetambaras and Digambaras are not very big – so childish and so stupid. Digambaras worship Mahavira with closed eyes and Svetambaras worship Mahavira with open eyes. This is the only basic difference.Now a marble statue…either you can make the eyes closed or you can make the eyes open, unless you fix some mechanism, to switch on so he opens his eyes, and switch off…. But that much technology does not exist in India; otherwise it would not be difficult. You can find it in toys – a beautiful girl, you lie her down and she closes her eyes. You put her back and she opens her eyes. Something could have been arranged.And they had something arranged – primitive, but they had arranged it. And it is being following all over India: When Svetambaras worship a statue which has closed eyes, they put false eyes on top; they just glue them on. That is simple, non-technical; not much technology is needed.But every day the problem was there: at the time of twelve, exactly twelve, Svetambaras would be waiting. One minute more…and the Digambaras are worshipping – and they are worshipping knowingly a little longer – and the Svetambaras will come and start putting their eyes on the statue and the fight will start.It happened so many times that finally the police locked the temple and said to them, “Go to the court and get a decision.” The case goes on – how can the court decide whether Mahavira used to meditate with closed eyes or with open eyes? The reality is, he used to meditate with half open eyes.No child should be given any idea by the parents what life is all about – no theology, no philosophy, no politics. He should be made as intelligent and sharp as possible, so when he comes of age he can go in search. And it is a lifelong search. People today get their religion when they are born. In fact, if you can get your religion when you die, you have found it early. It is such a precious treasure, but it is possible only out of freedom – and freedom in all dimensions, not only in religion.There should be no nations, no national boundaries. There should be no religions. Man should be taken as man. Why confine him with so many adjectives? Right now he is not free in any way.I was arrested in America. In one jail in Oklahoma, the US Marshal told me that I had to write my name as David Washington. I said, “This is the first time that somebody has told me my name. Do you read thoughts?”He became a little puzzled. He said, “Is it really your name?”I said, “Of course.”He said, “Then change it. Some other name will do.”But I said, “You know my name. David Washington is not my name. And why should I write David Washington? And you call this country a democracy! And not even the freedom to write one’s own name. What other freedoms do you have? And on your coat there is written in big letters ‘Department of Justice, US Marshal.’” I said, “At least take this coat off. David Washington is not my name and I am not going to write it.” I said, “This is for the first time in my life that I am seeing how democracy works, how freedom works. I am not even free to write my name. What is the purpose?”He said, “That, I don’t know. From high above I have been ordered: ‘David Washington should be his name and he should be called David Washington in jail.’”I said, “Then you fill out the form” – and it was in the middle of the night, twelve o’clock. I said, “You fill out the form – I will not fill it out, I refuse – and then I will sign it.”He was in a hurry to go home, so he filled out the form. I signed my name. He looked at it and he said, “But it doesn’t look like David Washington.”I said, “How can it? I don’t look like David Washington.”He said, “You are a strange man. You deceived me.”I said, “You are deceiving yourself. You know perfectly well what my name is. And tomorrow the whole world will know that the so-called democracies – free countries, talking too much of freedom – are not even able to allow people to write their own names.” And I said, “You don’t know the reason why your higher authorities have asked this?”He said, “I don’t know.”I said, “This is strange, because I know. It is a simple, logical inference that even if you kill me in the jail nobody will be able to find out where I disappeared. Because in your forms, on your register, I never entered your jail, so the question of my being killed in your jail does not arise.”He was shocked. I said, “This is a simple thing. Otherwise, there is no need to change my name; you don’t have any authority.”But in this world there is no freedom in any dimension.I was going to college. My parents wanted me to go to science college or to medical college. I said, “Am I going or are you going?”They said, “Of course you are going; why should we be going?”“Then,” I said, “leave it to me.”They said, “We can leave it to you, but then remember: we will not support you financially.”I said, “That’s understood.” I left my home without a single rupee. I traveled in the train to the university without a ticket. I had to go to the ticket checker and tell him: “This is the situation. Can you allow me to travel without a ticket?”He said, “This is the first time in my life that somebody has come to ask me! People escape, people deceive me, cheat me. Certainly I will take you, and at the university station I will be at the gate so nobody bothers you.”I went directly to the vice-chancellor and told him the whole story. And I told him, “I want to study philosophy, but it seems there is no freedom even to choose what I want to study. So you have to give me all the scholarships possible, because I will not be getting any financial help. Otherwise I will study philosophy, fasting…even if I die.”He said, “No! Don’t do that, because then the blame will be on me. I will give you all the scholarships.”From the very childhood we go on crippling, cutting freedoms; we try to make a child according to our desires.I was talking to a Christian missionary and he said, “God made man in his own image.”I said, “That is the foundation of all slavery. Why should God make man in his own image? Who is he? – and to give his own image to man means he has destroyed man from the very beginning.” And that is what every father is doing.Man’s basic right is to be himself.And in an authentic human society, everybody should be allowed to be himself – even if he chooses just to be a flute player, and he will not become the richest man in the world but will be a beggar on the streets.Still I say freedom is so valuable…. You may not be the president of the country, you may be just a beggar playing the flute in the streets. But you are yourself, and there is such deep contentment, fulfillment, that unless you know it you have missed the train.Seventh: one earth, one humanity.I don’t see any reason at all why there should be so many nations. Why should there be so many lines on the map? And they are only on the map, remember. They are not on the earth; neither are they in the sky. And the map is man-made.Existence has not created this earth in fragments.I am reminded of one of my teachers. He was a very loving human being, and he had his own methods of teaching. He was a kind of rebel.One day he came with a few pieces of cardboard, placed them on the table, and said to us all, “Look, this is the map of the world, but I have cut it into pieces and I have mixed them. Now anybody who is confident that he can put them in their right places and make the world map should come up.”One tried, failed; another tried, failed. I went on watching him and watching the people who were failing and why they were failing.Watching five persons fail, I was the sixth. I went and I turned over all his cardboard pieces. He said, “What are you doing?”I said, “You wait, I am working it out. Five people have failed but I have found the secret.”On the other side of the map was a picture of a man. I arranged the man, which was easier. On one side the man was arranged and on the other side the whole map of the world was arranged. That was the key that I had been looking for, waiting to see if I could get some clue. And when the others were arranging the pieces, I saw that there was something on the other side.The teacher said, “You are a rascal! I was hoping you would come first, but when you didn’t come I understood that you were waiting to find out the key. And you have found the right key.”The world is divided because man is divided; man is divided because the world is divided.Start from anywhere; just let the whole of humanity be one, and the nations will disappear, the lines will disappear. It is our world – one humanity, one earth, and we can make it a paradise. Right now there is no need to describe hell. You can just look all around; it is here.I have heard a story. A man died. He was a thief, a murderer, a rapist – you name it and he had done it. And when the angels started taking him away, he said, “Certainly you will be taking me to hell.”They said, “No.”He said, “What?”They said, “Hell you have been in; now we are taking you to heaven. The old hell is empty because you have created a better hell, so all the sinners are sent here.” And the story seems to be significant. Looking around the earth, man is in such misery and suffering that there seems to be no need for another hell.But we can change the whole situation. This earth can become a paradise. And then there will be no need for any paradise; paradise will be empty.Eighth: uniqueness of every individual.A very beautiful word has been misused so utterly that it is difficult to imagine, and that word is equality.A few thinkers say human beings are equal. To counter them, the UN declares that equality is man’s birthright. But nobody bothers to see that man is not equal and has never been equal. It is absolutely unpsychological.Every man is unique. The moment you are all equal you are a crowd, your individuality has been taken away. You are no longer yourself but just a cog in the wheel.I teach not equality, not inequality – I teach uniqueness. Every individual is unique and needs to be respected in his uniqueness. Because every individual is unique, the birthright should be: equal opportunity for their growth of uniqueness.It is such a simple and obvious fact. Two thousand years have passed and you have not been able to produce another Jesus. Twenty-five centuries have passed and you have not been able to produce another Gautam Buddha. And still you go on saying man is equal?Man is unique, and everybody should be respected as a world in himself. He is neither inferior to anybody nor is he superior to anybody; he is alone.In this aloneness there is beauty. You are no longer a mob, a crowd; you are yourself.Ninth: a world government.I am absolutely against governments. I am for one government for the whole world. That means no war will be possible; that means there will be no need to keep millions of people in armies unnecessarily. They can be productive, they can be helpful, and if they are merged into humanity, all poverty will disappear.Right now seventy percent of the national income of every country goes to the army and the rest of the country lives on thirty percent. If armies disappear, seventy percent of the income of every country will be available. There is no need to be poor, there is no need to have any beggars.These beggars, these Ethiopias – they are our creations. On the one hand, we are creating great armies and on the other hand, we are killing human beings through starvation. And these armies are doing nothing. They are simply professional killers, professional criminals, trained criminals. We are giving them training in how to kill.And we talk about humanity, we talk about civilization, and still seventy percent of our income goes into killing.One world government means a tremendous change, a revolution. The whole earth will be benefited by it.Secondly, if there is one world government it becomes only functional. Right now government is not functional, it has real power. The president of a country or the prime minister of a country…in a functional government things will be different. Now you have the postmaster general; he is a functional person, he has no power. He has work, he has no function, but he has no power. There is no need. The man who heads your railways, what power does he have? The man who is the president of your airlines, what power does he have? It is functional.If there is only one government, it will automatically become functional. Right now it cannot be, because the fear of other governments keeps you afraid: “Make your leaders strong, give all support to the leaders.” But if there is no war there is no need of anybody having power – war is the cause of power. And unless war disappears from the world, power cannot disappear; they are together.A functional world government – like the post office, the railways, the airlines – will be efficient but without power. It will be a beautiful world where you don’t know who the president is, who the prime minister is – they are your servants. Right now they have become your masters, and to keep their power they have to keep you always completely afraid. Pakistan is getting ready to fight with India, so you have to give all power to the Indian leaders. China is going to attack….Adolf Hitler has written in his autobiography that if you want to remain in power, keep people always afraid. And he is absolutely right. Sometimes mad people are also right.And tenth: meritocracy.Democracy has failed.We have lived under many kinds of governments – aristocracy, monarchy, city democracies – and now we have seen the whole world getting addicted to the idea of democracy. But democracy has not solved any problems; it has increased the problems.It was because of these problems that a man like Karl Marx supported a dictatorship of the proletariat. I am not a supporter of a dictatorship of the proletariat, but I have another idea that goes far ahead of democracy.Democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people – but it is only in words. In India right now there are nine hundred million people. How can nine hundred million people have power? They have to delegate the power to somebody.So it is not the people who rule, but the people who are chosen by them. What are your grounds for choosing? How do you manage to choose? And are you capable of choosing the right people? Have you been trained, educated for a democratic life? No, nothing has been done.The ignorant masses can be exploited very easily by very insignificant things. For example, Nixon lost his election against Kennedy and the only reason was that Kennedy looked better on television than Nixon; this is the analysis of the psychoanalysts.Nixon improved. When he discovered this, before the next election, he improved; he learned how to stand, how to walk, how to talk, how to dress. Even the color of your dress will make a difference on television. If you go there in white clothes you will look like a ghost.Arbitrary reasons…somebody speaks well, is a good orator. But that does not mean that he will make a good president. Somebody makes good shoes – do you think that will make him a good president?It happened when Abraham Lincoln was chosen president. On the day of his inaugural address to the Senate, people were feeling very angry and hurt – because Lincoln’s father was a shoemaker, and a shoemaker’s son has defeated the great aristocrats. They were offended.One arrogant aristocrat could not tolerate it. Before Lincoln started speaking, he said, “Wait a minute. Do you recognize me? You used to come with your father to my house sometimes because your father made shoes for my family. You used to help him.” And the whole Senate laughed. This was an effort to humiliate Lincoln.But you cannot humiliate people like Abraham Lincoln. He said, “I am very grateful to you that you reminded me of my dead father at this moment. Because my father was the best shoemaker in the whole country, and I know that I can never be the best president as he was the best shoemaker. He is still ahead of me.”What criterion do you use? How do you manage?That’s why my idea is that the days of democracy are over. A new kind of system is needed, based on merit. We have thousands of universities all over the world. Why have ordinary, unknowledgeable, ignorant masses choose people who will be holding tremendous power for five years in their hands? And now the power is so much that they can destroy the whole world.Meritocracy means that only people who are educated in a certain area should be able to vote in that area. For example, only the educationists of the country should choose the education minister. Then you will have the best education minister possible. For the finance minister, you should choose somebody who knows finance, somebody who knows the complexities of economics. But this choice is possible only for people who are trained in economics, in financial matters – and there are thousands of people. For every post, the person who is chosen should be chosen by experts.The health minister should be chosen by all the doctors, the surgeons, the medical experts, the scientists who are working in the medical field. Then we will have the cream of our genius, and we can depend on this cream to make the life of all humanity more peaceful, more blissful, more rich.This idea I call a meritocracy. And once you have chosen all the people, then these people can choose the president and the prime minister. They will be our geniuses; they can choose the prime minister, the president from the country, or they can choose from the members of the parliament. And for the parliament we should also make gradations.For example, people who have at least a post-graduate degree should be able to vote. Just becoming twenty-one years old does not mean you are able to choose the right person. At twenty-one years, you don’t know anything about life and its complexities. At least a post-graduate degree should be held by those who choose the members of the parliament or the senate or whatever you call it. In this way, we can make an educated, refined, cultured government.Before the world government happens, each nation should pass through a meritocracy. And once we have enjoyed the fruits of a meritocracy then these people will be able to understand that if we can combine the whole world into one government, life can certainly be a joy, worth living – not to renounce, but to rejoice.Up to now, whatever has happened has been accidental. Our history up to now is nothing but a history of accidents.We have to stop this. Now we have to decide that the future is not going to be accidental. It will be created by us; and to create our world can be the greatest creation possible.

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Sermons in Stones 01-30Category: THE WORLD TOUR

Sermons in Stones 30 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,You are for me, the most extraordinary person I can imagine. Yet I know that you feel ordinary. Where is the door for a talented and gifted person or a genius to feel and become ordinary? I see that each time I feel special, something goes wrong. But I have still not found the door to real modesty and simplicity. Could you please say something about that?I do not feel ordinary – I am.The people who have talents, the gifted, the geniuses – they also suffer the same problem that you are suffering because they forget that the whole existence is ordinary. A sunrise, howsoever beautiful, is pure ordinariness. A sky full of stars does not feel in any way special. A rosebush full of beautiful flowers and fragrance is just part of the ordinary existence.The talented people get into trouble because they forget their relationship with existence. They become confined and imprisoned in their small talents.What are your talents and what are your geniuses? Because you can paint, you are a genius? Look at the butterflies, look at the flowers, look at the sky when the sun is setting – the whole existence is so colorful. And because you have painted a small canvas, you have become special. And what have you painted?The existence has to be remembered; then you will not get caught in the net of an egoistic feeling, that “I am special.” The moment you feel you are special, you have lost contact with life, with love, with the totality of the whole – you are alone.A true genius does not know, does not feel that he is special. That is the criterion whether he is a true genius or not. If he feels that he is special, he’s not a true genius. The very feeling of specialness arises out of your inferiority. The more inferior you feel, the more you try to pretend, to pose your specialness.Looking at the vastness, the infinity and eternity of existence, we are just dewdrops in the early morning sun. We may shine like pearls on the lotus leaves, but just a little breeze and the dewdrop slips into the ocean and is no more. The ocean always is. If you also want to be always here and now, don’t get identified with a tiny dewdrop. Howsoever beautiful it looks, it is only appearance.Merge, melt, disappear into the ocean, and the ocean is no longer separate from you. It is not that the dewdrop has died. On the contrary, the dewdrop has become the ocean.You are asking me how to attain, to achieve true humility, true simplicity – these things are never achieved. These things are not within your hands. If you understand, they happen. All that you have to do is to understand that we are part of a mysterious world. And the world is so vast, how you can be anything else but humble?It is not a question of attaining, achieving humility. It is a question of understanding: how can I be other than humble? One day, you were not. One day, you will not be again – and still you are trying to achieve humility? You want simplicity in your life?But life is simple. If you want to make it complex, you can – you can stand on your head and life becomes complex! You can do all kinds of stupidities and life becomes complex.Don’t do anything. Just try to be aware, alert, and see that you are related with such a miraculous, mysterious world. Suddenly, you will find that you are simple, just like a child.The child has simplicity not because he has achieved it, he has simplicity because he is still, in a subtle way, in tune with the whole. He was in tune with the whole in his mother’s womb. He has not forgotten it yet.Have you noticed a fact – if you try to remember backward, how far can you remember? When you were four years old or three years old? More than that, you cannot go back. But when you were three years old, you were perfectly conscious. You were enjoying more than you will ever enjoy life. Everything was beautiful; small colored stones, sea shells on the beach were treasures.The reason why you cannot remember backward to the time when you were born is that in those three years you were simple – so simple that you had not even gathered memory. There was no need. You were just like a mirror – you reflected, enjoyed the moment, but you never collected. You were not greedy. Your ego had not come yet into being. It takes, for the society to bring the ego, at least three years in women and four years in men.I have been always puzzled: why three years in women and four years in men? It is because women are more self-conscious.Mulla Nasruddin was trying hard for two hours to catch two flies. Finally, he got them and he told his wife: “I have caught them. One is male, one is female.”The wife said, “My God! How did you figure out who is male and who is female?”He said, “Very simple. The female has been sitting continuously for two hours on the mirror, and the male was reading the newspaper for two hours. It was not difficult to find out who is who.”The woman is more body-oriented…becomes aware of her beauty, becomes aware that others are also aware of her beauty. That’s why the ego is created one year earlier.The woman is more confined to herself.The man looks around the world, forgetting himself completely; hence, it takes a little more time. But once the male ego is there, it is stronger, more poisonous than the female ego. Because the female ego is fragile – it depends only on her beautiful eyes, her beautiful hair, the beautiful proportions of her body. Its claims are not very big.But when the man claims, he becomes Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible. His scope of the ego is the whole world.When the first group of mountain climbers, early in the century, tried to climb the highest peak of the Himalayas – Gourishankar, known to the world as Everest – they were asked: “Why are you putting your life in unnecessary danger?” Because there is nothing to be found…eternal snow, which has never melted.And do you know, the leader replied, “It is not a question of finding anything there on the Everest. The question is that it is there, unclimbed, and it hurts our egos.”Strange – the poor Everest is not doing anything to you. Almost hundreds of people have died in climbing Everest, for a simple reason – because it is there. It cannot remain unclimbed, man has to defeat it.What is there on the moon? But it is there, this is the difficulty. What is there on Mars? It is there. And those millions of stars are there.Man’s ego has no limits.It is vast and it goes on growing.The woman is satisfied with beautiful clothes, ornaments, a beautiful, small garden, a swimming pool – she does not ask much. And by the way, this is the reason no woman has been able to become a Gautam Buddha. You will be surprised. What can be the connection in it?To become a Gautam Buddha, you need a very big ego so big that it becomes a mountainous burden on you. You have to get rid of it; otherwise it will kill you.But the woman’s ego is so small, it never becomes a mountainous burden. There is no need to fight with it, to drop it. This is the reason why women have not been able to reach higher peaks of consciousness. They are easily satisfied with small things.Man knows no satisfaction, and this dissatisfaction becomes so troublesome, so painful, that he has to find a way out of it.You are asking how to achieve simplicity. A simplicity that is achieved is phony, because deep down you know you are not simple. A humbleness that is achieved is false because in your heart of hearts, you know it is just etiquette, mannerism. It pays in the world to be humble, to be simple – these are your masks.But if you ask me, I will tell you: drop the idea of achievement. The very idea of achievement is egoistic.You are simple, you are humble.Just look all around.Look at the ocean, look at the sky.How can you manage not to be simple and not to be humble?Osho,When I write down a question to you, with every word, more and more questions are arising within me. It is almost impossible to write down a single sentence without getting lost in the jungle of questions. By the time I am finished with one question, I am completely exhausted. I want to know it all, Osho, so desperately, that tears are coming in my eyes. It might be the wrong way to start, but I want to know it all. I want to ask everything and I want to know all the answers to everything. Osho, would you please comment?Mind is just like a tree: questions grow on the tree like leaves. If you cut one leaf, the tree will replace it with three leaves, at least. That’s how a gardener makes the tree thick, the foliage big.Mind is very productive as far as questions are concerned. It manufactures only questions. And each answer, mind will immediately change into hundreds of questions. No answer is going to stop the mind. So you are on a wrong track, completely wrong. And what are you going to do by knowing all? Do you want to become a god?There are people who say that even God committed mistakes in making existence. There are people who propose that if God had taken their advice, the world would have been far better. And you cannot simply reject them, they have a certain validity.Just look at life and you will find how many mistakes God has committed. Just a few examples….The biblical story is that first God created Adam and not Eve; Eve was the second woman that he created. He had created another woman before Eve. Christians don’t talk about it, Jews are silent about it, because it will raise so many questions – what happened to the first woman?But the very first night, the first mistake – he made only one small bed. It was not a double bed, king-size. What a foolish God, creating a man and a woman and giving them a small bed.The first night, the fight started that you are still fighting. The woman wanted to sleep on the bed. The man also wanted to sleep on the bed and there was a pillow fight. They could not sleep the whole night because nobody was ready to sleep on the floor.Even an ordinary carpenter would have been better. Adam went to God and said, “What kind of life have you given to me? This is going to be continuous trouble. Why have you made a small bed?”And a second mistake: rather than making a big bed, which was a simple thing…. For a god who can make the whole universe, to make a king-size bed would have been very simple, but rather than doing that, he withdrew the woman. And that was the right woman because she was made equal to man – in strength, in body, in intelligence, in everything she was equal to man.These thousands of years of torture all over the world of women by men, would have been avoided just by making a king-size bed! But he made another woman, this time not equal. The first woman was made out of the same mud as Adam was made. The second woman was made by taking a rib of Adam, and out of the rib, the woman was made. Naturally, she cannot claim equality – she’s only a rib.And I have heard that whenever Adam was late coming home, when he went to sleep the first thing Eve used to do was to count his ribs. Who knows? There may be some other woman somewhere. But there was no need to ask him…just count his ribs.Even the smallest intelligence can understand that to prohibit anything is to create interest, attraction – and God prohibited. Not only prohibited, he showed Adam and Eve two trees – one of wisdom, one of eternal life – and said, “You are not to eat the fruits from these trees.” And the garden was vast. If Adam and Eve had been left on their own, I don’t think that even now we would have found those two trees.God seems to be stupid: showing them the trees and telling them, “This is the tree of wisdom and this is the tree of eternal life. Never eat the fruits from these two trees. The rest of the garden is available.” But naturally Adam and Eve must have become obsessed with those two trees. You would have done the same as Adam and Eve did.And I say they did right.Wisdom is not something harmful – ignorance is harmful. Eternal life is not something to be denied to your own children. But it seems he had no idea of the basic principles of psychology.What are you going to do by knowing all?It will be enough if you can eat the fruits of those two trees: the tree of wisdom and the tree of eternal life. And I am making available to my sannyasins only those two trees. Those two trees are not in the garden, those two trees are within you. As you meditate, as you become silent, as you become peaceful, wisdom arises. Wisdom is the light that radiates out of a silent consciousness. And once your inner being is full of light, instantly you know your life is eternal.Death is a fiction. God has prohibited man to go within himself. Go to the whole Garden of Eden – that means the whole universe – but don’t go within yourself.The devil who persuaded, seduced Eve to eat the fruit of wisdom…and just see, the story is not only a story. There is a perfect science hidden behind it. The devil did not say, “Eat first from the fruit of eternal life.” You cannot eat from the tree of eternal life. You are blind, you cannot approach the tree. First, your eyes have to be opened.Hence, he persuaded her for the tree of wisdom. And the reason he gave is worth remembering: the reason he gave was that “God has prohibited you because he is very jealous of anyone becoming equal to him, and if you are wise and have eternal life, you are a god. God does not have anything more than you. Because of jealousy, he is prohibiting you.” The logic was perfect.By the way, people all around the earth have asked me: “Why are there so many women interested in you? Why are there so many women sannyasins?” The reason is the same – why didn’t the devil approach man first?Man is argumentative, does not listen from the heart. He listens from the head. The devil would have convinced him but it would have taken a long time, and perhaps God may have come to know; the thing had to be done quickly. The woman listens from the heart, and the heart is quick. Mind is lousy, slow, needs all kinds of arguments, and then too there is doubt. Then too there are questions and questions and questions. If the devil had met the questioner, even by this time the questioner would have been asking because he wanted to know all.Eve was ready because she was not interested in knowing all. This was enough, to have wisdom. Wisdom does not mean that you know all. It simply means pure intelligence, a heart full of light, no darkness in any corners of your being. Wisdom is a transformation of your whole being, knowledge is not.You are searching for knowledge. And you can memorize all the libraries in the world; still, more and more questions will be coming. The final result will be a madman.The woman, in this way, is simple. She listened to devil. The idea was perfectly clear.One thing more to be reminded to you – that in Hebrew, Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, they don’t have the idea that the word devil comes from Sanskrit. Devil and divine come from the same root. Never condemn the word devil, because it simply means divine. Then the whole story takes a different color:God is against humanity.God is against your being wise, against your enjoying eternally the fruits of love and life. How can you call the person who was the first seer, the first sage…we owe to him everything. He is divine.And as God became aware that they had eaten the fruit of wisdom, he immediately turned them out of the Garden of Eden. Because now he was afraid: the second step is absolutely necessary, and that is the fruit of the tree of eternal life. Before they eat that, they have to be turned out of the Garden.You may have thought or you may not have thought, but it is significant to know that the whole of humanity has been searching for more life, longer life, better life, healthier life. Why? – because that wound is still not healed. We are still searching. All our sciences, all our philosophical endeavors are nothing but a search for the second tree.Science perhaps may gave a little longer life, but it cannot give eternal life, because it works on the body and the body cannot be eternal. Philosophy may give you great ideas, but just ideas – soap bubbles. They cannot give you eternal life.There is only one approach and that is the approach of meditation. That goes directly to the tree of eternal life.So rather than wasting your time in questions and answers, it is better to find the tree – and both trees are within you. And the methodology to reach to them does not need much effort. In fact, it does not need any effort, it needs an effortless relaxation.So whenever you have time, just relax, close your eyes and forget the whole world. Thoughts will go on just because of old habit. You have to learn a simple secret: the name of the secret is watching without any judgment. Let the thoughts move, just like on the screen of a movie. You simply watch, don’t judge. And slowly, slowly the traffic is less and less and one day suddenly you see – there are no thoughts, you are utterly empty in your mind.And that is the turning point in one’s life, because the energy that was going toward thoughts, finding nothing there, turns back to the original source.The circle is complete.You must have seen – many secret societies of the world have used the symbol of a snake with his own tail in his mouth. That symbol is nothing but your own energy turning back to the source, becoming a circle.You will not find any answer, so please don’t call me “Answer.” I am not your Answer. Although I discuss your questions, I never answer.My effort is just the opposite: I destroy your question, not answer it. In the name of answering, I am destroying it. I am taking it away from you, because I know that any answer given to you is going to become many questions. And I am not your enemy, and I don’t want to burden you any more. You are burdened so much by your religions, by your philosophers, by your traditions. It is time that all your burdens should be taken away. You should be left alone in your silence. You will not find any answer, remember – but all questions will disappear.And when all questions disappear, you have found something more than just a verbal answer – you have found your authentic reality, your being. And your being is rooted in the being of the whole universe. You have found the whole world.Just find your own center and you have found the center of the whole world.But beware of questions. They are not your friends.You will be lost in the jungle of questions. You will become very knowledgeable, but deep inside there will be nothing but darkness and death.I want within you light and life and love. I teach these three L’s, just like educationists teach three R’s.Osho,Do all disciples become devotees? In your communes, I have loved you, got lost in you, been emptied out by you. Away, your picture has lit me up when I've gone dark. Your voice on tapes has woken me when I've been snoozing and made me snooze when I've been awake. You are my blood, my bone and marrow and yet, and yet Osho, I do not see myself as a devotee. When I see those who care for your body, I can never imagine how I could manage such a thing, so generously and selflessly, even though I used to deep-down dream my role should one day be to serve, completely lost in love. If I never become what you call a devotee, have I a destiny that separates me from you?Every disciple grows into a devotee. There is no way to go anywhere else. But you have not understood the meaning of devotee.I have almost one million sannyasins around the world. If they all think that by being devotees they have to be close to me, then I will feel that to become enlightened was a mistake!A devotee is just like the fragrance of a flower. The flower is the disciple, the devotee is fragrance. You can see the flower. You cannot see the fragrance. You can catch hold of the flower but you cannot catch hold of the fragrance.And the fragrance has no destiny. Only machines have destinies.You are conscious human beings. You don’t have destinies because you are masters of your own being.Only slaves have destinies.The fragrance is freedom of the spirit of the flower. The flower was the body, the fragrance is the soul. Now the flower has come to blossom, the fragrance is released. Now the fragrance belongs to the whole universe. Wherever the breeze takes it, it has no resistance. It simply goes with it.The life of a devotee is the life of let-go, of absolute surrender to existence – not to me, not to anybody else. And when you are surrendered totally to existence, then all these beautiful mountains, all these beautiful trees, rivers, this whole universe becomes your home.A devotee is one whose ego is dead – in a certain sense, one who is absent as far as the ego is concerned and present for the first time, as universal consciousness.Of course, I need a few people around me. Just being a lazy guy, it has nothing to do with devotees, it has something to do with me. I have never done anything in my life.One friend has come from the Soviet Union. He said to me, “Never go to the Soviet Union.”I said, “In the first place, they will not allow me in anyway. If England cannot allow, if Italy cannot allow, if Germany cannot allow, the Soviet Union is going to be the last on the laundry list!”But I asked him, “Why are you saying this?”He said, “Because of your hands. If anybody shakes hands with you, he will take his hand away.”I said, “What is wrong with my hands?”He said, “Your hands are bourgeois. You have never worked! And the Soviet Union is a dictatorship of the proletariat.”I said, “That’s true, I have never worked. Even in the middle of the night, my cold drink is just by the side of my bed but I will ring the call bell – that call bell is also by the side of the bed – and somebody has to come to give me a glass of cold drink.”In fact, the people who take care of me insist: “Don’t touch the glass, don’t touch the bottle. You may break it!” So what can I do?I am simply lazy.You need not be in despair that perhaps you are not growing toward being a devotee – you are growing but it takes a little time. Just wait a little, let the spring come and your buds will open and your fragrance will be released.This is real freedom, liberation, moksha. But every disciple sooner or later has to become a devotee. There is no way that you can go back. For one who has tasted the sweetness and the beauty of being a disciple, it is impossible to go back, to fall back. You have passed the line from where people can go back.There is a point of no return. Thousands of my sannyasins have passed that point. Even if they want to, it is not possible. It is almost like a child is born…he was in paradise in his mother’s womb. The outside world will look very strange. He might like to go back into the womb but it is not possible. He has crossed the boundary, the point of no return. He has to go only ahead.A disciple has come a long way, has come very close to the ultimate explosion. That ultimate explosion is devotion, but it has nothing to do with taking care of my body. It has something to do with taking care of your meditation.Move with as much wholeness and totality as you can to the very center of your being, the center of the cyclone.And you have come home.Osho,When we reach a point where insanity can occur, at that state, a breakthrough in consciousness can also occur. Please tell us how to shift the gear from insanity to consciousness?The question is very significant to every seeker on the path. There comes a moment where there are two possibilities: a breakdown or a breakthrough.Breakdown rarely happens because it needs certain conditions. For example: you don’t have a master, you have been going on your own. You don’t have anybody who knows the path. There is danger. Or, you may have a teacher, not a master, misunderstanding him as a master. Then there is more possibility of a breakdown.A teacher is without any experience. He himself has never traveled on the path, although he is knowledgeable. Perhaps he may be more knowledgeable than any master. And if you are impressed by knowledge, there is danger. Don’t be impressed by knowledge, because knowledge can be accumulated from scriptures, from books, from thousands of other sources, but it is all borrowed, dead.How will you discriminate between a master and a teacher? The line is very fine.I will tell you one story to make it clear.One great philosopher, in the days of Gautam Buddha, came to Gautam Buddha to challenge him for a debate. He had been moving all over the country, defeating many, many famous, well-known teachers but he had not come across a master. He had no first-hand knowledge, of what a master is. He thought master and teacher were synonymous terms – they are not. They may be synonymous in the dictionary, but not in reality.He was a famous man – five hundred disciples of his own always followed him.Buddha looked at him. There were ten thousand sannyasins of Buddha. There was a great silence because this was the first time that any man had dared to challenge Buddha for a debate. The man must be blind!Buddha said to the philosopher: “You have been traveling all over the country. You have been asking questions, answers have been given to you. Have you received any answer?”The man said, “No, my questions are still there.”Buddha said, “I can also answer you but your questions will still be there, because the questions are yours, the answer is mine – there is no bridge, no connection. Your question needs your answer.”The man said, “Then what am I supposed to do?”Buddha said, “You are really in search of truth? Then for two years, sit by my side. No question – just be silent and watch whatever goes on happening.”The man was certainly sincere. And looking at Buddha, his charismatic presence, his authoritative words, his penetrating eyes…he said, “I am ready. Can I ask my questions after two years?”Buddha said, “Absolutely! You will have to! If you don’t ask, I will remind you.”He sat down by the side of Buddha. At that very moment, an old disciple of Buddha – Mahakashyap – sitting under a tree just nearby, started laughing madly.The philosopher said, “What has happened to this man?”Buddha said, “You can ask him; it has never happened before.”The philosopher asked Mahakashyap, “What is the reason? Why did you burst into laughter?”He said, “The same is my story. I had also come here to challenge Gautam Buddha, but this man played a trick. He said, ‘Sit two years by my side and then you can ask whatever you want.’ I said, ‘It is worth it.’ But after two years, all my questions had disappeared! So I want to tell you, if you are really interested in asking your questions, this is the time. Ask! After two years, you are finished. You will be sitting under that other tree.”For two years he sat, and forgot all about time, that two years had passed. And watching, for two years continuously, the beauty, the grace, the sincerity, the authenticity of Gautam Buddha, he became more and more silent. He fell into a certain kind of love, in tune with the heart of Gautam Buddha – his heart also started dancing.And exactly after two years, Buddha said, “Now it is time. You can ask your questions.”He had only tears of joy in his eyes. He touched Gautam Buddha’s feet and he said, “Mahakashyap was right, I am going to the tree.”A master is a totally different phenomenon. He does not teach you anything, he transforms you. He does not give you doctrines, he gives you a totally new level of consciousness. He gives you a new birth.So if you want to become knowledgeable, this is not the place. But if you want to be awakened, to be enlightened, then you have come to the right place, perhaps accidentally.A master imparts something invisible. His vibe enters your being.The teacher only plays with words which cannot reach beyond your mind.Your mind is only a mechanism. Your being is your reality.The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether you want to become an Encyclopedia Britannica or you want to fall into the celestial music of existence and become an immortal part of it.You are already part of it, you just have to be reminded.The master only makes you remember who you are.The teacher gives you many theories, many philosophies, many doctrines.The master only gives you to yourself.Knowledge in itself is useless, even parrots have knowledge. So don’t bother about knowledge. You may be a better parrot…or perhaps not even a better parrot.I have heard, a bishop had a parrot and he had taught him – with great difficulty – the Sermon on the Mount. Any guest who came was amazed – the parrot was so perfect, they could not believe it. Perhaps even Jesus was not so impressive as the parrot. But the parrot died and the bishop was in great misery.He went to the biggest pet shop. There were many parrots of different qualities, qualifications, but nothing satisfied him. His own parrot was so religious and so Christian.He told the owner, “These parrots won’t do,” and he described his parrot who was dead.The man said, “I have the right parrot for you but the price will be too much because it is far superior to your parrot who has died.”The bishop was ready to pay any price. The owner took him inside the shop to a special room where he kept that parrot, a beautiful parrot.The bishop asked, “What are the qualities?”He said, “Just look closely and you will see two small threads – one tied to the right foot, another to the left. If you slightly pull on the right foot by the thread, he will repeat the whole Sermon on the Mount.”The bishop said, “And what about the other leg?”He said, “The other leg is for Jews, because sometimes some Jew may come.”The bishop said, “Jews come – they are my friends. The rabbi lives just opposite my house. He will be the first man to come and see it!”The owner said, “Then that is the right parrot for you. If you pull the other leg, he will repeat the whole Song of Solomon.”The bishop said, “My God! A double scholar!”He paid whatever was asked. While he was paying the money, he asked: “And if I pull both the threads together, what will happen?”Before the owner could say anything, the parrot said, “You idiot – I will fall on my asshole! Never do that!”Teachers are simply parrots.A master is not knowledgeable but he knows his experience, his own experience. He does not depend on Gautam Buddha or Jesus Christ. He has entered into his inner subjectivity, and whatever he says is fresh – just born.Avoid knowledge; insist on experience.Only experience can bring salvation to you, only experience can give you wings which can liberate you. Neither any book nor any religion nor any teacher – they cannot help. They can only deceive you, perhaps without any intention – they have been deceived, and this deception goes on from century to century. Our whole heritage is thousands of deceptions, and we go on passing them to our children. But if you are not just a curiosity-monger but really thirsty, then existence is very compassionate. According to your thirst, you will find the well. If your thirst is total, you will find the door of the master. And if your thirst is just in the mind, you are not really thirsty. You will be wasting your time, your life, your opportunity because there are thousands of teachers and rarely one master.Blessed are those who have knocked on the right door.Osho,I want to do a perfect job and I don't see this as a problem but when I condemn myself for doing an imperfect job, it doesn't feel right. Is there a way to accept our failures gracefully?The perfectionist is sick, psychologically sick. He does not understand that in life, everything is imperfect because imperfection is absolutely needed for evolution. Without imperfection, there is no possibility of evolution. If everything is perfect, the whole world will be a graveyard, because after perfection, what will you do? Except enter your grave – of course, perfectly.Imperfection is the law. Nothing ever becomes perfect and nothing should ever become perfect, because you are driving it toward death. Imperfection is beautiful.So your problem is first to understand that imperfection is perfectly beautiful. Do your best, hope for the best but always remember: nothing can be perfect.I was staying in a palace of a Maharajah. It is one of the most beautiful palaces in India. His son was taking me around and I saw that on one side, a wall was only half-built.I inquired, “What is the problem? What happened?”He said, “My father never made anything perfect. This palace is so beautiful, he was afraid it might come very close to perfection, so he left this wall incomplete. It is a protection – the palace will live long, it will not die soon.”The old man was dead, but I said to his son, “Your father was a wise man.”Once this is understood, that imperfection is the foundation of all evolution, you will be very easily capable of accepting your imperfections without any guilt – gracefully.Osho,The West conceived instant coffee. The East conceived instant enlightenment. What is the difference?The West has created the instant coffee, but the West does not know how to sip it.Enlightenment is nothing but the right, meditative way of drinking coffee or tea.Enlightenment is to live gracefully, lovingly, moment-to-moment – not only being blissful yourself but showering your bliss all around – that is instant enlightenment.You can become enlightened this very moment.Because the East does not conceive anything more than this moment – who knows about the next moment? It may come, it may not come. If you want really to do something – coffee or enlightenment – do it now, immediately.Instant coffee may take a little time, but instant enlightenment takes no time at all.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,You invited me not to get angry with blind people. I'm not – how could I be? When I see their sadness and their misery, I only become infinitely sad. They are tired, and I offer them a rest. They are thirsty, and I offer them a glass of water. But they are so afraid. What to say if I invite them to the source? Beloved Osho, how can I touch them in spite of the wall of their fear?The second question feels somehow connected: how can we forgive the people who put you in jail?The world is sad, it is in misery. There is great suffering in the hearts of people. But you need not be sad about it, for the simple reason that by becoming sad you join them, you create more sadness. It is not a help. It is just as if people are sick, and you see their sickness and you also become sick. Your sickness is not going to make them healthy, it is simply creating more sickness.To feel for their sadness does not mean to become sad. To feel for their sadness means to look for the causes of what is creating all their suffering and misery, and to help them to remove those causes. And at the same time you have to remain as joyful as possible because your joy is going to help them, not your sadness. You have to be cheerful. They should know that there is a possibility of being cheerful in this sad world. They have completely lost hope, because everywhere they look there is sadness. They have accepted the fact that sadness is just the nature of things – you cannot do anything about it, you have to suffer it.And the religious teachers have only been giving them consolations, giving them some hocus-pocus, hypocritical ideas. They have kept them miserable for centuries because they have made them accept misery as part of life. Not only that, they have raised their sadness and misery to some spiritual status. They have been telling them, “Blessed are the poor.” So not only have they accepted their sadness as just a simple fact of life about which you cannot do anything, but they have also started feeling good about it, feeling it is something spiritual, that it is a test given by God to them.Rich people are not going to enter into the kingdom of God; it will be the poor, the miserable – they will be received with great joy and welcomed. All that they have to do is not to make any fuss about their misery – accept it as a blessing in disguise. And if for centuries you go on saying such things, you poison people’s minds. But it seems that they are not alone in their sadness; everybody is sad. In fact, they will feel afraid to be cheerful in this vast crowd of sad people.So it is not going to help if when seeing them sad, you also become sad. It is simply making them more convinced of the fact that joy does not exist on the earth, it is something otherworldly – the fate and the destiny of the earth is misery. So simply give them an example that it is not true: “If I can be cheerful, rejoicing, your whole fabric of stupid theories is proved irrelevant.”Secondly, you have to remember…. You say that you are not angry, but become sad seeing their sadness. There are people who become angry – these are the people who create revolutions, changes in the society, in the state. But all their revolutions have failed, because anything coming out of anger is coming out of ignorance. It is not going to create an authentic change. Change for the better is impossible out of anger.I want you to remember one thing: sadness is just anger upside down; it is not different. It is repressed anger. If you analyze it then you will see the fact. Sadness can change into anger very easily; anger can change into sadness in the same way. They are not two things…perhaps two sides of the same coin. So whenever you are angry and you cannot express it, the situation is not such. It is too dangerous to express it, too risky to express it.For example, a child becomes angry at the parents, but he cannot show it because he is so helpless and dependent. Then he becomes sad. His sadness is inverted anger. The same child goes out and gives a good kick to the dog. He wanted to kick his parents, but it was too risky, too dangerous. But the dog he can beat. He repressed the anger, it became sadness. But when he comes out and sees the dog, he starts beating him. The sadness changed into anger.You have been a revolutionary. In the same circumstances you have felt anger before – anger against the whole society which creates so much misery and so much sadness and so much poverty. You have been angry against the establishment – political, religious. You have been angry about the whole educational system, that it wastes time – almost one third of one’s life – and still does not help anybody. You have been angry.Then you came to me and I said to you that anything coming out of anger is not going to do any good. Because the source is poisoned, the fruits of it are not going to be anything else. You understood it; you changed your anger, you repressed it. Now you have become sad, but it is the same energy. I have prevented you from being angry; now I prevent you from being sad. I would like you to be cheerful. It looks awkward. People are sad and in misery, and you are cheerful.I have been condemned around the world for teaching such things. When people are in suffering, you are supposed to be sympathetic, to join them in their misery; you are not supposed to be cheerful.So when I say be cheerful, be happy, rejoice in the fact that you are not in the position of being miserable and suffering, I have a certain purpose behind it. The purpose is that you have to become an example to those people who have completely forgotten that life can also be a rejoicing. In spite of all the darkness you can still be unburdened of the darkness, you can still dance. Darkness cannot prevent your dance; it has no preventive force. To me this is real service.I want my sannyasins around the world to become examples. And when people see so many people rejoicing, question marks will start arising in them. Perhaps they have accepted a wrong philosophy, and misery is not destined for this earth: “It doesn’t seem so, because on the same earth there are people who are rejoicing, who are immensely happy.” We have to break down their stupid ideology, and the only way is to live differently, not just like them; otherwise, you are supporting them.The second thing: these people are sad, and these people are miserable because of themselves. They have followed wrong ideas, and they are clinging to those wrong ideas. They don’t understand the relationship between their ideology and their life. They don’t see that their religion, their philosophy, creates the basis of what they are going to be.Jesus says to people that everybody has to carry his cross on his shoulders. But why does everybody have to carry his cross? Can’t he carry his guitar? Why choose a cross out of so many things in the world? And why carry it? And when you are carrying your cross on your own shoulders, how can you dance? How can you laugh? It will go against the cross, and the weight of the cross will not allow you to rejoice.Have you seen any picture, any statue, of Jesus smiling? He is burdened with the whole world’s misery. He is doing what you are doing: he is sad because the world is sad. But his sadness has not helped the world. Two thousand years have passed – even his crucifixion has not helped, so how can it be of any help if you carry your cross on your shoulders? Even the crucifixion has failed, so just carrying your cross on your shoulders is sheer nonsense.But people have accepted these ideas. They have laid their life’s foundations on such idiotic, stupid theories and now they find themselves miserable, sad. They go on sowing the seeds of poison. Who is going to reap the crop? Of course, they will have to reap the crop too.The only hope possible is from a source of joy, and you can say that you have changed your foundations. Unless you change your foundations, you cannot get rid of your misery.The misery is not really only materialistic. I have seen the poorest people happy. They don’t have anything, but they have not based their life philosophy on wrong ideas. It is more a question of what kind of spirituality you have accepted. Is it something beyond death? Is your spirituality not of this world but of some other world?If your spirituality is something that is going to happen only after you are dead, then what are you going to do before your death? Nothing is left except being miserable and waiting for death. And all kinds of suspicions and doubts will arise, because nobody comes back after death to say to you that whatever you believe is true or untrue. So no evidence exists about what is going to happen to you after death.Waiting for death cannot be a joyful act. Life, which your religions teach to renounce, is available. And joy and cheerfulness and blissfulness are part of life. They are living qualities, they are fragrances of intense living. Your religions teach you to renounce life, then what do you expect? You renounce life, and with it you have renounced every possibility of being blissful.Sadness, misery, suffering: you have created them by your accepting a wrong kind of ideology. You have been cheated by your priests, you have been cheated by your politicians. You have been exploited by all the vested interests for the simple reason that they want miserable people. The miserable person is easily enslaved; the cheerful person, the blissful person, cannot be enslaved.I am reminded of Diogenes, one of the most beautiful men who has walked on this earth. He lived naked – he had a beautiful body. And those were the days when people were sold in the markets as slaves.So a few merchants who used to deal in selling slaves saw Diogenes lying down by the side of the river. They were overjoyed; this man would fetch a good price. They had sold many slaves, but never such a healthy and such a proportionate body and such a beautiful man. But the problem was how to catch him. They were only four, and he was more than enough for four; he would kill all of them. But something had to be done.They were hiding behind a bush and thinking of a plan – perhaps when he was asleep then they could manage it.Diogenes was listening. He said, “Don’t be stupid. What do you want? Just tell me. I am not a man to be enslaved, but you look so miserable that I am ready to go with you.”They could not believe it!Diogenes stood up and said, “Where do we go? You follow me!”They went to the market. It was a strange scene. He looked like a master, and they looked like slaves following him. And the whole marketplace suddenly turned towards Diogenes. It was a breathtaking scene. They had never seen such a slave – “He should be an emperor!”He stood on the platform where each slave had to stand before he was auctioned. Standing on the platform he looked at the crowd and declared, “A master is ready to be sold. If any slave amongst you wants to purchase a master, he should come forward.”There was great silence. Even in such a situation Diogenes was not sad, he was not miserable; on the contrary he was enjoying the whole scene!One king came up and asked the price. Diogenes said, “I am a priceless being, but you can give whatever you want to give to these poor fellows, these four persons. They have brought me here out of compassion, so you can give them as much as you like.”The king gave them the money, took Diogenes in his chariot, and rode towards his palace. He was immensely impressed by the man, his strength. He talked on the way, and when they reached the palace he said to Diogenes, “You are not meant to be a slave, you are a master. I free you.”We create our life inch by inch, and whatever happens to us, nobody else is responsible for it. So the only revolution that I teach is an individual revolution.The way is to help those people to understand that you are clinging to wrong kinds of concepts. This very earth can become a paradise, but you will have to forget the paradise that is beyond death. That is causing your trouble. This very moment can become an eternity of joy, but you will have to forget all those promises which your prophets and your saviors and incarnations of God have given to you.Jesus says to his people, “I will come for the salvation of the whole of humanity.” One disciple asks him, “When?” And he says, “Very soon. In this very life you will see me.” Two thousand years have passed – there is no sign of Jesus anywhere. But this has been the strategy of all these people – to postpone everything for the future.Krishna did the same thing. Five thousand years ago he said, “I will come. Whenever there is suffering, whenever there is misery, whenever the good, the virtuous people are tortured by the vicious, I will come to save you. This is a promise.”For five thousand years everything that he said has been happening every day, every moment. The good people are tortured, the vicious are in power, the whole of humanity has lived in misery, in suffering – and there is no sign of Krishna anywhere. But this is a strategy to postpone things for an unknown future; then you cannot ask because the man is no longer there.It is easy to promise for the future.I promise you about the present.Nobody has done it before. It is very easy to promise for the future. You need not deliver the goods because you will not be there and you will not be answerable. I say to you my promise is for the present, the future does not exist.So you have to change people’s conditioning. They are not miserable unnecessarily; they are miserable because they have created a certain pattern around their beings which makes them whatever they are. Your sadness will not help them. You have to be cheerful, you have to rejoice. You have to make it emphatically clear to them that what you are saying is not only possible, you have made it actual in your life. And if thousands of sannyasins can do that…I don’t think people want to be miserable, I don’t think they want to be in suffering, it is just that they have been taught to be in suffering and that there is no other way.In different ways Hinduism says to people, “You are in suffering because of your past lives’ karmas. You have been doing evil acts – nobody knows if that is true – and because of your past lives’ evil acts you are suffering now. All that you can do is to patiently suffer, and don’t do any evil act so that in a future life you will not have to suffer.” Now, Hinduism has used the whole strategy of past and future, leaving the present for your suffering. Then the past has the cause; in the present you have the effect. And if you are patient – that means you don’t react against your misery, you don’t do anything against your misery, you don’t listen to any kind of revolutionary thoughts – then in the future you will have a beautiful, blissful life.Nobody knows about past life, nobody knows about future life. All that you have is the present life – which is suffering. They have sandwiched you between two non-existential things. And they have made it clear: be patient. That is why, in India – which is the oldest civilization in the world – there has never been a revolution of the poor against the rich, of the powerless against those who have power. Patience is the antidote to revolution.Don’t be angry, because that leads finally to revolution, and that changes nothing. Don’t be sad, because it is only anger upside down, and you create more sadness; you become, again, another example of sadness.Become an example of joy. It will look very illogical that people are sad and you are cheerful. It is not graceful, it is not mannerly, but what is mannerly is not going to help. So it is not a question of manners and grace and etiquette, it is a question of creating in the minds of people who are sad that the possibility of getting out of sadness exists herenow.They will try in every possible way to deny it. They will say, “You must be pretending. How can you be cheerful in this world?” They will say, “You must be posing.” They will say, “You must be mad! How can you be sane and cheerful in this miserable world?” They will say, “You seem to be hypnotized.” They will say all kinds of things just to protect their ideology which they are holding very close to their hearts, not knowing that that is the poison that is going into their bloodstream.But you have to fight and make it clear to them that it is not pretending, it is not posing; that you are not mad, that you are not hypnotized. And even if madness makes people happy, it is better than being miserable. What is the use of your sanity? If hypnotic processes make people rejoice, then what is wrong in them? It seems you have decided to remain miserable; you won’t allow any weight to go out of your misery. Then don’t make a fuss about it – remain miserable. But remember, it is your responsibility, it is your doing.It is a difficult task, but it has to be done. It is difficult because their conditioning is thousands of years old. It is very thick, and you have to cut it through and through and reach to their very hearts. But it is not impossible.If I can reach to millions of people’s hearts you all can make the effort. And this is the only way to change this miserable state of affairs. You just have to have enough courage, because it is going against the crowd.In my childhood it happened I had a Sanskrit teacher in my school who was a very old-fashioned man. He was very fat, and he had a very big turban. He was the teacher of Sanskrit, a dead language, and he also lived according to his subject matter – in a very antique kind of way. But he was a very simple man too, and because he was very simple, we used to call him Bholenath. It simply means a simpleton.He was very furious whenever he heard it. And we used to write in big letters on the blackboard before he came into the class: bholenath – lord of the simpletons; that is the exact meaning. The first thing he would do was that he would rub it off, and he would start shouting and making a scene – and we all enjoyed it.He died, so I went to his house with my father before his body was taken to the funeral pyre. I was standing there with all his relatives and friends and neighbors, and then his wife came before his body was to be taken away. She came running out of the house, fell on him, and said, “Oh, my Bholenath!”I could not contain my laughter – I had never thought that this would happen! When a man is dead…Even we were not thinking about his nickname, but his wife comes there and calls him Bholenath! So I laughed loudly. Everybody was shocked, and my father was very angry, but now there was nothing he could do – I had laughed.On the way home he told me, “I will never take you anywhere. Can’t you see a simple thing? The man is dead. His wife is crying, his whole family is mourning, all his relatives are sad, everybody is sad. And are you mad or something? – you started laughing!”I said, “You don’t know the whole thing; otherwise you would have laughed too.” And I told him the whole thing.He said, “This is great! It is good that you had not told me before.”And I told him, “As far as I know, all those relatives are simply pretending to be sad, because they never helped that man. When he was sick and he needed medicine, I took medicine to him. I stole money from your pocket for his medicine. Those relatives have not been of any help to him. And his wife, who was making such a scene, is in a love relationship with a neighbor. In fact, she is one of the causes of his death, because it was too much for him.“He was a very simple man and he could not conceive that his wife would deceive him. All that was just a show. I don’t know a single person there who was really sad; they were all following a certain rule of the game.”My father said, “Whatsoever may be the case, you have to follow the rule; otherwise you make me embarrassed.”I said, “I am not going to follow the rule, I am simply going to do what feels right to me. And if you cannot take me, I can go alone. I may not be standing by your side, but everybody knows that I am your son, so it will not make much difference. I will just be more free, not standing by your side, and I will do exactly what I want to do. I was the only honest person there; I loved that old man. I don’t see that any harm can be done to a dead man by my laughter, and I can’t see either that all these pretenders – their sadness, is going to help the dead man.”I told my father, “If you don’t want to be embarrassed it is better you don’t come to such places. I am going to, and I am going to do whatever I feel like doing, because I don’t think honesty can hurt anybody; at least it cannot hurt a dead man. I was the only one who loved that man, respected that man.”My father thought for a few seconds, and then he said, “Perhaps you are right – because I was also pretending to be sad. I had nothing to do with that family, nothing to do with that man. I had just gone there because of you, because you were his student and it would look bad not to go there. I was also pretending.”We have to cut all these pretensions. You become sad, seeing somebody else sad. Perhaps he was sad looking at somebody else who was sad…. Someone has to come out of this whole mess and be honest, and just be himself. It may be shocking to people, it may be embarrassing to people, but sooner or later they will understand it. And that understanding is going to bring an individual revolution.This is a good chance. When somebody is miserable you have an opportunity to approach the person and to make it clear to him why he is miserable, to show him the causes. Perhaps in his misery he will be able to understand what causes are there. If he wants to get out of misery he can drop those causes; nobody is holding them there for him. And if he does not want to get out of misery, then it is his joy not to get out of misery. But then don’t make a fuss about it.This will go against the teachings of all the religions because they will say that when somebody is sad you should be sad. That is thought to be human. I don’t think it is so. It is inhuman. If somebody is sad you have to destroy it.The beginning has to be with your cheerfulness. Cheerfulness has a contagious effect: just one single cheerful man can change a crowd into laughter. It has tremendous power; we just have to learn how to use it.And your second question: “How can we forgive the people who put you in jail?”I can understand. But they have not done anything that is new, they have simply repeated an old pattern. If they can poison Socrates for the simple reason that he is corrupting people’s minds, without proving it…He was one of the greatest men in the whole history of man, who was sharpening people’s minds, not corrupting – and still they poisoned him.If they can kill al-Hillaj Mansoor…he had done no harm to anybody. All that he was saying was that God is not there above in the heavens; it is within you, within me. But the Mohammedans could not tolerate it. If God is not in the heavens then the whole structure of their religion falls. Then to whom to pray? Then for whom to make mosques? Then the priesthood…then even Mohammed’s being a messenger of God becomes a lie, because Mansoor was saying God is in everybody’s being, he is not something separate. A simple truth, not harmful to anybody – but he was killed.One of the Sufi mystics, Sarmad, was killed in India. Mohammedans have a simple prayer: “There is only one God, and Mohammed is his only messenger.” Sufis don’t use the whole sentence, they simply use half of the sentence: “There is only one God.” Then comes the full stop.Asked why they don’t use the full sentence that Mohammed is the only messenger, they say, “Because the second part is not true. There have been many messengers, there are many messengers, there will be many messengers. Whoever realizes the truth becomes a messenger. It is nobody’s prerogative, it is everybody’s birthright. So we cannot use the other part.”The story is very beautiful. Sarmad was brought to the Jama Masjid in Delhi and asked, finally, “Are you going to use the full sentence in your prayer or not?”He said, “How can I? – because I myself am a messenger.” They cut off his head.Before cutting off his head they told him, “We give you a chance to think again.”He said, “Don’t bother – just cut off my head. But I say to you that even my head cut from my body will continue to say the same thing – that there is only one God.” And the story is that his head was cut off and it rolled down the many steps of Jama Masjid shouting loudly, “There is only one God!”Sarmad was such a simple and such a beautiful man. There was no crime that he had committed, but this is how it has always been.The fundamentalist Christians in America became tremendously afraid of me – and I can understand their fear. I was the first man who had taken away thousands of Christians from the Christian fold.Christians had been doing that all through the centuries: taking millions of people from other religions and converting them to Christianity. And it has been thought to be a great service to God. I was the first challenge to them – nobody had done this before.And the challenge became more significant because Christians have been able only to convert orphans, beggars, the poorest of the poor. And these people that they have converted to Christianity have nothing to do with religion. They have been given food, they have been given houses, they have been given schools for their children, they have been given hospitals for their sick…They have moved from Hinduism or from other religions to Christianity – this is not a religious conversion.What was hurting them very much was that I had taken out the cream – not the beggars, not the orphans, but the best minds, the youngest people, the best educated, the most intelligent. I have taken them out of their fold, and I have not put them into another fold. I have simply taken them out of one prison and have left them free, I have not put them into another prison. From Christianity into Hinduism, or from Christianity to Mohammedanism – that is simply a changing of jails.This was the problem for the fundamentalist Christians. Ronald Reagan himself is a fanatic, fundamentalist Christian. And if this fire becomes bigger…and they have no means to prevent it, because they had no arguments against me. I have all the arguments against them.First they tried legally to destroy the commune and throw me out of America. For four years I was in America without any visa. I had been telling them, “You can say yes; you can say no,” but they were afraid, because if they said no, I might go to court. Then it would go beyond their hands and become a legal case.On what grounds were they saying no to me? They had no grounds to say no to me, so they would not say it. And they could not say yes, because the pressure from above was not to say yes. So for four years they were committing the crime of keeping a person in the country without any visa. My application was with them, and they would not answer it.They tried all kinds of legal ways, but we were winning cases against the government. Then they became desperate. It seemed legally they could not win. So something had to be done, and had to be done quickly before we became deeply rooted in their soil. So this was their desperate effort: they arrested me without any arrest warrant. They arrested me without showing any reason why they were arresting me. They had none. They did not allow me my basic right to call my attorney. They did everything illegal.And from Charlotte, where they arrested me, Oregon is not more than six or eight hours’ distance. It took them twelve days to cover that distance. They were keeping me in jail without any trial – which is absolutely illegal. For three days in the Charlotte court they could not prove anything against me. Still, the US Attorney insisted to the court that I could not be given bail. All six people who were with me were given bail because there was no case.Now, you can see their strategy. The people who were with me on the plane were given bail, but for me, especially, they would not give bail. They could not show any crime that I had committed, so they said in their appeal to the court that it was because I had unlimited sources of finance. And I have thousands of friends who love me, who are devoted to me so totally that they would do anything for me. If I were given bail…whatever money I had to deposit – five million dollars, ten million dollars or fifteen million dollars – the government was not going to accept any money, saying that I would leave America.And from behind the scenes they were pressurizing the woman magistrate who was not even a judge. They were bribing the woman by saying, “If you give him bail” – and this was absolutely illegal – “then you lose your chance of becoming a judge. If you don’t give him bail then your chance of becoming a judge is certain.”This was told to me by the sheriff of the jail himself. He said, “This is absolutely illegal. We have never heard of this, that without any crime proved, somebody has been put into jail, has not been given bail. The reality is,” he told me, “from behind the scenes the woman is being pressurized. She does not have guts and is afraid to lose her post of judge.”In those twelve days they lied at every step, even to the point where they wanted me to sign under a false name: David Washington. And this was being forced on me by the US Marshal himself!In the middle of the night he told me, “You have to sign under this name.”I said, “You are supposed to be a law-enforcing authority. Under what law does this idea come? On your coat is written Department of Justice. At least for the moment remove the coat – because what justice is there? This is not my name. You are forcing me to do something illegal.”He said, “I cannot answer you. Whatever I have been told from above” – and this “above” always means Ronald Reagan, because who is above? – “I am simply following. Please, don’t be angry with me.”I said, “I am not angry with you, I am simply surprised at you and your integrity. You don’t have a backbone, any spine. You write it!”He had said, “If you don’t sign it then the whole night I have to sit here, you have to sit here. Neither can you sleep, nor can I. If you sign, then you can go to the cell and you can go to sleep.”I said, “I will not write it. I can sit the whole night here, but I will not do anything illegal. You write the name, you fill in the form. I will simply sign it. I don’t want to keep you awake the whole night.”So he filled in the form. And that was my strategy, that he fill in the form in his own handwriting so that becomes the proof that I have not filled in the form. And I signed my own signature. He looked at my signature and said, “What have you signed?”I said, “It must be David Washington. Can’t you read?” He looked at it – it was in Hindi; I always sign in Hindi. And I told him, “You will repent for it. You cannot keep me forever in jail without my having committed any crime. Soon the whole world will know. Most probably tomorrow morning all the television channels and all the newspapers will know.”While I had been going from the airport to the jail, there was also a girl who was going to be released that night. So I had told her, “You just listen to whatsoever happens between me and the Marshal. You are going to be released, and outside there will be hundreds of news media people. Simply go out and tell them everything that you have heard. Just be alert and listen carefully to what transpires between me and the US Marshal.”And she did a perfect job. As she went out she immediately told the news media people, and the next morning at six o’clock it was all over America. By seven they had to change my jail again.I asked the US Marshal, “What happened? Why are you changing jails so soon? Now you are afraid that news people will start coming to see the form that you have filled in in your own handwriting, and which you have forced me to sign. But I have signed my own name – it is not David Washington. And my signature is known all over the world, so there is no way of deceiving.“And what was the reason that you wanted me to sign under a false name? The only reason could be that, even if you killed me, there would be no trace left of where I disappeared – my name would not be in your registers, in your forms: I have never entered the jail; David Washington entered the jail. Nobody would suspect that I could be David Washington, and you can release David Washington tomorrow.”Those twelve days were a great experience for many reasons. I could see that what America pretends to the whole world – that it is a democracy – is all nonsense, it is a hypocrisy. It is as fascist as any fascist country has been; just the mask is of democracy.They moved me into five jails in twelve days, and I was surprised to see that there was not a single white man in five jails. Each jail had five hundred people, six hundred people…all black. It was a strange thing. I asked people en masse, “What is the matter? Looking at the jails it seems as if America is a black country, or perhaps no white man commits any crime. Why are all the jails full of black people?”All are young, and the strangest thing is that they were all arrested just like me, without trial, without any arrest warrant, without being told why they were being arrested. There were people who told me that they had been waiting for nine months in the jails. And they went on being told, “Your trial is coming, your trial is coming” – and the trial never comes.This is absolutely against any democratic principles – punishing a person without proving his crime before a court. Now, for nine months you have already punished a person, and perhaps the court will release him; he has not committed any crime. He is not even aware that he has done anything. I figured out that the reason is not crime, the reason is that young, black people are rebellious, and they have become a danger. So in the name of crime, fill all the jails with all the young people and keep them there.After twelve days I was brought to the court. That was the last fascist strategy to be seen, because there was no case. So the US Attorney was worried: now what were they going to put before the court? So they asked my attorneys for negotiations – before the trial began, for negotiation.For twelve days they harassed me in every possible way: they did not let me sleep for twelve days; I could not eat anything – I lost eight pounds in weight. Just before the trial began, they asked my attorneys for a negotiation. And the proposal that they brought was really cunning and absolutely inhuman.The proposal was: “We know that Rajneesh will say he is not guilty, that perhaps finally he will win the case, but we are not going to give him bail; the whole government is bent upon not giving him bail. If he says he is not guilty then we will not give him bail. And you can understand that if the government wants, it can prolong the trial for ten years, and he will have to remain in jail for ten years.“He may win, but then you have to understand that it can take any amount of time. We will go on changing courts, we will go on postponing, we will go on changing judges. We can do anything” – they said it clearly. “The only way is for Rajneesh to agree to plead guilty. Then we will not go for a trial, we will release him.”My attorneys came back with tears in their eyes – and they were not our sannyasins, they were the best attorneys in America. But during these twelve days they became very much involved with me. One of the best attorneys perhaps in the whole world, the head of the law department in a California university, Peter Schey, started loving me so much that he came to see me in jail. He said, “I cannot sit on a chair in front of you. I will sit down just as your sannyasins sit down.”They came with tears in their eyes saying, “The Attorney General’s people have made such a proposal that we will have to choose a jail for you for ten years to twelve years. And who knows what they will do? We cannot know. They may kill you. And your sannyasins all over the world will suffer, your whole movement will suffer. And they know perfectly well that they have no way to win.“So now they are trying this strategy, that if you agree to plead guilty they will withdraw the case, and you will be released. Perhaps for five years you will not be allowed to enter into America.” They said, “It hurts us to ask you to agree to plead guilty, because you are not guilty. We were here to help you and we have come with a proposal that you have to accept. But it is better to accept and get rid of it; otherwise we will be helpless, and we don’t know what they will do.”Seeing the whole situation – my sannyasins were fasting, not eating, and they were in immense misery and anguish – I said to them, “Don’t be worried, I will agree to plead guilty. My agreement does not mean that I am guilty. Once I am out of the court I will say to the press and to the whole world that this is the way they forced my attorneys: by asking me to agree to plead guilty.”I agreed to plead guilty, and I was released. The judge was perfectly aware of all the negotiations, because on two points they wanted me to accept I was guilty. They had a list of twenty points, but only on two points, specifically, did they want me to say I was guilty. And the judge asked only about those two points, “Are you guilty or not?” So that means he was clearly aware of the negotiations and the whole process and the whole strategy.And because I agreed to plead guilty, he imposed a fine of four hundred thousand dollars – which was not part of the negotiations. So all the way lying…! It must have been in their minds. With the judge it must have been settled, that once I accepted the guilty plea then of course the judge was capable of fining me. They never brought it up in the negotiations. All that was said was that for five years I would not be able to enter America. But this half a million dollars, now the judge was capable…The whole thing was so absurd. First you ask me to take the oath that I will not speak anything but the truth. Then you force me to lie and say that I am guilty. And then on that lie you fine me four hundred thousand dollars and five years expulsion from America.And still this was not enough for them. When I arrived back at the jail to take my clothes and other things, the ground floor was absolutely empty. I inquired of the sheriff, “What is the matter? It was always occupied with all kinds of departmental people.”He said, “Perhaps it is a change of shift.”I said, “But this is not the way. It happens every day that first the people come and take charge, then the other people leave. But nobody is here; everybody is gone. It looks a little strange.” I could see perspiration on his forehead. I said, “You look a little nervous.”He said, “No, I am not nervous.” He left me inside the prison. There was only one man in the room, and he immediately went out, leaving me there. That one man gave me the box with my clothes and told me that he had to look for his boss for a signature on the form. Later on I came to know that there was no need for any boss or any signature; only my signature was needed to prove that I had received my things.He locked the door, went out, and came back after fifteen minutes – he was also almost trembling. I took my clothes out, and they opened the doors – there were three electric doors – one by one. And as I reached the hotel, the news came that a bomb had been found exactly in the same room where I had been left alone for fifteen minutes. Perhaps they could not manage the timing, because it was not certain when the court would release me; I came a little earlier.Because there was no trial and no argument, I simply agreed to plead guilty. The judge fined me and the case was finished within two minutes. So perhaps their timing was according to the court, and the court was to close at five o’clock. They must have reached the room nearabout three o’clock, two hours earlier, and they could not manage to have me sit there for two hours.The bomb in the waiting room could not have been put there by anybody except the authorities. And that was the reason the ground floor was empty. That was the reason the man who had brought me there immediately left. That was the reason that the other man who had given me my clothes immediately went to look for his boss – which was a lie because there was no need of any signature, just my signature was needed. And that was the reason they were all nervous and perspiring – they were afraid for their lives. And this is a democracy!But still I say forgive them, for the simple reason that whatever they are doing is going to destroy them. They are bringing their own death closer to them.And they are repenting. In all five jails, without exception, every jailer told me, “We have never had such a person in our jail!” – because from all over the world there were calls, twenty-four hours a day. Telegrams in thousands, and flowers were coming from all over the world. They had no place in the jail to put so many thousands of flowers, so from the first jail I made it a point to send the flowers to the schools, colleges, universities, to the students – in my name, from me, with my blessings.The first sheriff told me, “You are absolutely safe, for the simple reason that the whole world’s eyes are fixed on you. And no harm can be done to you; otherwise America will lose all its credibility. They cannot even touch your body.” And that was true – they could not touch my body.They started repenting that they had created an unnecessarily stupid thing because the whole of the news media turned in my favor, the whole of America turned in my favor. People who had never known me, who heard my name for the first time, were sympathetic towards me and against the government. Inmates who had seen me on the television – and they were criminals – they were all for me. They loved me immensely.So there is no need to be angry, there is no need to carry any complaint. Whatever they have done, they will have to reap the crop also. They have exposed themselves. And this is the way all these vested interests have been behaving with people who stand for truth. So it is not new. They have put me in the same category as Socrates and al-Hillaj and Sarmad…and that is a great credit.And now they are trying in every possible way, pressurizing the Indian government – because they help with money so they have power over all these poor countries – that no Western media should be allowed to reach me. That’s why the Italian television crew were refused – because all the Indian embassies have been informed by the Indian government that no news media should reach to me, no sannyasin from outside India should reach to me.Their whole effort is to isolate me so that the movement suffers and I cannot expose them. To prevent the news media reaching me means I cannot expose them. They are wrong. If the news media cannot reach me, I can reach the news media. I am going around the world. And wherever they can pressurize…Here, immediately, the American ambassador protested to the king that I should not be allowed to remain in Nepal. In Germany, they pressurized the government to make sure that I could not enter Germany. And they have made a law that I cannot enter Germany. I have never been in Germany! I have not committed any crime in Germany. This is just unprecedented – that you prevent a person, who has not done anything on your land, from entering your country.They had to give some reason, and the reason they have shown is so stupid. The reason is because I am not of any help to Germany why should I be allowed to enter? But that should be the case with everybody who enters Germany: whether he is a help to Germany or not. Only for me a special category – that I am not a help to Germany, so why should I be allowed? Then no tourist should be allowed unless he is a help to Germany.But one thing that makes me glad is that a single man without any power can frighten the greatest power in the world, can shake it from its very roots.I will be going around the world. If I cannot enter Germany I will be outside Germany, and my people can come to me. They cannot prevent German sannyasins from coming to me.I will manage to expose them. There is no need to be angry with them. Just expose them, bring their true face before the world – that’s enough.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Sir Thomas Moore's perfect society, “Utopia,” originates from the unexplained presence and insight of a man named Utopias. Why do such visions for a harmonious society among men derive from such mysterious individuals? And why has the idea of a perfect society always fired man's imagination yet averted his grasp?Man finds himself utterly empty, meaningless, accidental. The awareness of all these things hurts him. He wants to improve things simply to feel some meaning in life, some joy in life. Ordinarily he is just a wound, and from birth onwards the wound goes on growing bigger and bigger, and the pain goes on increasing.If he looks ahead there is nothing but death and darkness. If he looks behind – before birth – nothing is known.He lives between two unknown realities – birth and death. And the small span of his life is just a continuous pain. To avoid this pain, to change this situation, to heal the wound, he has done many things.He invented a God so that he can say he is not accidental, he is a creation of a perfect God. And when a perfect God creates, he creates perfect beings. It is simple logic: to make himself feel perfect, significant, needed by the universe, he swallows the greatest lie – the concept of God. It is a desperate effort, but you cannot befool yourself. You may postpone your misery a little bit but again it is there.To satisfy God and make him a reality, man has created all kinds of rituals, priesthoods. Of course he cannot create God but he can create temples, synagogues, mosques, churches. He cannot create God but he can create prophets, messiahs, saviors – representatives of God. He can create holy books written by God. Man writes them, but even the most intelligent people do not want to disturb the illusion; it is such a consolation that there is a God who cares about you. And God is perfect in every way so his creation cannot be imperfect.All that you have to do is to go on praying to God so he remains happy with you and allows you all the possible treasures of existence. For centuries man has lived in that dream, but nothing has happened and everything has been done…You will be surprised. We have sacrificed human beings to an empty concept of God! We have sacrificed the most beautiful women – because God would be very happy to have a beautiful woman. We have made every effort, but the sky remains silent, no answer ever comes, no response. Slowly, slowly the intelligentsia started looking somewhere else – “Perhaps that is not the right direction…” That’s where people like Thomas Moore come in.It is a sheer waste of time to look towards an abstract God no one has seen. It is better to improve the society, make the society perfect so that the people who are members of the society have the chance to flower to their perfection. That is another illusion, far closer to reality, but it doesn’t matter whether the illusion is farther away or closer, an illusion is an illusion.You cannot create a perfect society for the simple reason…just take a few examples: there are poor people, there are rich people. Naturally, in a perfect society nobody should be poor, nobody should be rich, there should not be any division of classes. It will be a classless society. But it is impossible because it is against the very psychology of man. No two men are equal, and you are thinking of making the whole human society equal; it cannot happen. And it is not only a question of being rich and poor, the question is multidimensional.One of the characters in an existentialist novel says, “I cannot be satisfied with one woman. I want all the women of the earth.”Now how are you going to satisfy these people? And he is saying something which is hidden in every man and in every woman. How can you manage?There are people who will not be satisfied unless they have great power over millions of people in their hands. These politicians cannot be satisfied without power. They are addicted to power, but if they have power then millions are reduced to slavery.One Adolf Hitler – and millions of people are in danger. But you cannot prevent Adolf Hitlers from being born, and as long as they exist, wars will continue. As long as they exist there will be religions.The question is not at all concerned with America, it is a question of forgiveness – and I am going to be persecuted from one land to another land. If you cannot forgive the people who will be persecuting me, then your whole emptiness will become just wounds and wounds and wounds.So it is not a question of being kind to America. All the religions have told you, “Forgive the enemy.” Jesus on the cross asked God, “Father forgive these people, because they know not what they are doing.”I am not saying that. My concern is not those people, because I know perfectly well that they know exactly what they are doing. But forgiveness has something to do with your inner health. I am concerned with you!If you cannot forgive you will carry a wound.Forgive.Remove the wound.Be healed.Don’t sow wrong seeds.Man can become a beautiful phenomenon. I cannot say that he can become perfect for the simple reason perfection smells of death. Whenever something is perfect there is no way to grow more. You have come to a full stop; now there is no future. Except death, nothing can happen to perfection. So I am not a perfectionist. I believe in open growth.You will come closer and closer to perfection, but you will never be perfect.Perfection is not the way of existence.Growth is the way.So perfection is always like the horizon. It looks maybe just a few miles away; you can reach it within hours, but by the time you have reached there, it has moved ahead. The distance between you and the horizon always remains the same.Perfection is a horizon; it is a beautiful idea. It helps you to go on growing; it helps you to go on trying to touch the stars….(The remainder of this discourse was lost due to a fault in the recording system.)

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Atomic war is on the horizon, the deadly disease AIDS is spreading fast, and scientists say the earth will change its axis by the end of this century. But why are the priests, politicians and governments not aware of these facts? And why are they not interested in making the public aware? Please comment.It is one of the most significant questions that can be asked, but you will have to understand some deeper implications, which you may not be aware of.The politicians and the priests have a vested interest in keeping the people of the world unaware of the future. The reason is very simple: if the people are aware of the future and the darkness ahead, the death that is coming every moment closer, there is going to be a tremendous upheaval in the consciousness of man all around the world. And the politicians and the priests, who have dominated humanity for millennia, know perfectly well they cannot solve any problem that is going to be faced by humanity in the future. They are absolutely impotent. The problems are too big and they are too small. The only way for them to save their faces is not to let the people become aware of what is happening tomorrow.I have to make it clear also that politics attracts only the most mediocre minds in the world. It does not attract Albert Einsteins, Bertrand Russells, Jean-Paul Sartres, Rabindranath Tagores… No, it attracts a certain kind of people. Psychologists are aware of the fact that people who are suffering from some inferiority complex are the people to be attracted towards politics, because politics can give them power. And through power they can convince themselves and others that they are not inferior, that they are not mediocre.But just attaining power makes no difference to their intelligence. So the whole world is ruled by mediocre people when we have a large number of intelligent people – scientists, artists, musicians, poets, dancers, painters – all kinds of sensitive, creative people, the very cream of humanity, but they are not in power. They can change the whole fabric of human history, they can change the darkness of the future into a beautiful morning, a sunrise. But the misfortune is that power is in the hands of the wrong people, and the people of intelligence are devoid of power.I will tell you a small story to make it clear….A great mystic heard that one of his friends, a childhood friend – they had played together, studied together – had become the prime minister of the country. Just to congratulate him, the mystic came down from the mountains. It was a long journey, tiring. By the time he reached the prime minister’s palace, the prime minister was getting ready to go somewhere.He recognized the mystic, but he said, “I’m sorry, I have some appointments. I have to go to three places, and I would love it if you can come with me. On the way we can talk and remember the golden old days.”The mystic said, “I would love to come with you, but you can see my rags are full of dust. It would not look right to sit by your side on a golden chariot.”The prime minister said, “Don’t be worried. The king has presented me with a very costly overcoat. I have never used it; I have been keeping it for some special occasion. I will give you the coat. You just put it on; it will cover your clothes, the dust and everything.”The coat was given to him. They reached the first house. They entered the house. The prime minister introduced his friend: “He is a great mystic. He lives in the mountains. Everything that he has is his own, except the coat – that is mine.”The mystic could not believe it: “What kind of stupidity is this?”Even the family was shocked, to insult the mystic in such a way.Outside the house the mystic said, “It is better I do not accompany you. You insulted me. What was the need to say that it is your coat? They were not asking.”He said, “I am sorry, forgive me. And if you don’t come with me to the next appointment, I will think you have not forgiven me.”The mystic was a simple-hearted man. He said, “Then it is okay, I am coming.”Entering the second house, the prime minister introduced him: “He is a great mystic who lives in the mountains. Everything is his – even the coat is his!”The mystic could not believe that this man had any intelligence at all. Outside he simply refused: “I cannot go to your third appointment. This is too much.”But the politician said, “I have said that the coat is yours!”The mystic said, “It is unbelievable how unintelligent a man can be. Your assertion, emphasis, that the coat is mine, creates suspicion: there is something you are hiding. What is the need to mention the coat at all? I don’t see the point that in any introduction coats need to be introduced.”And the politician said, “Forgive me, but if you don’t come to the third appointment I will never forget that I have hurt you. Please, there is only one more appointment, and I will not say that the coat is yours or the coat is mine. Don’t be worried about it.”The simple mystic, innocent, agreed to go with him. At the third house he introduced the mystic in the same way, “He is a great mystic from the mountains. All the clothes are his, but as far as the coat is concerned, it is better not to say anything!”The politician is not the most intelligent part of humanity. Otherwise there would not have been five thousand wars in three thousand years. The politician has destroyed, but has not created anything. It is the politician who is creating the atomic weapons, the nuclear missiles. With what face can he make the people of the world aware that the future is dark, dismal? Perhaps there is no future anymore, perhaps we are sitting on a volcano which can erupt any moment. Already we have so many nuclear weapons that we can destroy seven hundred planets of the size of our earth. In other words, we can kill every man seven hundred times over.Can you think of the stupidity of it? A poor man simply dies one time. There is no need to kill him seven hundred times. For what is all this nuclear arrangement being made?There is a certain madness behind it. The madness is that the politician can live only if there is war. In his autobiography, Adolf Hitler has made many significant statements. One of the statements is that if a politician wants to be a great hero, a great historical figure, then the only way is to create a great war. Without war you don’t have heroes.Just think of all your heroes, they have been created by war: Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nadirshah, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill…And what have these people got, except that they lived at the time of a great war? The war brings them to the pinnacle of their glory. And your whole history is full of these idiots.If we have any sense we should completely stop studying this kind of history in the schools and universities.Can’t you study beautiful people, creative people? We have produced great musicians. We have produced great scientists. We have produced great poets. We have produced great painters. Our history should remember them. Our history should remind us that they are our real forefathers, not Genghis Khan, not Tamerlane, not Nadirshah. These are accidents, and they should not even have a place in the footnotes of history books. They should be simply ignored. They were mad people and there is no need to go on studying them and creating the same kind of desire in the new generation.The priests are also in a deep conspiracy with the politicians. It is a thousands-of-years-old conspiracy: the priest protects the politician; the politician protects the priest. It has to be understood.For example, in the East the priest has been telling the people, “You are poor because in your past life you have been doing evil acts.” He has convinced people. When you go on saying the same thing again and again for thousands of years, it leaves an impression deep in the minds of people. Not only does it impress the people, it even impresses the priest himself!It is a very strange psychological phenomenon.I am reminded of an anecdote….A journalist died. He reached directly to the door of paradise and knocked on the door. A small window opened and the doorkeeper said, “Forgive me, we have a certain quota for journalists which is complete. We need only one dozen journalists in paradise. In fact, even they are useless, because nothing happens here – no news.”Just remember the definition of news: when a dog bites a man, it is not news; when a man bites a dog, it is news. And naturally in paradise there is no news.“Even the twelve journalists are getting bored, so you, please, go to the other door, in front.”But journalists are stubborn people, you cannot get rid of them so easily….He said, “Just listen to this one thing. I will go to the other door after twenty-four hours, but not now.”The doorkeeper said, “What will you do for twenty-four hours, standing here?”He said, “I am not going to stand here, you let me in. If I can convince one of the twelve journalists to go to hell, then you can give me his place. The quota will remain complete.”Even the doorkeeper thought that was sensible. He said, “Okay, come in. Have a try.”After twenty-four hours he managed to tell everybody, journalists, non-journalists, “In hell there is going to be a new newspaper published which will be the largest and the most important. They need editors, subeditors, reporters, all kinds of journalists – with great salaries!”After twenty-four hours he went back to the gate. The gatekeeper said, “You cannot get out.”He said, “What do you mean?”He said, “All the twelve have escaped. You convinced them, and they were creating so much fuss that I finally allowed them to go. Now you cannot leave, at least we should have one journalist.”But the journalist said, “I cannot stay.”The doorkeeper said, “You created the lie. There is no newspaper. There are no great salaries.”He said, “Yes, I created the lie, but if twelve people have believed it there must be something to it! I don’t want to be here. You open the door, otherwise I am going to complain. I don’t belong here, I’m not supposed to be here.”Seeing the point that it was true, the doorkeeper allowed him to go without permission from any higher authority.What had happened to the journalist? He had invented a lie, and he succeeded in convincing twelve people. Whenever you convince somebody, you are also being convinced simultaneously.For centuries in the East the priesthood has been convincing people that it is your past evil acts which have made you poor. All you need to do is to remain contented with your poverty, with your sickness, with your death. This is a test of your trust. And if you can pass through this fire test, in the next life, after death, you will be rewarded enormously.This is the reason that in the East science has not progressed, technology has not been born. If poor people are contented, if the poor people don’t want to be anything other than poor, then what is the need of technology, of science, of progress, of evolution, of creating more wealth, of creating a better society, of distributing the wealth in a more human way? There is no need.The politician is happy, because there is no possibility of revolution. The priest protects the politician against the revolution. And the politician, on his part, goes on praising the priest, that he is a great saint. He touches the feet of the priest, particularly at the time of elections. He gives respect; he goes to all kinds of saints, shankaracharyas, imams, popes….Soon the pope is going to come to India, and you will see all the politicians running to welcome him – now in India, Christianity is the third greatest religion. Now the pope has to be persuaded.Mohammedan saints, dead or alive, have to be worshipped. Hindu saints, whether saints or simply idiots, have to be raised to the highest spirituality.This is a conspiracy to exploit the people. The priests cannot say what is going to happen in the future, for the simple reason that the priest lives out of the past. He lives out of the Shrimad Bhagavadgita, which happened five thousand years ago. He lives by the Koran Sharif, he lives by The Holy Bible. His whole world is in the past; he is a worshipper of the dead. He has no eyes for the future, and no intelligence either. I don’t think any man of intelligence can be a priest, because the priest is continuously lying, and no man of integrity can do that.The priest is lying on every count. He knows nothing of God. He has not experienced, he has not encountered, but he goes on lying to the people – pretending to be a representative of God, a mediator between you and God. He does not allow you to be in direct contact with existence. He always wants you to write your love letters “care of” the priest. Your prayers can reach to God only through the priest. Strange, on what authority…?Just a few days ago, the head of the Christians, the pope, declared that one of the greatest sins is to confess directly to God – confession has to be to the priest. Do you understand this cunning strategy? The Catholic priest is always there to listen to your confession, and you have to tell him everything about your sins, your private life. That gives him power. Do you understand? He has a file on you. You cannot leave the Catholic fold.He can expose you. He can destroy your respectability. He knows that you have had a love affair with your neighbor’s wife…. You can hide from everybody but not from the priest, because he is the only one who can manage forgiveness from God for your sins. But strange, why can you not confess to God directly? This is politics; this is not religion.I have come across priests of all the religions, and I have never seen any one of them that has any intelligence. If they had any intelligence they would compose music, they would create some beauty, they would invent something to enhance humanity. They would find some way to destroy poverty in the world.But the priest goes on doing just the contrary. All the priests of all the religions, without exception, are against birth control, they are against abortion. I was talking to a bishop and I told him that if there are abortions, he was responsible for them.He said, “What are you saying? We are against abortions.”I said, “Yes, I know it, but you are also against birth control. If you were in favor of birth control there would be no need for abortions.”Seeing the whole world growing in population and poverty, these priests go on teaching that children are produced by God, and that to prevent more births by any scientific method is against religion.I cannot think that these people are intelligent. They want to turn the whole earth into an Ethiopia. Millions of people will die by the end of this century without any nuclear weapons being used. Almost half of the earth will die out of starvation. And when fifty percent of the people are dying in the streets and you cannot do anything to help – no medicine, no food, you cannot even arrange for their bodies to be carried to the graveyard or to the funeral pyre – the people who are left alive will be in a far more miserable condition than those who are dead. The dead will be the fortunate ones. Who will be responsible for all this? All these priests.I have been saying to all these priests, “You just look! If God, according to you, according to all religions, is omnipotent, all powerful, he can do anything. He can create the world, he can destroy the world. So what is the problem? The woman has just taken a pill – he cannot destroy a pill! If he wants the child to be born, the pill will be destroyed. The pill seems to be more powerful than your omnipotent God. You should go to your churches and temples and mosques and synagogues, and pray to God to destroy all the pills. You trust and believe in prayer – why are you harassing the poor people and telling them to continue to produce children?”Religions are interested in increasing their population, because population is power. They are not worried about the death that is coming closer every moment. Politicians are interested in having more and more powerful weapons, because without nuclear weapons they are not going to be historical heroes.Even poor countries who need food are trying to make atomic plants, nuclear plants. It seems to be an utterly insane state of affairs.Your question has raised many things: nuclear weapons, the most dangerous disease that man has ever encountered, AIDS. But you are not aware that the disease AIDS is created by your religions. You will be surprised and shocked.AIDS is the most dangerous disease ever because it has no cure. And scientists are coming to an agreement that there is no possibility of finding a cure. This is not a disease, but a slow death. Once you have got it, at the most you can live for two years. Mostly you will not live more than six months; your death is certain.And the disease is really ugly, because even your family will reject you. Your wife will reject you, your husband will reject you, your children will close the doors to you. Your parents will say, “Forgive us. Don’t come this way.” Your friends will turn into enemies. You will not be allowed into any restaurant because the disease is such that it spreads not only by sexual contact. It is a sexual disease but it spreads in many other ways: by your saliva…If you kiss a woman, your wife, you can give her the disease – just by kissing. Even your tears carry the virus. A small child is crying, and just out of compassion you wipe his tears with your hands…. You may not know the child, he may be just a stranger, but you don’t know what you have done to yourself. The child may be carrying the virus in his tears. Now it is a known fact that children can be born with the disease. If their parents have it, the children are already born with the disease. And if there are tears on your hands and you eat something, you have fallen into the trap.But the most surprising and shocking thing will be that this disease, AIDS, is created by homosexuality. And who has created homosexuality? In the forests, in the wild, no animal is found to be homosexual. But in zoos, where females are not available, then male animals start making love to other male animals. That is just an emergency measure.Who has converted humanity into a zoo? It is not a natural thing. And I want to say to you emphatically that homosexuality first appeared in the religious monasteries. It is the religions who separated men from women. They put the monks into one monastery and the nuns into another monastery. Even today, in Europe, there is a thousand-year-old monastery in Athos, where no woman has ever entered. Three thousand monks live in the monastery, and any monk who enters the monastery enters forever. Only his dead body will come out.I have inquired about all the details of the monastery and I have found that even a six-month-old baby girl cannot be allowed into it. I could not believe it: a six-month-old baby girl cannot be allowed into the monastery? What does it mean? In the monastery are there monks living or monsters?But sexual repression, homosexuality, happen because religions have insisted on celibacy as something spiritual – it is not spiritual. Celibacy is unnatural, and anything against nature is going to take its revenge sooner or later.AIDS is the revenge of nature, and all the priests and all the religions are responsible for it. There is still time. Celibacy should be made a crime in every land, in every country. Man should be allowed to be natural, man should be allowed to accept himself without rejecting any part of his being. AIDS will disappear, but homosexuality has to disappear first. But as I said to you, we are living in an insane world.In Texas, in America, they have passed a law against homosexuality – that it is a crime. Nobody ever dreamed that in Texas there would be one million homosexuals, but one million homosexuals protested to the legislature of Texas against the law. If this is the situation in Texas – which is just a desert – what will be the situation in California? Perhaps everybody is homosexual. Perhaps not permanently, but once in a while…To make homosexuality a crime is simply stupid because now homosexuals will go underground. No law can prevent them, it can only make them say that they are not homosexuals. That is very dangerous. That means they can spread the disease to people who are absolutely unaware, unconscious.If we want a sane world, if we want to save the world, my humble suggestion is that there should be a world academy of scientists, of painters, of poets, of dancers, of sculptors, of architects, of professors, of mystics, and they should create public opinion. The intelligentsia of the world, from all dimensions and all sections, together should create a great public opinion: “We want to know exactly the truth. What is our future? What are the politicians going to do about changing it? What are the priests going to do? And if they are impotent, then they should simply say that, because there are people of merit who can do something.”Just a few days ago, twenty American scientists, their best nuclear experts, protested to the government saying, “If you don’t listen to us, we are going to stop working. We cannot work against the whole of humanity.”Now this is a good beginning. The same should be done in every country. The same should be done in every part of the world, and why should you do it separately? It should be done together. All the intelligent scientists and creative people of the world should be together, because the question is very big. And unless every intelligent person is standing up to save humanity it seems to be an impossible task. But I am not a pessimist, I hope even against hope. I feel that in times of challenge there is always a possibility of the best coming up, of people joining hands together across the foolish boundaries of politics which do not exist on the earth, against the boundaries of religions which are not religious at all.To be religious you need not be a Christian, you need not be a Hindu, you need not be a Mohammedan. To be a scientist, do you need to be a Hindu? Do you need to be a Christian?Religion is the science of the inner soul. There is no need for any adjective. Just as science explores the objective existence, religion explores the interiority of man, his subjectivity. A man can be religious without being in any fold, and this is the time to declare, “I do not belong to any religion and yet I am religious. I do not belong to any nation and yet I am a human being. The whole earth is mine.”It is time that the whole humanity stands together against all conspiracies of the priests and the politicians. And I guarantee you that we can save humanity – not only save it, we can transform it into a higher form, into a better consciousness.We can give birth to a new man.The old man is finished.Osho,Will you please give some message to the people of Nepal and India? Also, you say that you are not teaching a doctrine and that knowledge can merely be a vehicle to express the experience one has had. Is it not true that the experience itself will communicate itself?The experience of truth happens in the absolute silence of your being, where there is no ripple of thought, where no word can enter, where there is absolute silence and nothing else. The problem is that you can experience the truth in silence, but you cannot express it in silence. Expression will need words, and the moment you use words something of the truth is lost. Some beauty of it, some fragrance of it, is destroyed. The experience of truth is vast, and the words are very small.One father was teaching his son, “There is nothing impossible, my son, in the world.”The son said, “Wait.” He ran into the bathroom.The father said, “What are you doing?”He said, “I am going to prove that there is something which is impossible.”The father followed him. The son squeezed out some toothpaste and said to his father, “Please put it back! And if you need any advice you can go to Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte, the people who have said that there is nothing in the world which is impossible. This is impossible, I have tried it.”You can see light, but how can you explain it to a blind man? There seems to be no way. Whatever you say about light, will not be light. Whatever you say about light, will not be meaningful to the blind man.Hence, always remember, truth cannot be said, it can be shown. It is a finger pointing to the moon. All words are just fingers pointing to the moon, but don’t accept the fingers as the moon. The moment you start clinging to the fingers – that’s where doctrines, cults, creeds, dogmas, are born – then you have missed the whole point. The fingers were not the point; the point was the moon.That’s why I say, don’t get lost in words, don’t get lost in doctrines. Rather, find a living master whose very being is a finger pointing to the moon. In his presence maybe something transpires in you. Not in his words, but perhaps in his silence. Not in his theories, but perhaps in his eyes. There you may find a certain inspiration, a glimpse, a door opening into the mysteries of life.Books cannot do that; only a living master can. And this is the misery, that people go on carrying dead books, dead words. Perhaps those words were once alive when the master who had spoken them was there.When I am speaking to you, do you think it is only the words that reach to you? No, my tone, my emphasis on certain words, my silence between two words, my gestures of the hands, my eyes – which I forget completely to blink! My doctors are after me to continue to blink – but I forget! When I am really speaking to you, then it is not only my words, but my whole being that is involved in it. It is a total expression…and one never knows what will reach to your heart.You can write these words. They will be the same – but yet not the same, because the living reality behind them will be missing. My emphasis has always been – while I’m alive do not bother about what I say. Don’t listen to what I say, listen to what I am! And when I am gone, just say a good-bye to me. Don’t cling to the memories, don’t cling to that which is no more. Find another living master – the earth is never empty.Existence is very compassionate. I don’t want you to cling to me. That is one of the faults all the old religions have committed, and I don’t want you to do it. They have all seen to it that after the master is dead there is a succession. Now the pope is not enlightened. Now your eight shankaracharyas have nothing to do with the original shankaracharya; they are not enlightened people. You are unnecessarily wasting your time and their time.Search and you will always find, because the earth is not barren, it always produces. Whoever is thirsty will find the well somewhere.Rather than getting lost into words, use your time in finding a charismatic personality, a living mystery, a man who has become a legend while he is alive. And when he is gone, be grateful for those moments that you lived with him. Be grateful for all that you have learned from him, but don’t get stuck there. Find out, and now it will be easier for you to find out because you have tasted one mystic, you know the taste, you know the vibe. You will be easily pulled towards the direction where you will find another awakened being. Only bodies differ, the experience of awakening is the same.So I don’t want anybody to remember me, even when I am gone. If you have really loved me, I would like you to find someone of the same quality, so that your love goes on growing, your being goes on maturing, so that one day you are also in a state where you can help thirsty people to quench their thirst.Osho,What are the characteristics of an enlightened being? What is the phenomenon of self-realization, god-realization and no-realization?There are no outside characteristics of an enlightened man. People have been searching for them for centuries. If you go to a Jaina temple, you will see statues of the twenty-four tirthankaras. The most striking thing about them is that their earlobes are touching their shoulders. According to Jainism, a characteristic of an enlightened man is that his earlobes touch his shoulders – a very strange kind of characteristic.Then Krishna is not enlightened, Jesus is not enlightened. And unless you try some plastic surgery, you cannot hope to be enlightened. But this is sheer nonsense, because what does the earlobe have to do with enlightenment? Have you seen Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira? – all are clean-shaven. That is strange. All twenty-four tirthankaras are clean-shaven. They were far more Western than you are! Far ahead of their times!But the idea is that the hairs of their beard and their mustache don’t grow, that that is a characteristic of an enlightened being – very strange, because that means you are missing some hormones. This is not good! This is not healthy! And if this is so, then all the Vedic seers and the people who wrote the most beautiful literature in the world, the Upanishads, were not enlightened because they all had long beards.Don’t try to find out from the outside, otherwise you will fall into some stupidity or other. I will try to describe it to you from within, as an insider. Enlightenment simply means a man who has no longer any questions left in his life, everything is solved. Enlightenment means a man who is constantly in the same state of silence, peace and contentment whatsoever happens on the outside, success or failure, pain or pleasure, life or death.Enlightenment means a man who has experienced something that you are also capable of, but you have not tried it. He is full of light, full of joy, full of ecstasy, twenty-four hours a day. He is almost a drunkard, drunk with the divine. His life is a song, his life is a dance, his life is a rejoicing. His presence is a blessing.And if you want to know him, you have to be with him. You cannot watch him from the outside, you have to come close. You have to come in a state of intimacy. You have to join his caravan, you have to hold his hand. You have to feed on him, and you have to allow, to let him enter your heart. But from the outside, please don’t try to find any characteristic; these are all inner experiences.But some indications can always be given. In the proximity of the enlightened being you will feel a certain magnetic force, a tremendous attraction, a charismatic center. Out of your fear you may not come close. It is dangerous to come close to an enlightened man, because you can come close but then you cannot go away. Coming close is risky. It is only for gamblers, not for businessmen.Osho,Are will and surrender two names of the same path? Kindly comment.There is only one path. What you decide to call it does not matter. The word surrender and the word will appear to be diametrically opposite, but in reality they are complementary. They are not contradictory. It is a little subtle.Only a man of will can surrender, because surrender needs tremendous courage. Never think that surrender is for those who are weak. Surrender is for those who are tremendously strong, so strong that they can even surrender their ego to the master. It needs tremendous courage, guts. It needs will, will to surrender. If you don’t have a will you cannot surrender. Who will surrender?But will alone will not help. Will alone will enhance your ego and will take you away from the path. Will as a master is dangerous, harmful; will as a servant to surrender is beautiful. Use will to serve surrender and you will be on the right path. They appear to be two, but they can help each other.You have heard the story….A forest was on fire, and in the forest lived two beggars. One was blind, he could not see. The other was lame, he could not walk. And because they were both in the same business, competitors, they were enemies. But this was not a time for enmity or competition. The blind man could walk, but could not see where to go; the whole forest was on fire. The lame man could see that there was still a possibility to get out, but he could not move because he had no legs.Finally, they compromised. They said, “For the time being let us forget our differences and help each other.” The blind man said, “I will take you on my shoulders. You watch and I will walk.” And they both came out of the forest alive, without being burned.This is the situation with will and surrender. Will is blind, but it can walk fast. It is very speedy, it has tremendous power. Surrender has eyes and no legs, but it can see. If you can manage a friendship between will and surrender, and if surrender sits on the shoulders of your will, you have managed one of the greatest things in life. Then the path is very easy and the home is very close.There were a few questions that I rejected. I would like to answer those questions briefly.One was: Why am I condemned all around the world, and condemned especially for my teachings as far as sex is concerned? It is simple. Sex does not have much place in my teachings. Hearing me for so many days, even you can witness that sex is a very unimportant thing in my teachings. But the yellow journalist and the repressed mind of the whole of humanity takes anything I say about sex out of context – makes it into a big thing.I have four hundred books in my name, translated into all the major languages of the world, and there is only one book on sex. But nobody talks about the three hundred and ninety-nine books. They only talk about one book – that too without understanding it! The name of the book is From Sex To Super-Consciousness. It is not about sex, it is about the transformation of sexual energy into consciousness. I am the only man who is against sex. But this whole world is full of repressed sexuality.I am reminded of a story….Three old men used to meet in a garden every evening. One was seventy, the other was eighty and the third was ninety. They were really ancient people.It was Sunday evening. They met on their bench – it had become their bench. They had been meeting on that bench for as long as anybody could remember. The first old man, seventy years old, said, “I am feeling very embarrassed. The very memory makes me feel like committing suicide.”The other two were very much shocked. They said, “What happened?”He said, “What happened? The memory is haunting me. I cannot forget it. It was a beautiful morning and a beautiful lady was a guest in our house and I could not contain my temptation. When she was taking a bath, I went to the bathroom door, looked through the keyhole, and was caught red-handed by my mother. She created so much fuss that the whole neighborhood gathered. Everybody was lecturing me and everybody was being wise, and they all forced me to go to church and confess to the priest the sin I had committed. It was all so embarrassing. I don’t want to remember it, but it keeps on coming up again and again.”The other two men giggled. They said, “You are stupid. This happens to everybody in childhood. I don’t think there is a single boy who has not looked through the keyhole of the bathroom.”The seventy-year-old man said, “My God, it is not a question of childhood, it happened today!”There was silence. The second old man, eighty years old, said, “Something has happened to me too. You have started the subject and I have to tell it, to be honest. For three days I have not made love to my wife.”Both the old men said, “What happened?”He said, “What happened? Whenever I started making love to her, she stopped. She said she had a headache, she turned to the other side…and this is insulting.”The seventy-year-old man said, “But you told me you have stopped making love.”The man said, “Yes, I have said that to you, but I have simply changed the technique. Now my technique is that for three seconds I hold my wife’s hand and press it as hard as I can, and then say good night to her and then we go to sleep. This is my love. This is all the sex that is left – three seconds pressing her hand. But for three days continuously, she has been pretending to have a headache and I have not made love.”The third old man, the most ancient of them all, giggled. He said, “You are an idiot. You don’t know what a real problem is. Now the subject has come up, I have to tell you what my problem is. This morning when I started making love to my wife, she said, ‘Oh, you idiot, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘I am trying to make love.’ She said, ‘But you have made love twice in the night!’ I said, ‘It seems I am losing my memory…’“I am in a real mess. You are talking about stupid things – peeping in the bathroom, not being able to press your wife’s hand. Just think of me, I have lost my memory.”Even at the time of death, sexual repression is such that people go on thinking about it. And that is the reason why they enter again into another womb – that is, another sexual body.I am not teaching sex. I am teaching you not to repress it so that you can transform it, not to repress it so that you can get free of it. Anything repressed will remain with you in your unconscious as a bondage. Don’t repress anything, and you will feel a tremendous freedom.Experience everything, and you will start becoming more and more mature, you will not have to wait until the age of ninety. My own experience with my sannyasins is that just as a man becomes sexually mature at the age of fourteen, if he lives his sexual life without any guilt, without any idea of sin but simply as a natural phenomenon, by the age of forty-two he will have gone beyond it.Every seven years there comes a change. Just as fourteen is the time when you become ripe for sexual experience, able to produce children, at the age of forty-two you start a new phase of your life. At fourteen you were entering into the world of living. At forty-two you are entering into the world of death. Just as at fourteen life needed reproduction, at forty-two life needs not sexuality but meditation.And if you have lived your sex, you have had enough time to see that it is a child’s game. There is no question of repressing it, it simply drops of its own accord, the way it came on its own accord. You did not produce it; it was not your creation at the age of fourteen. In the same way as the breeze came at the age of fourteen, the breeze passes you by at the age of forty-two. That is the time when something more significant, something more valuable, has to be experienced. You have loved, you have seen the reality of the world, experienced all kinds of relationships – now is the time to know yourself, to be yourself, because death will be coming soon. Before death you have to be ready to meet it.The last story….A king dreamed in the night that a big, very ferocious shadow was standing in front of him. He asked, “Who are you and what is the purpose of your coming into my dream?”The shadow said, “I am your death, and I am coming tomorrow evening at sunset. Remember, at the time of sunset meet me at the right place.”And before he could ask, “Where is the right place?” – not that he was going to be at the right place, he wanted to know so that he could avoid the right place – the shadow disappeared, and out of fear the dream was broken.It was the middle of the night. Immediately he asked all the wise men, astrologers, palmists, prophets, to gather because they had to decipher the meaning of the dream. They discussed, and as are the ways of the so-called knowledgeable, they couldn’t agree. They were all talking, discussing, everybody had his own explanation – and the king was more and more confused.The king’s old servant was watching all this, and the sun was rising; half the night had passed. He whispered to the king, “Sir, these people are never going to come to any conclusion. All they know is fighting, quarreling, arguing. You don’t have time for that, the sun has already risen, and how long will it take for it to set? There is not much time. My suggestion is, let them discuss. You take your fastest horse and escape far away from this capital and this palace.”The advice appeared to be very relevant. The king picked the best horse he had, and by the evening he had moved hundreds of miles away from the palace.To rest for the night, he entered into a mango grove. He stroked the horse and said to the horse, “You really proved your mettle. I had no idea that you could run so fast. You risked everything, as if you understood my problem that death is close and you have to risk all your energy. I am thankful to you.”At that very time the sun was setting, and suddenly he became aware of a hand on his shoulder. He looked back. The old shadow that he had seen in the dream was standing there and said, “I have also to thank your horse, because without him I was worried how you were going to manage to reach the right place at the right time. But you managed. The whole credit goes to your horse.”Whether death is a few hours away, or a few days or few years, it makes no difference. Just as one prepares for life, one has to prepare for death too. And the preparation for death I call religiousness.The art of religiousness is the art of preparing for death and dying in such a way that nothing dies – only the body is left behind and you move into eternity.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,What is the meaning of sannyas in the world today?The word sannyas is one of the most significant in the human language. In the past it was given a wrong meaning. That wrong meaning destroyed its beauty, its joy, its laughter. The wrong meaning was renunciation. Renunciation of what? Renunciation of the body. Renunciation of all the pleasures of the body, the mind, the heart. Renunciation of the world, of the people, of those you love, of those you are grateful to. Renunciation of your parents who have given birth to you, who have sacrificed everything for you. Renunciation of your wives and your husbands who live for you and who die for you. Renunciation of small children who without you will not have a shelter in the world, without you will be orphans, beggars.That was the old meaning of the word sannyas. It has destroyed humanity from its very roots.On the one hand all the old religions say that God created the world, God created you, God created everything. And at the same time they say, renounce what God has created. It seems your priests are more wise than God. It seems that what God creates, your priests are against.Let me summarize it in a single statement: all the religions and their priests are against God. If God is the creator of the world, then to renounce it or to teach renunciation is an act of sabotage. It cannot be called religious, it is not spiritual.My sannyas gives it the right meaning it deserves. My sannyas does not mean renunciation, it means rejoicing – rejoicing in this beautiful world, rejoicing with totality, intensity, awareness, compassion, love, of all that existence has provided for you without any guilt, without any sin. All ideas about guilt and sin are created to exploit you.Yes, man commits mistakes, but mistakes are not sin. It is human to err. Mistakes can be corrected, just a little intelligence is needed. You need not ask to be forgiven for your mistakes. You need not go to the Ganges, to take a bath to get rid of your sins – that is simply stupid. You need not go to Kaaba or to Jerusalem. All your mistakes need a little understanding so that you can avoid them.I am reminded of a story….A man used to sell Gandhi caps. And particularly at election times he earned enough to rest for five years. The elections were coming nearer, but the man was getting old. He was sick. He had prepared thousands of caps. He said to his young son, “I will not be able to go to the market” – which was a few miles away from his village – “you will have to go, but it is not a difficult thing. There is great demand for the caps, as the elections come closer.“Just remember one thing: going to the market, the road is tremendously beautiful, very scenic. On both sides it has great, beautiful trees, with thick shadow, and one wants to rest, to sit for a while. I want you to be warned about what happened to me once when I was resting under a banyan tree.“It was so calm, so quiet, that I fell asleep. When I woke up I was surprised. My bag of caps was empty – all the caps were gone. I looked all around, and then I heard monkeys giggling above me on the tree. They all had the Gandhi caps on. Just the way I was wearing one cap, they had imitated me. Although I was in great misery that they had destroyed my whole business, still I enjoyed. They looked so beautiful, as if all the great leaders from New Delhi had come on the tree! Then I remembered the advice my father had given to me, because the same thing had happened to him. History repeats. He had told me that if something like this happens, just throw your own cap. I threw my cap, and all the monkeys threw their caps. I collected the caps and went to the market….“So you remember! In the first place, don’t stay under a tree where monkeys are. And in case you have to rest, and something like this happens, remember the advice.”The son went, and the father was right – there was a beautiful, big banyan tree. Hundreds of bullock carts could have rested in its shadow. It was so calm and so quiet, so far away from all villages that he could not resist the temptation to rest for a while. He was tired too, it was a hot day.He rested, and when he woke up, he found the bag was empty. He looked up. The monkeys were sitting on the tree with the caps on their heads. But he was not puzzled, because he knew the secret. He threw his cap. One monkey came down, took the cap, went up the tree. He could not believe what had happened. The monkeys had learned! And this was the only monkey who had not got a cap! They were waiting for when this idiot would throw his cap…and they had a great rejoicing.Even monkeys learn.It seems only man does not learn.Your old sannyas has in every way destroyed your life. It has made everything condemned. Your love is sin, your being comfortable is sin, your being rich is sin…Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Can anybody who has a little sense, agree with Jesus that “blessed are the poor”? If the poor are blessed, then why is everybody trying to remove the poverty from the world? Then let the poverty grow because it is a blessing! The more poor you are, the more blessed you are.Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. You are blessed according to Jesus. You should be happy. You will enter into the kingdom of God before any American.In fact, the American cannot enter at all, because another statement of Jesus is: “A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but the rich man cannot pass through the gates of paradise.”These people have helped you to be poor. And I don’t see that poverty has any spirituality in it. I don’t see that you cannot meditate living in a comfortable house – that you have to meditate only when you are uncomfortable, that you have to stand on your head, that only then can you reach paradise.It is very strange, because I have seen thousands of descriptions of God, but I have not come across a single description in which he is standing on his head. If God is not doing shirshasana, then why should you be bothered? Why should you torture your body? I have not come across a single description where God goes on fasts. Then why should you fast?But the whole old idea of sannyas was that to attain to paradise you have to live in misery, you have to go through suffering. I don’t see that there is any need. I say to you: you can go singing, you can go dancing, you can go rejoicing. And this is my absolute trust – that God, or existence, cannot be against laughter, cannot be against rejoicing, cannot be against joy.I don’t think that in suffering, poverty, torturing yourself, torturing others because of your renunciation, you are becoming beloved of existence. You are going farther away from the source of life; you are coming closer to death, and death is not the goal of religion. The goal of religion is eternal life, and life includes rejoicing.Hence I teach a sannyas which is just the opposite of the old sannyas – diametrically opposite. I want my people to go to heaven, to paradise – all the way dancing, singing songs of joy. And I think they will be the first to enter into the kingdom of God, not the people who are basically sick.I would like you to remember what the old religions have been teaching to people. They have been making them schizophrenic. They have been creating a split in their personality. They are making them divided against themselves. There have been saints, whose only quality and contribution is that they were very efficient in torturing themselves. You know perfectly well they will lie down on a bed of thorns. This is tapascharya, this is austerity. But do you think existence wants you to lie down on a bed of thorns? Is existence a sadist that it wants you to be tortured?There have been Christian sects – they are still in existence – which wear shoes with nails inside protruding into their feet, so when they walk they are continuously hurting, wounding their feet; continuously blood is flowing. They have belts around their waists with the same device – nails reaching deep into their skin. The wounds remain for their whole life, because those belts cannot be removed. They are locked, and their keys are thrown away. They have taken that austerity for their whole life. Do you think this is something healthy, something sane?In Soviet Russia, before the revolution, there was a great Christian sect – the most prominent and the most respected. But you will be surprised when you come to know the reason for their respectability. They used to cut off their genitals. They were real celibates, because a man can take the vow of being a celibate but his genitals are there intact. Who knows? He may be deceiving…!Thousands of Christian monks would cut off their genitals publicly. The women were at a loss, but they came up with an idea – they started cutting off their breasts. This was thought to be a great spiritual act. And the same kind of thing, more or less, has prevailed all over the world in the name of sannyas.I want the beautiful word sannyas to be taken away from all its old associations, and I want to give it a new meaning, a new fragrance, a new health, a new wholeness. I want you to remember a simple fact: that what is natural is divine, and what is unnatural is evil.Celibacy is evil because it is unnatural. To follow the course of nature, to remain in a deep contact with all that is natural, not fighting it but in a deep friendship, in a let-go – that is my definition of sannyas.You can swim against the river, against the current – that was the old sannyas. I don’t say to you even to swim. I want you to float and go with the river in a deep let-go, in a deep trust, wherever it leads. Existence cannot deceive you. We are born of it, we are its children. How can it deceive us? It does not deceive the rosebushes; it brings them beautiful roses. It does not deceive the lotuses. It does not deceive the birds. It does not deceive the sun, the moon, the stars. Why should it deceive its greatest creation, human consciousness – its highest peak? No, it is impossible.Existence is with you.You just have to learn how to be with it.And to be with it totally, without any conditions, is what I mean by sannyas.Osho,Is there any possibility for enlightenment for a nonserious meditator?There is only possibility of enlightenment if you are a nonserious meditator because seriousness is sickness, seriousness is not health. Seriousness is a tense state of mind, it is sadness; it is not overflowing joy. Yes, the old traditions will tell you, “Be serious.” I cannot say that to you. Why be serious? The birds singing in the morning are not serious. The stars in the night are not serious. The flowers in their different colors and fragrances are not serious. Except man, have you anything else in existence which is serious? The oceans, the rivers, the mountains…nothing is serious, except man.Who has made man serious? It is your old traditions which have created the idea that life is not a rejoicing, that life is not playfulness; that life has to be serious, only then can you enter into paradise, only then can you meet God. But I want to tell you, even God will not give you an audience if you reach there with a serious, long face. You have to go there like an innocent child, playful, joyous. You have to learn something of the sense of humor. All your old religions are lacking in that dimension – a sense of humor. They are all serious.In my village, as happens all over the East, every year Ramleela was played – the life of Rama.The man who used to play the part of Ravana, the enemy of Rama who steals Rama’s wife, was a great wrestler. He was the champion of the whole district, and the next year he was going to stand for the championship of the whole state. We used to take a bath in the river almost simultaneously in the morning, so we became friends. I told him, “Every year you become Ravana, every year you are being deceived. Just the moment that you are going to break Shiva’s bow so that you can get married to Sita, the daughter of Janak, a messenger comes running in and informs you that your capital of Sri Lanka is on fire. So you have to go, rush back to your country. And meanwhile, Rama manages to break the bow and marry the girl. Don’t you get bored every year with the same thing?”He said, “But this is how the story goes.”I said, “The story is in our hands if you listen to my suggestion. You must have seen that most of the people are asleep because they have seen the same thing year after year, generation after generation – make it a little juicy.”He said, “What do you mean?”I said, “This time you do one thing I say.”And he did it!When the messenger came with the message: “Your capital, the golden Sri Lanka, is on fire, you have to get there soon,” he said, “You shut up, idiot” – he spoke in English!That’s what I had told him! All the people who were asleep woke up: “Who is speaking English in the Ramleela?”And Ramana said, “You go away. I don’t care. You have deceived me every year. This time I am going to marry Sita.”And he went and broke the bow of Shiva to pieces, and threw it into the mountains – it was just a bamboo bow. And he asked Janak, “Bring…where is your daughter? My jumbo-jet is waiting!”It was so hilarious. Even after forty years, whenever I meet somebody from my village, they remember that Ramleela. They said, “Nothing like that has ever happened.”The manager had to drop the curtains. And the man was a great wrestler, and at least twelve people had to carry him out.That day the Ramleela could not be played. And next day they had to change Ravana; they found another person.By the river, Ravana met me. He said, “You disturbed my whole thing.”I said, “But did you see the people clapping, enjoying, laughing? For years you have been playing the part and nobody has clapped, nobody has laughed. It was worth it!”Religion needs a religious quality. A few qualities are missing. One of the most important is a sense of humor.They stopped me meeting their actors. They made it clear to every actor that if anybody listened to me or met me, he would not be allowed to act. But they forgot to tell one man who was not an actor….He was a carpenter. He used to come to do some work in my house also. So I said to him, “I cannot approach the actors this year. Last year was enough! Although I did no harm to anybody – everybody loved it, the whole city appreciated it. But now they are guarding every actor and they don’t allow me close to them. But you are not an actor. Your function is some other work. But you can help me.”He said, “Whatever I can do, I will do, because last year it was really great. Can I be of some help?”I said, “Certainly.”And he did it….In the war, Lakshmana, Rama’s younger brother, gets wounded by a poisonous arrow. It is fatal. The physicians say that unless a certain herbal plant from the mountain Arunachal is brought, he cannot be saved, by the morning he will be dead. He is lying down on the stage unconscious. Rama is crying.Hanuman, his most devoted follower, says, “Don’t be worried. I will go immediately to Arunachal, find the herb, bring it before the morning. I just want some indications from the physician how to find it, how it looks. There may be so many herbs on the Arunachal, and the time is short, soon it is night.”The physician said, “There is no difficulty. That special herb has a unique quality. In the night it radiates and is full of light so you can see it. So anywhere you see a luminous herb you can bring it.”Hanuman goes to Sri Arunachal, but he is puzzled because the whole of Arunachal is full of luminous herbs. It is not the only herb that has that special quality. There are many other herbs which have the same quality of being luminous in the night.Now the poor Hanuman – he is just a monkey – is at a loss what to do. So he decides to take the whole mountain, and put the mountain there in front of the physician to find the herb.The carpenter was on top of the roof. He had to pull the rope on which Hanuman comes with a cardboard mountain with lighted candles. And I had told him, “Stop exactly in the middle. Let him hang there, with the mountain and everything!”And he managed it!The manager rushed out. The whole crowd was agog with excitement at what was happening. And Hanuman was perspiring, because he was hanging on the ropes with the mountain also in the other hand. Something had got stuck in the wheel on which the rope was going to be rolled. The manager rushed up. He asked the carpenter…and the carpenter said, “I don’t know what has gone wrong. The rope has got stuck somewhere.”In a hurry, finding nothing, the manager cut the ropes, and Hanuman with his mountain fell on the stage. And naturally he was angry. But the thousands of people were immensely happy. That made him even more angry.Rama continued repeating the lines he had been told to say. He said, “Hanuman, my devoted friend…”And Hanuman said, “To hell with your friends! Perhaps I have fractures.”Rama went on saying, “My brother is dying.”Hanuman said, “He can die any moment. What I want to know is, who cut the rope? I will kill him.”Again the curtain had to be dropped, the Ramleela postponed. And the manager and the people who were organizing all approached my father saying, “Your son is destroying everything. He’s making a mockery of our religion.”I said, “I’m not making a mockery of your religion. I’m simply giving it a little sense of humor.”I would like people to laugh. What is the point of repeating an old story every year? Then everybody is asleep because they know the story, they know every word of it. It is absolutely pointless.But it is very difficult for the old traditionalists, the orthodox people to accept laughter. You cannot laugh in a church. Have you seen any picture or statue of Jesus in which he is even smiling? Laughter is miles away. He cannot even smile. Have you seen Buddha or Mahavira laughing? No, they are all serious people, very serious. Even if you are laughing, when you come across Mahavira you will stop. He carries an atmosphere of seriousness around himself.My approach is to create a world where laughter is good, is healthy, is supported not condemned. I would like our temples to be full of laughter, singing, dancing. I would like our churches to be full of music. I would like all our religious places to be playful.How strange it is that you continuously go on saying that the world is God’s leela, and you never understand the meaning of the word leela. Leela means playfulness. If God is playful, then who are your saints not to be playful? If the whole of existence is divine play, then our lives should also be a part of it, a divine play.So don’t be worried about meditating nonseriously; in fact, that is the right way to meditate. Meditate playfully, nonseriously, because whenever you meditate seriously you become tense. Meditation needs relaxation. Meditation needs a joyful heart. It is not work, it is play.So you can meditate anywhere – taking a shower you can meditate, sleeping in your bed you can meditate, making love to your wife or your husband you can meditate – because meditation has no barriers, no conditions.Meditation simply means a silent state of mind. You can do anything with the silent state of mind. And whatever you do will become more graceful, will become more creative, will bring better flowers, better fruits. Your life will become in every dimension richer. I am all for richness, in all the dimensions of life. Money alone is not richness.There are so many greater things than money. If you can meditate in the different areas of your activities you will be making different dimensions richer, deeper. But don’t be serious. If a serious person is disturbed, he is angry.I remember, my grandfather was a very serious meditator….I was always watching. Whenever he meditated I would disturb him. Anything was enough. Just pulling the lobe of his ear – and he is meditating – or closing his nose…And he would be furious. I would say, “A meditator is not supposed to be so angry and so furious. And I know perfectly that when there is a customer in the shop, even meditating, you tell him to wait. This is strange. You don’t get angry about that. Then you forget all your seriousness. A dog enters in the house, and you are meditating and you start pointing to the dog saying, ‘Throw him out.’ What kind of meditation is this?“The best will be: don’t pretend to be serious, be human, and there is no problem. You can continue to be silent and take care of the customer. You can remain silent and take care of the dog. You can remain silent and take care of me.”But all the so-called religious people are very angry people. They think they have earned so much virtue that they can afford to be angry. On small matters they are ready to burst and freak out. This is because of their seriousness.“Otherwise,” I told my grandfather, “if you are really in meditation, and I come to you, you can hold my hand, you can dance with me. You can play with me and still your inner world remains silent, watchful.”Meditation is totally an undercurrent activity, so nothing touches it. There is no need to be serious. In fact, seriousness is dangerous. It won’t allow you to be meditative.I am reminded of a man who was a very angry type, so much so that once he burned his own house. He was so angry with the architect that he burned his own house. Another time he was so angry with his wife, that he pushed her into the well and she died. That was too much!At that very time there was staying in the village a famous Jaina monk, and this man was also a Jaina. The house was burned, the wife was dead; he had no children, no parents, all was finished. And this is how your old sannyasins used to be: when everything was finished, they would become sannyasins, they would renounce the world. The reality was that the world had renounced them!He went to the Jaina monk and he said, “I want to renounce the world” – now there was no world left – “but I am a very angry man. I have destroyed my whole life because of my anger, and I have come to your feet, to be initiated. All I want is you to somehow help me to get rid of my anger.”In Jainism there are five stages of initiation. At the fifth stage the sannyasin has to become naked. Slowly, slowly he has to drop things: some clothes, less clothes, then one cloth, and then finally he becomes naked.The master asked him, “At what stage do you want to be initiated?” He said, “Is that a question to ask me? At the final stage.”This is the same man who had burned the house, who had killed his wife – the same angry man.But the Jaina monk was very happy. He said, “So many have come to me, but they always start from the first stage. You are really courageous.”He was not courageous, he was simply an angry man, revengeful. Now he was taking revenge with himself. He had been angry to his wife, he had been angry to the architect, he had destroyed everything in anger. Now he wanted to destroy himself. The anger was turning upon himself.But the Jaina monk misunderstood; he was not a master. He initiated him and because of his anger he gave him a new name, Muni Shantinath. Shantinath means master of peace. And Shantinath started great austerities – very soon he had defeated his master. It was a question of his old ego and his anger. He started torturing himself as much as possible. It was the same anger. If there had been a master with eyes to see, he would have seen that the man was not changing, he was the same man. The actions were different, but the approach, the attitude, the energy was the same.Shantinath became very famous. After twenty years, when he had become famous all over the country, one of his friends came to see him. He was staying in the capital. There were thousands of followers and they said they had seen many monks, but they had never seen such austerity, such asceticism, such sacrifice, such devotion, such utter renunciation of all comforts.The friend went to see. He looked at the face; he could not see any difference. Those eyes were still burning with anger. It was not the fire of self-realization, it was the fire of anger. He came close to the stage where the great master, Shantinath, was sitting. He asked him, “Master?”Shantinath had seen him, had recognized him, but it was below him to recognize that he had recognized him. He was a great master, and the friend was an ordinary human being.The friend could see that he had recognized him, but that he did not want to accept it. He came closer and said, “I’m very much impressed by Your Holiness. Just one thing I want to know: what is your name?”And Shantinath was already angry. He said, “You don’t listen to the radio? You don’t watch the television? You don’t read newspapers?”He said, “I’m a poor villager, uneducated. It will be great kindness of you if you can tell me your name.”Shantinath said, “My name is Muni Shantinath Maharaj.”The man said, “Many, many thanks.”After a few minutes he asked again, “Sir, I have forgotten your name. Just once more.”And Shantinath was afire. He said, “You idiot. I have just told you my name and you have forgotten within two minutes. The whole world knows my name. My name is Muni Shantinath Maharaj. And this is the last time, remember. If you forget again, then nobody can be worse than me. I will teach you a lesson.”The man said, “No, I will not forget. I am continuously repeating it to remember.”Within two minutes he came even closer and he said, “Your Holiness?”And Shantinath took his staff into his hand. He said, “Yes?”The man said, “Please don’t be annoyed with me, I’m a poor villager. I simply want to know what your name is.”And Shantinath hit him on his head and said, “This will make you remember my name. My name is Muni Shantinath Maharaj.”The man said, “I’m from your village, your friend. I simply wanted to know whether you had changed or not. Twenty years have gone down the Ganges without any change in you. You are the same person. You can deceive the whole world, but how are you managing to deceive yourself?”Please don’t think of meditation as seriousness. It is a very playful activity. Make it as light as possible. It should not be a burden on your heart.It should give you wings to fly in the sky.It should not become a Himalayan weight on your soul.Osho,First, what happens to the body, mind and soul when enlightenment happens?Second, why is one enlightened person different from another enlightened person?Third, what is satori and what is its impact on the body?First, satori is simply the Japanese name for samadhi. It is the same as enlightenment.Second, why do enlightened people differ from each other? They differ because existence does not like duplication.Existence does not believe in carbon copies, it loves originals – and how can they be the same? Their circumstances are different, their times are different, their own past lives are different, their talents are different. Everything is different.For example, how can I be Rama? Even if it were possible, I would refuse. It is good that it is not possible.Rama’s wife is stolen. I don’t have a wife – of course, I could manage! If you all can manage it, why can I not manage? But I cannot do what Rama did. I cannot collect all the monkeys, and all the wolves, and all the squirrels, and all kinds of animals to fight with me to get my wife back. I think you will not do it either!I have heard about a man whose wife had escaped with one of his friends….After three days he reported, “Please write the report: My wife is missing for three days. My friend is missing also. The possibility is that she has escaped with him.”The man on the register said, “I’m sorry for you. I have all the sympathy for you, but I am the wrong person. This is a post office. You should go to the police station. In the first place, where have you been for three days? And in the second place, even when you come after three days, you come to a post office to report it! Don’t you know where the police station is? It is just across the road!”The man said, “I know where it is, but my wife has escaped before. I reported it to the police and those idiots brought her back! I’m not going to report to the police. That much is certain. If you want to take the report, take it, otherwise I am going home.”Rama also did not treat Sita, his wife, in a very gentlemanly way. You will be surprised that when Sita came back after the war – Rama had won the war and Sita came to his camp – his first words were utterly ugly. He could not say anything loving to her. He could not even say anything nice to her. What he said is very disrespectful of womanhood. He said, “Listen, woman. I have not fought the war for you. I can have as many women like you as I want. I have fought the war for the glory of my own family, my heritage, my forefathers, their name, their respectability. That is the cause of the war. You are just a superficial excuse.”Do you want me to say such a thing? I cannot conceive….And then he forced her to go through a fire test to see whether she was still chaste or not.If he had really been a man, he would have gone together with Sita through the fire test. He also was three years away from the wife. And it is a known psychological fact that women can remain celibate longer than men, because women’s sexuality is negative and men’s sexuality is positive.It was beautiful of Sita that she did not ask him to come along with her into the fire test. That woman has proved something higher, something superior, something spiritual in her. Rama failed utterly.He had some nerve to ask her to go through the fire test. You should not have double standards. You should have a single standard for both. At least that much should be expected from a man who is being worshipped by millions of people as an incarnation of God.There are so many things, but one particularly I would like to emphasize. One fourth of the Hindus are sudras, untouchables. For centuries the Hindu religion, the Hindu priesthood has deprived one fourth of their brothers and sisters of all the rights of being human. They have been treated like cattle…even worse. They have not been allowed to read the Vedas or even to listen. They have been deprived of all spiritual evolution.A brahmin brought one untouchable to Rama’s court and told Rama, “This untouchable was listening to the Vedas we were reciting. He was hiding behind the trees. It needs your judgment.”And what was Rama’s judgment? – so inhuman that you cannot believe. He ordered that lead should be melted on the fire and poured into both of his ears. That was his punishment!Do you want me to do such things?Even this single instance is enough for me, that Rama has no claim on enlightenment. He is simply in the hands of the priests – a puppet and nothing else.So one thing: the enlightened people that you think are enlightened, are not necessarily enlightened. It may be just a traditional idea that you have never thought about, you have never bothered about. Or perhaps you are afraid to think about such things because they will shake your faith. Most of your enlightened people are not enlightened. Those who are enlightened are bound to be different, for the simple reason that each enlightened person has a unique quality to his being.Buddha cannot be Mahavira; Mahavira cannot be Bodhidharma; Bodhidharma cannot be Basho. Basho cannot be Baal Shem, for the simple reason that Basho is a poet, a poet of the highest quality. Before he becomes enlightened he is already at the height of his poetic creativity. And when he becomes enlightened, naturally his enlightenment flows through his poetry.Mahavira has no poetry in his life. You cannot expect that when he becomes enlightened he will write poetry – that is impossible. That is not his preparation, that is not his talent, and that is not his genius.Basho writes the smallest poems. In Japan, they are called haikus – just a few words. Nowhere in the world have such small poems existed, and with so much meaning – so profound, so deep. One of his haikus will help you to understand what my sannyas is – let-go.Basho’s haiku is:Sitting silently,Doing nothing –And the grass grows by itself.That’s all, but it has been proclaimed by the great geniuses of the world as one of the greatest expressions of religiousness. “Sitting silently, doing nothing – and the grass grows by itself.” All that you have to do, is not to do anything. You have just to sit silently and wait. You need not pull the grass for its growth, it will grow by itself. In silence, in absolute inaction your spirituality grows by itself.He has written another haiku which will explain the meaning of meditation – and nonserious meditation:An ancient pond…Just visualize, because he has few words. If you miss…and the only way to miss is if you don’t visualize, if you get stuck in the words. The words are very few, but by the time you figure out what they mean, they are gone.The ancient pond,A frog jumps in – P-l-o-p!This is the whole poem. Just let me help you to visualize: an ancient pond, absolute silence everywhere – not even a ripple in the pond. And a frog suddenly jumps in. His jumping in the pond, and there is sound: plop!But the sound deepens the silence of the ancient pond. That is what he is wanting to say without saying it. That sound of the frog deepens the silence when it disappears. Perhaps you were not aware of the silence. It was so much there, you may have taken it for granted. You may have forgotten it, but the frog has reminded you. By jumping and creating a little sound, and then suddenly the whole silence, you will feel grateful to the frog. It is not a disturbance; you will not feel angry. If you were a serious meditator you would like to kill the frog.You came so far away to the ancient pond to meditate – and this frog seems to be some enemy out of your past life. And is this the point, the time…to disturb? If you are serious you have missed. If you are nonserious, playful, you will enjoy the frog. You will be grateful to the frog because it has deepened the silence.And there is nothing more than that – a deepening silence, which goes on and on and on….I am all for this life, and I want this life of yours to be a beautiful experience, a tremendous journey into ecstasy, moment to moment.To me, spirituality is something not connected with holy books, not connected with religions. It is something that grows within you if you can manage a little sense of humor, a little sense of playfulness, and a little time for being near the ancient pond.Allowing silence to be…Silence is the only secret there is.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Would you please explain what the real differences between men and women are?The psychology movement is basically male chauvinist, and strangely, it has exploited women more than men.Most of the differences between men and women are because of thousands of years of conditioning. They are not fundamental to nature, but there are a few differences which give them unique beauty, individuality. Those differences can be counted very easily.One is that the woman is capable of producing life; man is not. In that way he is inferior, and that inferiority has played a great role in the domination of women by men. The inferiority complex works in this way: it pretends to be superior –to deceive oneself and to deceive the whole world. So man down the ages has been destroying the woman’s genius, talents, capacities, so that he can prove himself superior –to himself and to the world.Because the woman gives birth, she remains for nine months or more absolutely vulnerable, dependent on a man. Men have exploited this in a very ugly way. And that is a physiological difference; it makes no difference at all.The psychology of the woman is corrupted by the man telling her things which are not true, making her a slave to man, reducing her to a secondary citizen of the world. And the reason for that was that he is muscularly more powerful. But the muscular power is part of animality. If that is going to decide the superiority, then any animal is more muscular than a man.But the real differences are certainly there, and we have to search for them behind the pile of invented differences. One difference I see is that a woman is more capable of love than a man is. A man’s love is more or less a physical necessity; a woman’s love is not. It is something greater and higher; it is a spiritual experience. That’s why the woman is monogamous and man is polygamous. The man would like to have all the world’s women and still he would not be satisfied. His discontent is infinite.The woman can be satisfied with one love, utterly fulfilled, because she does not look at the body of the man, she looks at the innermost qualities. She does not fall in love with a man who has a beautiful muscular body, she falls in love with a man who has a charisma –something indefinable but immensely attractive –who has a mystery to be explored. She wants her man not to be just a man, but an adventure in discovering consciousness.The man is very weak as far as sexuality is concerned –he can have only one orgasm. The woman is infinitely superior –she can have multiple orgasms. And this has been one of the most troublesome matters. The man’s orgasm is local, confined to his genitals. The woman’s orgasm is total, not confined to the genitals. Her whole body is sexual, and she can have a beautiful orgasmic experience a thousandfold bigger, deeper, more enriching, more nourishing than a man can have.But the tragedy is that her whole body has to be aroused, and the man is not interested in it, he has never been interested in it. He has used the woman as a sex machine just to relieve his own sexual tensions. Within seconds he is finished. And by the time he is finished the woman has not even begun.The moment a man is finished making love he turns and goes to sleep. The sexual act helps him to have a good sleep –more relaxed, with all the tensions released in the sexual activity. And every woman has cried and wept when she has seen this. She had not even started, she had not moved. She has been used, and that is the ugliest thing in life: when you are used as a thing, as a mechanism, as an object. She cannot forgive the man for using her.To make the woman also an orgasmic partner the man has to learn foreplay, to be in no hurry to go to bed. He has to make love something of an art. They can have a place, a love temple where incense is burning, no glaring lights, just candles…and he should approach the woman when he is in a beautiful mood, joyous, so he can share. What happens ordinarily is that men and women fight before they make love. That poisons love. Love is a kind of treaty that the fight is finished –at least for tonight. It is a bribe, it is cheating.A man should make love the way a painter paints –when he feels the urge filling his heart –or the way the poet composes poetry, or a musician plays music. The woman’s body should be taken as a musical instrument; it is. When the man is feeling joy, then sex is not just a release, a relaxation, a sleeping method. Then there is foreplay. He dances with the woman, he sings with the woman –with beautiful music vibrating the love temple, with the incense that they love. It should be something of the sacred, because there is nothing sacred in ordinary life unless you make love sacred. And that will be the beginning of opening the door to the whole phenomenon of super-consciousness.Love never should be forced, love never should be an attempt. It should not be in the mind at all –you are playing, dancing, singing, enjoying…part of this long joy. If it happens, then it is beautiful.When love happens it has beauty. When it is made to happen, it is ugly.And while you are making love with the man on top of the woman…it is known as the missionary posture. The East became aware of this ugliness that the man was heavier, taller and more muscular and was crushing a delicate being.In the East, the way has always been just the opposite: the woman on top. Crushed under the weight of the man, the woman has no mobility. Only the man moves, so he comes to orgasm within seconds and the woman is simply in tears. She has been a partner, but she was not involved in it –she has been used.When the woman is on top she has more mobility, the man has less mobility, and that will bring their orgasms closer to each other. And when both go into orgasmic experience, it is something of the other world. It is the first glimpse of samadhi; it is the first glimpse that man is not the body. He forgets the body, he forgets the world. Both the man and the woman move into a new dimension they have never explored.The woman has the capacity for multiple orgasms, so the man has to be as slow as possible. But the reality is, he is in such a hurry in everything that he destroys the whole relationship. He should be very relaxed so that the woman can have multiple orgasms. His orgasm should come at the end when the woman’s orgasm has reached to the peak. It is a simple question of understanding.There are natural differences –they have nothing to do with conditioning. There are other differences. For example, a woman is more centered than a man; it starts happening even in the womb of the mother. An experienced mother who has given birth to two or three children can tell you after a few months of pregnancy whether the newcomer is going to be a girl or a boy, because the boy starts making a fuss, kicking in her womb, moving –he is on the way. But the girl remains absolutely silent. So that is not a question of conditioning.The female is more serene, more silent, more patient, is capable of waiting. Perhaps because of these qualities she has more resistance to diseases and she lives longer than a man. Because of her serenity, her delicateness, she can fulfill a man’s life immensely. She can surround man’s life in a very soothing, cozy atmosphere. But the man is afraid –he does not want to be surrounded by the woman, he does not want to let her create a cozy warmth around him. He is afraid because that way he will become dependent. So for centuries he has been keeping her at a distance. And he is afraid because he knows deep down that the woman is more than he is. She can give birth to life. Nature has chosen her to reproduce, not man.Man’s function in reproduction is almost nil. This inferiority has created the greatest problem –man started cutting the woman’s wings. He started in every way reducing her, condemning her, so that he could at least believe that he is superior. He has treated women as cattle –even worse.In China, for thousands of years, the woman was not thought to have a soul, so the husband could kill her and the law would not interfere –she was his possession. If he wanted to destroy his furniture it was not illegal. If he wanted to destroy his woman it was not illegal. This is the ultimate insult –that the woman has no soul.Man has deprived woman of education, of financial independence. He has deprived her of social mobility because he is afraid. He knows she is superior, he knows she is beautiful, he knows that giving her independence will create danger. So down the centuries there has been no independence for women.The Mohammedan woman even has to keep her face covered, so that except her husband, nobody can see the beauty of her face, the depth of her eyes.In Hinduism, the woman has to die when the husband dies –what a great jealousy. You possessed her your whole life, and even after death you want to possess her. You are afraid. She is beautiful, and when you are gone, who knows? She may find another partner, perhaps better than you.So the system of sati has prevailed for thousands of years –the most ugly phenomenon you can imagine.The husband dies. Maybe the woman is still young and at the prime of her youth so she has to be forced to jump on the funeral pyre. To make it possible, a special arrangement was made. Purified butter was poured in large quantities on the funeral pyre. It creates so much smoke that you cannot see what is happening. Almost like a dark cloud it covers the whole funeral pyre. Then surrounding it –and it is so hot that the musicians had to stand far away –great trumpets, drums, and all kinds of musical instruments are used with the excuse that this is a celebration, but they are just used to drown the screaming of the living woman who is being burned.She would like to come out, and around the funeral pyre there are priests with burning torches in their hands so that if the woman tries to run out they will push her back into the funeral pyre. Behind the musicians there are a great number of priests shouting loudly and chanting mantras from the ancient Vedas.This whole scene is arranged just to kill a woman and so that nobody should know that she was killed against her will. And the whole crowd outside is joyous and cheering because it is a great event –a woman has proven her love to the last moment of her husband’s life.How many millions of women have been burned this way for the simple reason that the man is jealous that after he is gone, what guarantee is there…?It was the British government’s rule in India that stopped it, because it was simply murder and nothing else. But then Hindus prevented the widow from marrying again. They shaved her head –that beautiful hair that was part of her personality. They took away all her ornaments and said that she could not use any color in her clothes, she had to wear only white. They tried in every way to make her ugly. She cannot join in any ceremony…she is abandoned. Even in her own house she cannot enter the kitchen, but has to sit outside. And she cannot ask for what she likes. Whatever is given to her, the leftovers, she has to live on. She cannot sleep on a bed, she has to just lie down on the floor.This is worse than death. This way she may live fifty years, has to do all the menial work of the household, and she has to keep herself hidden from people’s eyes.Man is very egoistic. That’s why I call him male chauvinistic. Man has created this society, and in this society there is no place for the woman –and she has tremendous qualities of her own.For example, if man has the possibility of intelligence, the woman has the possibility of love. It does not mean she cannot have intelligence; she can have intelligence, she just has to be given the chance to develop it. But love she is born with –she has more compassion, more kindness, more understanding.Man and woman are two strings of one harp, but both are in suffering separate from each other. And because they are suffering and do not know the reason, they start taking revenge on each other.The woman can be of immense help in creating an organic society. She is different from man, but not unequal. She is as equal to a man as any other man. She has talents of her own which are absolutely needed.It is not enough to earn money, it is not enough to become a success in the world; more necessary is a beautiful home, and the woman has the capacity to change any house into a home. She can fill it with love; she has that sensitivity. She can rejuvenate man, help him relax.In the Upanishads there is a very strange blessing for new couples. A new couple comes to the seer of the Upanishads and he gives his blessing. He says to the girl specifically, “I hope you will become a mother of ten children, and finally, your husband will be your eleventh child. And unless you become a mother to your husband, you have not succeeded in being a true wife.” It is very strange but has immense psychological insight in it, because this is what the modern psychology finds, that every man is looking in the woman for his mother, and every woman is looking in the man for her father.That’s why every marriage is a failure: you cannot find your mother. The woman you have married has not come to your house to be your mother, she wants to be your wife, a lover. But the Upanishadic blessing, almost five thousand or six thousand years old, gives an insight to the modern psychology. A woman, whatsoever she is, is basically a mother. A father is an invented institution, it is not natural. And soon the father may become out of date.Once the science of genetics develops, the more scientific, more clinical, more hygienic way will be that fathers donate sperm to the hospital, and the medical experts choose the right living sperm that can be injected into the woman. Every man should not be allowed to be a father. Because of this accidental fatherhood, the earth is full of blind people, lame people, crazy people, mad people, retarded people…It cannot be left accidental.The sperm may have come from somebody else; you have to be generous in favor of the children so they will not be blind, will not suffer their lives as cripples. And moreover, you will be able to ask the medical expert for the kind of child that you want.The basic sperm shows all the qualities that will manifest later on. If you want a scientist it can be seen that this person is going to become one –or a great poet, or an engineer, or a doctor, or just a vagabond. So the accidental birth can disappear and a planned birth can take its place. It will just take a little time for stupid human minds to get accustomed to the new idea.But the mother will remain indispensable. They have tried experiments: they have given children all the facilities, medication, all the food…every perfection from different branches of science, but strangely the children go on shrinking and will die within three months. Then they discovered that the mother’s body and her warmth is an absolute necessity for life to grow. That warmth in this vast cold universe is absolutely necessary in the beginning, otherwise the child will feel abandoned. He will shrink and die.There is no need for man to feel inferior to woman. The whole idea arises because you take man and woman as two species. They belong to one humanity, and they both have complementary qualities. They both need each other, and only when they are together are they whole.You will be surprised to know that all the Hindu gods have their consorts. That has happened only in Hinduism, and it happened before Gautam Buddha and Mahavira.Shiva has his wife, Parvati; Vishnu has his wife, Laxmi…all the Hindu gods have their wives, and that seems to be natural. Mahavira and Buddha created the idea of celibacy. Before them it did not exist at all in the whole literature of India, but it appealed to the male chauvinist….Then came Christianity, five hundred years after Buddha. Jesus visited India after Buddha’s death and he saw there monks living alone in total independence. But he could not see that they were hard, that something was missing, something very valuable was missing. These people became hard, devoid of all juice; these people became unloving. It was bound to happen, but this is how the human mind is impressed. People were interested in these monks rather than Vishnu and Shiva, because they said, “They have wives just like us, so what is the difference? These monks are real ascetics. They have renounced everything including wives, children, family, money. These people are far superior.” Hinduism was going down in favor of Jainism and Buddhism. Naturally, as a reaction, all these shankaracharyas introduced celibacy into Hinduism to compete with Jainism and Buddhism.Life should be taken with ease. Differences are not contradictions. They can help each other and immensely enhance each other. The woman who loves you can enhance your creativity, can inspire you to heights you have never dreamed of. And she asks nothing. She simply wants your love, which is her basic right.Most of the things that make men and women different are conditional. Differences should be maintained because they make men and women attractive to each other, but they should not be used as condemnation.In the West, the women’s liberation movement is destroying women by forcing them to be equal to men. There is no question of equality or inequality. By becoming equal to men, women will lose some softness, some grace, some beauty –and I can see it happening.In the East, you will find women in the highest strata of society such as you cannot find in the West. The Western woman is trying to become like a man. She may succeed –she is succeeding, but she will always be a second-class man. She should try to be a first-class woman.I see the grace disappearing from the Western woman in every sphere. In their dress the grace is disappearing, in their behavior, in their language…grace is disappearing. Just to compete with men they are smoking. Now, no high-society, cultured woman in India will ever think of smoking unless she is westernized. She will not think of using clothes which men use, because it is not only the clothes –they will change your whole body. It is the mind that changes everything.The Western woman is losing her breasts, they were something that gave her a beautiful roundness, something unique. The whole history of painting, poetry, literature, talks about the beautiful breasts of women, but the Western woman is losing them. What has happened?It is a change in the mind. She is losing her buttocks. She is becoming a straight line with no curves. And those curves were making her body a beautiful phenomenon –they were really a tremendous art. She is losing proportion. Her face is becoming harsh, dry. Even the most beautiful woman in the West looks hard, ready to fight. That is neither going to help womanhood nor its liberation.To become a secondhand man is not liberation. Liberation is to become a firsthand woman –and man and woman are equal because they are two halves of one whole. In the East you will be surprised to know that even though all the men have misbehaved with women, the women have managed to keep all that is beautiful.There is an ancient story, a true story….A man was continuously going to a prostitute. The woman knew it, but it was against her grace to raise the question, so she never mentioned it. She never asked the man, “Where have you been?”She served the man, she took care of him. And when he was dying he asked his woman, “You are the only one, the only solace in my life. Knowing everything you have never asked me, ‘Where are you going? Why do you come so late in the night? Why do you come drunk in the night?’ And still, you continue your whole life serving me as if nothing wrong is happening. I can only ask you to please carry my body to the prostitute’s house –I want to see her one last time.”And the wife carried the man’s body to the prostitute’s house. The prostitute could not believe it. She fell at the feet of the woman.The woman said, “It is nothing; I love him. If he does not love me it is not within my powers –he is free. My love is not a bondage. He asked me to bring his body to your house, so I have brought it; let him die peacefully. The man was beautiful, he never harassed me. I have loved him and you have loved him, so we are sisters. We both love the same man. You are fortunate that he loves you; I am unfortunate that he does not love me, but he respects me.”This is grace….There is another story I am reminded of. You have heard of the great war of Mahabharata….It was a family war. Two brothers each had sons, and it was a question of who was going to succeed. One of the brothers was blind; he had one hundred sons, he had many queens. But the queen, that he had married first, had never opened her eyes. She always wore an eye-cover, twenty-four hours, her whole life.Her husband persuaded, her friends persuaded: “What kind of thing is this?”She said, “If my husband cannot see, then I will not see. What is the use of seeing a sunset, what is the use of seeing beautiful flowers when my husband cannot see them?”Her whole life she remained almost blind.This is tremendous grace. Nobody has demanded it, and it brings a beauty of its own kind.There are so many strong historical facts that prove the beauty, the grandeur, the spirituality, the height of the love of a woman. Man has failed, but the woman has not failed.I would like both to become an organic whole, remaining at the same time absolutely free because love never creates bondage, it gives freedom. Then we can create a better world. Half of the world has been denied its contribution and that half, the women, had an immense capacity to contribute to the world. It would have made it a beautiful paradise.So I don’t ask that they should be equal, that they should wear the same clothes, that they should behave like men, or use vulgar language because the man uses it.The woman should search into her own soul for her own potential and develop it, and she will have a beautiful future.Man and woman are neither equal nor unequal, they are unique. And the meeting of two unique beings brings something miraculous into existence.Osho,Why have you always emphasized that women are better than men in ruling and administration, taking care? Is that what you experience in your commune or is it only a theory?I don’t deal in theories.Whatever I say is a practical experience, and unless I have a practical observation I don’t make a theoretical statement about it. The theory comes later, the reality comes first.Women have not been in power for millennia. Man has always been in power, and his power has only created wars and destruction. It has not caused humanity to evolve, it has been in the service of death.I would like women to take power. For the time being there will be difficulties because so much is repressed in a woman that it will explode. She may move to the other extreme. It is just like a man who has been fasting for ten days and then you place delicious food before him. He is bound to eat more than is needed. He may fall sick. What fasting has not been able to do, the delicious food may be able to do –he may even die.There is an interim period which we will have to accept because of millions of years of repressed power. But this will subside; it will take some time but it will disappear. When the woman is certain of her power she will not be revengeful, she will not hate men. This is only for a time until the whole past is erased from the consciousness of woman.The woman is a better ruler for the simple reason that she has a more loving heart, is more human –she is more kind and more compassionate.Then finally, there is no question of who rules. Whoever has the merit, man or woman, rules. And the basic quality of the ruler is that he should be the servant of the people, that his power to rule is not the power to torture.So finally, it will be a mixed phenomenon. In every sphere – in the offices, in the home, in the government, in the fields – everywhere, man and woman should not be understood as separate species.But we have to repent for the past and we have to compensate women for the past. The past has done so much harm to them –who is going to erase all that whole history from their consciousness?In the beginning they will be suspicious. In the beginning they may burst out with all kinds of revengefulness, but that will settle soon. You cannot be revengeful to people who are compensating for the dead who have tortured you. We have not tortured them; they cannot be antagonistic to us.It takes a little time to settle, perhaps a few years. Let men and women mix at every stage of life. From the kindergarten to the university they should be mixed, and they should be clear that they are complementary parts to each other. But they should not become similar, they should retain their individuality. They should search and find what makes them women, what makes them men, and where they are different –not in conditioning but by understanding.We have to create a world where there is no question that somebody is superior and somebody is inferior, and that will be a far more natural world.You can enter any house and you can immediately see whether any woman lives there or not. She has an aesthetic sense, she has a certain clarity about beauty. Man is crude; he has no aesthetic sense. He can go on living in a house without bothering how the house looks and he will be perfectly happy. Just that sensitivity is missing.I was at the university studying –and I am a lazy man. I had my bed just beside the door so I could leave my shoes outside the door and jump into the bed. So I didn’t have to worry about the whole room. I never entered the other part of the room because so much dust was gathering there.In my class there were two girls. One was very much interested in me. She used to come every Sunday to clean my room. I told her, “You are unnecessarily wasting your time because I never enter inside the room. You can see my bed is just by the door. I simply jump into the bed, close the door and go to sleep. Why should I bother about the whole room and cleaning? I cannot do such things!”But she said that she thought for the whole week about my room that it should not look like this.I could see the difference when she would come and clean the room, fix the pictures on the walls, clean my books, put them in the right place. I knew that there was a great difference. It was beautiful. But I told her, “You cannot teach me. I appreciate what you do. I love it but I cannot do it.”For two years continuously she went on coming every Sunday to clean. And she was the daughter of the collector of the city so it became a great scandal in the university because she had so many servants in her house. The collector was the highest officer in the district. She was hoping that some day I would learn, but I told her it was too late. And in the night when it is dark everywhere, who bothers whether the books are dusted or not, whether the room is full of dust or not?The woman has a sense of cleanliness, of beauty, of the right arrangement of things. In Japan the women have developed many arts. Flower arrangement…even drinking tea is a ceremony and is done in such a way as if you are meditating.The woman can contribute immensely to making human society more delicate, more beautiful. And if women are part of society everywhere I don’t think we will go to war, because whenever man goes to war it is the woman who suffers. Either a mother suffers because her son has died, or a wife will live her whole life waiting for the husband who is never going to return.Man fights; the woman suffers. And whenever there is an invasion of one country by another, it is strange…the invading soldiers rape women as if the real purpose was not to conquer the country but to rape the women.The woman is the loser. Either the father dies, or the husband or the son…but it is always the woman who suffers, and then she is raped, brutally raped. Those soldiers cannot make love, they can only rape.So my idea is for the woman to keep her uniqueness. We don’t want secondhand men; it is insulting.The man also should keep himself unique. Men and women should melt and merge into each other, not as contradictories but as complementaries. That will change all the qualities that they had separately. The woman will become more strong, the man will become more sensitive, because now they will be functioning together as one unit.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Who are you?I am not a messiah, nor a prophet, nor a savior. I am simply a human being, with a little difference that you are not awake and I am awake. You can call me the awakened one. I emphatically deny the role of the messiah, the prophet, the savior, for specific reasons.My understanding is that nobody can save anybody else – the very idea is insulting. And if somebody can save somebody, he can also drown him, because both the capacities come together. I am not a prophet, representing God, his message. As far as I am concerned existence is divine, but there is no God as a person. It is a quality of creativity, but not a creator. So the people who are creative are more religious than the people who go on praying in the churches, in the temples, in the synagogues to a God above in the heaven which does not exist. They are simply befooling themselves.I am not a messiah especially sent by God. In the first place there is no God to send anyone. In the second place, for the argument’s sake, if there is a God who can create the whole creation, he need not have these mediocre messiahs to change people. He can do it himself. All these people who have been trying to be messengers of God, incarnations of God, the only begotten son of God…may not be bad people. They may be good people; their intention may not be bad. I never suspect their intention, but they are utterly wrong. And because of these people, humanity has suffered tremendously.I want human beings to understand that they have the capacity to fall in their consciousness to the lowest level or they can rise to the highest pinnacle of consciousness. They can have friends. Gautam Buddha, Hazrat Mohammed, Jesus Christ should be understood as great friends. Their advice may be of immense value, but the moment they become leaders, the moment Jesus becomes the shepherd and his followers become sheep, it is ugly; it is absolutely inhuman.When Mohammed becomes a prophet of God, he raises himself above humanity. That is just an egoistic trip.When Buddha allows himself to be worshipped, that his word has to be taken in deep faith, he is harming humanity. I don’t belong to their category at all.I am a simple, ordinary human being just like you. But I am aware and you are not. This is not much of a difference – you can become aware.I am conscious and you are not. I can show you the path just like a friend, but you have to follow the path. I cannot take you to paradise because there is none. These are all fictions created to exploit humanity – the paradise, the hell – because it is a simple psychology that man can be controlled by two things, fear and greed. For fear there is hell; for greed there is heaven.It is very easy to manipulate human beings between these two poles. Nobody wants to be in hell for eternity – everybody wants to be in heaven and have all the pleasures eternally. Naturally, if you want heaven and you do not want hell, you have to follow these people who are proclaiming themselves to be the only son of God, the only prophet of God.Humanity has suffered for thousands of years. No prophet, no messiah, no savior has been of any help; on the contrary, they have created every kind of trouble for man. They have created different religions, and this has to be emphatically noted – that truth cannot be organized. It is not something that a crowd attains; it is something absolutely individual.One goes to his own innermost being alone, absolutely alone, and finds it. Everybody is born to become a fully conscious being. That is my term for religiousness. To me, whatever wrong you do, you do because you are unconscious. And whatever good you do, you can do only when you are conscious. So I reduce your whole religion and your whole morality to two simple principles: behave unconsciously and you will be doing some harm; behave consciously and you will be doing some good, beautifying life.These people try to put themselves high above human beings for the simple reason that people have lived in a spiritual slavery. They don’t want to have freedom; they want a savior to save them. They want a prophet to bring a message from God to them. They are not at all interested in taking the pilgrimage themselves, so they are happy that somebody else is doing it for them on their behalf. And the people who are pretending to be all these things are enjoying great ego numbers. They may have been good people, but deep down there is a subtle current of ego which cannot be denied.I don’t have any ego.I just want to be in the crowd, in the people, just like them. And perhaps this is the only way to help them. When somebody is so high that you cannot reach even to his feet, you start thinking this is an experience for special people. You are not the only begotten son of God, you are not the last prophet, you are not an incarnation of God. But this distance gives them a chance. What can they do? You are crawling on the earth – the distance is too much, it will take lives for you to come close to them. It looks logical, and at the same time they can enjoy the specialty which even kings and emperors cannot enjoy.The future of religiousness is the future of people like me who have no ego trip, who are not creating any distance; on the contrary, who are destroying all distances and becoming as simple and ordinary as everyone. Then I can take your hand in my hand. And if I know the way, we can walk on the way hand in hand.And remember, finally, that you will not be obliged to me; on the contrary, I will be obliged to you that you allowed me to hold your hand, because I was so full of my experience, my ecstasy, my religiousness, my truth, that I wanted to share it. By sharing it grows.The more you share your inner experiences, the more you find them. It is an inexhaustible source.Osho,How can a Christian best understand it? What is your understanding about who Jesus was and what he advocated?The question has many implications. First, the Christian remaining a Christian cannot understand me. His Christianity will be the barrier in the same way as Hinduism will be the barrier for a Hindu, and Buddhism will be the barrier for a Buddhist, and Islam will be the barrier for a Mohammedan.What is Christianity? It is a certain belief system, it is not an experience. It is a kind of prejudice. You have been brought up in such a way that you are conditioned to the Christian view of life. If you want to understand me, that conditioning of Christianity will prevent you. It will go against it, because I don’t believe that there are any religions. I know that there is only one religiousness. You are coming with set formulas, a catechism, with faith, with belief – and my whole approach is scientific not superstitious.I would like you to doubt all your beliefs, because a belief is just to cover ignorance. And I would like you not to have faith. Faith comes, you don’t have to create it. It comes the moment you realize truth, the moment you come to self-realization. Then there is a totally different quality of faith. The ordinary faith is just a solace, a consolation.I was given a Bible in America while I was in jail. The sheriff of the jail was a very nice person and he was concerned about what I would do for twenty-four hours there, so he thought it would be good to present me with a beautiful Bible. He brought me the Bible and he said, “You will enjoy it.”I said, “What is it?”He said, “It is the word of God.”I asked him, “Can you make any distinction between the word of God and the word of man? – because all these words are man’s words. You are an intelligent and very gentle fellow, and I would like to remind you that Hindus think the Vedas are the word of God, Buddhists think the same about their scriptures, Mohammedans think the Koran is the word of God…There are so many contradictory scriptures claiming to be the words of God, how do you choose which is the right one?”He said, “I have never thought about it.”And I said, “Do you know that five hundred pages in your Christian Bible are full of pornography? Have you read it from the first page to the last page? And don’t tell a lie because you are holding in your hand the word of God, the Bible – you are under oath.”He hesitated a little and then he said, “You are right. I have never read it from the first page to the last. I have read only a few pages which I hear each Sunday in the sermon of the priest.”Then I said to him, “You go through it. There are not less than five hundred pages which are sheer pornography. And if they are read and understood, the Bible should be banned from every church, from every library, from every university. Every government should make a law that the Bible is one of the ugliest scriptures in existence.”“But,” he said, “there is a God.”I said, “Your very statement shows you are not certain of it, you have no experience of it. You have not encountered him, you have just been repeating like a parrot.”Each generation goes on giving its own conditionings to the new children. And the children cannot doubt, cannot ask…and this whole circus goes on continuing.Do you know that there are religions that don’t have any God? Buddhism and Jainism don’t have any God, and for a very logical reason, almost irrefutable. They say: If everything needs to be created…That is the argument of the theist, that everything has to be created. So this whole existence cannot come out of nowhere, it has to be created – we need a creator. Jainism and Buddhism say: We accept your premise, but then we ask if God is there, who created him? And if he can be without any creator, then your whole logic falls. Things can be there which are not created. So why go on unnecessarily from A-God to B-God to C-God? And this will lead to a regression. You will never reach to a point where you can say that this is the last God. The question will still be haunting: Who created?Seeing this absurdity, we accept existence itself as eternal, uncreated – there is no God.We experience that this existence is not material – it is conscious, fully conscious.If a Christian wants to understand me, first he has to put his Christianity aside so that he can hear me directly without his Christianity interfering. Otherwise it is the same – Christian or communist, Hindu or fascist, they are full of their own ideas for which they have no foundation, for which they have never looked. They have simply believed. And all the religions teach belief. Religions call themselves faiths.And my approach is scientific. Science says doubt, go on doubting until you have eliminated all that was not right and you have come to the last thing which you cannot doubt. Its very existence, its very experience, creates a rapport between you and it. That is faith – not something acquired, but something encountered.So certainly a Christian can understand me, but he will have to unload himself of his Christianity.As far as Jesus and his teachings are concerned, the first thing to be noted is he was never a Christian. He was born a Jew, he lived as a Jew, he died as a Jew. His whole life’s effort was to be accepted by the Jews as their long, long awaited messiah. He had never heard the words Christian or Christ.It is a very strange phenomenon that Christians are worshipping a Jew who for his whole life was teaching only one thing – that he should be accepted as a Jewish messiah. It was only three hundred years after his death when the Hebrew statements of Jesus were translated into Greek, that messiah became Christ and the followers became Christians.Jesus was never aware that he was creating a new religion. Certainly he has a few very beautiful sayings, but not many compared to people like Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, or the seers of the Upanishads. They are very small in number, but they only look beautiful. I will have to analyze a few sayings so that you can understand what I mean.He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit because they shall inherit the kingdom of God.” This is a kind of opium for the poor, because it promises them, “After death, you will be received with great rejoicings. Your only great spiritual quality is your poverty.” And against it he says, “A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven.” This is how the poor have been kept poor – hoping for something to happen after death. The rich have never bothered about all this nonsense – and I think they are right. If you can manage to be rich here – which is God’s world according to the Christians – then why can you not be rich in the other world which is also God’s world? There is no logic in it.And the people who are beggars here, why should they be beggars here in God’s world? And why should they be called blessed? If they are blessed, then the whole earth should become poor, beggars. Perhaps that is happening today. The whole earth is becoming more and more poor. More and more population, hungry people, starving people dying in Ethiopia – almost one thousand people every day. The ordinary poor will be far back in the line; Ethiopians will be received first.And this is a long history. How many poor people have lived here? So God’s paradise will be full of beggars and poor, uneducated, uncultured, uncivilized…And poverty is the root cause of all crime. It is not a blessing, it is a curse. But when Jesus says it to the poor people – and, in fact, he had no approach to the rich – he is giving them a great consolation. These consolations are dangerous.Karl Marx is right that these messiahs and prophets have given opium to the people so they will not see the reality and remain in a hallucinatory world. No, the poor are not blessed! They are suffering. And you have some nerve to say that they are blessed.We know perfectly well that the rich are making their way to success here. They know all the ways of how to succeed. They have lived all the luxuries, all the comforts, all that this world can provide. In fact they are perfectly trained. This life has been a school, and they are the right people to enjoy paradise. What will the poor do there? They will be absolutely unprepared. They will not be able to understand what has happened. If God is so compassionate, then why is he so cruel here?Jesus says, “If somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other cheek.” A beautiful saying, but just a saying.I have heard about a Christian saint who was continuously talking about this beautiful maxim….A man – a wrestler, very strong – one day stood up and hit the saint on one cheek. Naturally, according to his own philosophy, he gave him the other cheek. The wrestler hit him on the other cheek even harder.This was not mentioned in the Bible – that when you give the other cheek what is going to happen? And immediately – the congregation could not believe it – the saint jumped over the wrestler and started beating him as hard as he could.The wrestler said, “What are you doing? You are a Christian saint. Your whole teaching is to give the other cheek when you are hit upon one – and you are beating me…!”He said, “Yes, because there is no third cheek. Now I am free. Jesus talked only of two cheeks. About the third he has said nothing – and there is no third cheek anyway. So now you have to take not only my philosophy but my anger, my violence too. I have been suppressing it for my whole life. You may be a wrestler, but my violence and my anger are far bigger. I will kill you.”Friedrich Nietzsche has made a very significant comment. He said: “If somebody hits you on one cheek, hit him on his cheek as hard as possible. Don’t give him the other, because that is insulting.”When somebody hits your cheek and you give him the other, you become superhuman. You reduce the person to a subhuman species. The maxim is beautiful, but the implications are very, very significant, that is true. I agree with Friedrich Nietzsche, not with Jesus Christ, on this point. Nietzsche says, “Hit him, so that you both remain human. Give him the respect of being a human being. Don’t pretend to be a god. That is ugly and egoistic.”Jesus says, “Love your enemies just as you love yourself.” But Jesus has never told the people to love themselves. In fact, it is not only Jesus, but all the religions have told their people to hate themselves. That’s how austerities have come into the world. Torture yourself, fast, remain hungry, remain naked in the cold, move barefoot in the forest…All the religions have been teaching only one thing: hatred towards yourself. They have not said a single word about self-respect. And just look at what the Christians have done. They have done all kinds of cruelties to themselves.In Russia, there was a big sect, the most respected. They cut off their genitals. And the women were not going to be defeated – they started cutting their breasts. They were respected highly because “they are really people who have gone beyond sex.”There are Christian sects which use shoes with nails penetrating into their feet and keeping their feet continuously wounded, blood flowing…And those wounds cannot heal, because those nails are always there. They have belts of the same type and those belts are worn for their whole lives. You lock them and throw the key into the ocean or in the river. And they have nails, reaching to the belly, to the back, and they are continuously creating a fuss…and these people have been respected…!If this is self-love, then what does the maxim, “Love your enemies the way you love yourself,” mean? You don’t love yourself. No religious person loves himself. He loves God – who does not exist – and he hates himself, because religions have conditioned his mind that everything you do is ugly. Sex is ugly, eating food with taste is ugly…even taking a bath is ugly because you are decorating your body. Washing your mouth, your teeth, is ugly…! If this is all that self-love means then please don’t do it to your enemies. Don’t do it to your neighbors – Jesus says, “Love your neighbors just the way you love yourself.”The maxims on the surface look very beautiful, but the implications are not very beautiful. And his whole life Jesus pretends that he is the son of God – the only begotten son of God. Now this is crazy. Then what are all these people in the world who all call God, “Father”? You should not only call Jesus the begotten son.I always wonder what happened, because before Jesus was born eternity had passed. And after Jesus also, two thousand years have passed…Has God started using birth control methods? Why not a second son? And if God is using birth control methods, then what are people like the Vatican pope, Mother Teresa and other missionaries doing? They are teaching people not to use birth control because these children are given by God. If he is satisfied with one, why should he burden his poor people…perhaps to make them more blessed with a dozen, two dozen children?And see the point: in the Christian trinity, God is there, Jesus the son is there, and the Holy Ghost is there – but there is no woman. What kind of family is this? Why has the woman not been taken into the family? It would have been a beautiful unit. God the father, the woman mother, and the son – exactly a right family for today.But what is this strange fellow the Holy Ghost doing there? And how does God manage to produce a son without a woman? Is this Holy Ghost bisexual? But just to avoid the woman, all the religions have done that to women.God made man – according to Christianity – with mud, humus. That’s why he is called a human being. Why could he not make a woman also with mud? Was mud such a problem? So scarce? No, he created the woman by taking a rib out of the man. And out of the rib of the man he created the woman. This is really deeply disrespectful, and one cannot conceive that women should be made from the rib of a man.It shows many things. It shows that the woman is just a small part of the human body; she cannot be equal. How can a rib be equal to the whole man? To reduce her completely, the strategy has been used in the story to make her out of a rib; otherwise there seems to be no reason. Why should she not be made equal?Again…the Devil is in the story! He persuades Eve, not Adam. It is the woman, Eve, who is the source of Adam’s fall. She has to be condemned because she led Adam into a world of sin. But why did the snake not speak to Adam? Why choose Eve? These are small strategies to reduce women and make men great – to create in women an inferiority complex.And what certificate has Jesus got to say that he is the son of God? What proof has he got? Christians say that his miracles are his proof. But if you look into the miracles, you can understand one thing very easily. He creates as much food as thousands of people need from a loaf of bread; he changes water into wine, he walks on water, he heals the sick just by his touch…he even raises a dead man, Lazarus, back to life. If any man was doing all these things, do you think no contemporary book would mention it? No contemporary Jewish literature has any mention of Jesus or of his miracles.And do you think a man who can do such things will have only a small following of idiots? Someone is a fisherman, someone is a farmer, someone is a woodcutter, uneducated, uncultured…. These are his twelve apostles. Not a single rabbi, not a single scholar, not a single professor, not a single man of any integrity is his follower – and he is doing all these things…! If somebody was doing it here in Kathmandu, the whole of Kathmandu would be there – even the king would be there. It would become the event, the most important in the whole of history.No, all those miracles were invented by the disciples after Jesus’ death. The man who was doing all these good things was a Jew. Can you conceive that the Jews would ask for him to be crucified when they were given a chance that of the three men going to be crucified one could be pardoned, according to the convention? And even the Roman governor-general was thinking Jesus would be asked for, because he was a simple man, and only thirty-three. But the whole crowd shouted, “We want Barabbas” – and Barabbas was a born criminal. He had committed seven murders. He had committed every kind of crime, and the Jews asked that Barabbas should be released. Nobody asked for Jesus, not a single voice.It is absolutely unimaginable that a man who was doing all these good things to the people had not impressed them. Raising the dead to life did not leave any impact on the populace. He had healed thousands just by touch, the blind had got eyes, the lame had got legs…Even in the twentieth century this man would have been most spectacular and would have been thought to be the man of the century – not only of the year. But not a single person asked that he should be saved, and instead they asked for Barabbas.The whole thing is that Jesus was a nice man, but something was loose in his head, otherwise he would not have claimed to be the only son of God. Only mad people do that. A sane person will simply state what he is. Only insane people try anything…So unless a Christian puts his Christian conditioning aside I don’t think there can be a communication between me and him.Osho,Christianity in the United States today is moving towards more literal messianic thinking. Does this correlate with the Hindu expectation of the tenth incarnation of Vishnu? What is your place in this? Does your ministry in life have a messianic character?No. I just want to be myself, not a mission. I hate to use borrowed clothes – how much I must hate to have borrowed souls?What is happening in America is really not messianic Christianity. It is a fanatic movement headed by President Ronald Reagan who is a fundamentalist Christian. And the reason is, up to now communism had a message, communism had a philosophy, and capitalism had no message and no philosophy. On that point America was losing. Now the underground movement…I have been five years in America, and what I have seen is that America is becoming more and more fanatically Christian to encounter the fanatical communists. It is just a hypocrisy to call it a democracy. It is a Christian kingdom, and it is better to name things exactly what they are – it helps immensely.Now the fight is between communism and Christianity. That is a great turn, but it has nothing to do with the Hindu expectation of Vishnu’s incarnation.All these expectations have been carried by all the races. Jews are still waiting for the messiah to come. And strange, when he comes they crucify him. And anybody after him has not made any claim, knowing well that they will crucify him. The psychology behind it is very clear: the messiah has always to be coming, but not to come. It has to be a hope in the future; it keeps people hoping. And if the messiah comes, it destroys the hope, it destroys the future.Communism has a philosophy which is godless, soulless. It is absolute materialism. Now America is trying Christianity with God, with soul, with all kinds of spiritual garbage to encounter Russia. The whole of America is gripped by the Christian fanatic. I had to leave America because of this fanaticism. They could not tolerate me because I will say only what I can see, I can feel, I can experience. I accept Jesus as a nice man, but I cannot deny that he has a crazy mind. He was a crackpot.The American situation right now is absolutely irreligious. It is a very strange phenomenon: eat, drink and be merry. Rather than giving it a Christian color, it will be good to call it an epicurean country. On the other hand, in Russia, seventy years after the revolution, they have been repressing religion, all search for truth, all search for something higher than ordinary life.A great effort has emerged so that man cannot actualize his potential. But you cannot do it forever.You will be surprised…I have my sannyasins in Russia, and their number is increasing every day, although the Russian government is persecuting them. But they are immensely excited by the adventure that meditation can bring you more consciousness, that the soul is not nonexistential, it can be experienced. So seventy years of repression is going to explode any day, and Russia can become one of the greatest religious countries in the world.In America, just the opposite is happening: there is no religious repression, but people take Christianity just as a formality. Nobody reads, nobody goes to church except very old women who have nothing else to do. Churches are empty or are for sale. America is very materialistic. Philosophically it may pretend anything, but it lives with matter; its real life is materialistic. And as far as these messiahs of the Jews coming, and Jesus Christ who will come back again, and Krishna who says that he will come whenever you will be in misery…what more misery does he want?These are all hopes to keep people going. Nobody comes again, particularly people who have become enlightened. Even if they want to come again, they cannot. Buddha cannot come back again. So his statement that he or anybody else who is awakened will be coming back can only be taken symbolically. The quality of awakeness is the same. It does not matter what body the awakening happens in.Vishnu is a mythological figure. He is not a historical figure. But Hindus have been waiting that some day Vishnu will come and everything will be right. This is such a fraud. It is better to tell people, “Nobody is going to come to help you. If you want anything to happen, do it. Except you, the whole existence is silent.”But it hurts. The hope is very sweet. My whole effort is to bring you down to the reality. And the reality is that nobody is going to solve your problems, nobody is going to give you a utopia, nobody is going to change your misery and suffering and anguish. It is you – if you want and decide to, you can change it. Each individual has to take the responsibility on himself.Up to now, we have been shifting the responsibility onto messiahs, onto saviors, onto prophets. No longer.Osho,What is the main purpose of your life?There is no purpose. The whole idea of purpose is mundane and illogical. You will have to come to a point where you will have to say there is no purpose. Life is a perfect point. Life is an overflowing of bliss, truth, love, but not purposeful; it is not a commodity.If I speak to you, I enjoy it. If I help you, I am grateful to you that you accepted my help; you could have rejected it. As far as I am concerned, I am fulfilled, I am utterly contented.Purpose is when you are discontented, when you need something, when you want something, when you want to reach somewhere.I don’t want to reach somewhere.I am already there and so full of joy and so full of love and so full of song that I want to share it. This wanting is not a purpose, because I don’t want anything in return. It is simply like when a roseflower opens and releases its fragrance.I am reminded of Picasso….He was painting by the sea beach. A man watched him for a long time, and then he approached him and said, “Sir, I don’t want to disturb you. I just want to know one thing: what is the purpose of your painting?”Picasso said, “It is strange. You don’t ask the flowers, ‘What is your purpose?’ You don’t ask the sun, ‘Why do you rise every morning?’ You don’t ask the stars, ‘What is your purpose?’ You don’t ask the ocean, ‘What is your purpose?’ Then why do you torture a poor man like me? I am not doing any harm. I am simply playing with colors on this canvas. I don’t have any purpose. Just enjoying myself…this salty breeze, this beautiful morning…. I have so much sensitivity for beauty that I want to bring it out so that others can share it. There is no purpose.”All the religions have been teaching that life should have a purpose. They are reducing life as a means to some end – which is ugly. Life is an end unto itself. To be alive, to be fully alive is enough. There is no goal, there is no purpose. Just here and now, all is. Nothing is missing.I don’t have any purpose, because life has no purpose. Those who have purposes in life, are going against life. Life is a let-go. You are not swimming against the current, you are simply floating with the river wherever it leads. So wherever I reach, I am fulfilled. Or even if I am drowned, I am fulfilled. The purposeful mind is a very mundane mind.In my childhood I had a beautiful river by my village. And my tailor was in great difficulty, because I had to force him to make as many pockets on my dress as possible. He said, “But you go on telling everyone that I am your tailor, and if they see all these pockets they will think I have gone mad. So if you promise me that you will say that the tailor across the street is your tailor, I am ready. But don’t mention my name to anybody.” He said, “And for what do you need so many pockets?”I said, “You will not understand. You can ask my father.”The need was that around the river there were such beautiful colored stones, so shining in the sun, that I would collect them and fill all my pockets. I would come home, and my mother would be very angry: “You spoil your dress. You make a mockery of all of us having so many pockets. Nobody has ever heard…your dress is just pockets and pockets. And then you come with all kinds of useless stones. What is the purpose of these stones?”I said, “I have never thought about the purpose – I love them.” And that was enough.I love life, but there is no purpose.I love people, but there is no purpose.I do everything that my love wants me to do, but there is no purpose. It is sheer joy being shared. And the moment you start sharing, purpose disappears.Purpose is a business world.Sharing takes you to a different world. And my sannyasins particularly should remember that their life has to be a sharing, not a purpose.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,What is shaktipat, the transmission of spiritual energy?The most fundamental thing to understand is that materialism is dead, that matter no longer exists. All that exists is energy.The energy in a rock is the lowest form, the most dormant, the most closed, most asleep. Then there is the world of plants, trees. They have opened up a little. They are available to existence more than a rock. They communicate with the sun, with the moon, with the stars – and this communication is communication of energy. They take energy; they give energy. And this is the whole ecology of existence – a tremendous interdependence. In every possible way, there is a delicate transference of energy happening everywhere.Man breathes out, and he is breathing out a certain energy which we call carbon dioxide; it is not matter. He breathes in – again another form of energy, oxygen. The trees do just the opposite: they exhale oxygen; they inhale carbon dioxide. This is how the balance is maintained.In millions of ways energy is moving through different organisms. And higher than plants are the animals which have the capacity of movement. There is a link: there are plants which cannot move, and there are plants which can move a few feet; there are animals which can move miles, and there are birds which can move thousands of miles. This movement makes their energy dynamic.These are developments of energy. Above all are the human beings, who have energy which has life, movement. But few of them can attain to consciousness, which is the most developed form of energy. And the way of consciousness is exactly the way of a river. It goes downwards following the path of gravitation.The device you are asking about is an ancient device. I have used it, but not for six years because I have refined the device to better forms, to more invisible transformations. The device is absolutely dependent on the disciple, and in that discipleship you cannot use the word friend. The word friend can be used only with my refined techniques.The old device has to use the master and the disciple. The disciple had to surrender totally, had to become vulnerable, had to be open – risk all and have faith. If the master is an authentic master then his touch, particularly on the forehead between the two eyes where mythologically in the East we have visualized a third eye…If he puts his bodily contact on the third eye, and the disciple is absolutely available, surrendered, ready to receive, then the energy from the master’s being starts flowing. The master loses nothing because the more he gives, the more energy is poured by the cosmos itself into his being. He is rewarded immensely. But he cannot do anything if the disciple is just a little bit reluctant, a little bit closed, a little bit afraid, not surrendered totally. Then nothing will happen.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Why are you so widely misunderstood?It is the way of human progress. Whenever there is someone who says something against the tradition, against the establishment – political or religious – he is bound to be misunderstood. But that is not something new.You can look as far back as possible and you will always find a few people being misunderstood. But those are the few people who have brought you to civilization, to culture; you owe all your consciousness and growth to that small group of people.Socrates was misunderstood. We do not know the people who misunderstood him. We do not know the judges who pronounced his death sentence; they have all been forgotten. But Socrates’ name will remain till the last human being remains on the earth, for the simple reason he stood against the whole mob, the whole old traditional, superstitious mind, single-handed.It is easy to kill a man like Socrates but it is difficult to kill his spirit; it is absolutely impossible to destroy his argument.Socrates was poisoned, but his argument, his statement about truth, still remains and has been adopted. Slowly, slowly truth gets into the hearts of man. It takes time – traditions are very deep. They have long roots in the past; moreover, our vested interests are with the political power, with the religious institutions, and we are naturally afraid they can destroy us. It is better to be with them; it is dangerous to be with a man like Socrates or Gautam Buddha.I am widely misunderstood. I don’t think that it is in any way disrespectful to me. This is a compliment. The more widely I am misunderstood, the better. Certainly, Socrates was not so widely misunderstood – he was misunderstood only in Athens. Gautam Buddha was not so widely misunderstood – he was misunderstood only in Bihar.They were not so fortunate as I am. I am misunderstood all over the world! With me starts a new era of the misunderstanding becoming so wide. But with it there is a great hope too. If there are so many people who misunderstand me, there are millions of people who love me too.Those millions who love me, who understand me, may be silent – that’s why you hear only the voices which are against me. This has to be understood; it is part of human psychology.Love is always silent.The more you love, the more difficult it is to say anything. Maybe the positive people simply feel the sympathy but cannot find the words to express it. The negative people are very loud; they make much noise. That is the nature of negativity – that it is loud, noisy, and it creates a situation that one negative person feels as if there are thousands of negative people.Here you are listening to me – can I ask who misunderstands me? Just raise your hands so I can see the percentage….It is simply a confusion that there are more people who misunderstand me than people who love me and understand. It is just that lovers are always silent; they need not say anything. Slowly the noise of the negativity will die and slowly the truth is going to win.If what I am saying is true, then there is no need to be worried; it is going to win.If I am saying something which is untrue, then too there is no need to worry; it is going to fail by itself.In any case there is no need to be worried. I am perhaps the only person in the whole history of humanity who has been fighting with so many traditions – Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Jaina, communist, socialist, fascist…Nobody has been against all these. Naturally, I have created a tremendous amount of antagonism in those people whose power is at risk; they are afraid. They understand what I am saying; they do not misunderstand.The situation is quite different. When Jesus was crucified he said to God, “Father, forgive these people who are crucifying me because they know not what they are doing.”With me the situation is different. Naturally, in two thousand years man has become more intelligent. I cannot say, “Forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.” I will say, “Forgive them, but they know what they are doing. They absolutely understand; there is no question of misunderstanding.”One Christian bishop came to see me saying, “Why are you against Christianity?”I said, “There is no question of why. I am against everybody. You are not any exception; I am against all that is old and rotten. You are two thousand years old, it is time to give place to something new.”He brought a Bible as a present for me. I said, “If you give me a present, thankfully I receive it. But I would like to say to you that this is perhaps the only book which has more lies than any other book – not only lies, but five hundred pages are complete pornography. If I show you the pages you will not be able to read those pages in front of your daughter or your son. And still you go on calling it the holy Bible. I cannot call it the holy Bible – if this is holy, then there is nothing unholy in the world.”Naturally he was offended. He had no answer to it. He could not give me the answer. I said, “You can show me that there is no pornography. You know perfectly well that there is pornography, because each bishop, each priest avoids those pages when they go on reading sermons in their churches. They all know those pages – and they are not a small number, five hundred pages. So you cannot deny it. But I can see anger in your face. So now you will go and try to create some lie against me to create misconception in people’s minds. You will not say the truth, but how long can you hide it? I am going to publish the Unholy Bible – just five hundred pages of pornography, illustrated, so that the whole world can know that this book needs to be banned in every country, in every church, in every library, in every university, and that this is not the book to be considered even religious. But this is the book which is being freely distributed all over the world, and nobody raises a voice.”So whenever you say something it hurts people’s conceptions, it destroys their illusions, or hits at the very root of their vested interests, because if the Bible is not holy, then all the churches are meaningless. Then the pope does not represent God, then the whole edifice of Christianity falls down. Naturally, they are going to do everything to protect their interests.Just yesterday I received information from Italy – because I was going to go from Nepal directly to Rome. I have challenged the pope many times, but he is such a coward. I finally thought it is better to go to Rome and challenge him to a public debate so that he could prove that this book is holy. And if he could not prove it then we would make a bonfire of this Bible in Vatican City itself – “You should resign from your post and dissolve this whole nonsense of Christianity which is based on this book.”Just yesterday I got information that the pope had instructed all the newspapers, magazines, radios, that are under his power or under some other Christian influence, that nothing should be said about me if I come to Italy – neither positive nor negative – “because this man takes advantage of both.” Whether you are for or against does not matter.Now I can see this man understands; he does not misunderstand me. He has understood one thing: that even the negative publicity against me finally helps me, because finally the truth is with me.His instruction is neither negative nor positive: no publicity should be given. But he does not understand that the first thing I am going to do in Italy is to proclaim to the press: “Any press who does not write about me – positive or negative – is just a puppet in the hands of the pope. You have sold even your intelligence. Just for a few rupees you have become a slave. You cannot even report. And I am not saying report for me, I am saying report whatever you want to report – let it be against me, nothing harms me.”Even if somebody reads something against me, he starts thinking about me. He starts thinking, “Why are so many people writing against one man?” He goes to the library, he looks into the bookstore, he finds some book, he tries to understand….I have called myself the man who influences people and creates enemies – but those enemies are of great help.Existence has a certain balance. If I can create millions of enemies, then it is bound to be that millions of friends will be created. Existence can never go out of balance, it always keeps the balance. And there are things which have to be said. The time is ripe. We cannot go on hiding lies behind beautiful theories. They have to be exposed – that is the only way to create one humanity.If Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and all these religions can be exposed clearly to you – that perhaps Buddha was right, perhaps Patanjali was right…. But the people who have followed them have corrupted their whole tradition to the point that it has almost gone against them.Gautam Buddha said before he died, “Don’t make statues of me; don’t worship me. Just follow the path that I have shown to you.” But nobody follows the path. There are more statues of Buddha than of anybody else. This is a strange world – the man who said, “Don’t make my statues,” has more statues in the world than anybody else.In China, there is one temple which has ten thousand statues of Buddha. Just one temple…and there are thousands of temples all over Asia. Nobody is bothering to follow the path; everybody is worshipping, and worshipping a man who has prohibited it – that was his last message.If we can bring to the people’s intelligence the truth…all these traditions that have developed and have become parasites exploiting man in every possible way. They cannot be stopped. The only way to stop them is to take the very earth below their feet. This way truth will not suffer, and this way we may come closer. Hindu and Mohammedan, Christian and Buddhist may find that their basic truth is one, and they were unnecessarily quarreling because the priesthood wanted them to quarrel, to fight, to kill each other. It was in their favor to keep people apart and divided.Religion can become a tremendously beautiful phenomenon if priests disappear. In fact, the priest is such an ugly phenomenon. In one of the existentialist novels set in the twenty-first century, a super-rich man sends his servant to make love to his wife. A friend is present who is shocked by it. He says, “What are you doing?”He said, “I am so rich I can afford a servant to do such things.”When I read this I remembered the priests: that’s what they are doing; they are making prayers for you because you can afford it. What is prayer except love, love towards the ultimate – and you have accepted an agent between you and the ultimate reality. It seems cheaper. You can go on doing your work, and somebody else comes and worships on your behalf. And you have never thought what an ugly thing it is…?I used to stay in a very rich man’s house in Jaipur. He had a small temple in his house. I never saw him going into the temple. I asked him, “Why have you made this beautiful temple?”He said, “I have made it to worship God.”“But,” I said, “you never go there.”He said, “I don’t have to, I have a priest. I give him one hundred rupees per month just to worship for one hour. He is doing my job, I cannot waste one hour in worshipping; one hour is too much for me. In one hour I can make millions here and there.”And this man felt that he had fulfilled his religious needs. I told him, “You are even trying to deceive reality. It is better to destroy this temple. At least you will not be deceiving anybody. If you cannot worship, don’t worship, but at least don’t bring servants to do it.”He was shocked; he was a little angry at me. But next time when I went he was worshipping. He said, “I went through a great deal of anger against you, but finally I saw the truth. Forgive me that I was angry. I still give one hundred rupees to the priest because it was not his fault. He should not suffer for it, but I will worship one hour every day. And these few months I have worshipped have been of such great peace and silence to me as I have never felt.“It was good of you not to let things remain as they were. So many friends stay here, but nobody has ever said it. Everybody said, ‘This is a beautiful arrangement’ – they appreciated me. You were the only person who criticized me and criticized me badly.”It is true that people will feel for the first time when they encounter me that I am taking something valuable from them. But I am not taking anything valuable from you, I am taking only long-standing lies which you have believed in. And once those lies disappear, the truth is not far away.The truth is within you.Just drop all your lies and superstitions, and the truth will be a revelation – you have not to go anywhere to find it. Just stand in your sincerity and authenticity. Drop everything that you feel is not your own experience and you will be surprised what a treasure you have found within yourself, what a source of joy, what a freedom and what a great insight into the inner mysteries of life.I will go on hitting you as hard as I can till my last breath, because I love you and I want you to know the truth. Without knowing it life is just a wastage.Osho,In your various discourses you have said that the divine is in everybody. If this is true, that we are divine in ourselves, then why should we need you?It is a beautiful question, beautiful because it has the answer in itself. You have heard me say that the divine is in everyone, but you have only heard half the statement. I have been telling you again and again that whatever is in me is also present in you. There is just a little difference you have not heard: I am awake and you are asleep.There is not much difference.And your question itself gives proof to what I have been saying. You say, “If this is true…” Underline “if.”It is not true for you, you have not experienced it – you have heard me making a statement. Unless it becomes a truth of your own experience, you will need me. I would like to get rid of you as soon as possible, but if you go on clinging to “ifs” and “buts” then it will be very difficult.When I say anything, it is my experience, I am not quoting anybody else. If this becomes your experience, you will not need me. But it is not your experience, you have just heard me. You don’t feel that way, you are still the same old man. My statement cannot change you. You will have to do something for your transformation. Yes, the day you are transformed you will see with your own eyes your very being; you will know the truth of my statement that the divine is spread all over reality.In fact, except the divine there is nothing else, but it has to be absolutely your experience. When I repeat it again and again, that simply means I am giving you the challenge to move, to do something to find out your real self.I am reminded of a small story in Gautam Buddha’s life….One of Gautam Buddha’s very close disciples, Sariputta, became enlightened, but he did not tell Gautam Buddha about it, as if you can hide it – and least from the master! An enlightened man has a different aura, a different fragrance. It cannot be hidden, particularly from another enlightened man, and least of all your own master.But why was he hiding?On the third day, Buddha said, “It is too much; I have been waiting for three days. Why are you not saying it to me?”Sariputta had tears in his eyes. He said, “I am not saying it because the moment I say it you will send me away. You will say, ‘Now you don’t need me, you have attained. Now go and spread the message to those who are still asleep’ – and I don’t want to go anywhere.”Buddha said, “But you don’t need me.”He said, “That is true – I don’t need you, but you are the man who has brought me to this state: that I don’t need you. My gratefulness is such that I would like to live and die sitting at your feet.”Yes, there is a relationship of need, but there is a greater relationship of gratitude.So I can say to you that you can manage to drop the need, but you cannot manage to escape from it. The moment the need disappears, a tremendously powerful energy grips you, and that is of gratitude.The master takes nothing from you and gives you everything. If he takes anything from you it is only the lies, falsities, with which you are surrounded. If he gives anything to you, it is what you have already but you are not aware of it. He gives you that which you had always, and he takes away that which you never had in reality – it was only an illusion.Every master wants the disciple to get free from the need, because the relationship of need is not a very beautiful one. And particularly me – my insistence is that I want my disciples to become my friends. If you have a need you cannot become my friend, your need will become a prevention. I would like you to drop the need. And the moment you drop the need, you are as divine as anyone. And to be a friend of the master is the greatest glory possible.In the past, no master has dared to say to his disciples, “you are my friends,” because human consciousness was not so developed. But we have come a long way. Now there are people in the world with immensely developed consciousness. Just one step more and they can shake hands with Gautam Buddha.To be a friend is immensely beautiful, because friendship is nothing but pure love. When you need, then it is a very low kind of relationship. When you don’t need and still you love, there is no condition. When you are not hankering to get something, there is still love, gratitude, friendship. Then one comes to experience something of the ultimate – there is nothing beyond it.Osho,What are the difficulties on the path of meditation and how can we overcome them?There are only two difficulties on the path of meditation: one is the ego. You are continuously prepared by the society, by the family, by the school, by the church, by everybody around you, to be egoistic.Even modern psychology is based on strengthening the ego. The whole idea of modern psychology, modern education, is that unless a person has a very strong ego he will not be able to struggle in life, where there is so much competition that if you are a humble man anybody will be able to push you aside. You will always remain backward. You need a very strong steel ego to fight in this competitive world. Then only can you become a success in any field. It may be business, it may be politics, it may be any profession – you need a very assertive personality. Our whole society is geared to produce an assertive personality in the child.From the very beginning we start telling him, “Come first in your class.” And when the child comes first in the class, everybody praises him. What are you doing? You are feeding his ego from the very beginning. You are giving him a certain ambition: “You can become the president of the country; you can become the prime minister of the country…” And he starts the journey with these ideas. His ego goes on becoming bigger and bigger as he succeeds.In every way the ego is the greatest disease that can happen to man. If you succeed, your ego becomes big – that is a danger, because then you will have to remove a big rock which is blocking the path. Or if the ego is small – you have not been successful, you have proved to be a failure – then your ego will become a wound. Then it hurts, then it creates an inferiority complex. Then too it creates a problem: you are always afraid to enter into anything, even in meditation, because you know you are a failure, you are going to fail. That has become your mind because everywhere you have failed. And meditation is such a great thing, you cannot succeed.If you enter into meditation with this idea that failure is bound to happen and that is your destiny, that is your fate, then of course you cannot succeed. So if the ego is big it prevents; if the ego is very small it becomes a wound, then too it prevents. In each case the ego is one of the problems.The second problem…and after stating both the problems I will tell you how to get rid of them. It is not difficult, but first you have to understand the problem in all its complexity….The second hindrance on the path of meditation is your constantly chattering mind. You cannot sit even for a single minute. The mind goes on chattering: relevant, irrelevant, meaningful, meaningless…thoughts go on. It is a constant traffic and it is always rush hour. Whenever you close your eyes there are so many thoughts running in all directions, that if you sit down for ten minutes and write down whatever is going on in your mind – without any editing, because you are not going to show this to anybody, so don’t be worried…! Close the door, lock it from inside so that nobody comes in, and just write exactly what goes on in the mind for ten minutes. And after ten minutes read it.And you will be surprised: “Is it my mind or has somebody gone mad?” Just because you have never looked at it, you have never thought about what is going on.And if you try, as many people try, because studying books on meditation they think that if you can stop the thoughts by chanting a mantra or the name of God then perhaps the mind can be vacated from thoughts…The books are mostly written by people who have never meditated. I know many people who have written books on meditation. They came to me to ask how to meditate, and I said, “But in my library I have your book.”They said, “Yes, we studied a few books on meditation and wrote the book just to help others.”I said, “But first you should have tried what you have written. If you cannot help yourself, on what grounds do you think you can help others? You may have destroyed many people’s peace of mind.”And there are so-called teachers of meditation who will also give you a mantra, that chanted, chanted fast, or any name…Close your eyes, do a certain ritual, take a bath, sit in a lotus posture, start the meditation, and go on as fast as you can – faster and faster, repeating the same name, “Krishna, Krishna, Krishna…” Do it as quickly as possible. After five to seven minutes, you will be in a state of what is scientifically known as autohypnosis. It is not meditation, but it does no harm. After ten to twelve minutes, when you come out of it you will feel a certain peace, a certain well-being; you will feel good, but this is not meditation.I am not against it if you are trying to do it only to feel good. You can do it, but don’t think that by doing it you are going to realize your godliness. That is not possible because this is simply a deliberately created sound sleep. When you repeat a certain word continuously, fast, the mind has no way to go on chattering. You don’t give it any gap to put its thoughts into. Your chanting is so fast that the mind has to remain almost in a situation of a crossroads where the policeman has stopped the whole traffic. Your continuous chanting creates the situation of a policeman stopping the whole traffic, but the traffic is still there, it has not gone; in fact, more traffic has gathered on all the roads. And the moment you come out of meditation your mind will have such a rush as it has never had – naturally, because all the traffic that you have stopped will have to pass. This is not meditation.One more thing before I tell you what exactly is the problem with the mind. A few teachers of meditation – and particularly in this part of the world, in the East – are saying, “Keep your mind fixed on something. Start from something outer – a black dot on the wall – and then slowly, slowly close your eyes, and with closed eyes look at the black dot.”And if you have been staring at the black dot for a few minutes, naturally with closed eyes you will see the black dot. Just the impression takes time to disappear. It is the negative of the positive black dot; it is part of the science of photography. It is the negative that you have created inside.Now look at this negative black dot and if you can continue looking at it, the same thing will happen after five to seven minutes – autohypnosis. You will feel good, and that is the danger. Because you feel good, afterwards you feel a certain well-being, you think you are on the right path – not necessarily.And these things are also not easy – chanting continuously for five to seven minutes is not easy. A few thoughts will enter in and disturb it.Keeping your mind fixed on one dot is also not easy. Thoughts may come, move across and disturb you. And if you ask your teachers they will say, “This is your past karma; you will have to wait.” There is no question of past karma, your method is simply wrong.If you are learning to ride a bicycle and you go on falling again and again, and you ask somebody and he says, “It is because of your past karma…” It is simply that you don’t know how to ride the bicycle. It has nothing to do with past karma or past life. You simply need the right technique.I have heard of a story….A man was very much interested to attain miraculous powers. Wherever he went they said, “First you have to learn meditation. Without meditation you cannot have miraculous powers.”Finally, he found a very wise old man about whom he had heard, “He is the greatest meditator alive, but you will have to serve him and not to be in a hurry. You just serve him; whenever the time is right he will give you the meditation and his blessing. You should not ask for it.”The poor man served the man for one year and he was getting tired: “This is too much. The second year has begun and the old man still says, ‘No sign.’” He was getting fed up and thinking of running from that temple. The day he was thinking to run, the old man said, “Listen. I was waiting for the right time, but you cannot wait. The time is not right, but because of your hurry I will give you the method. It is very simple and very suited to you.”The man said, “My Lord, my God!” He touched his feet. He said, “I was waiting for this day. I am a fool for having such bad thoughts about you. Just forgive me.”He said, “Don’t be worried about it. This is the method; you go home” – he had written on a small piece of paper just a small mantra and he gave him that. “This is the mantra. You have to chant it for ten minutes. Just remember one thing: while chanting, don’t let any monkey come into your mind.”The man said, “You must be mad! Monkeys have never come into my mind. In my whole life not a single monkey has come into my mind – why should a monkey come into my mind?”The old man said, “I don’t know, but this is the condition that goes with this mantra.”The man said, “There is no problem.” But he was worried. As he was coming down the steps of the temple, he already started seeing monkeys. He would close his eyes – and there were the monkeys. He said, “My God! I have not even started!”He went home. He took a good bath and sat in padmasana. But as he closed his eyes, and before he could start the mantra, the monkeys started coming – not one! In a line…giggling…!The man said, “What happened?” He tried hard, but by the morning he was utterly tired. He went to the master. He said, “Take your mantra back. If this is the condition then I cannot fulfill it ever because of those monkeys. There is not one – you had said one – I don’t know how many there are. I have been counting – they go on coming! And I am going mad! I simply don’t want any miraculous power, and I don’t want any meditation. I simply want to go home. Just help me to get rid of the monkeys. I am giving your mantra back – but who knows about the monkeys?”If you try forcibly to keep something out of your mind, it is bound to come. This is a universal law.Seeing the false methods, understanding that the mind is a constant process of thought, I want to explain to you something very simple, without any conditions. All that you have to do…no special posture is needed; whether you have taken a bath or not does not matter. It does not mean that at a certain time, at a certain place you should do it. No, you can do it anywhere, any time. I want it to be so easily possible for you that it mixes with your ordinary life and you don’t have to take some time out of your life specially given to meditation.The process is witnessing.The thoughts are moving in the mind – you have nothing to do with those thoughts. You are not to prevent them, you are not to chant a mantra, you have just to be a watcher. You have just to see that thoughts are passing, and you are standing by the side of the road looking at the traffic, unconcerned. Whether a bullock cart passes or an elephant passes or a camel passes…it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to make any judgment. You are just sitting by the side watching the whole scene.It takes a few days, because of your old habit to make judgments. Something comes, you say, “This is very good” – and you have lost your capacity of being a watcher, you have already given judgment.Something comes and you say, “This should not come, this is evil” – you have already fallen back.Good or evil, beautiful or ugly, you are separate. You are the witness, you are just a mirror. Anything that passes by does not affect the mirror at all. Something good – the mirror reflects. Something bad – the mirror reflects. When they have gone, the mirror is as empty as ever.Your consciousness is a mirror, and your consciousness is neither good nor bad. Your consciousness may have lived thousands of years, but not even a scratch is possible on your consciousness. It only reflects; its function is reflection. That’s why I say the divine between you and me is the same – there is no difference at all. I just have recognized that the witnessing is a pure mirror, eternally pure – and you get identified, you forget.It happened in Calcutta in the last century….There was one very renowned scholar, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. He was world famous for his scholarship. There was going to be a play and they had asked Ishwar Chandra to come and inaugurate it. He came; he inaugurated it. He was sitting in front. He was the chief guest of the evening, and because he was invited, many scholars, many eminent people were present there, and the drama was enacted with tremendous beauty, with great articulateness.In the middle of the drama there comes a scene where a man who has been after a beautiful woman, continuously harassing her – and she was not interested in him at all…but he finds her alone in the jungle. She had lost her way, and the man feels this is a moment not to be missed.He wants to rape the woman, and just as he starts pulling her clothes off – there is pin-drop silence – suddenly Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar jumps onto the stage, takes one of his shoes in his hands and starts beating the man.The man must have been of great intelligence. He took away the shoe and he said to Ishwar Chandra, “This is the greatest reward I have got in my whole life. My whole life I have been an actor – thousands of rewards I have got, but this is the most precious. That even a man like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar forgot that it is a drama and he is only a spectator, he is not supposed to come into it…!” And he said, “I will be tremendously grateful if you give me the other shoe also, because what will you do with one? For me it will be a souvenir. I am going to keep it.”I have seen those shoes. I have been to that man’s house. He is dead. His grandson took me to see the shoes.This is our situation. Your mind is just a screen, a movie screen, a TV screen or a drama stage, and you are far away just looking at it. You are not supposed to act. You are not supposed to do anything.Once you get the knack of witnessing without judgment you will be surprised: the moment you are utterly a witness all the thoughts disappear. There is simply a plain white screen and no thoughts.This is the first experience, that you have come to the door of meditation. Just go on looking at the white screen. Don’t do anything. Consciousness has a nature – if it cannot find any object which prevents it, then it goes round and comes back to you.In existence everything moves in a circle. Remember that: nothing moves in a straight line. If there is no obstacle, the consciousness comes back to its own source. And the consciousness coming back to one’s own source, for the first time sees who is there, who has always been there. That is your real being.You can call it godliness, you can call it divineness, you can call it truth. Any name will do because it has no name; it is a nameless reality. But once it is realized then there is nothing else left. You have attained to the ultimate flowering of your being. This is enlightenment.So put your ego aside – whether it is big or small, don’t be worried – and just be a witness to your mind. Wait and be patient. Don’t be in a hurry. It may take a few days for you to get the knack. It is a knack! It is not an art!If it was an art, it would have been very simple to teach, but because it is a knack you have to try. Slowly you get it.How do you learn to swim? It is not an art. If it was an art you could have learned it in your bedroom. Just on your bed you could have done all the exercises that are prescribed in the book. But it is not an art; you have to go to water. And you will have to face death a few times, but that is part of the progress. Each time you face death, each time you learn something – the knack slowly comes to you. Within two or three days you will be able to swim.One Japanese professor of psychology is trying to teach six-month-old children to swim, and he has succeeded. Then he tried with three-month-old children, and he has succeeded. Now he is trying with the newly born, and I hope that he succeeds. There is every possibility because it is a knack. It does not need any other kind of experience, age, education…it is simply a knack.And if a six-month-old or a three-month-old baby can swim, that means we are naturally endowed with the idea of how to swim. We just have to discover it. Just a little bit of effort and you will be able to discover it.The same is true about meditation…more true, than swimming. You just have to make a little effort. And if you don’t succeed, don’t be worried. You are losing nothing – just a little rest.And whenever you are going to sleep you can try – just lying in bed, or in the morning when you are awake, wait for a minute. Give it a try and then wake up.While taking a shower you can try it, because it is a question of witnessing.You can witness anything, and anywhere.There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation, exhaustive. No more methods can be added to them. And these one hundred and twelve methods are written by Shiva himself perhaps ten thousand years ago. The name of the book is Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. It simply describes one hundred and twelve methods, each method in two lines.I have tried all the methods, and the most surprising experience was that the basic thing in each of the methods is witnessing. Their strategies differ, but their soul is just witnessing.So I have reduced the one hundred and twelve methods of Shiva into a single method. I am giving you the essential method which no meditation can afford to drop – it is the most essential. You can add any other structure to it, but I have dropped the whole structure. I am giving you the very soul of meditation. You just try, give it a chance. And if I can succeed, I don’t see why you cannot succeed.Millions have succeeded in the past. We have just forgotten completely the greatest science of discovering ourselves. It has to be rediscovered and it has to be again spread all over the earth if we want the world to be saved, if we want the world not to be destroyed.One of my professors, Doctor S.K. Saxena, loved me very much. Most days I used to stay with him instead of in the hostel, because he would not allow me to go to the hostel.I asked him, “Why do you insist…? Because I am of no use to you – I simply sit in the garden and meditate.”He said, “That is the reason I want you to be here. I am getting old, I have never meditated. Most of my life I have been a professor in America. I have never given any thought to meditation.”Despite this, he had written for his doctoral thesis a book, History Of The Evolution Of Consciousness. He said to me, “When you are here I feel something settling in me. When you sleep in my house” – he lived alone – “I have a better sleep. I don’t know why, but just your presence somehow helps me to be more together.”I said, “I can tell you why. But rather than depending on me, why don’t you start meditating?”And by chance, today it happens that his son is present in the audience. S.K. Saxena is dead.I received a message that he wanted to see me before he died. He wanted that I should be present by his side when he died. But I received the message after he had died, months after. Perhaps he wanted to die in the same peaceful silent atmosphere that he had found around me.I feel sad for him, sorry for him, that what he could have attained himself he unnecessarily depended on somebody else for.Meditation is something that is your birthright. Claim it! Make it a decision, a commitment that whatever happens, you will not die before you have attained to a meditative state.It is only a question of a firm determination. And if you can attain to meditation, your life will become real life, and your death will become a door to the divine.It will no longer be a death, it will no longer be an end. It will just be freedom from the body and entering into the universal, unlimited, infinite.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Can a man start a journey in two boats – rejoicing the world, and cheering God?Man has been doing that since the very beginning, and he is still doing it. He is riding in two boats, and the result is the misery, the suffering, the anguish all over the world. You cannot ride in two boats.Firstly, being in two boats you become split, you become two – you are divided. A house divided against itself cannot stand long, and a man divided against himself is simply sick.The psychoanalysts call that sickness schizophrenia: he is not one. He has two voices – always in conflict with himself. He wants to do one thing, but half of his being pulls him back: “Don’t do it.” If he wants to do something else, the other half pulls him back and says, “Don’t do that.” Caught between the conflict of his own inner rift, all man’s energy is wasted. He finds himself in a constant nightmare.You are all doing it, because all your religions have been teaching you to do it – not clearly, not openly, but in a very subtle way.Religions say that your body and your soul are separate, not only separate but antagonistic to each other; that the body is the enemy of the soul; that if you want to attain something of spirituality you will have to control your body, you will have to stop listening to its desires, you will have to curtail everything in which the body rejoices. In other words, you have to torture the body – torturing the body will be the way towards spirituality.All the religions have been saying to the world that there are two worlds – this world, and that world beyond death which nobody has ever seen, which nobody has ever proved, for which no evidence, no argument exists. But all the religions have been telling you: sacrifice the world that you know for a world which no one knows whether it exists or not.They are dividing you again between life and divine life. The divine life is always beyond death. And we have accepted these divisions. Of course, nobody can manage to be completely split, otherwise he will become two persons. The spirit remains always half-hearted; there is always a compromise.You think, “Just today I can enjoy this, but I promise to God that from tomorrow I am going to start…” That tomorrow is never going to come. Tomorrows have a habit of not coming. That gives you a good space – it never comes, you need not fulfill the promise.I have heard…When Edmund Hillary reached to the highest peak of the Himalayas, Gourishankar, he was simply amazed, he could not believe it. He had made so many arrangements and he had put his and his friend’s life at risk. He was going to be the first man to reach Gourishankar, but what he saw there shocked him. A Hindu monk was just squatting on top of Gourishankar. Edmund Hillary could not believe how he managed to reach there. But perhaps some spiritual power…That could be the only explanation.He fell at his feet to pay his respects. The old man opened his eyes and what he said was even more shocking. He looked at the beautiful wristwatch that Edmund Hillary had and asked, “How much for this watch?”Man cannot cut himself in two absolutely.I was in the hills of Parasnath and I came to know a strange thing. Two Jaina monks lived there naked. Naturally, they could not manage to have money with them – where would they keep it? How would they avoid people knowing about it? But man is really inventive; his ingenuity is superb. They would never have been caught, because the naked Jaina monk only carries a small bamboo with a piece of wool attached so that when he sits anywhere he can clean the place with the wool so that no ants or small insects are killed, the wool is so soft.Those two monks were traveling together for years. In the morning, when they went outside to their toilet, there was a fight – they hit each other with those bamboos. Somebody brought them to the police station. When I heard the news, I immediately went to the police station to inquire what could be the cause between two naked people! People fight for greed, people fight for a thousand and one things, but these people had nothing to fight about.In the police station I came to know that inside the bamboos they had hidden one hundred rupee notes – the bamboos are hollow – and one was the master and the other was the disciple.The fight was because the disciple had more rupees than the master, and this was intolerable. The master was saying, “You simply give half of your money to me, otherwise leave me.”Two persons who had left their families, who had left their houses, all the comforts of life, who were living naked in hot and cold…were still fighting for money…!That’s why I say it is impossible to cut yourself absolutely in two separate parts. You will have to make some compromise. All over the world all the religious people have made compromises. That is one of the reasons you see so many religions, but you don’t see so many religious people. You see so many monks, missionaries, sadhus, saints, but if you look deep into their lives you will be surprised – it is hypocrisy. Deep inside there is continuously a compromise. I cannot condemn – let me repeat, I cannot condemn them. I condemn those religious doctrines which have been forcing them to do something unnatural, something impossible.Riding in two boats, or riding on two horses, you are going to get into trouble. Everything is condemned.In Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram you could not use a mosquito net. His son, Ramdas, was very friendly with me. He had invited me to the ashram, but I said to him, “I cannot stay here with all these mosquitoes. Any intelligent person can understand that a mosquito net is not a luxury, it is not something unspiritual.”And what had Mahatma Gandhi substituted? He had substituted kerosene oil. You put kerosene oil on your face, on your hands, on whatever parts are exposed, put kerosene oil.Naturally, the mosquitoes are more intelligent than you – they don’t come near you, because it stinks! But how can you sleep? You have to choose between mosquitoes or kerosene oil.I said, “I am not going to choose, I am simply leaving. This seems to be some insane asylum – it is not an ashram.”Gandhi had adopted five basic principles of life from Jainism. The first is: aswad, no-taste – you have to eat, but if you taste, you are a materialist.I am just trying to show you how they are making it difficult and impossible and unnatural. If you eat, you are bound to taste because you have taste buds in your tongue. Those taste buds don’t know anything about your spirituality and the other world, they will simply function.Now what are you going to do? You have to pretend that you eat but you don’t taste. And you know all the time that you taste. You are becoming a hypocrite to yourself. You are falling in your own eyes. You are deceiving no one but yourself.One of the American writers, Louis Fischer, came to Gandhi’s ashram. He was writing a biography of Mahatma Gandhi. He was a special guest in the ashram, so Gandhi took him to lunch. He had seated him at his side, and he told the cooks, “Remember our special chutney.”What was their special chutney? It was made from the leaves of the neem tree so as to destroy taste.“So give generously to our friend.”A big bowl full of chutney made from neem leaves, which are the bitterest, was placed on Louis Fisher’s plate.If Gandhi is praising this chutney so much – that it is very healthy, keeps your blood pure, is the only thing in the whole vegetable world which has no bad effects…“Just one thing is a little difficult, but by practice – you will be here for fifteen days – you will get accustomed. It tastes a little bitter.”So much praise from such a great man! – Louis Fischer tasted the neem chutney first and he said, “My God, this is pure poison! I have never tasted anything like this!”But to say that to Gandhi was not possible because all the inmates of the ashram were eating the chutney. Gandhi was eating it, and enjoying, and smiling. When thirty other people were eating the same thing and smiling you don’t have the nerve to say that this is poison.Perhaps you are wrong. Thirty people cannot be wrong. And the great Mahatma Gandhi is not capable of being wrong. But to eat this chutney with food, continuously mixing it with food, will destroy the whole food. So he thought of a more scientific way – being a Western man. He simply drank the whole of the chutney in one gulp, to be finished with it and to then eat comfortably whatever was available. But Gandhi was not an easy man. He told the cook, “Look, Louis Fischer liked the chutney so much…fill his cup again!”Even if you mix your food with neem leaves you cannot say you are not tasting. That bitterness is also taste, just as sweetness is taste. There is no difference. As far as the word taste is concerned, your buds are functioning.Gandhi is simply befooling himself. Sweetness is taste, saltiness is taste, bitterness is taste. But the first principle is “no-taste,” and all those people are pretending that they are not tasting anything.Now you are creating a division in man, you are giving him a false mask which smiles when his whole body wants to vomit. This is how you can ride in two boats. Your whole body wants to vomit – that is one boat. And you smile – that is another boat.And if your whole life becomes like this, you will be the most miserable person in the world.And the same division is created for this world and the other world. You are taught that this world has to be sacrificed, this world has to be destroyed completely as far as your interest, your attachment is concerned if you want to gain the other world.But just go a little deeper into the logic. Why should you want the other world in the first place? It is greed.They say that here in this world to drink alcohol is a sin, but in the other world water is not available. There are rivers of wine, rivers of champagne, rivers of all kinds of alcoholic beverages – you choose; you can drink, you can swim, you can do anything you want.But it is a very strange logic. Here just a little drinking is a great sin, and there it is a reward. Reward for what? A reward because you did not drink when you were in this world? But this is a strange reward.Renounce your wife, renounce women, renounce sex, and in the other world you are to be greeted with beautiful upcharas who are always young, who are all beautiful.You can enjoy all those women for eternity, just because you renounce a poor wife who will be starving because she was not educated by your society, she was not given financial freedom by your society. And before renouncing her, you have given her at least one dozen children to take care of. So she will be begging, or she may have to become a prostitute just to raise the children that you have left as a legacy.And you are being rewarded in the other world…? You should be punished! You should be thrown into hell if there is any. You have committed a crime against humanity, but these crimes are being rewarded.This division is very dangerous, and even if you have renounced the wife and escaped deep into the Himalayas – it is not so easy to renounce women, because the woman is within you, in your mind.The woman outside was not so important. The real desire for women is hidden within you – it is a center in your mind. What will you do sitting in the Himalayan cave? Do you think you will encounter God…you will have enlightenment?Most likely you will dream of women, good food, comfortable clothes…small things which you had never thought of before.I have heard…One American billionaire became fed up because he had everything that money could buy, and naturally, he wanted some more excitement. He had achieved everything and there was nothing else in this world, so he started thinking of the other world.The other world is created by these fed up people whose ambition has come to an end. They have everything – now what to do? They are bored. They need some new desire, some new journey, some new adventure, but this world is finished for them. Your priest opened the door of a dreamland – the other world.So the American billionaire came to the East in search of the right way to the other world. It was a long journey, and finally he came to the Himalayas. People said, “You will not return empty-handed. Here lives a great ancient seer, far away in the mountains. Very rarely have people been able to find him. If you are fortunate enough to find him just touch his feet, ask for his blessing…his blessing is enough.”The man was so desperately in search, he found the old man, and he clung to his feet.The old man said, “Not so hard, because I am too old. And first things first, have you got an American cigarette on you? I have been thinking about it for almost thirty years, since I left the marketplace.”The American immediately pulled out a packet and gave it to the saint.The saint said, “Now, my son, you can go back with all my blessings. And whenever this urge for the other world comes to you, come again, but bring as many cigarettes as possible.”The billionaire was very much shocked: “This is not spirituality! The man is asking for cigarettes…”He had come for the other world. He was a spiritual seeker, and this man was simply an addict, a smoker – mad!But just think: leaving this world, what are you going to think about, what are you going to contemplate?My approach is absolutely different. I don’t want you to ride in two boats because I am not your enemy. I would like you to be in one boat. One thing I can allow: you can paint one world on one side and on the other side the other world. Have both worlds together, but on one boat.There is nothing wrong in enjoying this world and its joys. I don’t see there is anything wrong in enjoying food or clothes, or having a cozy house, or having a beautiful wife or husband. I don’t see anything unspiritual in it. All depends on you.You can make it unspiritual, you can make it spiritual. When shivering cold, sitting in meditation, you cannot meditate – your teeth are chattering, your body is shivering and you are trying to be calm and quiet and collected.Use the right clothes. They will help you in your meditation, and suddenly, they become your friends. They are not unspiritual. Good and right food will help you.It has been found that no vegetarian has received a single Noble Prize up to now. Three Indians have received Noble Prizes, but all the three were non-vegetarians. Medical research shows that vegetarian food is not complete food. Some essential proteins are missing in it, and those are the proteins which help your intelligence. Your intelligence needs them absolutely, otherwise you will remain mediocre – you cannot become a genius.I have told my sannyasins that I am a vegetarian and I would like the whole world to be vegetarian. But I would not like the whole world to become retarded, so I have made the vegetarian food complete. I have added the unfertilized egg to it. The unfertilized egg has no life, hence it is just vegetarian. Even a vegetable has some life, but the unfertilized egg is simply protein. Adding the unfertilized egg to vegetarian food, vegetarian food far exceeds the non-vegetarian food. Non-vegetarian food makes you insensitive.If just for a momentary taste you can kill living beings, you are not yet human. Then what is wrong in killing human beings? Their meat is more tasteful….There is a tribe in existence in South Africa which is still continuing to eat human flesh. It rarely happens that somebody passes that way. If somebody is caught accidentally, only then do they get food; otherwise they have to eat their own children, their own old people. In the beginning of this century there were almost thirty thousand in that tribe, and today there are only three hundred. They have eaten themselves. Once in a while a Christian missionary goes there just to convert these cannibals.I have heard about the first Christian missionary who reached them – I don’t know whether anyone tried again….As usual, he was a fat man. They caught him, they tied him to a tree and they were preparing the fire. The missionary was making every effort to persuade them that he had come to teach them the real religion: “Have you ever tasted Christianity?”The chief of the tribe said, “Not yet. Just wait! When your soup is made, we will have our first taste of Christianity.”These cannibals are known to unanimously say that the best, most tasteful thing in the world is a small baby’s meat. Just for the sake of taste should we start killing babies? And if you stop killing babies because they are human, then you have to understand that animals are even more helpless. And they have done no harm to you; they have served you in every possible way.The question to me is not of religion. The question is of your aesthetic sense, of your sensibility.I was a guest in Maharaj Bownara’s palace and he went to show me what a great hunter his father was. On all the walls were the heads of lions and other animals.I told him, “Please remove these and don’t mention to anybody that your father did all this, because that means your father was absolutely insane.”These poor animals are not “game,” as the hunters call them. It is strange that when a hunter kills a tiger it is “game,” and when a tiger kills the hunter, then it is “tragedy.” I don’t understand how the language changes – why is it not a game too?Killing animals, destroying life just for food, while science is absolutely in a position to provide you with vegetarian food, with all the necessary ingredients for your health, for your mind, is simply stupid.And I am not saying that it is religiously wrong, I am simply saying it is through insensitivity. It proves you don’t have a heart; it proves you don’t have any feeling. It proves that you are not alert to what you are doing. And when it can be done without being so stupid, there is no need to do it.Right food which will be helpful to your meditations can be determined medically. There are foods which stimulate sexuality, and there are foods which create a calmness in you. No-taste is not a right principle. Have as much taste as you want. And to give taste, flavor, to any food of your choice is a simple affair.The food can be arranged, the clothing can be arranged, the housing can be arranged so that you can enjoy this world with totality and with no guilt, and yet become more and more conscious, more and more spiritual. I will not say for the other world. My experience is that the other world is hidden in this world. This world is the circumference; the other world is the center. And if you renounce this world you will never find the other world. How can you get to the center when you have renounced the circumference? You have closed the doors yourself.Enjoy deeply this world, so deeply that you start coming closer to the center. That world is contained in this world. There are not two worlds; there is only one world. There is only one existence, and all divisions are dangerous. Avoid them.If you can understand that there is only one world, then it will create oneness in you. Then your body is just the visible part of your soul, and your soul is just the invisible part of your body. Then you can bring both into a communion. And that communion to me is the most important thing for a person to be religious – that all his faculties are functioning like an orchestra, together, complementary to each other.Right now, renunciation is a very stupid thing that has been torturing humanity for centuries.I used to know a Jaina monk, Muni Kanak Vijay. He loved me because I never condemned anything. He came to visit me; he stayed with me….On the first day, he went to the bathroom and came out. After fifteen minutes I went in. I was surprised that there was a smell of cigarette smoke.I was living with two friends – neither was a smoker. And then I found a piece of the cigarette on the floor. It was simple logic that Muni Kanak Vijay had been in the bathroom before me – he must have been smoking. But a Jaina muni, a Jaina monk smoking is never heard of.I came out, I went to him, and I told him, “Be sincere. I have nothing against smoking. It may kill you two years earlier – it does not matter. What are you going to do living two years more? It may give you tuberculosis – that too does not matter. Millions of people get tuberculosis without smoking, so why not smoke? I have nothing against it, and I don’t think that it is some unspiritual activity. It is some stupid activity. When you can breathe in fresh air, instead you are breathing in carbon monoxide. You are falling from the state of man. I have no objection – it is your life. But I want you to know the truth. And you know that I never condemn. If you want to smoke you need not hide, you can go to the farthest corner of the garden and smoke there, but not in the house.”He said, “I am sorry. I have been smoking. It is not right. It is against my whole spiritual training, and I am respected as a monk. It is not dignified for me to be caught smoking.”And his age was nearabout seventy.I said, “To me there is no problem. This is what happens when you drop out of the world and renounce the world without having any maturity.”From the mature being, all that is wrong drops by itself; he does not drop it.We have been told to renounce the world. I say unto you that if you are ripe, centered, whatever is wrong will renounce you, it cannot come close to you.Allowing the man to smoke, he became courageous to tell me other things. He said, “This is my only wish and the only desire, and the only person who can help is you. I cannot say it to anyone else.”I said, “You say it. If I can manage I will do it.”He said, “I feel very embarrassed, but I have never seen a film because my father became a sannyasin when I was only thirteen. My mother died; my father became a Jaina sannyasin. For me there was no other way than to become a Jaina sannyasin with my father, otherwise I was just an orphan, a beggar on the street. So my mind has not developed from thirteen years of age – I am still there. Seventy years have passed; I know that I have childish desires but what can I do? Whenever I see queues in front of every cinema, I think there must be something great going on. I have been in the world and I will leave without knowing what is happening there.”I said, “Don’t be worried. I will arrange it.”I had a Jaina friend just living close by. I called him, and he was a reliable man. Whenever there was something to be done which was difficult he had always been of help. I told him, “This is a difficult job, but this Jaina monk has been suffering for years. You will gain great virtue; your paradise is certain. Simply take him to a film show.”He said, “What? If Jainas come to know they will kill me for seducing their sadhus, their saints, and taking them to the pictures.” He said, “You have asked me to do so many things which were difficult. I have always done them, but this is too much.”I said, “But somehow it has to be done.”He said, “I can do only one thing.” The city where I was living was divided into two parts by the British government. And it has remained almost that way even now: the part where the army and the Britishers lived, and the part where the whole city was. The cantonment part had only English films.He said, “I can do one thing: I can take him to the cantonment part, but there are only English films and he does not understand English.”I said, “It does not matter. He simply wants to see what is happening there. You take him to the cantonment part. Understanding is not the question – and you can sit by his side.”He said, “No! I cannot sit there. I will put him in his seat and run away. I cannot sit there. I will arrange for somebody else to pick him up after the show. I don’t want it to be known that I am doing such things.”I asked Kanak Vijay, “Would you like to see an English film?”He said, “It does not matter. I don’t understand English, but something is better than nothing.”Can you see how we have made the human mind unnecessarily miserable? Now this man at the age of seventy still has a desire to go to see a film.When he came back, I asked him, “Are you satisfied?”He said, “That there was nothing, it was great of you that you helped me. I can now die without any desire. Otherwise I was afraid that this desire would continue even at the moment of death.”If you forcibly renounce anything it will follow you. If your understanding, your meditation, your silence makes you grown up, anything that is stupid will simply fall away from your life, you will not have to renounce it.And remember one thing: growing old and growing up do not mean the same thing. Everybody grows old, but very few people grow up. Growing up means you are becoming more mature every moment, you are learning, experiencing everything of life.This life is a gift. It is a university to learn, to become aware of all possibilities, experiences. Go through them. Don’t escape.Sannyas is not escapism, it is not for cowards – only cowards escape. It is for people who have courage to experience everything. And once you have experienced, you know what is worthwhile and what is not. That which is not of any value simply disappears from your life and slowly, slowly you become a treasure of wisdom.By the time you leave this life you will not go empty-handed, you will be fully contented, utterly satisfied, grateful, thankful to existence. And this gratitude becomes the door into the second world. That second world is not far away, it is just deeper than this – it is the center of the circumference.And if this world is so beautiful, if this world is so charming, so enchanting, so magical, how much more will be the center. This world is only the circumference. The center will be a millionfold more.But never put this against that – that is fallacious. Don’t make two boats – one boat is enough.The question is very significant because all down the centuries man has been tortured with these two boats, continually hesitating about what to do – whether it is right or wrong, whether it is spiritual or unspiritual. And you have been living with great fear.The priests are creating as much fear as possible by inventing a hell which exists nowhere. Geographically, hell exists nowhere.And they are simultaneously seducing you and your greed for a heaven which also does not exist geographically.Hell is fear.They make you afraid of hell so that there are a few things that you cannot do. They make you greedy for heaven so that you have to do things which you don’t want to do. And you are caught in a very deep tension.I am reminded of a beautiful story….A Japanese king had heard of a saint that had become enlightened. He went into the forest to see the saint, to be with him, to have some taste of his presence.But as he touched the saint’s feet, the saint said, “Although you are a king you don’t have any manners.”The king was a warrior. He could not tolerate such an insult in front of so many people. He said, “I only came to ask one question, but you have annoyed me.”The saint said, “Ask your question.”He said, “I want to know what the difference is between heaven and hell.”The saint laughed. He said, “You must be an idiot.”This was too much.The king pulled out his sword and was going to strike the saint, and the saint said, “Wait, you are at the door of hell.”A sudden insight, and the king pushed his sword back into the sheath and touched the feet of the saint. The saint said, “This is the door of heaven. Now you can measure the distance. I have shown you the doors of hell and heaven both.”Hell and heaven are psychological states. When you are disturbed, in a turmoil, in anger – you are in hell.Most people, most of their lives, are living in hell. Only very few people have lived in heaven, but that heaven is here on the earth. And the hell too is here on the earth. They are two ways of being – you can manage to be either.But if you start your journey in two boats you will remain in hell forever, because you will remain in tension and continuously in a state of split.I want you to be in one boat. I want you to be one integrated self – a single unit, a single voice, a single dimension. Then life is all flowers.Osho,What is anger? How can I remain cool and connected, but responsive in the crucial moment?The psychology of anger is that you wanted something, and somebody prevented you from getting it. Somebody came as a block, as an obstacle. Your whole energy was going to get something and somebody blocked the energy. You could not get what you wanted.Now this frustrated energy becomes anger – anger against the person who has destroyed the possibility of fulfilling your desire.You cannot prevent anger, because anger is a by-product, but you can do something else so that the by-product does not happen at all.In life, remember one thing: never desire anything so intensely as if it is a question of life and death. Be a little playful.I am not saying, don’t desire – because that will become a repression in you.I am saying, desire – but let your desire be playful.If you can get it, good. If you cannot get it, perhaps it was not the right time – we will see next time. Learn something of the art of the player.We become so much identified with the desire, then when it is blocked or prevented our own energy becomes fire; it burns you. And in that state of almost insanity you can do anything – for which you are going to repent. It can create a series of events that your whole life may get entangled with.Because of this, for thousands of years, they have been saying, “Become desireless.” Now that is asking something inhuman. Even the people who have said, “Become desireless” have also given you a motive, a desire: if you become desireless you will attain to the ultimate freedom of moksha, nirvana. That too is a desire.You can repress desire for some bigger desire, and you may even forget that you are still the same person. You have only changed the target. Certainly, there are not many people who are trying to get moksha, so you will not have any great competition. In fact, people will be very happy that you have started going towards moksha – one competitor less in life. But as far as you are concerned nothing has changed. And if anything can be created which disturbs your desire for moksha, again the anger will flare up. And this time it will be far bigger, because now the desire is far bigger. Anger is always proportionate to desire.I have heard…There were three monasteries – Christian monasteries – very close together in the forest.One day three monks met at the crossroads. They were coming from the villages back to their monasteries – each belonged to a different monastery. They were tired. They sat down under the trees and started talking about something to pass the time.One man said, “One thing you will have to accept is that as far as scholarship is concerned, learning is concerned, our monastery is the best.”The other monk said, “I agree, it is true. Your people are far more scholarly, but as far as austerities are concerned, discipline is concerned, spiritual training is concerned, you don’t come anywhere near to our monastery. And remember, scholarship will not be able to help you realize the truth. It is only spiritual discipline, and we are the best as far as spiritual discipline is concerned.”The third monk said, “You both are right. The first monastery is best in learning, scholarship. The second monastery is best in spiritual discipline, austerities, fasting. But as far as humbleness, egolessness is concerned, we are the tops.”Humbleness, egolessness…but the man seemed to be absolutely unaware of what he was saying: “As far as humbleness, egolessness is concerned, we are the tops.”Even humbleness can become an ego trip. Egolessness can become an ego trip. One has to be very much aware.You should not try to stop anger. You should not, in any way, keep the anger controlled, otherwise it will burn you, it will destroy you. What I am saying is: you have to go to the roots. The root is always some desire which has been blocked, and the frustration has created the anger.Don’t take desires very seriously.Don’t take anything seriously.It is unfortunate that no religion in the world has accepted the sense of humor as one of the basic qualities for the religious man. I want you to understand that sense of humor, playfulness, should be the fundamental qualities. You should not take things so seriously, then anger does not arise. You can simply laugh at the whole thing. You can start laughing at yourself. You can start laughing at situations in which you would have been angry and mad.Use playfulness, a sense of humor, laughter. It is a big world, and there are millions of people. Everybody is trying to get to something. It is very natural that sometimes people may get into each other’s ways – not that they want to, it is just the situation, it is accidental.I have heard about one Sufi mystic, Junnaid, who every day in the evening prayer used to thank existence for its compassion, for its love, for its care.Once it happened that for three days they were traveling and they came across villages where people were very antagonistic against Junnaid, because they thought his teachings were not exactly the teachings of Mohammed. His teaching seemed to be his own, and, “He is corrupting people.”So from three villages they had not got any food, not even water. On the third day they were really in bad shape. His disciples were thinking, “Now let us see what happens in the prayer. How can he now say to existence, ‘You are compassionate to us – your love is there. You care about us, and we are grateful to you.’?”But when the prayer time came, Junnaid prayed the same way. After the prayer the followers said, “This is too much. For three days we have suffered hunger, thirst. We are tired, we have not slept, and still you are saying to existence, ‘You are compassionate, your love towards us is great, and you take so much care that we are grateful to you.’”Junnaid said, “My prayer does not depend on any condition – those things are ordinary. Whether I get food or not I don’t want to bother existence about it – such a small thing in such a big universe. If I don’t get water…even if I die, it does not matter, my prayer will remain the same. Because this vast universe…it makes no difference whether Junnaid is alive or dead.”This is what I mean when I say, don’t take anything seriously – not even yourself.And then you will see anger simply has not happened. There is no possibility of anger. And anger is certainly one of the great leakages of your spiritual energy.If you can manage to be playful about your desires, and still be the same whether you succeed or you fail…I can never forget one instance, one incident….There was a wrestling competition, a district competition; all the district schools were participating in it. The school where I was studying had no such great wrestler, but we somehow managed one young man who said, “I am not a wrestler.” But I said, “You see the thing – not to participate will look very bad.”And he was a very simple man. He said, “If you say, and if you all think that it is good for me to join…but I don’t know anything at all. I have never been to the gymnasium, I have never done any exercises. You are putting me in such a situation. But if you want, and if you cannot find anyone else, it is okay.”So he was to participate for our school. And the strange thing was that because he was not tense – he was prepared to be defeated any moment, with anyone; he was the most relaxed wrestler – he got into the semi-finals!Our teachers, our principal, our students were simply…could not believe what had happened. Where had this man been hiding?And in the last round, the man with whom he had to fight was really a very big man, very muscular; he was really a trained wrestler. We came to know later on that he was not a student, that some school had brought in a wrestler. We were all afraid for our poor man. He looked so small beside that man that we were worried what was going to happen.But what happened was more than anyone could have even dreamed. Our wrestler jumped around the whole area – a dance before going into the fight! The wrestler was a little uneasy about what he was doing. And then he came and just fell flat in front of the wrestler and told him, “Please sit on my chest and be the winner. What is the point of unnecessary fighting?”Almost everybody appreciated the sense of humor of the man. Even the wrestler laughed and he said, “I have been fighting but I have never come across such a situation. I cannot sit on your chest and I hope the judges declare us equal.”This man is not to be defeated, at any cost – such a playful and such a humorous man, who falls flat on the ground and says, “Now you sit on my chest and let the judges declare that you are victorious and I am defeated.”I cannot forget that incident for the simple reason that even at the moment of defeat that man changed it into a victory – he was almost the winner. There was no anger and there was no question of being frustrated. He simply accepted the situation that he was not a wrestler and it was better to be sincere and honest. Why unnecessarily fight and get defeated? It would simply have been wrong for the other man to sit on his chest. It would have looked really ugly, insensitive. He had to say to the judges, “Declare us equal. This man is not the one to be declared defeated. I have learned much more from him than I have learned in so many fights in which I have been victorious or defeated. This has not been a fight at all, but such a great experience that one can take things at ease.”Just start thinking about yourself at ease – nothing special; not that you are meant to be victorious, not that you have to succeed always in every situation. This is a big world and we are small people.Once this settles in your being then everything is acceptable. Anger disappears, and the disappearance will bring you a new surprise, because when anger disappears it leaves behind it tremendous energy of compassion, of love, of friendship.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,The technique of self-remembering seems easier for me than witnessing. Do they both lead to the same goal?They both lead to the same goal, but the technique of self-remembering is harder, longer and dangerous. Only very few people in the whole history of mankind have attained to enlightenment through the technique of self-remembering.Many have tried, but utterly failed – it looks easy. The reason is that your self-remembering is not going to be your self remembering, it will be your ego remembering; that’s why it looks easy.You don’t know the distinction between the self and the false self. The false self is our ego, and the ego is very subtle, very cunning, and tries in every way to pretend to be the real self. That’s why in the beginning it will look easier than witnessing, because in witnessing there is no place for the ego. From the very beginning the ego is avoided.In witnessing, the ego cannot enter. But in self-remembering, there is every possibility of the ego pretending to be your self. Then the more you will practice, the more your ego will become stronger.If somebody wants to travel on the path of self-remembering, he absolutely needs a master. He cannot move alone, because he cannot make a clear-cut distinction of what is false and what is true. He knows only the false, he is not acquainted with his true being. Unless he is under a very rigorous master it will be very difficult to create a separation between the ego and the self.I will explain it to you by an ancient Chinese story….A great master had a big monastery – five hundred monks – and they were all practicing the path of self-remembering. Self-remembering is one of the paths Buddha has recommended.One man entered into the monastery – he wanted to become a disciple. The master accepted him, but he was a very simple man from a village, almost uneducated. The master told him, “Your job is cleaning the rice in the kitchen.”It was a big kitchen – five hundred monks. The poor man was cleaning the rice before sunrise and late into the night. He had no time to go to the sermons, to go to the prayers; he had no time to read the scriptures or listen to the wise talks. Those five hundred monks were great scholars, and the monastery was known all over the country.Twenty years passed and the man continued just cleaning the rice and doing nothing. He forgot even to count the years – what was the point? He forgot the days, the dates, and finally he became suspicious about his own name. For twenty years nobody had used it, nobody had called him by his name – perhaps it was his name, perhaps it was not. For twenty years continuously he was doing one small thing: cleaning the rice, from the moment he woke up until he went back to bed again.The master declared that his time to depart from the body had come. He wanted to choose his successor, and the way he did it was this: “Anybody who thinks he has succeeded in self-remembering should write on the wall of my hut some insight which shows that he has seen the truth.”One person, who was thought to be the greatest scholar in the commune, tried. But he was so afraid to write that sentence there, because it was not his insight. He knew – how could he not know it – he knew it was not his insight, it was just borrowed from scriptures. It was not his experience – and it was difficult to deceive the old man.In the morning the old man came out, asked the servant to erase what had been written, and said, “Find out who this idiot is who has spoiled my wall.”It is said that the great scholar had not even signed, out of fear that he would be caught. If the master appreciated that this was really a great insight, then he would come out and say, “I have written it.” Otherwise he would remain silent…who knows? Out of five hundred people anybody could have done it!Almost one dozen great scholars tried, but none of them had the courage to sign his name. And the master behaved in the same way; he erased the line and said, “None of you has come to the point of self-remembering. You have all been feeding the ego in the name of self. I reminded you again and again, but having a big ego is such a joy. And a spiritual ego, the otherworldly ego, the divine ego, becomes even more delicious. Now I will have to find the person myself.”In the middle of the night the master went to the man who had come twenty years ago. For twenty years the master had not seen him, he had simply been cleaning rice. He woke the man up. The man asked the master, “Who are you?” Because twenty years…he had just seen him once for a few seconds when he was initiated – “And what is the idea of disturbing my sleep?”The master said, “I am your master. You have forgotten…? Do you remember your name?”The man said, “That is the difficulty. The work you have given me is such that it needs no name, no fame, no scholarship, no austerities. It is so simple that I have forgotten everything. I cannot be certain that this is my name. A few names come to my mind and I cannot decide which one is mine, but I am grateful to you.” He touched the feet of the master. “Please don’t change my job. I have forgotten everything, but I have also achieved everything. I know a peace that I had never dreamed of, a silence that no word can express. I have known such moments of ecstasy that even if I had died there would not have been any complaint that life has not been fair to me. It has given me more than I was worthy of. Just don’t change my job. I am doing it perfectly well. Has somebody complained about my work?”The master said, “No, nobody has complained, but your job has to be changed because I am choosing you as my successor.”The man said, “I am only a rice cleaner. I don’t know anything about being a master or a disciple. I know nothing. Please forgive me, I don’t want to be your successor because I cannot handle such a big job, I can only handle this rice cleaning.”The master still insisted, “You have achieved that which others have been trying to achieve but have failed. You have achieved it because you were not trying. You were simply doing your small work. Slowly, slowly there was no need for thinking, no need for emotions, no need for anger, no fight, no comparison, no ambition – your ego died. And with the ego died your name. You are not born with a name. It is the ego that is given a name – that is the beginning of the ego. With the death of the ego, you even forgot your own master, because it was the ego that brought you to me.“Up to that moment you were on a spiritually ambitious trip. You are absolutely the right person, so take my robe, my hat, my sword, which have always been given by the master to the successor. But remember one thing: take them and escape from this monastery as far away as you can, because your life will be in danger. All these five hundred egoists will kill you. You are so simple and you have become so innocent that if they ask you for the robe, the sword, the cap, you will give them. You simply take them and go as far away as you can into the mountains.“Soon people will start arriving to you just as bees start finding their way towards the flowers when the flowers blossom. You have blossomed. You need not bother about the disciples, you simply remain silently in a faraway place. People will come to you; you simply teach them whatever you have been doing.”“But,” he said, “I have received no teaching and I don’t know what to teach them.”The master said, “Just teach them to do small things, silently, peacefully, without any ambition, without any motivation to gain something in this world or in the other world, so that you can become innocent like a child. That innocence is real religiousness. Not being Hindu, not being Mohammedan, but being utterly innocent – just a tabula rasa, a clean sheet on which nothing is written. No Bhagavadgita, no Koran, no Bible…”It is possible…a few people have attained through self-remembering. One of the great masters of this age, George Gurdjieff, used the method self-remembering, but you have to be aware that not a single person of his disciples became enlightened – and he was one of the most perfect masters.But the problem is that the ego and the self are so close and so similar that whatever you think is your self is most probably, in ninety-nine percent of cases, just your ego. The master’s function is absolutely necessary for this method, because he has to destroy your ego. And he has to be hard, harsh. Unless he destroys your ego, self-remembering is going to lead you, not to enlightenment, but to darker spaces of being.It will strengthen your ego more – you will become a very strong ego, very assertive. In any ordinary field of life you will be very successful. You can become an Adolf Hitler, you can become a Joseph Stalin…Stalin was not his real name, it was given to him because he was such a strong man. Stalin means man of steel.But these people are not a benediction to humanity, they are a curse. If they had not been there man would have been in a far better space, in a far better consciousness.So if you feel that it is easier for you, then be very careful. I will still suggest that though witnessing may be difficult in the beginning, it is the most safe method without any dangers. It cannot lead you anywhere other than towards enlightenment. So it can even be practiced without a master.I would like to give you something in which you are not to be dependent on somebody else.How long have you lived, how many lives? In all these lives you may have come across many saints, many masters, but where have you reached? Your darkness is the same, your unconsciousness is the same. Perhaps they all gave you methods, but the methods were such that they needed constant supervision. Those methods are called school methods. You have to enter into a monastery, live in a monastery, function under a strict discipline – then perhaps you may be able to achieve something from a school method. And there are such monasteries.In Europe, there is a monastery in Mount Athos; it is one thousand years old. There are almost three thousand monks inside the monastery, and anybody who wants to become a monk in that monastery can decide to enter, but only his dead body will go out.If there is such a commitment, only then is a person accepted. Once a person enters Mount Athos, you will never see him till he is dead. This is a school for absolute self-remembering, but you cannot put the whole world in monasteries. Who will take care of these monasteries? Hence my preference is to use a method which keeps you free from any commitment, from any dependence – which keeps you in the world and yet not of the world.Witnessing is the most simple and the most infallible method; it is the essence of all meditations. Even self-remembering, finally, is witnessing – but at a later stage, when you have dropped the ego. And if you start looking inside yourself, you can understand what I am saying. Can you see your ego and self separately? You simply know one thing: that is I. You don’t know two things: that I is the ego, and that the ego is capable of nursing itself through anything.I have heard…A small child was passing by the side of a palace. He had failed his examination and was feeling very angry with the teachers. He was ready to do something, and suddenly, he found a pile of stones by the side of the road. He took one big stone from the pile and threw it at the palace. Now the palace had nothing to do with his failing, nor had the stone anything to do with it, but he was in such anger he wanted to do something; the energy was there, and it needed to be released. The boy went on his way, but what happened to the stone?As the stone started rising up he looked down – his brothers and sisters and cousins were all there. And the stone said to them, “I am going on a pilgrimage. I have been thinking about it for a long time. God willing, I will succeed in my adventures and come back to you to relate all that I experience on the way.”All the other stones looked at this stone with their mouths open: “What is happening? He has no wings.” He was just a stone like themselves. They also wanted to fly, but they knew that they could not. “But he is flying, you cannot deny it…” So they all said, “Okay, just remember us; don’t forget us. You are a hero. In the centuries of time sometimes one stone gets wings the way you have, and we are proud that you belong to us, to our family.”They were even feeling great pride because one of the stones was flying towards the palace. The stone hit against a glass window, and naturally, when a stone hits glass it is the glass that is broken, not the stone – it is just the nature of things. But the stone said to the pieces of glass, “You idiots. I have always said, ‘Never come in my way. Whoever comes in my way will be shattered to death.’ Now look what happened to you. Let this be a lesson to everyone who is listening.”At that very moment the guard on the gate heard the noise of the stone falling on the floor, the glass being broken…he rushed in. He took the stone in his hands, and the stone said – although the guard could not understand his language, because he talked in Nepalese…! He said, “Thank you my lord, you are the owner of this palace – I can see from your beautiful dress. I will never forget this honor that you have given to me – taken me in your own hands.”The situation was totally different, but the ego goes on turning every situation in its favor.The guard was afraid that if the king came to know then he would be caught: “What are you doing? Who has thrown the stone?” He threw the stone back out of the window.And these are the ways of the ego: the stone said, “Thank you! You are not only a great host, you understand the hurts of other people too. You know I am longing to meet my friends. I want to tell them the whole story of my visiting the palace of the king – the meeting with the king, the conversation with the king, the destruction of the enemies who came in my way.” And as he was falling back into the pile of the stones, he said to them, “Brothers and sisters, I am back. You should all be proud. My name should go down in history, and with me, my family’s name. This pile of stones is no ordinary pile, it is something historical.”The ego has its ways of fulfilling itself even in situations where it should be shattered. So beware of it.Self-remembering can be done only in a school where you are devoting yourself to the discipline twenty-four hours a day, because it is the moment you remember yourself…While walking you remember, “I am walking” – then walking is no longer natural. It becomes divided: you are separate, and the walking is separate.Walking is a simple process, but in life you are doing a thousand and one things which are very complex. If you are going to remember yourself while using a machine, while driving a car…it could be very dangerous because your whole focus is in remembering yourself. You could cause an accident which could be dangerous to you, which could be dangerous to others.Life has its own wisdom. The body has its own wisdom. For example, try one thing and you will understand what I mean: you have been eating every day your whole life but you have never thought about what happens to the food when it goes down your throat – you forget about it. Don’t forget about it. Just for three days try to remember that the food has gone in. Remember that the food is being digested, that juices, chemicals and other things are coming in from different directions, that the food is being mixed with them and the food is being transformed into different things. It is becoming blood, it is becoming your flesh, it is becoming your bones.In three days’ time you will have such a disturbed stomach, you cannot imagine. It will take at least three months to get it back to its normal state. You are not needed to remember it. It knows its function, and it does its function perfectly well without your remembering.That’s why when you are sick it is better to rest, because the body needs you to sleep so it can work better without any disturbance from you.You must have heard the famous story about a centipede….A centipede has one hundred legs – that’s why it is called centipede. And for centuries, centipedes have been in the world, walking perfectly well – no problem. But one day a rabbit became curious. He saw the centipede, he tried to count his legs and said, “My God! One hundred legs! How does he manage to remember which one to put first, which one to put second?“If I had one hundred legs,” the rabbit thought, “I would get entangled and I would fall immediately; I could not walk at all. This centipede is performing a miracle.”He said, “Uncle, uncle, wait, wait! I have a question if you don’t mind…”The centipede said, “There is no hurry. I was just going for a morning walk. You can ask your question.”He said, “My question is simple: you have one hundred legs…?”The centipede said, “One hundred? In fact, I have never counted. It would be too difficult for me to count them, but if you say so then perhaps I must have.”The rabbit said, “My curiosity is: how do you manage to walk with such a trail of one hundred legs? How do you manage which one comes first, then second, then third, then fourth…?”The centipede said, “I have never thought about it. I will try. Just now – I will try here.”And then and there he fell on the ground. He called the rabbit and said, “You idiot! Never ask another centipede such a question, otherwise centipedes will die. We cannot live with this curiosity. I have been doing perfectly well up to now, and just as I started becoming alert about what leg is going when…as I started remembering one hundred legs, my mind got very much puzzled.”Self-remembering is a school method. And school method means you are in a safe monastery, not doing work that could be dangerous. Otherwise your remembering…working in a factory, working in a carpentry shop and trying to remember, you are bound to get into the same position as the centipede.I don’t want anybody to get into any trouble in the name of spirituality, hence my suggestion again is just pure witnessing – no question of I. And that too, very playfully, not seriously, with a sense of humor.If you forget, there is no harm. Whenever you remember, again you start. You will forget many times, you will remember many times. There is no question of guilt; it is human.Very slowly, bigger and bigger gaps of witnessing will arise in you, and as the gaps of witnessing become bigger, your thoughts will become smaller, less. The moment your witnessing comes to a peak – at certain times with a crystal clarity – the thoughts will simply disappear. You will be in an absolute silence. Whatever you are doing will not be disturbed by your silence, but on the contrary, your workmanship, your creative effort will be enhanced.If you are making statues, or painting, or playing music…with such a mad mind, with all kinds of thoughts running around, and you can still manage to create beautiful music – just think of a silent mind, how much deeper and higher music you could create.The same applies to every area of life. I make it a point to be remembered that if your meditation is right, everything in your life will start falling into better shape. That is the only criterion. No need to ask anybody else; you can see yourself.Everything in your life will become better with your meditation. When your meditation is at its highest peak, all your efforts will have a beauty and a grace and a creativeness that you cannot imagine. That’s why I say, don’t divide spiritual life from the ordinary life. Don’t create any division at all. Let this life remain one single whole.So if your consciousness changes, then everything that surrounds you also changes.I cannot imagine a man of meditation renouncing his wife. No, a man of meditativeness will love his wife more. Perhaps his love will become more and more purified, less and less sexual, more and more prayerful. But he cannot renounce her, that is ugly.Leaving a poor woman and escaping – that is not the work of a brave man. It fits to a coward, but not to a man who is meditating.In my village I loved to sit in an old man’s small shop. He used to sell sweets. I was attracted, not by his sweets, but by the sweetness of the man. He would say, “The cost price of this many sweets is one rupee, and if you are willing, just for my labors and for my family, you can give me one anna more – that is my profit.”First he would tell the cost price, and then he would tell his profit. And that too he would leave up to you: “If you don’t want to give it to me, you can take it at the cost price – of course, I am a poor man, I cannot give it to you below the cost price. I can give you my labor, I can give you my profit, but I cannot go below the cost price.”And I inquired – because it was a sweet market and there were many shops, I inquired in other shops about what he was saying cost one rupee. And others were selling for two rupees, two and a half rupees – the same quantity, but not the same quality, not the same love.While he was preparing his sweets, I used to sit. He even asked me, “You are the only one. Why do you come and sit here?”I said, “I simply like it – to see you work. You work so lovingly, as if you were preparing these sweets for your beloved who is coming after many years – and you don’t know who the customer will be.”And he laughed. He said, “As far as I know it is the same customer who always comes – different faces, but the customer is the same. That’s why I cannot deceive. I cannot cheat, I cannot exploit because it is the same customer with different faces. I have recognized him.”His whole life I would describe as the life of a great saint, although nobody in the world would recognize him as a saint because we have this idea so deeply rooted in our minds that a saint should renounce life, get away from life. That anti-life attitude has proved so poisonous that it has destroyed the whole beauty of human existence. It has taken away the whole dignity of man.Hence I still insist – even if you feel self-remembering is easier – that you try witnessing. Even though it is difficult in the beginning, it becomes very easy as you go ahead.Gautam Buddha has said, “My teaching is bitter in the beginning but sweet in the end.”Osho,Although what you say seems to be the very truth, when I tell this to my friends who belong to the higher levels of society – doctors, professors, engineers and administrators in the city – they think I have been hypnotized or brainwashed. Every time I apply logic to this then they are at a loss. But why can't they accept you when they are unable to argue? Why are they so against you?It is very simple. They think they are intellectuals, but to be an intellectual does not mean to be intelligent.They are doctors, they are engineers – they may be civil servants, highly posted; their egos have become very big. When you tell them, “You can see for yourself,” they have no counter-argument. But still, they have to protect their egos, and the only way is to tell you that you are brainwashed, that you are hypnotized.Next time you meet them tell them that to be brainwashed, first one needs a brain. If you have a brain, come to the meeting. And tell them that the latest psychological findings are that only the very intelligent can be hypnotized; idiots cannot be hypnotized!You can try it. All the experiments on idiots have failed. It is almost like hypnotizing a buffalo. Now it is scientifically established that only thirty-three percent of the whole of humanity is capable of being hypnotized – only thirty-three percent. And this is the same thirty-three percent of the people who are the intelligent part. But perhaps they may not even be aware of the latest findings.They are using “hypnotism” and “brainwashing” just to put you down.Ask them, how much they know about brainwashing? Ask them can they brainwash you…how much they know about hypnotism? Ask them, “Can you hypnotize me? And if you don’t know anything about brainwashing and about hypnotism you do not have any right to talk about these things.”And I am available here. You can tell them, “You can come, you can try to brainwash me or hypnotize me.”I do not see any harm in either; both are good. A brainwash simply means cleaning all the rubbish that you are carrying in your mind. They are afraid of brainwashing because they don’t have anything other than rubbish. If it is washed away, they don’t have any brain; that is their fear. And why are you afraid of hypnosis? Hypnosis simply means a deliberately created state of sleep. It is a beautiful space, very healthy, and can be immensely helpful. And now, in the most modern hospitals, hypnotists are being employed, because under hypnosis even surgery can be done without any anesthesia. Under hypnosis many diseases can be cured simply because they were only in the mind. They were simply obsessed with certain diseases that were not really there. If through hypnosis you can put the idea in their minds that the disease is finished and they don’t have it anymore, when they wake up you will find a different man who is no longer sick.Hypnosis can be such a great blessing.In the Soviet Union they are using hypnosis for teaching. The child goes to sleep in his home, but he has earphones connected to the central system in the school. When he goes to sleep, very slowly they start teaching him things – so slowly that he feels as if he is dreaming and his sleep is not disturbed.It is a great advantage. It means six hours of the night, eight hours of the night, can be used for teaching.In the twenty-five years that we waste as far as the university, three times more education is possible. But your so-called intellectuals may not be aware of all these methods which are being used around the world.Very soon hypnosis is going to be one of the most important sciences to be developed, because man’s mind is in such a tension, in so much misery, in so much anguish that he has to use alcohol, marijuana, hashish, opium and all kinds of drugs just to forget, just to get rid of all the anxieties although he knows it is only temporary. Tomorrow when he wakes up all those anxieties will be waiting at the door; they have not gone anywhere.Hypnosis can transform you very easily without any drugs. There are people who are suffering from smoking – they don’t want to smoke but they are addicted. They go through a torture. They know perfectly well that it is harmful, they are killing themselves, but no wise counseling can be of any help. They know all that you are saying: that it will destroy your health, your lungs may go wrong, you may get tuberculosis, you may even get cancer, and certainly you will die at least two or three years earlier. Everybody knows it, but still the addiction is there. Hypnosis is so simple. In three weeks’ time, just a three-week course, one hour every day – and your smoking disappears. Just for three weeks, one hour a day, you have to be told, “You don’t need cigarettes, you don’t need smoking.”There is no need for somebody to tell you, you can just keep a tape recorder by your side. Just record the first session with a hypnotist – and a hypnotist is not a magician, he is a scientist, and what he is doing is a simple method. So just record the first session, and then every time you want, every day, you simply use the recorded session. And within three weeks you will be free of all addiction to smoking or alcohol or anything else.Hypnosis has not yet been used. It is a tremendously powerful instrument to improve man – his consciousness, his body – in every possible way.These people don’t know anything at all about brainwashing, nor do they know anything about hypnosis, but because they are professors and they are doctors, they think they are intellectuals. Just invite those intellectuals, and I will do my best to brainwash them – I promise it!These people are simply afraid – afraid, because on the one hand they try to pretend that they are intellectuals, and on the other hand all that they are doing is absolutely absurd.I have seen professors behaving just like villagers – going to a certain saint to touch his feet because that has a curative power. Or if the saint blesses you, your promotion is certain. In those moments they don’t think about their being intellectuals.I have been a professor myself so I know the whole lot….I remember one professor who had this idea of being a great intellectual, and still, he was a fanatic Hindu. I said, “These things don’t go together. An intelligent man cannot be fanatic. An intelligent man is always open, always ready to listen to the other, and always ready to accept the truth even if it goes against his own old ideas.”There was a conference, and I spoke in that conference. It was about the status of the Mohammedan women in the modern world. He was also in the audience.I said, “Allowing a man to have four wives is degrading women into subhuman beings, reducing them to cattle – and Mohammed himself had nine wives. I can neither forgive nor can I forget. This is time for the women to revolt.”He was very happy because he was a fanatic Hindu and against Mohammedans. He said, “You did a great job; the others were just lousy.”I said, “But remember that Krishna had sixteen thousand wives. Mohammed is nothing. The five Pandavas had one wife. That is another extreme – five brothers with one wife. This is ugly. And one of the brothers, Yudhishthira, was known as Dharmaraj – as a king of spirituality. If this is the king of spirituality, what about ordinary people?“And this man, Yudhishthira, was a gambler. Still he is the king of spirituality. He gambled everything. Only the wife was left – that too was a common property of the five brothers. He staked her also, and finally lost her. And still no Hindu criticizes him. At least we should stop calling him Dharmaraj. He is treating women like property, using them like a stake in gambling.”The man said, “That’s why I never ask you for a lift.”I said, “It has nothing to do with the lift. You would have to listen to me – you are in my car and I am going to stop when I am going to stop. And if you cannot answer then at least drop the idea of being an intellectual. When I criticized Mohammedans you were happy for the same reason. And with the Hindus – the same reason, on a vaster scale, and then it hurts. This is not intelligence, it is just fanaticism, it is just blind belief.”These people may have passed examinations, they may have a good memory, but they don’t have intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different matter. An intelligent man in search of truth is always ready from wherever it comes; he is never adamant, never stubborn, never closed. His doors are always open for truth.These people who are telling you that you are brainwashed – tell them that you are feeling very clean. I do dry washing – and it is absolutely invisible. Tell them, “Nobody will see that your brain has been washed, that it feels really clean.” You tell them, “And since I have been hypnotized I am living in absolute bliss. What are you doing by just being a professor or engineer? It is nothing. I am enjoying paradise.”Osho,You have said that without a master it is almost impossible to attain the truth. But how did you, Buddha, Jesus and many others attain to the truth without any help from a master?I have said that you can attain to truth without a master, but the journey is going to be very long. With a master the journey can be very short; without a master you are groping in the dark. One never knows when you will find the right door. Existence is vast, and life is short. It may take many lives.So I told you that a master simply helps you to eliminate the wrong doors, the wrong paths, and leaves only the right one. The necessity of the master is for eliminating the wrong paths. But there are people who love the whole journey through many lives. There is no harm; it is their individual decision.I had a friend who was very rich and he loved me so much that he wanted to leave all his money, all his heritage, in my name, because he had only two daughters who were married and he had no son. So he loved me like a son, and he also loved me like a master. He was the age of my father.His one hobby was to travel third class and in a passenger train, never express or mail. So it was very difficult. He wanted to travel with me; I wanted to travel with him – I was continuously traveling. But I said, “It is difficult – if from Calcutta to Bombay I can travel in one and a half hours, I am not going to waste five or six days in passenger trains in a third-class compartment – overcrowded, stopping at every station, arriving always at least one day late.”I told him, “What is the problem? You come with me on the plane.”And he said, “No. That is not the point. At least once travel with me.”So once I traveled with him from Hyderabad to Jaipur. It took almost five days, but he was right in his own way. He knew every station master, he knew at which station you would get the best tea, he knew at which station you could get the best bananas…He had traveled his whole life – he knew everything about every place.In one place he told me, “Come down and be quick!”I said, “What is the matter?”He said, “We have to go out of the train, outside the station.”I said, “What is there?”He said, “There are beautiful mango groves. And this is the season, and there are beautiful mangoes ripe on the trees.”But I said, “The train may leave when we are climbing the trees.”He said, “You don’t be worried. Everybody knows me.”Hesitantly, I went with him. We climbed a tree – those mangoes I will never forget. They were the sweetest, but I was continuously telling him, “This is enough. We should get…”He would say, “You don’t be worried. Look up!”I looked up and there was a man that he said was the driver: “Unless he gets down, the train cannot move.”It was a wastage of time…five days, but it was a real joy. People would not take money from him for the milk or the tea…they had become accustomed to him so much they would say, “We always wait for you. You are the only permanent customer. Otherwise on a station, a railway station, who is a permanent customer? Go on coming, don’t stop traveling third class on the passenger trains.”You are right to ask about the people who have reached the truth without a master. It depends on the individual’s choice.I had the opportunity to choose myself. But I always trusted that if truth was there, it may take a longer time but I would like to reach to it alone, without any help from anybody. It took me lives, and I have enjoyed all those lives.The search for truth is as ecstatic as finding the truth. So it all depends on you. If you feel like going alone, go alone. Just remember that it may take lives or it may happen immediately; nobody can predict it. By chance you may knock on the right door immediately, but most probably you are going to knock on many doors. So you have to understand it: if you have courage enough, you will not be discouraged being a failure again and again. You will not go back, you will not start saying, “There is no truth, I have been searching for many lives and I have not found it.”It happened in Colorado, when for the first time the gold mines were discovered, that many people sold everything they had and rushed towards Colorado and purchased as much land as possible, because people were becoming rich so quickly – within days, billionaires.One man purchased a whole hill. He risked everything. He was a rich man. He risked everything and purchased the whole hill in order to have that much gold. And he brought the latest machinery to dig the gold….They went on and on digging – no sign of gold. His money was finished, his courage was finished, his friends deserted him. His family started saying to him, “You are mad. Stop all this.”Finally, he advertised that he wanted to sell the hill with all the machinery that he had brought for the digging. His friends, his family, everybody laughed: “Do you think people are mad? Who is going to purchase your hill?” Everybody laughed and roared.He said, “The world is big enough. There may be somebody who is madder than me.” And certainly a man turned up and purchased it, and gave him the whole price for which he had purchased the hill and the machinery. Even the man was a little afraid of receiving all that money.He said, “But do you know I have been trying hard and the gold has not been found yet?”He said, “I have heard everything. You don’t be worried. If you can risk, I can also risk.”And you will be surprised that just the first day he found gold. It was only one foot more; just one foot away – and he became a billionaire.The problem is you may return just after one foot. One has to decide for oneself.I have told you the safest way, the nearest way, because I know the human frailties. I understand how soon you can get discouraged, how soon you can turn against the whole adventure. You can start saying, “There is no truth, I have looked enough, now I’m not going to waste my time anymore.”If you are ready to go on and on whatever happens, you will not stop until you discover the truth. Then you can go without a master. Otherwise, be more wise.I have gone on a long journey and I am not saying that I chose a wrong path – it suited with me perfectly. With a master I may have found very easily but that was not my goal. I wanted to face truth alone. “If there is something like truth then I am ready to wait for eternity, but I will find it myself” – that was my intention. If that is your intention, you are welcome to go alone, otherwise it is simpler to have somebody as a guide who can keep you alert, encouraged, inspired, in spite of failures.He can show you the same path through which he has reached – which will be the shortest. He knows he has wandered; now he knows what has to be avoided and what has to be chosen. But it is to be each individual’s own decision – nobody else can decide for you.Osho,When do I know if my sexual energy is transformed or just repressed?It will not be difficult. It will be the simplest thing to know. When sexual energy is repressed you will have sexual dreams, you will have sexual fantasies – you cannot avoid them.When sex energy is transformed, you will not have any sexual dreams, you will not have any sexual fantasies. This is the simple criterion.I will end with a small story….In Gautam Buddha’s time there was one beautiful woman – she was a prostitute, Amrapali.One Buddhist monk was just going to beg when Amrapali saw him. She was simply amazed because kings have been at her door, princes, rich people, famous people from all walks of life. But she had never seen such a beautiful person – and he was a monk, a beggar with a begging bowl.She was going on her golden chariot to her garden. She told the bhikkhu, “If you don’t mind, you can sit with me on the chariot and I will lead you wherever you want.”She was not thinking that the bhikkhu would be ready to do it, because it was known that Buddha did not allow his bhikkhus to talk to women, or to touch any woman. And to ask him to sit on a golden chariot in the open street where there were thousands of people, hundreds of other bhikkhus, other monks…She was not hoping that he would accept the invitation, but he said, “That’s good,” and he climbed on the chariot and sat by her side. It was a scene. She was one of the wealthiest women the world had known. The world knows only two women – one in the West, Cleopatra, and one in the East, Amrapali – who are thought to be the world’s most beautiful women. And a bhikkhu with a begging bowl…!A crowd was following the chariot, “What is going on there? Nobody has ever heard…”And then the bhikkhu said, “My camp has come. Thank you for your being so kind to a poor man. You can drop me here.”But Amrapali said, “From tomorrow, the rainy season is going to be here.” In the rainy season the bhikkhus, the monks, don’t move. They stay in one place – only for the rainy season. The remaining months they are always on the move from one village to another village. “From tomorrow, the rainy season is going to begin. I invite you to stay with me. You can ask your master.”He said, “Jolly good, I will ask the master. And I don’t see that he will object, because I know him – he knows me, and he knows me more than I know him.”But before he reached, many others had reached and complained that the man had broken the discipline, the prestige, the respectability…that the man should be expelled immediately.The bhikkhu came – Buddha asked him, “What happened?”He told the whole thing and he said, “The woman has asked me to stay with her for the coming four months’ rainy season. And I have said to her, ‘As I know my master I don’t think there is any problem, and my master knows me better than I know him.’ So what do you say?”There were ten thousand monks, and there was pin-drop silence. Gautam Buddha said, “You can accept her invitation.”It was a shock. People were thinking he would be expelled, and he was being rewarded! But what could they do. They said, “Just wait. After four months Buddha will see that he has committed a grave mistake. That young man will be corrupted in that place, in a prostitute’s house. Have you ever heard of a monk staying for four months…?”The man stayed for four months, and every day rumors were coming that “this is going wrong” and “that is going wrong.” And Buddha said, “Just wait, let him come. I know he is a man who can be trusted. Whatever happens he will tell himself. I don’t have to depend on rumors.”And when the monk came, Amrapali was with him. He touched Buddha’s feet and said, “Amrapali wants to be initiated.”Buddha said, “Look, about all these rumors…When a real meditator goes to a prostitute, the prostitute has to change into a meditator. When a repressed person who has all the sexuality and is sitting on a volcano goes to a prostitute, he falls down. He was already waiting for it – not even a prostitute was needed. Any woman would have done that.”The question is saying that all the religions have taught you to repress your sexual energy, and they have created repressed people all around. And those repressed people are very angry with me for the simple reason that I am saying repression is not going to help you.The energy has to be transformed, otherwise the energy will drag you down more into darkness than towards light.Do not repress anything.Whatever is natural is good. Whatever is natural is to be accepted with totality.You have to do just one thing: don’t be against nature but just be a watcher. Just remain a witness in everything, whether it is eating, whether it is walking, whether it is making love…just remain a witness and you will be surprised. Witnessing is an absolute guarantee of transformation, and you will see the difference.You won’t have any sexual dreams, you won’t have any sexual fantasies. And if you repress, then you are going to be in trouble. Even Mahatma Gandhi, who was repressing his sexuality, at the age of seventy years was having nocturnal emissions. It is ugly. But I am grateful to him because he was truthful. He at least accepted it. Your so-called saints will not accept it.Repression will show itself – there is no doubt about it. Some day or other it will bring sex to your mind, either waking or sleeping. But if the energy is transformed then you will have a radiance, a glow, a certain light around you, a certain silence surrounding you; a blissfulness, a coolness that not only you will feel but those who are open also will feel. If you just pass by their side they will feel that not only a person has passed but a phenomenon has passed. Something of your inner core will have touched them. Some music is bound to be heard by those who have ears.And as far as you are concerned there is an absolute distinction: you won’t have any ideas, waking or sleeping, about sex.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 11 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Krishna said to Arjuna, “Surrender and I promise you moksha.” Jesus also said to his disciples, “Come follow me and I will take you to the kingdom, to God.” But you say to us that you can only show the facts. Why don't you promise us nirvana?All promises are poisons because they are political not religious. The people who have promised you that you have only to surrender to them and they will take you to the ultimate goal of light; you have just to follow them and they will take you to the kingdom of God…these promises have created a spiritually slave humanity. These promises have not helped anyone.Do you have a single witness who can say, “Following Jesus I have reached the kingdom of God”? In two thousand years the promise remains there, and you remain in your misery, in your anguish, in your utter spiritual poverty.It is very significant to understand that no one can take you to the ultimate goal of light except yourself. That is your prerogative, your privilege. That is your freedom, your individuality and its beauty.Nobody can interfere with your spiritual growth. You are not cattle that somebody can take you somewhere. But you have been insulted, humiliated so continuously, that you have become almost accustomed to it and you don’t feel the insult of it. Somebody saying to you, “Surrender to me” – and you don’t see the humiliation…?To whom did Krishna surrender? He never surrendered to anybody. To whom did Jesus surrender? He never surrendered to anybody.And if these people had some beauty, the beauty was their individuality, their freedom, their absolute uniqueness. A surrendered human being has almost fallen below humanity.Jesus said to the people, “I am your shepherd, and you are the sheep.” And nobody even raised any objection that this was very insulting. On what grounds do you become the shepherd and reduce other human beings who are just like you into animals, into sheep? But any lie repeated again and again starts appearing to be a truth.These words have been repeated so often by the so-called spiritual masters that you have forgotten what they are doing to your being. They are destroying you. There is no need for any surrender – the very word is ugly. There is no need to follow anybody, because if you follow somebody you will always remain a blind follower, you will never attain in your own eyes. And the most wonderful thing is: the people who are telling you these things have never themselves done those acts. They have never surrendered, they have never followed – and that’s what gives them grandeur, makes them pinnacles of consciousness.You should try to understand Jesus, not to follow him. You should try to understand Krishna, not to surrender to him. It is your understanding that is going to lead you to higher levels of being. Do not depend on anybody else to help. There have been so many saviors in the world and the world is not saved yet – so many prophets, so many incarnations of God, so many tirthankaras…and what is the result? And they have all claimed that they have come to redeem the world from pain, from misery, from ignorance. They come and go – the world remains the same. In fact, it becomes darker and darker every day. It becomes more and more miserable every day.Jainas have twenty-four tirthankaras – their quota is finished, they cannot have twenty-five. For one creation, from the beginning of this universe to the end of this universe, they can have only twenty-four tirthankaras. Now, what is the hope? And what have these twenty-four tirthankaras done? How many people have been redeemed? How many people have become enlightened? How many steps has humanity grown towards maturity?It is strange. Hindu avataras have been here, Gautam Buddha has been here, Moses and Jesus have been here, Mohammed and many others. And this small earth and all these prophets, saviors…and the strange thing is that the world goes on becoming worse and worse. Man goes on becoming lower and lower; he has not become a spiritual being. He has not become more aware, more alert, more meditative, more compassionate. Otherwise there would not have been so many wars.In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars. This is the man that has been created by all your so-called spiritual founders. Just within this century we have already had two great world wars, and now we are preparing for the third.What spiritual heritage, what spiritual insight is there that makes us destructive rather than being creative, makes us hate each other rather than being loving and compassionate? Even in the name of religion, for centuries there has been bloodshed continuously. In the name of peace, love, and all great qualities, we have done everything that even an animal would be ashamed to do.It is time to have a look backwards and see that surrender and the idea of following has not helped; in fact, it has degraded you. And you are asking me also to insult you, to humiliate you. Please forgive me, I cannot do that. I can help you as a friend, I can hold your hand as a friend and companion, I can show you the way, but I cannot walk for you. You will have to walk for yourself; otherwise truth will be too cheap. If others can achieve it for you then it won’t have any value. And if others can achieve it for you, they can take it away also.If, following Jesus, you reach the kingdom of God, remember – if you do something against him he can kick you out of the kingdom of God because it is not your achievement.You are living on borrowed spirituality. At least leave something which cannot be borrowed. Leave truth – it can be achieved. Those who have achieved can certainly help, but their help can only be that of a friend not of a master. The very idea of somebody being a master is the idea of spiritual slavery.You have been asked for centuries to surrender, to trust, and do whatever the master says. And you don’t know whether he is a master or not. Do you have any criteria? Do you have any way to judge that this man is a master?There is no criterion available, so you have been surrendering to people who are cunning enough to pretend to be masters. A real master will be so humble that he cannot call himself a master. The very claim, “I am the master, and you are just a devotee, a disciple, a follower,” is nothing but pure egoistic assertion. And wherever the ego exists one thing is certain: you cannot get any help towards light, love, life.Man is capable of spiritual growth – he has the potential. All that he needs to know is the right way. And anybody who can show you the right way – you can be grateful to him, you can be thankful to him. But what is the need to surrender?I am reminded of a Tibetan story….Milarepa, a great master, was searching for truth. The story is of the days when he had not found it. And people told him, “There is a certain master – all that is needed is absolute surrender.”Milarepa went to the man and surrendered totally – he must have been a unique individual – and then other disciples of that master became very jealous of Milarepa because he started doing strange things. He would walk on water, he would go through fire and not be burned…And they all asked him, “What is your secret?”He said, “You are senior disciples of the master, you must know. I have simply surrendered myself to him, so whenever I want to cross the river I simply remember the master and just say to him, ‘Take me to the other side,’ and I walk on the waters.”The master heard – he could not believe it. He wanted to see. He told Milarepa to jump from a mountain peak into a thousand-foot-deep valley. Milarepa simply remembered the name of the master, and jumped.They all were thinking, “We will not be able to find even bits and pieces of the man, the valley is so deep and so dangerous.”But when they went there – it took hours for them to go down – Milarepa was sitting there in the lotus posture, so blissfully.The master said, “Just my name helps you…?”And naturally, and logically, he thought, “If my name helps him so much I must be a great master.” And he thought, “If my name helps him, then what miracles can I not do?”He tried to walk on the water, and he started drowning and had to be saved by his disciples. That moment Milarepa saw his own master drowning, and the whole idea of surrender to a fake, to a fraud, disappeared. He said to the master, “At least you should not have done it in front of us. You have destroyed our trust, our surrender. You have destroyed us so deeply that now it will be difficult for us to trust in anyone. You have made us skeptical. I came to you in innocence, and I am going absolutely corrupted.”There is no criterion. Surrender, if it is total – which is very difficult, almost impossible; only a very innocent man can do it – will help you, not the master. The master may not be a master at all. But surrender simply means you have dropped your ego completely. But why call it surrender? Surrender always means to someone.I am a straightforward, simple person. I will tell you to drop the ego; I will not tell you to surrender to me. That is a roundabout way of dropping the ego, and dangerous because you may be surrendering yourself to somebody who is not right; you may be following someone who himself is lost.There is a beautiful story by Kahlil Gibran….A man became a very famous master, and he went from one place to another teaching his doctrine which was very simple: “Come follow me.”Of course people have so many things to do they cannot just come and follow you. And they always think, “Next time when you come, perhaps I will be ready; my children are small, my girl has to be married, my wife is sick. What you are saying is right, but the time is not right. I am ready, but the situation does not allow it.”He went on telling the people, “Whoever follows me, within days, he will attain to the ultimate illumination.”In one village, one young man stood up and said, “I am ready.”There was great silence for a moment because this had never happened. The master was a little hesitant. Now where to take him…what to do? He had no knowledge of what it means when you attain to self-illumination, but in front of the crowd he pretended. He said, “Okay, you come with me.”He took him into the hills, into rough places…made the journey as terrible as possible. But the young man was also very stubborn – he continued to follow him. Many times the master said, “You must be tired; it is better you go back.”That young man said, “I will never go back. First I will attain self-illumination whatever the cost; only then can I go back.”But trying to put the young man into hardships, the old master was himself also trying to do the same. He was also terribly tired. Finally, he had a nervous breakdown.The young man said, “What is the matter?”The old man said, “To be honest with you – I have to be honest, otherwise you will kill me – you are young and I am old. You can go through all this suffering and I cannot.”But the young man said, “I have not told you to go through all this suffering. I was simply following you; you were not following me.”The old man said, “To be honest, I don’t know what self-illumination is. My profession was going so well…my whole life. Because nobody ever followed, no problem ever arose. You are such a rascal that you really followed, and you are still bent upon following me – that means you will kill me.”The young man said, “But what about self-illumination?”The master said, “I have forgotten all. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what self-illumination is. I just pray to you to leave me in peace. I will never bother you again, but don’t disturb my business in other parts of the country. The only business I know is telling people, ‘I can give you salvation; you just come and follow me,’ knowing perfectly well that who is going to follow? – everybody has incomplete things to complete. But you are such a stubborn fellow that you dropped all that you were doing and simply went on following me!”The story is significant. Jesus says, “Follow me and I will take you into the kingdom of God.” But is there any kingdom of God? In Buddhism there is no kingdom of God; in Jainism there is no existence of God. It is simply a hypothesis. And the people who followed Jesus were all illiterate, uneducated, coming from the lowest strata of society – fishermen, farmers, woodcutters, carpenters…He himself was the son of a carpenter. He himself was not educated, not cultured, not civilized. Not a single rabbi of his day, not a single learned person, not a single wise man followed him. The people who followed were following him out of greed.A fisherman cannot hope that on his own he can enter into the kingdom of God – and this man is not asking for much money, he is simply saying, “Follow me.” Just following him there is no harm, and the promise is great. They were not in love with Jesus.Even in the last hours before Jesus was caught they were asking him, “Soon you will be reaching to the kingdom of God” – because it was known that he would be crucified. “Before you leave us we want to know…of course your place will be exactly at the right hand of God. You are the only begotten son of God – but what will be the place of your twelve disciples? Who will be next to you?”Do you see their mind? Do you see their greed? Do you see their ambition? And what have they done? Just hanging around Jesus, and they have become capable of entering into the kingdom of God. Now they are asking what their position will be. They must have been feeling jealous of each other – “Who will be next to Jesus?” And when Jesus was crucified all the twelve apostles had escaped – great followers – just out of fear that they may be recognized as Jesus’ followers, because they were always hanging around him wherever he was going. Those twelve fellows were always with him; everybody knew them – they may be caught. If Jesus is crucified, the same may happen to them.They all escaped. They forgot all about the kingdom of God, they forgot all about following Jesus Christ. And those twelve cowards who left the master hanging on the cross have become the twelve great prophets of Christianity.A whole religion is created on the words of those twelve cowards. Jesus cannot save anyone – he could not save himself. At the last moment on the cross, in deep frustration, he shouted at the sky because he was waiting for some miracle to happen, and nothing was happening. And people were laughing, joking, making a fool of him: “This is the only begotten son of God. Now call your father to save you.”Finally, he shouted, “Father, why have you forsaken me?”Even his trust was not total, even he was full of doubt that perhaps God had forsaken him and that’s why no miracle was happening.Miracles don’t happen.Nature knows no exceptions.But on this poor man Jesus, for two thousand years, millions of people have been depending. Just a hope, but that hope is dangerous because it prevents you from changing you; it prevents you from doing something yourself; it prevents you from your own potential, from your own powers, from your own intelligence, from your own inner being that is always present there.No Jesus, no Krishna – everybody has to be alert, aware, drop all false hopes. Nobody can save you, and nobody has ever saved anybody. Masters have only shown the way. Because they have traveled on the path, they can save you unnecessary wandering, they can show you the straight way. But nobody can walk for you. And it is good that nobody can walk for you. It would have been dangerous if somebody was capable of saving you, because then he becomes your owner, you become a slave.Even in your kingdom of God you will be a slave. The man who has brought you there – you bribed him by surrender, you bribed him by following him, you bribed him by massaging his ego as much as you could – can kick you out of the gate at any time.It happened…I was sitting in my village by the bank of the river. It was evening, and just getting a little dark, and one man started shouting, “Save me, save me!” He was drowning.I don’t believe in saving anybody, so I looked all around – if somebody else saves…it is good. But there was nobody so, unwillingly, I jumped into the river, and somehow carried the man.He said, “What have you done? I was trying to commit suicide!”I said, “This is something! Then why were you shouting ‘save me’?”He said, “I became afraid!”I said, “Don’t worry.”I pushed him back – if I can save him I can push him back.And again he started shouting, “Please save me!”I said, “No more. Now you do it yourself.”Do not depend; every dependence is slavery. That’s why I cannot say to you, “Just follow me.” I can say to you, “Try to understand.” In trying to understand me, perhaps you may be able to see the path yourself.I can help you to see the path, I can help you to open your eyes; I can throw cold water in your eyes – that’s what I am doing every day. And sometimes you get irritated, you get annoyed, because nobody wants cold water in the early morning to be thrown into their eyes. I can shake you, I can wake you, I can drag you out of your bed. I can make you a little alert and give you the full details of how to become more aware, more meditative – and then there is nothing else to be done.Your meditation will take you.I cannot take you anywhere.And you will be grateful to me that I did not ask you cheap things – surrender to me, just trust in me and everything will be okay. All that is sheer nonsense. You like it because it is cheap, you like it because you have not to do anything. I am asking you something arduous. You will have to do it, you will have to work hard at it. You will have to sharpen your intelligence, your consciousness, and as it is sharpened the way becomes more and more clear. You are nobody’s shadow, nobody’s follower.Everybody reaches to the truth alone, not by following anybody. And it is beautiful to reach alone because then it is your earning. Then you deserve it.Osho,What is your message to the modern Nepalese prominent Buddhists?My message cannot be specially to the Buddhist, or to the Christian, or to the Hindu. My message is only to human beings, because I don’t believe in these distinctions.The first thing I would like the Buddhist monk to understand is that it is beautiful to be a Gautam Buddha, but it is ugly to be a Buddhist. It is beautiful to be a Christ, but it is ugly to be a Christian, because the Christian and the Buddhist are just carbon copies.Just think of Gautam Buddha. He was his original self – that is his beauty and that is his greatness. He was not a Buddhist, he was simply himself.He had tried for six years continuously with different masters to find the truth, but nothing happened except frustration and failure. He was in great despair because he had been with all the great teachers that were available. Those teachers themselves had to say to him – because of his sincerity, his honesty – “Whatever we knew we have taught to you. If you want more then you will have to find it for yourself. This is all that we know. And we understand perfectly that you are not satisfied; neither are we satisfied, but we are not so courageous to go on finding. Even if it takes lives, go on finding.”Finally, Buddha had to drop all the teachers and all the masters, and started on his own. He worked tremendously hard. One of the most significant things happened that has to be remembered by all seekers wherever they are in the world; it will always remain a significant milestone for future humanity.One day he was staying by the side of Niranjana river. I have been to the place. The river is a very small river; perhaps in the rainy season it becomes bigger. I had gone there in summer; it was just a small current of water.He went down into the river to take a bath, but he had been fasting too long. He was so weak, and the current was so fast and strong that he started going down the river. Somehow he caught hold of the roots of a tree, and in that moment an idea came to him: “I have become so weak by fasting because all the teachers, all the scriptures, consistently insist that unless you purify yourself by fasting, you cannot attain enlightenment. And I have weakened myself so much, but enlightenment has not happened. I cannot even get out of this small Niranjana river. How am I supposed to get out of the ocean of the whole world?”In the Indian mythologies the world is compared to the ocean – bhavasagar. “How am I going to cross bhavasagar, the ocean of the world, if I cannot even cross Niranjana river?”It was a great moment of insight: “I have been unnecessarily torturing my body. It was not purification, it was simply weakening myself. It has not made me spiritual, it has simply made me sick.”That evening, a woman in the town had made a promise to the tree under which Gautam Buddha was staying that if her son got well from a sickness, then she would come on the full moon night with a bowl of sweets in gratitude to the deity of the tree. She would offer the sweets – “Please accept them.”It was a full moon night, and just by coincidence Gautam Buddha was sitting under the tree. The woman thought, “My God, the deity himself is sitting under the tree waiting for me.” She was overjoyed. She placed the sweets and she said, “I have never heard of the deity himself coming out of the tree and accepting the offering of us poor people, but you are great and you have helped me tremendously. Please forgive me for giving you so much trouble, but accept this small offering.”Buddha ate for the first time for years without any guilt.All the religions have created guilt about everything. If you are eating something good – guilty. If you are wearing something beautiful – guilty. If you are happy, something must be wrong. You should be serious, you should be sad – only then can you be thought to be religious. A religious man is not supposed to laugh.Buddha, for the first time, was out of the grip of the whole tradition. Nobody has actually analyzed the state of the mind in that moment – which is very significant to the whole psychology of spiritual enlightenment. Buddha simply dropped out of the whole tradition, orthodoxy, all that he had been told, all that he had been conditioned. He simply dropped everything. He did not even ask the woman, “To what caste do you belong?” And as far as I understand she must have belonged to the sudras.It is written nowhere, but my conclusion has some reason, because her name was Sujata. Sujata means born into a high family. Only somebody who is not born in a high family can have such a name. One who is born in a high family need not have such a name. You can find the poorest man in the town, and his name will be Dhanidas…the ugliest woman in the town, and her name will be Sunderbai. People substitute names to add height to their reality. The name of the girl was Sujata.Buddha dropped the whole structure that had surrounded him that evening. He did not ask the caste, the creed. He accepted the offering, he ate the sweets, and after many days he slept for the first time without any guilt about sleep.Your so-called spiritual beings are afraid of sleep. Even sleep is a sin – it has to be cut. The less you sleep, the greater the spiritual man you are.That night Buddha slept just like a child, with no conception of what is right and what is wrong – innocent, unburdened from the conditions, traditions, orthodoxy, religions. He was not even worried that night about truth, enlightenment. He slept a deep, dreamless sleep, because dreams come only to you when you have desires. That night was absolutely desireless. He had no desire, hence no question of any dream. In the morning when he opened his eyes, he was utterly silent. Outside it was absolutely silent. Soon the sun started rising, and as the sun started rising, something inside him also started rising.He was not searching for it, he was not looking for it. For the first time he was not desiring it, and it happened – he was full of light.The man Siddhartha became Gautam Buddha.My message is: try to understand Gautam Buddha. He is one of the most beautiful men who has walked on this earth.H.G. Wells, in his world history, has written one sentence which should be written in gold. Writing about Gautam Buddha he writes, “Gautam Buddha is perhaps the only godless man, and yet, so godly.”In that illumination, in that moment of enlightenment, nirvana, he did not find any God. The whole existence is divine; there is no separate creator. The whole existence is full of light and full of consciousness; hence there is no God but there is godliness.It is a revolution in the world of religions. Buddha created a religion without God. For the first time God is no longer at the center of a religion. Man becomes the center of religion, and man’s innermost being becomes godliness, for which you have not to go anywhere – you have simply stopped going outside. Remain for a few moments within, slowly, slowly settling at your center. The day you are settled at the center, the explosion happens.So my message is: understand Gautam Buddha, but don’t be a Buddhist. Do not follow. Let the understanding be absorbed by your intelligence, but let it become yours. The moment it becomes yours, it starts transforming you. Until then it has remained Gautam Buddha’s, and there is twenty-five centuries distance. You can go on repeating Buddha’s words – they are beautiful, but they will not help you to attain what you are after.So my message is general. The same is for the Christian, the same is for the Jaina, the same is for the Hindu, the same is for the Mohammedan. They are all making the same mistake and they all have to correct it in the same way.Try to understand. There is no harm even if you love Buddha. There is no harm in understanding Jesus Christ. There is no harm in understanding Krishna. Understanding is always valuable.Gather your honey from as many flowers as possible. Be richer, but let that understanding become yours. It should not be written in quotation marks. It should be your feeling, your seeing, your vision, and then there is no need to repeat. It is there always with you. It will show in your actions, otherwise you will repeat Gautam Buddha and your actions will not show the same.I will tell you one story. All the Buddhists all over the world have become non-vegetarians. This is a strange phenomenon. Gautam Buddha was a vegetarian. How has it come to happen that all the Buddhists of all the countries – because the whole of Asia is Buddhist – have become non-vegetarians?There is a small story….Buddha had said to his bhikkhus – and he had to say it for a certain reason – “Whatever is given to you in your begging bowl you have to eat it all. Don’t ask for more and don’t leave anything. Be respectful to food. Don’t tell people what they have to give to you.”Everybody knew that Gautam Buddha and his people were vegetarians, so only vegetarian food was being given.It happened one day that one monk was coming back and some bird dropped a piece of meat in his bowl. Now a great problem arose for him because Buddha had said, “Nothing should be rejected from the bowl. Whatsoever is in the bowl you have to eat it all.” And he had also said, “You should not eat meat, you should not kill for eating.”He came in front of Buddha, and in front of the whole commune he asked the question, “What am I supposed to do? Should I throw this piece of meat away or should I eat it?”Buddha closed his eyes and thought for a moment. It was really a difficult decision because there were dangers. If he says, “Throw it,” then he is giving an opportunity in the coming centuries for all the Buddhists to choose their food. Then whatsoever they like they will eat, and whatsoever they don’t like they will throw away. That would be a wastage of food and it is not respectful.And if he says, “Eat the meat,” there is no danger he thought, because birds will not do it every day – perhaps once in a century or perhaps not ever again. It is just an accident. So he said, “Whatsoever is in your begging bowl, you have to eat it.”That was the beginning of meat eating. That is how man’s cunning mind works. The monks started sending messages to the householders, “You can start giving meat; there is no harm.” And finally, as time passed, all the Buddhists of the world have become meat eaters. This is what I say: following, but not understanding.Understand Gautam Buddha – his message is of immense value, particularly for the times in which we are living. Don’t be life destructive. Just for your taste, don’t kill animals. It does not matter whether you yourself kill, or somebody else kills it for you.If you want the silent meditation that Gautam Buddha has given to the world, Vipassana, you have to be vegetarian. A non-vegetarian will find it very difficult, because the meditation is for a very sensitive person, and a meat eater is hard. He is not very sensitive; he is insensitive. He has been eating it from childhood so he has no awareness; he has become accustomed to it.To me it is not important whether he eats meat or not. To me what is important is that what Buddha has given as meditation will not be possible for the meat eater. He will be so hard, and the meditation is for a very soft heart, a very loving heart, a very compassionate heart – a compassion that has no limits.Gautam Buddha used to say, “When you meditate, after each meditation don’t forget it. It is a must that you should spread all the blessings that have come to you through meditation to the whole humanity or to the whole world, the whole existence. You should make it a point: ‘Whatever I have gained, whatever virtue, whatever dharma – whatever purity I have gained through meditation, should not remain in my possession only, I give it to the whole existence.’”One man said, “There is a problem. I can do it but you have to forgive me for making one exception.”Buddha asked, “What exception?”He said, “I can give it to the whole world but not to my neighbor. That much you have to forgive me. I will say, ‘I give all my blessings to the whole world, except to my neighbor.’”Buddha said, “Then you don’t understand me at all. Even a single exception shows that you are not sensitive, you do not understand what I am saying. You do not understand the meaning of compassion and love.”Try to understand Gautam Buddha, but don’t remain a Buddhist. You have to become a buddha yourself, in your own right. You are not to end up being just a good Buddhist monk – that is a very sad end. You have to reach to the state to which Gautam Buddha himself reached.OshoCan a person meditating an hour a day gain enlightenment in this life?It has been found by all the great meditators of the world that just forty-eight minutes, exactly forty-eight minutes, are enough to make you enlightened. But to meditate for forty-eight minutes – I’m not even making it sixty, I’m giving you the exact time – is not an easy thing.Even to meditate for a single minute, a whole single minute, sixty seconds, is a difficult thing – but not impossible. You can try it to check. Just put a small watch in front of you with a second hand, and start looking at the second hand the moment it moves from twelve. Just keep watching the second hand and see how long you can manage watching it.At the most, somewhere between ten to twelve seconds you will have missed, you will have gone somewhere else. And by the time you come back, a few seconds are lost, the hand has moved. If you do it daily, then in a few days it is possible to remain for sixty minutes silently watching.The same is the process of Vipassana. You have to watch your breathing – that is the method that Buddha used, a very simple and very scientific method. You just watch the breath going in, you go with it; it is coming out, you come out with it. You don’t forget at any time the watching; you don’t go astray.If you can manage it for forty-eight minutes, that very day you will become enlightened, in this life! There is no need to wait for another life and there is no need even to wait for one hour. Those twelve extra minutes may be too difficult. Just forty-eight is the exact right time.To attain those forty-eight minutes may take years, but it need not be postponed for another life, it can happen in this life.It all depends on your intensity.It all depends how much you are ready, willing, open, receptive, vulnerable.Osho,Can a spiritual quest go along with material advancement?There is no contradiction. Spiritual growth can go with material advancement. Just one thing has to be remembered: material advancement should function as a servant, and spiritual growth should remain the master.At no point should spiritual growth be sacrificed for material advancement. At any time, whenever it is needed, material advancement can be sacrificed for spiritual growth. If this is clear, then there is no problem.The problem arises only because material advancement remains the master and still you want to grow spiritually. Spirituality cannot grow as a servant. Your spirit cannot be a servant to your body. Your spirituality has to be a master, then everything can function as a servant and can help it.There is no need to divide life. For those who can manage it this way – putting spiritual growth as a priority, and material advancement only as helpful to it, never against it, always with it and for it – there is no problem. This has to be made clear to all the religions of the world. The East has chosen half – spiritual growth – and become afraid of material growth. Who knows? – it may become the master, it may take the priority. Hence the East is poor, sick.The West went to the other extreme – they devoted their whole energy to material advancement, forgetting completely that material advancement in itself is meaningless. It leads you nowhere; it leads you only into deep frustration, finally, into a meaningless life where you can see clearly that you wasted your whole life collecting rubbish, junk. And it does not give you peace, it does not give you silence. It has not been able to make you aware of truth. And now death is approaching and your hands are empty. Your whole life has been just a desert.The West is spiritually poor, materially rich. The East is materially poor, spiritually rich.But both are half, and both are suffering.My effort is that there should be a synthesis – and a synthesis is possible. Just remember who is the master and who is the servant.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 12 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,What are you doing and why? How is it different from what we are doing and why?I am not doing anything at all. I am not interested in any goal, in any plan, in any future. I am simply living moment to moment, spontaneously.Just as the flowers are there in the garden, doing nothing, just being there, or as the stars are in the sky, doing nothing, just being there, I am here. But there is no why and no what, simply because I don’t even think of the coming moment.Whatever happens I allow it to happen.You think I am speaking to you. As far as I am concerned, whatever comes to me I allow it to be spoken. I am just a mirror – a mirror does nothing.In language it seems as if a mirror also is doing something – it reflects. Linguistically, reflection is an action – but the mirror is not doing anything.When you are in front of the mirror, it reflects you. When you have moved, the reflection disappears. The mirror is simply there, whatever comes in front of it is reflected in it.That’s why it is almost impossible for me to speak to you unless you ask a question – because I don’t have anything to say. Your question becomes a provocation to my consciousness. It is reflected, echoed, and goes back to you, but it is not my doing.What you are doing and why you are doing – how can I manage to know? That is your business, your problem. I can say about myself, and perhaps this is the difference: I know about myself, and you don’t know about yourself. You are doing things and you don’t know why you are doing them, what you are doing….You are living in darkness, in ignorance, in blindness. I know exactly that I am not doing anything. On my own I am just an empty mirror. If you want something to be echoed, you come in front of me, you ask a question. If some answer arises it is a simple happening – not a doing.Just as water flows downwards, the sun rises, the birds start singing and the flowers start opening. The sun is not doing anything. It is not knocking on each bird’s nest – “Get up and start singing…” Just the presence of the sun – and something happens all over existence. Life starts awakening, responding.I am simply a presence.You can draw as much as you want.It all depends on your questions, your quest, your inquiry. I have to drop a few of your questions just because I don’t want anybody to look silly asking a question which is stupid.For example, one woman has been asking for three days continuously, “I love my ego, what should I do?” What is there to be done? If you love your ego, love is good, at least you love something. It is better than nothing! And you love your ego – then why are you worried about doing something? Is not love enough? Do you want to do something more? Certainly you are worried that loving your own ego is taking you into a dangerous stage – it is going to become your hell. You know it, otherwise the question of what to do would not have arisen.Every day I have read the question, and every day it has reminded me of a story….An old woman died. She was very much afraid – afraid because in her whole life she had done nothing that she could think of as ever getting her into paradise. But strangely enough, a carrot appeared. And the carrot said, “You have forgotten. I am your only act which was virtuous and good. You once gave me to a beggar. I was rotten, and you were going to throw me away, and by a coincidence the beggar came before you were going to throw me, and you gave me to him. But even that much giving is rewarded by existence. I have been sent by God – just hold onto me and I will take you upwards to paradise.”The woman was thrilled, and holding the carrot she started rising. People had gathered, because they heard that she had died. And when they saw this carrot and the woman rising with the carrot…somebody jumped and took hold of the legs of the woman. And then it became a long line, so long that you could not see from one end to the other end…. But the woman was very angry: “So many people are going into paradise” – and the carrot was hers!Just at the gate of paradise she shouted downwards to the long line that stretched towards earth, “You all get lost. It was my carrot!”And in saying this, she forgot. Speaking to the people and gesturing that “this was my carrot” – the carrot was lost. The carrot entered into paradise and the whole line of people fell back. Falling from paradise to the earth, none of them remained alive….But just the idea of my carrot is enough to take you back from the very gates of paradise.You are not at the gates of paradise, you are in love with the ego. So love it as deeply as possible so that soon it creates a hell for you. Only that hell will open your eyes – not my answer.I was dropping that question every day, because I don’t want anybody to look stupid before so many people. It is insulting, and I don’t want to insult anybody.Just today another person has asked, “Do enlightened people overeat?” I wonder sometimes what goes on in people’s minds – how they can manage such questions. How many enlightened people have you seen? Yes, there are people who overeat, but they are not the people who are enlightened – they are addicted to food, they cannot stop eating.I was in America…There are thirty million people dying of starvation, and exactly thirty million people are dying of overeating – and man thinks he is a conscious being, intelligent, alert…Now this is a simple thing. Those thirty million people should not overeat because they are killing themselves. And whatever is saved from them will save the thirty million people who are dying because they have nothing to eat. Sixty million people can be saved without doing anything, just a little understanding.The enlightened person never goes to the extreme in any way. Neither does he fast and torture his body, nor does he overeat and torture his body in another way. Both are ways of torturing your body. You can torture it by not eating; you can torture it by overeating.The enlightened person follows the golden mean: he is always in the middle, never at the extreme.In Gautam Buddha’s life there is a beautiful story….He was passing through Shravasti – a very rich and famous city of those days – and the king of Shravasti was one of the most egoistic persons in every way. He was an extremist about everything. He lived in extreme luxury. The whole day he was sleeping, and the whole night was a night of dining and wining and dancing and gambling – his whole life was upside down.He had a beautiful palace. Even on the steps he had not made a railing. On each step there were naked young women standing to function as a railing so he could go on putting his hand from one naked young woman to another.This man heard of Buddha because so many people told him, “At least once you should listen to this man. There is some beauty, there is some truth, and there is some magnetic force in the man. What he says is not theoretical, what he says seems to be coming from the very innermost being, his own experience. He does not quote authorities, he is not a scholar. He says what he has known, and he says it with such authority that it is impossible not to be touched by it.”So many said this to him, that finally he managed one day to get up early in the morning and go to listen to Gautam Buddha. Whatever the people had said was no exaggeration. In fact, the man was much more than the people had said about him. He had a certain gravitation that pulled you towards him.Shron stood up – that was the name of the king of Shravasti – touched Buddha’s feet and said, “Please initiate me, I want to become a monk.”It was a surprise. Nobody had ever thought that this man would become a monk. Even Gautam Buddha told him, “You have heard me only once, you should take some time to think it over; there is no hurry.”But that was not the type of Shron’s personality. He said, “When I said, ‘I want to be a monk,’ I want to be a monk – and right now!”He was an extremist. He became a monk. He renounced the kingdom.Buddhist monks don’t live naked, but Shron started living naked. People reported to Buddha that he seemed to be really a great ascetic. Buddha said, “You have not understood the man. He is simply an extremist.”Buddhist monks eat one time a day. Shron would eat only once every two days. He defeated all the monks. He defeated even Gautam Buddha. When they were traveling, every monk would travel on the road, but Shron would always go by the side of the road. In the thorns, the rough stones, his feet would be bleeding. And people started respecting him immensely. Even the other monks thought they were not so great in renunciation as Shron was. Even a few started thinking that they should be followers of Shron rather than Buddha.After six months, Shron became black – he had been a beautiful man – because he was always standing naked in the hot sun. He destroyed his body by not eating, he destroyed his feet by walking over rough stones, thorns, bushes when there was a road available.Within six months he was badly sick, and Gautam Buddha himself went to see him. It was a rare occasion because it was not reported that Gautam Buddha had ever gone to see any other sick monk before or after.The news went like wildfire amongst all the monks that certainly Shron was a great ascetic, otherwise Buddha would not have gone to see him just because he was sick.But Buddha had gone for some other purpose. He did not ask Shron about his sickness. He said to him, “I have heard that when you were a king you used to play the sitar and you were a master artist. There was not anyone else in the whole country comparable to you – is that right?”Shron said, “Yes. I love to play the sitar, and I had devoted my whole life to the sitar. I had come to such a mastery that there was no competitor to me.”Buddha said, “I have come to ask a few questions. One: when the wires of the sitar are too tight, will it give birth to great music?”Shron said, “To great music? It will not give birth to any music. Too tight wires will simply break.”Buddha said, “And if the wires are too loose, will it give great music?”Shron said, “You are asking strange questions. When the wires are too loose they don’t have tension enough to create music.”Then Buddha said, “What is the position in which the wires should be so that great music can be produced?”And Shron said, “They have to be in exactly the middle position where you can say they are not loose and they are not tight. And it is one of the secrets of the art to adjust the wires to the exact middle.”Buddha said, “I don’t have anything more to ask you. I have just come to remind you that life is also like playing on the sitar: if you are too loose you are lost, if you are too tight you are lost. Each extreme is a death, and to find the exact middle is the whole art. You were too loose living in utter luxury. Now you are too tight living in an unnecessarily ascetic way. Come into the middle, listen to me, for the wise have always followed the middle path, they are never at the extremes. Only fools are at the extremes.”So whatever the situation, the enlightened person will always be found exactly balanced in the middle.That’s why it is difficult even to recognize the enlightened man. You can see the extremist very easily: he is fasting, he is standing naked in the hot sun, in the cold…you can recognize him. He is standing on his head, or he is standing on his feet for years and he does not sit down, does not lie down. And naturally you will recognize him because he is doing something which is unnatural.The enlightened person will be absolutely natural – but this is to be understood that he will be very much unrecognizable. You will need immense insight and understanding. You will need some taste of meditation to experience the enlightened man, otherwise you will not understand him.For example, Hindus denied Gautam Buddha while he was alive…they did not recognize that he was enlightened because their incarnations of God – Rama, Parasuram, Krishna, Shiva – none of them had renounced the world, none of them had renounced anything. They lived in immense luxury. They lived in marble palaces, moved in golden chariots…That seemed to be fitting for a god. But Gautam Buddha with a begging bowl, barefooted, moving on the street, not even using a vehicle – Hindus could not conceive what kind of a god he was, what kind of enlightenment he had attained. Krishna never did this, Rama never did this. They had no comparison in their own history. Naturally, they denied him.Jainas also denied that Gautam Buddha was enlightened for the simple reason that Jainas are on the other extreme. Mahavira lived naked. He was a contemporary of Gautam Buddha; he lived naked. He did not carry even a begging bowl – that is also a possession.Gautam Buddha had three pieces of clothing and one begging bowl – at least four things. For Mahavira that was too much possessiveness – he had nothing. He would beg with his hands. He would make his hands the begging bowl. And the Jainas had a long history of twenty-four tirthankaras…the same ascetic ways, the same way of fasting for months at a time. In twelve years, Mahavira ate for only one year – not solidly for one year, but two months he would fast, two or three days he would eat, a few months he would fast, a week he would eat…In twelve years he ate only on three hundred and sixty-five days. He was fasting for eleven years.Now Jainas cannot accept Gautam Buddha as enlightened, because he was eating every day. One meal every day – it was too much luxury.I want you to understand that to understand the enlightened man is one of the most difficult things in the world, for the simple reason that he is in the middle. He is absolutely normal. The extremist is recognizable.The person who has asked the question may have seen Hindu monks with big bellies…I have seen monks like Nityananda. It is difficult to say that Nityananda had a belly, it is better to say that the belly had Nityananda. The belly was bigger than Nityananda. The belly was all. The head and legs were joined to it, but they seemed to be secondary, not important. When he lay down the belly looked like Gourishankar – even Edmund Hillary would find it difficult to climb!But this happens to Hindu monks for the simple reason that for centuries it had been thought a great virtue to serve the monks, to feed the monks, to bring as much delicious food as possible. So people would bring food, fruits, sweets – all kinds of things – and the monk…This is to be understood – it is one of the secrets of human life that if you are repressing sex you will start eating more. If you have completely denied yourself love, then food will become your only love affair.And the reason is that the child, when he is born, comes in contact with the mother’s breast. Simultaneously he feels the love of the mother and the mother’s milk – the food. Food and love become associated from the first day.That’s why every businessman knows to give a good dinner to the party when you are doing business. Then the business can be done easily; negotiations can be made easily and will be more favorable. First feed the person, then he is in a loving mood, unconsciously. This is the psychology: with food, love is joined.Take love away from the man and you will immediately see that he starts eating more, because he substitutes food for love.It happens that unmarried girls are never so fat, but when they become married, settled in life, a husband…Now there is no question of any competition, particularly in this part of the world, and they start becoming fat. They quarrel with the husband, they fight with the husband, they nag the husband. And you will be surprised that they nag the husband exactly when he is eating – unconsciously. That is the most vulnerable time because that is the time he wants love and that is the time he is given hate. You can’t torture in a better way.And the same man every day, and the same quarrel, the same fight…slowly, slowly you forget what love is. Then people start eating more and more. Women are more fat than men in the East, because women cannot move freely in the society and have love affairs, but men can have love affairs outside marriage.In the West it is equal, but in the East women are more fat than men. It shows that the men have a freedom which the woman has not. But with food she is free and the whole day she is in the kitchen.I am reminded of an anecdote….One man’s wife was getting so fat that it was becoming embarrassing for the husband to take her anywhere. Wherever he would go with the wife, she would immediately become the target of everybody’s comment: “What kind of woman is this?” And particularly in the West, slim is thought to be beautiful. A fat woman may do in the East, but in the West – impossible!In the East monks are fasting; in the West women are fasting. Everybody is on a diet. Why? – because the thinner you are, the younger you look, the better you look.The man asked the psychologist, “What to do? The wife does not listen.”The psychologist said, “You do one thing.” He gave him a naked picture of a very beautiful woman with a very proportionate body and told him, “Hang it inside the refrigerator so whenever your wife opens it, suddenly she will recognize what she is doing to herself. She should be like this woman. Perhaps it will help – continuous remembrance again and again. Anything that she goes to the refrigerator for, she will see the naked woman, so beautiful…”After six months the psychologist met the man. He could not recognize him. What had happened? The man had become so fat. The psychologist asked, “What happened? You were talking about your wife that she is so fat – that something has to done. And within six months you have managed a feat which people could not manage in six years.”The husband said, “It is all your doing, because of this beautiful picture.”The psychologist said, “I don’t understand.”And the man said, “It is so simple to understand: it did not work on my wife, it worked on me. I started to go to the fridge to see the picture. And when one is so close to ice cream and this and that, one naturally takes something. My wife is the same, now I am her equal. But this is your doing – that stupid picture! I thought you were a psychologist.”An enlightened man is so full of love, is so full of compassion, that it is impossible for him to overeat.And he is not only compassionate to you, he is compassionate to his own body too. He cannot torture it by fasting, he cannot torture it by overeating. He will always remain in the middle.And in the middle is all the wisdom, all the truth, all the beauty of existence.Osho,Can a journey motivated by desire end in desireless witnessing?The question is: Can a journey motivated by desire end up in a desireless awareness?Yes, because every desire is going to give you anxiety, anguish, misery, suffering. So any journey motivated by desire is a journey towards hell. And how long can you continue it? How long can one suffer, be miserable? There is a limit to endurance, and everybody comes to the limit. And the moment you come to the limit you can see it clearly that the suffering, the misery, the hell, is created by your desire.You cannot avoid misery and suffering and hell, and save your desire. The moment you see the connection, immediately the desire and the misery and the suffering drop from your hands. You need not drop them. The very understanding that desire is creating all this hell that has become intolerable, all this nightmare…that each moment has become just pain and it is caused by the desire even though the desire had promised you a paradise….Every desire promises you a paradise and every desire leads you into hell.Every desire gives you great promises of pleasure, but every desire ends up in utter pain.Seeing it, understanding it, nobody in the world is so stupid not to drop the desire and the whole journey with it. And this dropping of the desire and the journey brings you to the point of awareness. Why don’t people drop their desires? The reason is they don’t follow their desires fully, so they never come to see the connection.Everybody has many desires, is running in many directions simultaneously, so he never reaches very far in any direction. That’s the reason millions of people go on living in misery and cannot see that their own desires are causing it. They go on finding some other excuse why they are miserable. Perhaps others are causing it, perhaps fate is against them; perhaps the lines of their hand are not favorable; perhaps the astrological chart is not correct…they go on shifting to something which is all nonsense.The lines of your hand have nothing to do with your life, and the stars in the sky have nothing to do with your life. Nor has the time of your birth anything to do with your life.You have to take the responsibility totally, that it is you who decides either to be in misery or to be in blessing.If you want misery, have more desires. If you want a blissfulness, then learn the art – even for few moments – of being desireless, and you will be surprised. Even for a few moments, if you are desireless, all anguish, all anxiety disappears. And you are so contented, so fulfilled, that you cannot ask for more. Your blessing is so much that you can only say that you bless the whole existence. Still it will be there. It is so much; it is overflowing.And once you have experienced – just for a moment – you have known the secret, you have found the key. Then it is up to you.If you want your twenty-four hours to be blissful, a song of ecstasy, just drop the desires. They have never given anything to anybody. They only make you beggars.Alexander the Great was coming to India…He was bent upon conquering the whole world. That was his one single desire: that he wanted to be the first man who has conquered the whole world.On the way he heard that one of the most strange men in Greece, Diogenes, lived nearby the side of a river. Alexander had heard many stories about this man. Each story is enchanting.In the West there has never been another Diogenes. In the East we had many, but the West is poor in that way. And just because Diogenes was the only one person there with the qualities of a buddha, he was misunderstood – he is still misunderstood. But he was famous for his life-style, and small stories about it spread around.Alexander said, “He is so close. It won’t take much time; I would like to visit him.”He went to see Diogenes early in the morning. The sun was rising, and he had a beautiful place by the side of the river. He was lying down naked taking a sunbath. Alexander looked at Diogenes. He had never seen such a beautiful man – and so calm and so quiet, without anything. But even Alexander felt deeply that he was poorer than this man: “He has something inside him which makes him richer than me.” And Alexander said to him, “I would like to present something to you, Diogenes. What can I…? I can do anything, you just say it.”Diogenes said, “But I am utterly fulfilled. All that you can do – and it will be a great mercy – is just stand a little to the side. You are blocking the sun…that’s all. And I will remain grateful to you my whole life.”Alexander could not believe that a man who was a beggar was not asking for something, when even the greatest conqueror of the world was ready to give him anything. Even if he had asked for the whole kingdom, he had promised to give it to him. He simply said, “Just move a little to the side, you are blocking my sun. And remember, never block anybody’s sun. I don’t need anything, but I would like to ask you where you are going. I have heard you are going to conquer the world, but have you ever thought that there is only one world?”Alexander could not understand in the beginning what he meant. Diogenes said, “I mean that when you have conquered the whole world, what will you do? There is not another world to conquer. You will feel utterly frustrated. The world is conquered – then what? Commit suicide? Nothing is left for you to do; you have wasted your whole life in conquering the world. And remember, the greatest king and the poorest beggar both have to die. Death is a great equalizer. Death does not make any distinction.”Alexander said, “I understand, but now only a small part of the world is left. I would also like to be as peaceful and as happy as you are, but first I have to conquer this remaining part.”Diogenes said, “This is absolutely strange. You can see a man in front of you who is totally blissful without conquering anything, and are you certain that you will be able to return? The world is big, and life is short. If you listen to my advice, this is a big space here – the whole river is available; nobody comes here. You can also lie down. You can have a beautiful rest just as I am resting. Forget all about the world. I can teach you how to conquer yourself, and that is the real victory.”Alexander was immensely impressed but said, “I am sorry. I am convinced what you are saying is right, but right now I cannot stop in the middle. I have to fulfill my desire first.”And you will be surprised to know he could not come back to Greece. He died when he was coming back, on the way.Strangely enough, on the same day Diogenes died – and the story became prevalent all over Greece that when they were reaching close to the other world…According to Greek mythology you have to pass a river which divides this world from the other world. Alexander was ahead – he had died a few minutes earlier – and just behind was Diogenes. And seeing Alexander naked, Diogenes laughed loudly.Alexander looked back and said, “Diogenes! My God, I never thought that we would meet again. What a coincidence! An emperor, a world conqueror is meeting the greatest and the most famous beggar of the world.”Diogenes said, “You are right, but you don’t understand who is the conqueror and who is the beggar. The beggar is ahead of me and the conqueror is here. You have come here losing everything, and I am coming here fulfilled, utterly contented. The world has been a tremendous experience and I have learned the lesson. You have come without learning anything. You wasted the whole time in conquering the world. And now look – you are also naked, I am also naked, but you are ashamed of your nakedness. I am not, because death has not taken even clothes from me – I had given them up before death. Death has not been able to take anything from me, and it has taken everything that you had conquered. You are entering the other world as a beggar. At least now try to understand.”This must be a story, because who knows what happens after death? But it is beautiful, meaningful, very significant to understand.If you have desires, try to look – are those desires the cause of your misery? Nobody wants misery, but nobody is willing to drop the desires – and they are together, they cannot be separated.This is one of the greatest insights that has come from all the enlightened people in the world – that desire is the root of all misery, and desirelessness is the cause of all that is beautiful and blissful.Osho,I am a little confused. Is there a contradiction between living life totally, and at the same time witnessing it from outside?I have seen the question. It was too long, so I told someone to summarize it, but in the summary it has lost its basic quest.The question was that I am teaching witnessing but I also teach you to do it totally. And the problem to the questioner is that if we do it totally, then who will witness it? And if we witness it, at least a part of our consciousness will not be in the action, it will not be total. So he is asking whether we can totally be in the act, or we have to divide ourselves into a witness and into a doer.The question has arisen because you have only thought about it. You have not done anything to experience what I am saying.First, witnessing is not a doing.When the mirror reflects you, do you think it does something? It is simply its nature to reflect. There is no action on its part. Even when you are not there it is reflecting. It may be reflecting simply the walls of the room, it may be reflecting anything that is in front of it.Reflection is not an activity. So it is with witnessing – witnessing is not an activity.If you think logically, the contradiction will arise. But if you do what I am saying, you can be totally into an act – your body will be in it, your mind will be in it, your heart will be in it, and that is your totality. But there is something beyond these three which is not counted as you, which is not you, which is part of the universal consciousness, which is the divine in you – and that is the mirror.So when you are witnessing, your mirror is reflecting. You are totally in the act – your body, your mind, your heart – everything is in the act. But there is something more than these three things.In the East we have called it simply by number. We have not given it a name for a certain reason. We have called it the fourth, turiya. It is a number, it is not a name. We have not given it a name because any name will create some meaning in your mind, some ideas in your mind; a number cannot do that.You consist of three elements: the body, the mind, the heart. The fourth is just a silent presence in you – it is not you. Don’t include it within the boundaries of you; it is beyond you. It is capable of reflecting you as totally in the act. And the action will not divide because it is not an action; it is witnessing, it is simply reflecting.It is one thing to think about it; then immediately the logic, the reason will say that you are doing two things – you are walking and you are witnessing. That divides. But this is only logical reasoning.Just try to walk silently, joyously – put everything into a morning walk. Your body is relishing the morning sun, the air; your mind is full of the rising life all around you; your heart is throbbing with excitement; the birds are singing and the sky is so colorful…You be just the walk. And you will be surprised that there is someone witnessing which cannot say “I” – which is not your ego, which is the universal self.Your body is different from mine, your mind is different from everybody else’s, your heart is different from everybody else’s. But in consciousness we are one continent – nobody is an island. That universal consciousness is always there. Either you are aware of it, then it makes your life a rejoicing, or you are unaware of it, then your life becomes just a dragging somehow towards death.So there is no contradiction at all. But remember, there are many experiences. If you think about them you will find contradictions. If you experience them you will not find any contradiction.When you ask a question try to experience it not just out of thinking. Ask out of your experience, and then it will be a totally different thing. Everything is not logical, and it is good that everything is not logical. That’s why there is some mystery. That’s why there is some unknowable surrounding you. There is a possibility to discover it, and that discovery is the greatest ecstasy.I have not found any contradiction in my experience, but in thinking, I agree with you there is contradiction.But I am not telling you to think about it, I am telling you to live it.Osho,For a long time I thought that I wanted to drop my ego, but I've found that I just want to drop the pain that comes with having an ego, and I still want to keep that pleasure or romance and excitement of having an ego. So it seems that my only motivation for dropping is a kind of negative one, to avoid the pain. I'm wondering if there is any possible positive motivation that could mean beyond ego?It is not only your question, it is almost everybody’s question. It is very significant to understand it.Everybody wants to drop the misery, the pain, that comes from the ego. But from the ego also comes some pleasure, some excitement, so one does not want to drop the ego. Even if one wants to drop the ego, one wants to keep the pleasure part.The question is that the motivation to drop the ego is negative – he wants to drop the misery, the pain, the negative part, and he is asking if there is some positive motivation which can help to drop the ego.There is no positive motivation, because the ego can exist with both – the negative motivation or positive motivation. Any motivation will do for the ego’s existence.The ego disappears only when you understand that all motivation fulfills the ego. The ways of the ego are very subtle. You can find it…I will give you a few instances to understand….A man lived for thirty years in the Himalayas. He renounced the world, he renounced all pleasures – for thirty years he had no experience of the ego. And naturally, he thought that his renunciation had killed the ego. There was going to be a great fair in the plains, and a few people who had become accustomed to this sannyasin in the Himalayas asked him, “A great man like you should come to the plains. Millions of people will be gathering, and they will be nourished by your presence.”He thought, “There is no harm,” and he came back down to the plains. As he reached to the fair there was such a big crowd and nobody knew about him.Somebody stepped on his feet, and suddenly, thirty years of renunciation disappeared! He grabbed the man and was going to kill him saying, “Are you blind or something? Can’t you see? You have crushed my feet!”But at the same time he became aware: “My God, the anger is there, the ego is there, the violence is there. Those thirty years have gone in a single moment. So what was the gain of all that renunciation?”Obviously, when he was alone there was nobody – no conflict with anybody, no competition with anybody – and he could not feel the ego. The ego needs others. The ego needs people around you. The people around you, and the world around you are immensely helpful to make you aware of where you are.Going to the mountains alone is dangerous, because the silence of the mountains and no people can create a hallucination for you. You can take the silence of the mountains as yours, and because there is no conflict, no competition, nobody abusing you, nobody stepping on your feet, naturally there is no anger, no hate, no ego – but they are all dormant. Come back to the world and they will all be alive; they don’t die.People have been given positive motives to drop the ego by other religions. This is a negative motive: that it is misery, that it is a constant headache, and you don’t want misery, you don’t want a headache, so you are even ready to drop the ego. But the trouble is, the same ego gives you little moments of pleasure. When you win in an election or when you become the president of a country, for a moment the same ego gives you great pleasure; you don’t want to drop that pleasure. So he is asking if there is some positive motive.All the religions have been providing positive motives. For example, they are saying that in the “future life,” in the “other life,” if you drop the ego you will be given immense sources of pleasure. You will have beautiful women, you will have all kinds of comforts and luxuries eternally available. There will be no death; you will have become immortal gods.These are positive motives, but these are not going to destroy your ego.It happened….One Jaina acharya, Acharya Tulsi, had convened a conference to discuss the urgent great problems humanity is facing. Some fifty thousand people were there, and there were twenty guests to discuss the problems. I was also invited.Morarji Desai was finance minister of India in those days; he was also invited, and eighteen other people – prominent thinkers, professors, doctors, Nobel Prize winners. But as the discussion was to begin, a difficulty arose. Because it was Acharya Tulsi’s meeting – his sect, his seven hundred sannyasins, his fifty thousand followers – naturally, he was put on a high pedestal, and everybody else was sitting around in a circle on a lower platform.Morarji Desai could not tolerate it. He was sitting just by my side. I had not even noticed it; I had simply accepted it. It was their meeting – we were just guests, so wherever they wanted us to sit, it was okay. If the host wanted to sit higher than the guests, what was the harm?I had not even thought about it, but Morarji could not resist. He said, “Before any other question is being discussed I would like to raise two questions. One is: Why is Acharya Tulsi sitting higher than everybody else? And the second: When I did the namaskar with my folded hands he did not reply in the same way. He simply raised one hand of blessing. I am not his follower, I am not his disciple, I am his guest. He has invited me, and he has insulted me. So first this has to be discussed. Acharya Tulsi has to answer.”The poor Acharya was in a real difficulty. And then you can see that a simple solution would have been enough – he could have stepped down and sat with us. But he could not do that. He was the head of the sect, he had renounced everything – all pains, all pleasures, the whole world – but he could not go down two feet from his platform and sit with the others.There was no need to answer. He could have folded his hands – and the thing was finished. But he could not do that either, because a Jaina monk can only give blessing to a householder, he cannot behave in equality. He is higher, he is spiritual; you are lower. He can bless you, but he cannot simply be respectful to you as you are.He was silent, embarrassed, and I thought the whole conference was going to finish in a mess. So I asked Acharya Tulsi, “If you allow me, and if Morarji Desai allows me – because he has asked you, he has not asked me, so I ask you both, if you will allow me I am ready to answer.”He was very willing. He said, “Yes.”Morarji was not so willing, but unwillingly he said, “Okay. I want the answer. Whoever gives it, it is okay.”I said, “Morarjibhai, nineteen persons are sitting here – nobody has objected. Why did only you object? It must have hurt your ego. Acharya Tulsi has a certain ego, otherwise he would have come down – about that there is no doubt – but because you raised the question, you are also in the same boat. Why did it not occur to anybody else, why only to you?“And you had done a respectful namaskar, a gesture of honor and respect. Nobody asked you to do it – it seems you have a condition, that if you do it then the other has also to do it. That is not very honorable. You did what you wanted to do and he did what he wanted to do. I don’t see any problem. You should have made it a condition before you did it: ‘I will namaskar to you only if you are going to give the answer in the same gesture.’ You have not asked it; it was not a contract. You simply did what you wanted to do. And he has not done any harm, he has simply blessed you.“He is an egoist; you are an egoist. And because of those two egoists we are not going to disturb the whole conference. You both can retire and the conference can continue.”Since that day Morarjibhai Desai has been so angry with me.A positive motive will be a spiritual promise, but one that will not destroy the ego. It may make it refined, it may make it more subtle. Even if it is required to enter the pleasures of paradise, to become humble, the ego is capable of becoming humble, but deep down it will continue to say, “There is nobody more humble than me. I am the humblest man in the whole world.”So there is no positive way against the negative. Both can help the ego in the same way. Both will feed the ego in the same way.My suggestion is: motivation is not needed, understanding is needed. You have to understand that the ego certainly gives you a few moments of pleasure, but it gives you long nights of suffering. You have to understand, and you have to weigh it: if this pleasure is so valuable to you, then you have to choose the suffering with it, then don’t try to drop the suffering.They are two sides of the same coin. You cannot drop one side. The coin will always have two sides whatever you do. But if you see that those moments of pleasure are so temporary, so fleeting, so superficial, and the nights of suffering are so dark and so deep and so long…those pleasure moments are not worth it. Those pleasure moments are just to keep you hanging around the ego; those pleasure moments are bribes from the ego so that you can swallow the poison of all the anguish, of all the misery.The ego goes on promising you more pleasure, but that pleasure is so fleeting. It comes and goes, it does not stay with you – and the price is too much.Once you see that you are paying too much and getting such small moments – that it is not worth it – this understanding will help you to drop the whole lot: the pleasures, the anguish, the ego, all. And when you have dropped them all, then for the first time you will see that there is a bliss which is higher than pleasure, deeper than pleasure.There is a bliss which comes and never goes – which remains with you just as your heartbeat, just as your breathing.So a positive motivation is not needed, but a clear understanding is needed that all motivations are egoistic and all motivations – positive or negative – are going to create a hell for you. They have created the hell for the whole world.It is just a simple and clear understanding of the whole process of seeing how much pleasure, how much misery, what is the depth of pleasure and what is the depth of misery.Just be a little mathematical, and you can drop the ego with the whole lot and you can say to it, “Good-bye.”And the moment you are without ego you will taste for the first time what is really joy, bliss, ecstasy. It is through understanding, and only through understanding. And understanding is in your hands.Everybody is intelligent enough to weigh his pleasures and his pains.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 13 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Is there really upanishad happening here when we sit near you and you say something to us?The word upanishad is immensely meaningful. It means sitting by the side of the master, whether he speaks or not. The upanishad can happen in silence. It can happen through words, through gestures, just looking into each other’s eyes. It is a kind of heart-to-heart contact: two individuals meeting and merging into one, an experience of deep love, great trust.Here, it is happening! I can see your joy, your silence. I can feel your love, your trust. And I can also feel that the same is happening on your part. Something is transpiring which can only be experienced, cannot be explained. Any explanation will fall short of it. The experience is so rich and the words are very poor. At the moment when you put the experience into words much of the beauty, the grandeur, the greatness, is lost. Only a very small part, a fragment of the total remains; that too is no longer alive.My eyes are alive in the whole organism. My hands are alive in the whole organism. If you take any part away it dies immediately, it has no life of its own. The same happens when you start explaining something which is beyond words. Only a fragment, just a part of it is caught in the words, but it is dead. It is no longer the same thing. It is no longer alive, it is no longer breathing.The real upanishad happens only in silence. Speaking simply creates the groundwork for it to happen. Speaking itself is not upanishad. It is simply preparing a love sphere in which something which is beyond the words can descend. It is just helping to open your heart to be receptive, to be welcoming it. Because when the energy knocks on your doors, they should not be found closed.This is one of the most fundamental things in spiritual life, that the master’s energy cannot even knock on your doors – that too will be violence, that too will be trespassing. The spiritual work is very delicate. You have to keep the doors open, waiting for the guest. It can come any moment. It is just by the corner. Your opening will be enough to pull it magnetically into your innermost core. That is the meaning of the word upanishad: the master becomes the guest in the heart of the disciple.The master is ready to become the guest, but the disciple should be courageous enough to take a stranger, an outsider, somebody mysterious to the very core of his being. If there is even a little fear, then it cannot happen. That fear will keep you closed. It is fearlessness, courage, guts. It is trust and love, in one word.The moment the disciple is ready, the master appears. This is one of the ancientmost sayings: “The moment the disciple is ready, the master appears.” The disciple need not go in search of the master, the master has always come in search of the disciple.In Gautam Buddha’s life there is a small but very beautiful story….He comes to a town – the whole town has gathered to listen to him – but he does not start speaking. People start becoming restless: “What is the matter? Everybody important in the town is present. Now for whom is he waiting?”Finally, the chief of the village asks Gautam Buddha, “The whole village is here – why are you silent?”And what Gautam Buddha said is worth remembering. He said, “Yes, I can see. Almost everybody is present, but the one girl for whom I have come to speak is not here. She has met me on the way. She has gone to give food to her father and she told me, ‘I will be coming, but don’t start unless I come.’ I have to wait; you need not. If you cannot, you need not. You can go home, but I have come only for her, because I know only she is ready to listen, ready to drink, ready to eat every word, absorb it – let it become her bones, her blood, her very heart. If you cannot wait, it will not be disrespectful to me. You can go.”The people could not believe this. But the girl came running and Buddha said, “Now I can speak. She has come. I have come from the other village for this single girl. You are all getting the benefit without paying anything. She has paid for you all, because her love and her trust are so total that whenever I pass in this direction it is impossible not to come to this village. I start feeling hurt if I don’t come to this village. I hope one day I will be coming for you all…but you have to learn to love and trust.”Truth is not something that can be taught to you, it is not something that can be told to you. It cannot be taught, but it can be caught. I cannot give it to you, but you can take it. If you are ready, if you are open, if you are willing, welcoming, that which cannot be said will be heard by you.It is not in the words, but between the words.It is not in the lines, but between the lines.It is in the silent gaps that upanishad happens. So it all depends on you. If you are ready, it is happening for you; if you are not ready, it cannot be forced upon you. Truth can never be forced.George Gurdjieff, one of the great masters of this age, used to say one thing which strikes people as very strange: “The disciple has to be almost ready to steal the truth from the master.” And he is right!The master is ready to give it to you, but you are not ready to take it. And Gurdjieff said that you have to be ready to even steal it if it is needed. The master cannot trespass you, but you can trespass the master, because the master has nothing to lose.Truth is not something that, if you take it, it is lost to the master.The more it is given, the more he has it.The more it is spread and shared, the more it springs up from his innermost being. It is inexhaustible. A single master can make the whole world enlightened; people are just not ready.One friend has asked how he can become a seeker. I can show you the water, I can show you the well, but I cannot create the thirst. The thirst has to come from you. And you are asking me how to create the thirst? I can make available the truth, but on your part the thirst has to be there.If you are thirsty, you know you are thirsty. If you are not thirsty, you know you are not thirsty. And there is no way to enforce thirst on you.I did not choose that question to be answered for the simple reason that the person who has asked is sincere, he wants to become a seeker. But if you are not even aware that your life is a misery, that your existence is meaningless, that you go round the clock like a robot doing the same things every day knowing perfectly well one day you will have to die…All this routine is absolutely futile. You don’t have any contentment. You cannot say, “I am fulfilled.” You cannot say, “I have achieved all that my being was destined to achieve, I have realized my potential, I don’t need anything anymore.” If you can say that, then there is no need for becoming a seeker, you have found it already.And if you are in misery, in pain, in anxiety, in anguish, if your whole life is just a meaningless tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, then do you have to ask me how to become a seeker? Your house is burning – can’t you see the flames? Don’t you feel the heat? When your house is on fire, do you ask people, “Where is the way out?” Do you consult scriptures to find it? Do you ask an astrologer what is the astrologically right direction to get out of the house? No, you don’t do anything. You don’t even bother whether you are naked or with clothes. If you are in the bathroom taking your shower and the house is on fire, you will run out naked, you may even jump out of the window. You will not give a second thought, “This is not the door, this is a window, and it is not meant for coming in and going out.”When the house is on fire, then everything is right if you get out, and everything is wrong if you remain stuck inside. Just look at your life and that will make you a seeker. I cannot make you a seeker.If you cannot see for yourself that your house is on fire, nobody can make you see it. Just look around: half of your life has passed and what is your achievement? Where have you reached? Are not your hands empty and your hearts empty? If this is not making you a seeker, then what is going to make you a seeker?The person who has asked the question is certainly sincere, but he has not been aware about his own life. He is more concerned about truth – more concerned about water and less concerned about thirst.You be thirsty. The water will be available. It has never happened in the world that somebody was thirsty for truth and truth was not available. It is not in the nature of things. And life is enough to make you thirsty. Life is really a school to create the thirst, to create the search, to make you a seeker and an adventurer.The questioner certainly wants to reach somewhere, but he is more interested in the goal far away. His eyes are searching for something that can make him a seeker. That is not the way. You should look close enough within yourself and see all the misery and anguish. See that this life is fleeting – each moment you are dying. Death does not come suddenly. The day you were born, you started dying. It takes seventy years to complete the process – that is another thing – but every moment we are dying.But people try to deceive themselves even by celebrating their birthday. Each birthday means you have lost one year’s life. Now another year’s life is going to be lost – this is the beginning. Another year is going to be dead soon. Every day you take the dates off the calendar, you are taking some life off from your being. Your death is becoming bigger, and your life is becoming shorter, smaller.People think when they were children they were small. That is the wrong attitude. When they become old, then they are small, because now life is very small. A child has a long life. Just look at the reality of life and it will create a thirst, it will create a search, it will create a seeking.But the man must be immensely interested because he has offered me his four acres of land in Kathmandu. It is more than enough for me – but he doesn’t know that I am not alone. I have a world caravan!In the commune in America the government of America became so jealous and so antagonistic. We had sixty-four thousand acres of land – one hundred and twenty-six square miles. And it was needed, because five thousand sannyasins were living with me, and fifty thousand sannyasins were coming and going all the year round. At festival times there were twenty thousand sannyasins. And I wanted them to have enough space – lakes, the forest – to have the fresh air, to swim…and not to become a crowded city. Otherwise, fifty thousand people at one time would be stepping over each other.No, even if one hundred thousand people had been there, it would have remained absolutely silent. There would have been no overcrowding. The idea was that everybody should have enough space around himself so he could feel relaxed, at ease.Perhaps you don’t know that whenever you are overcrowded, something in you is crushed, pressed from every side; it creates tension. And whenever you go to the sea or to the mountains, suddenly you feel a widening, as if you are no longer pressed from every side, but your being has freedom to take as much space as it wants.So I am grateful for your suggestion that you want to donate those four acres to me, but I want you to note that for thirty years I have not accepted any gift, I have not possessed anything. The closest center has to be given the land. If you want to give the land to me, I cannot take it. But you should donate the land to the meditation center in Kathmandu. They can make a place for me, and you will create a trouble for them, because then they will have to find hundreds of acres more land, because thousands of people will be coming here whenever I am here. Right now they are being prevented. I’m telling them not to come because I’m going on a world tour myself. So you need not come to be in one place and I can meet you around…if the governments and countries and popes allow me! Because even countries where I have never been have made laws that I cannot enter their territory.There are countries I was planning to go to and I heard that they had been instructed by the pope that I should not be allowed to enter because they are all Catholic countries. This world is not yet human, it is not yet civilized. It is utterly uncultured.Because the commune in America had become such a great center of meditation – people were coming there to learn meditation from all the corners of the world – the American government became jealous. No other place in America was being visited by so many people from all over the world. Even the White House started looking poor!Naturally they became jealous, they became very much afraid, and they tried every illegal thing to destroy it. They have destroyed the commune, but they cannot destroy the spirit of meditation, they cannot destroy the seekers, they cannot destroy the people who were coming there. They will meditate somewhere else. It does not matter. They have simply harmed themselves.It was prestige for America. Otherwise, who goes to America on a spiritual search? Have you ever heard of anybody going to America on a spiritual search? It was prestige for them if they had been a little intelligent. I had created a place where, from all over the world, people were coming to seek, to learn, to be more authentic and real. And we purchased that big piece of land simply for one reason, that nobody would be disturbed.The closest town to us was twenty miles away. We were an island in ourselves. Nobody was being disturbed by us. Still, the whole American government was immensely disturbed for no reason. Just because people were coming there…it became a world capital. It became more important than Washington. Washington has all the powers and all the money – they could not tolerate that there was some other place also in America where people would come and simply go back. They didn’t travel around America because they did not come to see America. They had not come to see the cities and the American wealth. They were simply coming to the commune – staying there for three months, going directly back home.They have been ugly in destroying the commune. The sannyasins from all over the world had invested three hundred million dollars in it. They have offended millions of sannyasins around the world for no reason at all.So I would suggest you give those four acres. For me, they are more than enough, but then the center will be in difficulty. It will have to find a place where the people can come – I cannot prevent them forever. I’m just postponing, week by week. From all over the world people want to come, but we don’t have the space, we don’t have the place.In the American commune we had a meeting hall for thirty thousand people. Now if thirty thousand people are here in Kathmandu, where are we going to even be able to make them sit together?But you begin, then others will follow. Somebody else has told me that he has a diamond worth ten million rupees and asked if I am interested in it. He also promises in the footnote that whoever functions as an agent will also get commission, proper commission. Now I’m not interested in the diamond, I’m not interested even in the Kohinoor. What will I do with it? I don’t have any pockets to keep anything. But I will suggest to the man to donate it to the meditation center: that way you will save the commission also!Osho,How can we be close to you when you are far and above us in every respect.In neither case am I far away or far above you. All that you need is to open your heart. Thinking creates distance. Feeling destroys distance.Between two lovers – they may be thousands of miles away but there is no distance. And the person who is sitting by your side – if you don’t have any love for the person, although he is sitting by your side almost touching your body there is a distance of thousands of millions of miles.Closeness is not a physical phenomenon, it is a spiritual thing. Neither time nor space can create any distance. Your question is important, important for all to remember, that the more you love the more you are close to me. And when I say love I do not mean love to me, I mean simply love more – whoever is around you. People, animals, birds, trees – just love more and you will be close to me!I have heard about an old Buddhist nun….She had a very beautiful golden buddha. She used to travel and stay in one temple, another temple, and all those temples had big buddhas, many statues. She had a small, portable buddha, because she had to continuously travel. But it was solid gold and a very artistic creation. It was a very beautiful statue.Each morning, praying to the buddha, there was only one difficulty. She would burn incense, and you cannot say to incense, “Only go to my buddha.” The incense will go in all directions, it will reach to other buddhas. Big buddhas which have big noses…the small buddhas sometimes will miss all the incense….No, the old nun was in great despair that this was not right, something had to be done. Finally, she managed to do something. She made a small device, a hollow bamboo. So she would burn the incense and put the bamboo with one side touching her small buddha’s nose and the other side near the incense. But then a great difficulty arose: the small buddha’s nose became black! The incense reached, but it burned the poor buddha.She went to the abbot of that monastery where she was staying and she asked. “What to do? I am stupid. I did this just to take care of my buddha, because I am praying to him and the incense goes to the other buddhas. I am not praying to them.”The abbot said, “To pray to Buddha and still to be so possessive that you cannot even allow other statues of the same man to have the incense…. In fact, even if the incense reaches to human beings, to animals, to the trees, you should be happy. It is reaching to life! And unless you can see your buddha everywhere, not only in this small statue, you have not understood at all. Your misunderstanding has damaged your buddha.”So when I say love, when I say trust, I do not mean love me only, trust me only. That’s where religions have gone wrong. Be loving, be trusting to all without any discrimination. Your love, your trust has not to be a relationship with me, it has to be a state of your being that you are loving, that you are trusting; that whatever happens your loving and your trusting will remain the same…you may be deceived, you may be cheated.It happened in a court that the magistrate was astonished at the fact that the same man was again and again cheated….Almost every two weeks there was some case in which the same man was deceived, cheated. The magistrate asked the man, “What is the matter with you? Why does everybody cheat you, deceive you?”The man said, “It is simple: I trust people. How can they deceive if I don’t trust? It is not their fault. It is my way of life: I trust. And naturally, I become more vulnerable to being deceived. If anybody has to be punished, you can punish me; don’t punish them. And I am going to trust whatever happens. Howsoever I am deceived it doesn’t matter. What matters is that my trust remains unwavering. Whether my love is returned with love or not, whether anybody responds lovingly or not does not matter. What matters is that my love remains unwavering.”In this world people will certainly cheat you more if you love, they will deceive you more if you trust. But it is worth it. What can they cheat? What can they take? Finally, death is going to take everything away. So if they are taking some burden before death comes, let them! Finally, death will collect it either from you or from them. It does not matter finally.But if you can remain trusting, loving, in spite of everything that goes against your love and your trust, it will make you such a joyous being that in joy you will find yourself close to me. In your rejoicing you will find me close too. Singing and dancing or playing on the flute or on the tamboura, you will find me close to you, listening.It is not a question of physical closeness. All that is needed is a quality of unshakable love and trust.One of the monks in Japan was a famous saint….He used to steal small things from people – very small things – and then he would be sent to jail. Everybody was puzzled. He had followers, rich followers. Even the king used to come to listen to him. And they all asked him again and again, “Whatever you need, you just tell us, but don’t steal. It doesn’t look right. We all feel embarrassed that the man we love, the man we respect goes to jail – at least two or three times in a year.”But the man never listened.When he was dying they asked him, “Now at least tell us, because whatsoever you were stealing was useless – one shoe…Now what are you going to do with it? You have not even stolen two shoes, and they were not your size…” And he would do it in such a way that he would be caught immediately – as if the whole device was to be caught and sent to jail.They wanted to know from him what was the secret. He said, “Nothing much – just a small thing. In the jail there are so many criminals, and nobody takes care of them. Outside there are so many saints, so many masters. You can learn from them, you can afford to go anywhere, but in the jails those poor people depend only on me. I have changed the lives of thousands of people just by going to jail. And I have found in those people, who are thought to be criminals, very loving human beings, very trusting human beings, very simple people.“It was easier to teach them meditation than to teach meditation to the people who are outside the jail. They seem to be more cunning, more clever, more full of rubbish thoughts.”It is my understanding too.One of the governors in India was my friend, and so he gave me permission to visit all the jails in his state whenever I wanted. So I was going to his state jails and I found those people so ready to change, to trust, to love. I was surprised what the reason was. I inquired, investigated, and the reason that I found was that thieves never deceive each other. Criminals never commit crimes against each other, they have a certain honesty about that.They may be thieves, but if they are partners, they don’t deceive each other as businessmen always do – because to have a partner is very dangerous. In actual life, both will try to deceive each other. Thieves also have partnerships, but it is not known in the whole of history that any thief has deceived the other.This trusting quality is far more important than their small crimes. And I simply tried to teach them that you can spread your trusting quality towards other human beings.You know to love, but you just have a very limited area to your love. These qualities are basically such that if you want them, you have to have them in their unlimitedness. You cannot have just a little bit of love, just a little bit of honesty, just a little bit of trust. Either you have the whole trust, the whole love, or you don’t have it at all. It is indivisible.So I teach very simple things: be loving, be trustful. As far as others are concerned, be compassionate. And as far as you are concerned, be more and more silent, be more and more aware, be more and more conscious.Whatever you do, do it with consciousness. Just don’t go on doing it like a machine, out of habit.Buddha was walking on a street, followed by his disciple Ananda….A fly just came and sat on his forehead. And automatically – as you would have done, he did – he just waved his hand. He continued to talk to Ananda, waved his hand and the fly was gone. But then he suddenly stopped, closed his eyes and again waved his hand, but with a very slow motion. Now there was no fly!Ananda asked, “What are you doing? The fly is not there.”Buddha said, “The last time it was there, I moved my hand unconsciously. I continued to talk to you, so my whole consciousness was there and the hand simply moved mechanically. It can move even in sleep.”When you are asleep, if an ant starts crawling over your feet, your feet will throw it off and you will remain asleep. That much the body can do without waking you up.So Buddha said, “That I did wrong, and now I am doing as I should have done, just to remind me that never again such a thing happens. My hand should move consciously, with awareness. I should have stopped talking to you. My whole attention should have been towards my hand which was removing the fly from my forehead.”So as far as others are concerned the three qualities are love, trust, compassion. As far as you are concerned the three qualities are silence, awareness, consciousness.If these things are possible, you will find me close, very close, as you have never found anybody. And this closeness will be an achievement. I may be miles away – that does not matter. I may not be in the body – that too does not matter, because now you have a secret key of being close spiritually.Osho,I've read a translation of the Indian aesthetician, Abhinava Gupta, in which he says the taste of rasa is the same as the taste of Brahma. His meaning, if I understand correctly, is that the aesthetic experience is of the same order as the experience of God. Sometimes, especially with art and music, I find a spontaneous joy arising. Is this a small taste of what it's like to be egoless?The great philosopher, Abhinava Gupta, knows exactly what rasa is. There is no exact word in English to translate the Sanskrit word rasa. In Western aesthetics, the concept has not been evolved at all. The only word that can give you a little hint is juice. Literally, rasa means juice.There are moments of aesthetic experience when you are drowned in a juice: you have a certain taste of spontaneous joy, a feeling of timelessness, a moment when your thoughts have stopped. It can happen seeing a painting, or a beautiful piece of sculpture, or listening to music, or seeing a great dancer, or dancing yourself. All these are aesthetic activities. You can be drowned into some juice which is not of this world.It happens spontaneously; you cannot manage it to happen. If you make an effort to make it happen then there is no possibility of its happening; it only happens spontaneously.So either it happens or it does not. You cannot do anything about it. It depends on a certain synchronicity between you and the music. Perhaps a moment comes, listening to music, that your thoughts stop. The listening becomes so intense that you forget your own ego, that you forget thinking about the music, that you disappear almost – just the listening remains, not the listener – and then it is there.Van Gogh, the great painter, was asked, “Your paintings are never sold?” In his whole lifetime not a single painting was sold, because he was almost a hundred years ahead of his time. He was a genius. It took a hundred years for people to understand his paintings. Now he has become one of the greatest painters, but while he was alive he lived starving, giving away his paintings – which now cost millions of dollars – just for a cup of tea!Somebody asked him, “You don’t sell your paintings, your brother sends you enough money to keep you alive, but you eat only four days in a week and three days you fast to save money to purchase colors, canvasses, brushes, painting materials” – perhaps never has anybody done his painting with his own blood, but this man did – “what joy can you get out of it?”Van Gogh said, “You cannot understand. While I am painting, I am not. The painter disappears. There is only the process of painting, and the joy is immense.”Abhinava Gupta is a great philosopher, particularly of art, aesthetics, but he is not an enlightened man. So when he starts saying that the experience of rasa, the experience of aesthetic beauty, is the same as the experience of ultimate reality, then he is going beyond his limits. I cannot support him there.I know both. He knows only one. What he is saying is tremendously significant, but he does not know anything about enlightenment, about the experience of ultimate reality, about self-realization. There is not even the difference of quantity between the two, otherwise I would not have objected. I have great respect for Abhinava Gupta; I would not have objected if there was even a slight chance of a difference of only quantity.For example, one candle is burning in the room – this may be the experience of rasa; ten thousand candles are burning in the room – this may be the experience of enlightenment. The difference is only of quantity. I would have accepted what he says, but the difference is of quality. They cannot be synonymous. They are not, otherwise all artists would have become enlightened. All painters, all musicians, all singers, all dancers, all sculptors, would have become buddhas, but that has not happened, nor have all the buddhas become painters or dancers or musicians. The experiences are qualitatively different.The experience of beauty is a very momentary flash. It does not change you; it has no radical effect on you. You remain the same person. Before the experience and after the experience you are the same person.The experience of enlightenment is qualitatively different because it is a radical transformation. Before the experience and after the experience you are not the same person. It is almost a death and a new birth. Before the experience you were one person, after the experience you are another. The change is so vast and so discontinuous with your past.One day, Gautam Buddha was talking to one of the kings, Prasenjita….While he was talking, an old bhikkhu came to touch his feet. He asked his forgiveness for interrupting Buddha talking, but he had to leave – according to Buddha’s order, this is the time he should leave – and he could not leave without touching his feet.Buddha asked him, “How old are you?”This was a strange question, particularly for Prasenjita the king, who said, “What is the relationship of all this? Just bless him and let him go. You are asking how old he is? You can see him – he is very old, must be seventy or seventy-five.”The man said, “I am only four years old.”That was even more amazing. Prasenjita could not contain himself. He said, “Wait. What is happening? First, I was puzzled why you asked, ‘How old are you?’ Now, I am really shocked. I cannot believe this man is four years old. He is at least seventy-five. He may be more.”Buddha and the old monk both laughed, and Buddha said to Prasenjita, “You don’t know how we count age. We count age only after enlightenment. Just four years ago he became enlightened. The other person who would have been seventy-five years old by now, died four years back; this is a new person. The body is old, but the consciousness is new.”Abhinava Gupta has no experience of enlightenment. He is right to talk about aesthetic beauty, its experience, but he should not say anything about the ultimate transformation of being. That is committing a crime.I respect the man for his great insight into aesthetics, but I cannot forgive him for giving a very wrong idea – for generations. Those two experiences are totally different.If you ask me, I can say that the aesthetic experience, rasa, is close to the sexual experience of orgasm, but not to the spiritual experience of enlightenment. They have a similarity, but are not exactly the same. In sexual orgasm time stops. For a moment two persons are no longer two; there is a great oneness, and an overflowing of spontaneous joy. And there is circumstantial evidence for it.All great artists are great lovers, not great spiritual people. All great musicians, great dancers, painters, poets – all are great lovers, because the experience of love is very close to the experience of their aesthetic creativity. But it can be said that although the experiences are qualitatively different, if the person who has experienced aesthetic beauty does not stop there…If he starts seeking for how this experience of joy can be not just momentary, a fleeting moment, a breeze coming in and going out by the other door, but asks, “How can I make it something that becomes part of my being so that I do not have to depend on music, on dance, on a beautiful sunrise, on a beautiful painting; so that I have not to depend on anything outside of me, so that I can be absolutely independent?”, that is the qualitative difference.The aesthetic experience is dependent on something outside you. That’s why I said it is more similar to the sexual experience, because the sexual is also dependent on an outside person. But the spiritual experience is independent, and it is not momentary. It is not that suddenly it happens and then stops. No, it is not momentary. You have to prepare the ground. That preparation is called meditation. You have to make your being ready for it. And the moment you are open and vulnerable and absolutely ready – you cannot say it is happening momentarily, because before it can happen you have to fulfill certain conditions.You have to be silent – not by the experience, but before the experience. You have to be in a state of no-thought – not by the experience, but before the experience. You have to drop the ego – not in the experience, but before the experience. You have to be absolutely prepared and ready. And the moment you are ready, it happens. It is not momentary; you deserve it. You have earned it; it is your achievement.And because you have earned it, there is no way of its going. It has become part of you; it is your growth. The aesthetic experience was just dreamlike, very superficial. This is a radical change. You have grown. Now meditation is not something that you do. Now meditation is something that you are in. Even if you want to get out of it, there is no door.People fall in love and people fall out of love. Nobody has ever fallen out of enlightenment. There is no way.So let everybody be warned: once enlightened, then don’t tell me, “I want to go back.” There is no way back. Once enlightened, you are enlightened forever.Osho,Your answers are very convincing, very clear and very useful. I think your presence in Nepal has been a great blessing. In you I have found especially these three qualities of love, trust, and compassion. You have loved our country, Nepal, you have trusted us, and also you are compassionate to us.Thank you so much for your being this.I have another question:Is there a way to save the drowning human world?There is a way. There has always been a way, but the world seems to have decided not to be saved. Century after century man has gone more towards darkness than towards light. And today, perhaps we are for the first time in the whole history of man, very close to global death.I am not a pessimist.I am not an optimist either.I am a realist.The situation is grave and dangerous. We are sitting on nuclear weapons. They can explode any moment and destroy all life on the earth. But in this darkness and in this moment which is so close to global death, there is a ray of light too. And that ray of light is that if we make all human beings alert of the danger which governments are hiding from people, which politicians are not allowing people to know…If we can make everybody aware of the danger into which the politicians are leading the world, then it is within the hands of the people. And because the danger is great, very great, there is a possibility of a radical change of human mind, because whenever there is a great danger, there is also a great challenge. This is the greatest challenge and the greatest danger that man has ever encountered.We have as many nuclear weapons as can destroy this earth seventy times. And still we are living as if nothing is a problem, everything is going on as usual. And the politicians are accumulating more and more nuclear weapons. The only way to prevent them is to create a public opinion around the world that we do not want war, that there is no cause which can justify the destruction of the whole of life.Neither can communism nor capitalism nor any other ism – no cause can justify the destruction of the whole of humanity, because then what is the point? If all are dead, nobody is victorious and nobody is defeated. The third world war will be the most stupid world war, because the war is fought with the idea to be victorious: somebody will be victorious, somebody will be defeated. It is understandable. But in the third world war nobody is going to be victorious, nobody is going to be defeated – all are going to be dead. Now only idiots can be ready to go for such a thing.And so much energy which could be diverted towards creative ends, which could destroy world poverty, sickness, old age, could give man a longer life, a healthier life…The same energy which becomes death to all can become a tremendous release of life to everybody. The energy is so much available, and energy is always neutral: you can destroy with it; you can create with it.All that is needed is that all people of intelligence, all people of understanding, all people who have any love for life should create a worldwide opinion that the war is not possible: “We will not allow it to happen.”This is, on the one hand, a collective effort to save humanity from being destroyed, but just that is not enough, because this kind of humanity has existed for centuries. If people are going to remain just the same, then I don’t think there is much point in saving them. Let them be finished! So this is only half of the process.The second thing which is even more important is that we should start spreading the scientific method of meditation without any religious ritual, religious adjective. Rather than making it a religious thing, we should talk in terms of science, so that even atheists can become participants in meditation. If there is no question of believing in God, no question of believing in heaven and hell, no question of believing at all, then theist or atheist, Hindu or Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan, Jew or Jaina, it makes no difference. Just a simple process of going inwards, realizing oneself.So two things have to happen simultaneously. One, a world opinion against war, and second, a great movement for meditation so each individual becomes more integrated, more intense, more loving, less violent, less angry. In that way he will not support the war, he will be against the war. And perhaps each individual has even to be made aware of the world opinion that the war is going to happen.So it is not only a question of saving the world. The few years that you have got, you have to realize yourself before they destroy all humanity and all life on this planet.This is a double-front attack against destruction and the drowning of humanity so that there should be no war, because war has lost its point. It makes no sense anymore. And secondly, that this kind of humanity is not worth saving, we have to change man. We have to save man just to change him.So simultaneously, everybody who is interested in this beautiful planet, in this vast universe…this is the only small planet, this very small planet which is full of life. Not only is it full of life, but full of consciousness. Not only full of consciousness, but this is the only planet in the whole universe of millions of stars and billions of planets – a single planet, this earth – that has reached to the ultimate experience of enlightenment. We should not allow this earth to be destroyed.This is the very crown, the very cream in the whole universe. If this earth is dead, the whole universe is dead – and without life and without consciousness and without any possibility of another Gautam Buddha.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 14 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,I understand that the gap between the ideals and reality can be bridged by me on my own only. On the other hand, I am receiving your immense help. I cannot understand the contradiction.There is no contradiction at all. I have been telling you that you have to walk the way, I cannot walk on your behalf.That does not mean that I cannot help you. That does not mean that I cannot indicate the path to you. That does not mean that I can’t make you aware of the pitfalls on the path.The master as a friend can help immensely, but the master should not become an owner. He should not possess the disciple as a slave, he should not ask for any surrender. The surrender has to be for the whole of existence, not for any individual.You have to surrender the ego, not to someone, you have to simply drop it.If somebody demands you to surrender yourself to him, demands that you should obey him and says that disobedience is sin, then he is creating a spiritual slave out of you. He is not going to help you, he is destroying you. And millions of people on the earth have been destroyed in this way. They have become simply slaves of traditions, scriptures, statues, temples, rituals, but nothing of it transforms their being, nothing of it brings them to truth.How many centuries have you been a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jaina, a Christian, a Jew…what is the result? How long are you going to wait? If it has not happened for centuries, perhaps it is not going to happen ever. You have waited enough. It is time to do something.Hence my emphasis is that you should not become attached to me, you should not become in any way obedient to me, you should not be surrendered to me. You don’t have any commitment to me, you are simply available to me as a friend, as a guide. And it is out of your freedom to accept the guidance or not to accept it. It is not a sin if you don’t accept it. If you don’t accept it, then it must be my mistake, I am not presenting it rightly to you. I should present it in a different way, from a different angle, so that it can become understandable to you.Help is absolutely needed, and help is possible.But you have been told that you have just to believe in someone and you will be saved –that you need not do anything. Just believe in Jesus Christ and on the ultimate judgment day he will choose you out of the crowd: “This is my follower.” Those he chooses will enter into the kingdom of God, and those he does not choose will fall into eternal darkness and hell.Now this is all exploitation of the simplicity, of the innocence of human beings. Nobody can be your savior. Neither can Christ nor Krishna; neither can Mahavira nor Buddha…nobody can be your savior. And if you had not accepted these people as your saviors but just as your guides, you would have been in a totally different state. You would not have been in such misery and suffering and anguish. You would have been blissful. Your life would have been a light unto itself.There is no contradiction. You can take the help, and the beauty of help is, it is not binding. You can take my help and you can take anybody else’s help too. There is no question of commitment.You can accept help from every corner available. Why should you become attached only to one person? You should become available to all the wise people around you from wherever any ray of light comes towards you. You should be ready and receptive. It does not matter whether it comes from a Mohammedan or from a Buddhist or from a Hindu or from a Jew…it does not matter from whom the ray of light comes. If it leads towards truth, if it makes you more free, more independent, more integrated, more of an individual, solid, like a rock…then you are absolutely free to accept all the help possible.A real friend cannot make you a slave. He cannot tell you, “You have only to accept my help.” If he is a real friend, he will say to you, “You have to learn to accept advice, wisdom from wherever it comes.”Help is absolutely necessary. But help is one thing, and to become your savior is totally different.There is no contradiction in what you are experiencing. They are absolutely consistent with each other. Just remember that I do not want to become in any way a bondage to you. I want to be remembered by you only as a freedom giver, not as somebody who enslaves you. And then from wherever you feel your thirst can be quenched, your heart starts dancing; you feel that you are moving, moving towards a more beautiful space, then go without hesitation.You can have many friends, you cannot have many masters. That’s the difference. The master monopolizes. He wants to hold you completely in his hands, and only then he guarantees you that he will bring deliverance to you. But the deliverance is always after death, so nobody knows that any master has ever helped anybody after death because nobody returns to give any evidence.I don’t want to help you after death. I want to help you right now.If I cannot help you now, how can I help you after death?While you are alive you should be changed. When you are full of energy and young you should put your youth, your energy into transforming yourself.My help is available. You need not even feel grateful towards me. In fact, I always feel grateful whenever anybody accepts my help because I know he was capable of rejecting it, but he did not reject it.And it is my joy to help you. By helping you I feel more blissful. The more people I can help, the more blissful I feel. That is the quality of bliss: share it, and it grows; stop sharing it, and it starts dying.So remember, there is no contradiction; it is absolutely consistent. You are on your feet, you have to move with your own energy, you have to see with your own eyes, you have to experience with your own being. Still, immense help can be given to you because there are so many paths which lead nowhere.The right path has to be chosen.And even on the right path there are so many pitfalls, so many places people get stuck. Somebody is needed who has traveled on the path, who knows each inch of the path, who is aware of the pitfalls because he has fallen and he has risen so many times. He knows the stumbling blocks because he has stumbled. For many lives he has been struggling, and then finally he has been able to reach. Somebody who has traveled can be of great help, and one should not be ashamed of taking help from wherever it comes. One should be humble, one should be ready and open.Rather than getting into a bondage with one person it is better to be available to all the wise ones in the world – living and dead. They all indicate to the same truth, because there are not so many truths, there is only one.There are thousands of fingers pointing to the same moon. You should not become attached to the finger, because the finger is not the moon. You should forget the finger and look at the moon, and move towards the moon.Osho,Mystics have spoken about true consciousness, and about “one” without a second. Yet, the very foundation of experience, of knowing, conceiving and language, is duality –at least a distinction between the subject and object must be made. From a logical point of view, pure consciousness cannot be the unconsciousness.What can be said about this?Logic is basically dualistic. Existence is non-dualistic. So first you have to understand one thing: logic and existence are diametrically opposite. For example, for logic there is darkness, there is light. But in existence itself, it is the same energy – different degrees.There are animals who see in the night only. Our night is their day, our day is their night. Their eyes are very sensitive. The light of the sun is dazzling for their delicate and sensitive eyes, they cannot open their eyes. Naturally, in the day they live in darkness, they can open their eyes only in the night. And their eyes are so sensitive that they can see while you cannot see.Light and darkness are not two opposites, but two poles of one energy – different degrees. Logically they look opposite. In terms of logic, light is light and can never be dark, and darkness is darkness and can never be light.In logical terms, a is always a and can never be b. b is always b and can never be a. But in existence, the logic is not applicable.In existence, a changes into b because the difference between a and b is only of degrees. In existence life becomes death. We see it happening every day –life changing into death, its very opposite. And those who have died consciously know one thing more that is not seen by us: they see death changing into new life.So it is not only life changing into death, death is continuously changing into life. They are not two different things, just two poles of one energy.Logically, the experience mystics talk of as the experience of the one without the second –of the absolute, the ultimate –where only pure consciousness exists but it is not conscious of anything…there is no object but only consciousness. Logically, all mystics are wrong, because consciousness can exist only if there is an object because consciousness is the subject, subjectivity. Without an object there cannot be any subject. Knowledge is possible only if there is something known. If there is nothing to be known, then what are you going to know?If there is only consciousness, as the mystics say, and there is nothing else, then logic will not agree –and logically it is correct to say that in that state consciousness cannot exist, it needs something to be conscious of. If there is nothing to be conscious of, then you will become unconscious, you cannot remain conscious.But logic is not existence. And what the mystics are saying is existentially true. And who cares about logic? Logic is something man-made.For example, Aristotle is the father of logic in the West, and for two thousand years he has remained unchallenged. But recently, in these past fifty years he has been insistently challenged that he is wrong, and a new logic, non-Aristotelian, has arisen. That is happening in the West right now, but in the East it had happened even before Aristotle was born.Aristotle knows only about two: light and dark, life and death, subject and object.One morning a man asked Gautam Buddha, “Is there God?”Buddha looked at him and said, “No. Absolutely no.”That very same day, in the afternoon, another man asked, “Does God exist?”Buddha looked at the man and said, “Yes. Absolutely yes.”And the same day, by the evening as the sun was setting, a third man came, sat down, touched Buddha’s feet and asked, “Say something to me about God.”Buddha remained silent and closed his eyes.The man also closed his eyes. He thought, “Perhaps this is the answer.” He closed his eyes, and he sat with Gautam Buddha with closed eyes. And after half an hour or so he opened his eyes, touched Buddha’s feet and said, “I am grateful for the answer.”Ananda, who was Gautam Buddha’s intimate disciple and constant companion –you can understand he was going crazy…To one man Buddha says, “No.” To another he says, “Yes.” To the third he does not say a word. And the third says, “I am grateful, I have received the answer.”He was waiting for his time, because he was told by Buddha, “You are not to interfere while others are present…only in the night if you have some problem.”When everybody was gone and Buddha was going to sleep, Ananda said, “Today I have got a problem. It has nothing to do with me, you have created it. And I cannot sleep unless you explain it to me completely. To one man, you said, ‘no,’ to the other man you said, ‘yes,’ and to the third man you remained silent. You have given three answers in a single day, about a single subject, God! And just think about me, a poor man…I have heard all the three answers and I am puzzled about what is right.”Buddha said, “You should not get into other people’s troubles. Those were not your questions, why should you be worried?”But Ananda said, “I have ears, what can I do? I heard the answers. I have eyes. I saw you sitting in silence for half an hour, I heard the man saying that he had received the answer and I have not heard it.”Gautam Buddha’s logic has not only duality, his logic is threefold. He says that to everything from one aspect can be said yes, from another aspect can be said no, and from a third aspect nothing can be said about it except being silent.The man to whom he had said no was a theist –he believed in God. He looked at the face of the man and said no –he was a believer. And the man to whom he said yes was a non-believer –he was an atheist. To the atheist he said yes. And the third person was neither a believer nor an unbeliever. He was just a seeker; that’s why he remained silent. And the man followed, he closed his eyes and became silent. And in the silence something transpired.Nothing was said from Buddha’s side as far as Ananda was concerned, but something was understood by the man who was silent with Buddha. Something happened to him, something he experienced in that silence which cannot be expressed.Buddha had a threefold logic and Mahavira had a sevenfold logic. Mahavira is even more puzzling because every question has seven answers…. And both of these were alive five hundred years before Aristotle was born.Recently, in the West, they have started doubting Aristotle’s logic. Existence is far bigger; you cannot just divide it into two. It is too big, it needs something more. This division is very simple –simplistic.Mahavira divides it into seven, just as light rays are divided into seven colors and it becomes the rainbow. And strange, all seven colors of the rainbow put together create a color which is not a color, it is white.White is not a color, white is only a combination of seven colors. It has no independence in itself. Black is also not a color. It is the absence of the seven colors. Existence is big enough. Seven colors and then two more. One, the combination of the seven, and one, the absence of the seven. So there are nine colors. And yet they are all born of the same sunlight. The same ray is divided into nine.Aristotle’s logic is good for children, for kindergarten schools; otherwise it has nothing important in it.Existence is so vast that only silence can express it. The mystics have spoken through silence –it is just their compassion. Because you cannot understand silence, they have to use language.And the moment they use language they commit a mistake, because language is logic. Language is dualistic, it cannot exist without dividing.If somebody asks you what light is, you will say it is not darkness.If somebody asks what darkness is you can say it is not light.You need the other to define. Without the other you cannot even say “light,” you cannot use the word. The moment you use a word you have fallen into the world of duality.So the mystic’s basic expression is silence, but because people cannot understand silence he has to speak, and then whatever he says can be proved wrong. If he says, “The experience is of pure consciousness,” he can be proved wrong logically, because consciousness alone, without any object, is logically impossible. But what is logically impossible is not existentially impossible. And that is where the philosopher and the mystic depart.The philosopher remains in the world of logic and language, and the mystic moves into the world of silence. So it is not his fault, it is our fault. We force him to speak. We ask him to say something about the ultimate experience.The only right way is not to say anything. But then the mystic will appear too hard –that he has no compassion on you. You have come to ask something and he is not answering. You think every question is answerable? No, the ultimate questions are not answerable. That which can be answered is not ultimate.So the problem is, as Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most intelligent logicians of the contemporary world has said, “That which cannot be said should not be said.” He accepts that there is something which cannot be said. He makes it a point that it should not be said. On the one hand you say it cannot be said, and on the other hand you go on saying something about it. And whatever you say is going to be wrong.When Buddha became enlightened, for seven days he was silent. He could not think how to say it – there was no way. He tried in many ways to think about it, but every way turned out to be wrong.The moment you bring it to the level of language, suddenly something goes wrong. It is just as if you take a straight stick and put it down into water. Let half the stick be in the water, and you will be surprised. The stick is absolutely straight, but the half in the water and the half out of the water are not in a straight line. Light rays function differently in water than they function outside water. So the straight stick will look crooked. Take it out and it is straight. Put it back into the water and suddenly it is no longer straight.What is absolutely clear in silence becomes crooked the moment you bring it into language.The story, that after seven days the gods in heaven became troubled, is tremendously significant. It is just a symbolic story –don’t take it literally. There is no heaven and there are no gods….The gods in heaven became very troubled, because it was centuries since somebody had become awakened, had become a buddha. And this was a great opportunity for the whole existence to hear from him about the highest peaks of experience: “This man has become enlightened, and for seven days the whole of existence has been waiting, but it seems he is not going to speak. We have to go and convince him, ‘You have to speak.’”And they argued with Gautam Buddha. And Buddha said, “I have thought about every possible way, but the moment I say it, it will not be the truth that I have experienced. And the moment I say it, it will become logically refutable, and my experience is irrefutable. I cannot degrade my truth from irrefutableness to refutability.”The gods went on arguing –giving this argument, that argument. Finally, they said, “Just think of those few people –perhaps only one percent –who will be able to understand the wordless experience through the words. You cannot deny that there are a few people who are just on the verge –they need just a little push. Your words may give them a little push to take the jump. And if you don’t speak you will simply show a very hard heart; it will not be compassionate. Don’t be worried about logicians, you should think about the potential mystics. You should speak for them.”And that argument appealed to Buddha. He could not deny that there are people who may be able to take the final jump, who may be encouraged and inspired, who may be convinced that they are not groping in darkness. Somebody has already reached: “If somebody has already reached then we can also reach.”Buddha agreed, “I will speak, but you are putting me into trouble, because whatever I will say will be refutable.”In language you cannot say anything which cannot be refuted, particularly about the wordless experience which has to be said always in illogical ways. A few mystics have said it – it is the sound of one hand clapping. Now one hand cannot clap. And even if it claps there will be no sound. Sound needs two hands to clap. But the experience is like one hand clapping, and the sound of one hand clapping…What can the poor mystic do? And it is not only one mystic’s experience. Down the ages, whenever anybody has experienced truth it is the same problem, that it cannot be said.When Lao Tzu was in China he experienced it. He never spoke about it; he spoke about other things. And his disciples asked again and again, “Why don’t you tell us about the real thing?”And he would say, “To say anything about it is to betray the experience.”They asked him to write it down for the coming generations. Lao Tzu said, “It is impossible, it cannot be written down.”When he became eighty, he started traveling towards the Himalayas because he wanted to die in the silence of the Himalayas –the last moments in the pure world of the Himalayas.The emperor of China ordered the guards on the boundary of China: “Lao Tzu is coming and he will have to pass through the gates. You stop him there. Unless he writes down his experience, don’t let him go out. That experience is valuable for the coming centuries; otherwise the coming centuries will not be able to forgive us ever.”And poor Lao Tzu was stopped at the gate. With great respect the guards touched his feet but they said, “We cannot allow you…this is our cottage, you remain in it and you write down your experience.”And he wrote a small book in three days. The first sentence of that book is: “Whatever can be written cannot be true. While you are reading this book, please remember it.”The mystics cannot be blamed for it. Logicians and linguistic people will have to understand that existence is much more than language, much more than logic, and there are experiences which cannot be reduced into arguments.So I agree perfectly with you. As far as logic is concerned all mystics are wrong. But the mystics themselves are saying that as far as logic is concerned, whatever we say is wrong. Our experience is beyond logic and beyond language. If you really want to understand it you have to experience it, no explanation is going to be right.Every mystic is absolutely clear about the point that his experience is something beyond duality. And that’s how existence is –nothing can be done about it.I would like to say to you, you can call it pure consciousness, you can call it pure unconsciousness. It makes no difference, because pure consciousness also needs an object, and unconsciousness also needs an object. It can be asked, “Of what are you unconscious?” If it can be asked, “Of what are you conscious?” then the same question can be asked, “Of what are you unconscious?”Unconsciousness cannot exist alone, nor can consciousness exist alone. But this is only a linguistic game. In existence they exist alone. And I am saying from my own experience, don’t listen to the words, listen to the silence.It is an old proverb in Tibet that when a musician becomes perfect he breaks up his instrument of music and throws it away. Whenever somebody becomes perfect, then perfection cannot be produced on any instrument, because instrument means expression.The moment a musician is perfect then he cannot play it on any instrument –all instruments are useless. Only imperfect music can be played. Only approximate truths can be expressed. But remember, an approximate truth is another name for a lie. I don’t want to say that mystics lie, so I say they speak in approximate truths.But the truth remains beyond expression.If you follow the path of philosophy then you will go far away from existence and you will be logical. Your language will be perfect, but your experience will be nil. If you go on the path of the mystic your experience will be full, so full, that there is no space to speak it.I am reminded of my childhood….Just in front of my house was a very beautiful, nice old man. He had a small sweet shop, and he was such a simple and beautiful fellow that to deceive him was the simplest thing in the world. And not only once…the same trick again and again and he would not get the idea.I used to go to him and I would say, “Your wife is calling.” He was a little hard of hearing, so one had to shout. So I would shout, “Your wife is calling from the back of the house.”So he would say, “You just wait here and look after my shop.” And by the time he came back, I had eaten as much as I could.And it almost always happened I was in the middle…my mouth was full, and he would come! And he would say, “She is not calling me. Why did you unnecessarily lie to me? And why are you not speaking now?”And I had to put my hand over my mouth because the mouth was so full there was no space to speak. And it was not the time to speak either!He would tell me, “You are a strange type of boy. For no reason at all suddenly you come: ‘Your wife is calling’ –and it is always untrue. And when I come back then you stand so silently, almost like a saint, and you are a rascal!”But I had to remain silent because to speak was to expose the whole game, and it was an agreed thing. Even my parents tried to stop me: “This is not right. We have seen you doing it so many times, and that man is so simple that even though he catches you red-handed, still he thinks you are strange that you don’t speak.”The whole neighborhood knew why I could not speak…!There is a fullness which cannot be contained in any word. All words fail. That fullness can only be experienced. It is up to you to follow logic and remain empty forever, or to follow existence and become full, over-full, with all the ecstasies, all the blessings and all the benedictions that are capable for human consciousness to experience.But don’t mix the two, otherwise you will simply get confused. Just as you cannot mix water and oil, you cannot mix philosophy and mysticism. And that is being done almost all over the world in thousands of books every day. Mixing water with oil –you cannot do it, you should not do it; it is sacrilegious.You can choose one path, but remember the condition: the logician ends as a beggar; the mystic lives as an emperor, dies as an emperor. Although he cannot say what he has got, he has got it! Who cares whether you can talk about it or not? The real thing is to get it.The logician is very proficient in talking, but all that he is saying is meaningless and empty because his experience is nil. It is a strange situation: those who are capable of saying have nothing to say, and those who have something to say are not capable of saying it.But my own situation is totally different. I am a trained logician. I have been a teacher of philosophy for nine years, and finding that there was nothing except words, I entered into the world of mysticism. There I have found what was missing in all the philosophies, in all the logical treatises. But now it is impossible to say it. Still I speak. I have been speaking for thirty years continuously – round and round, hoping that somebody may get caught into the net of words and may be pulled out of the misery in which he is drowning. The words can do that much. They can pull you out of your logical world, your linguistic world, your world of philosophies. That too is great. Half the work is done, the remaining can be done by meditation.Use logic to destroy logic. And when you have destroyed logic and language from your mind, then use meditation to invite silence. Then each moment becomes so tremendously beautiful, so ecstatic, that one does not care whether he can say it or not. But one can show it always!That’s what I am doing:I cannot say it but I can show it.Osho,What is your message for the pope who is in India now?It is absolutely wrong of Hindus to oppose the pope, because this is not the way of the East. It is ugly. He should be treated in an Eastern way. He should be invited in every place he goes for a public discussion, in a friendly way. Hindus have nothing to lose; they have a far richer religion. The pope is simply poor. To oppose him is not worth it. Expose him, don’t oppose.And Christianity is a third-rate religion anyway. It has no great heights, it has never produced great mystics. It has not produced great philosophers. Its heritage is very poor.In every place where the pope goes, respectfully, lovingly invite him for a public discussion. There are Hindu thinkers, Hindu mystics, there are Buddhist mystics, there are Jaina mystics. They should have an open discussion about each of the fundamentals of religion. That will be something valuable, and it will give him some taste of what religion is. Right now he has only tasted cow dung!When he kissed the land on the airport in India, what do you think he tasted? This is not good to let him go with this taste; it is not right. We should give him some taste of real spirituality.I oppose the opposition of the Hindus. It is absolutely ugly and un-Eastern.That’s what they have done to me in America. The government harassed me simply because of Christian pressure –in which there is every possibility that the pope’s hand was involved, because Ronald Reagan had met the pope just a few days before I was arrested. He had just come back from the Vatican.There is every possibility that the pope also suggested that I should be thrown out of America, that my commune should be completely destroyed, because this was the first time that a man from the East had taken so many Christians out of the Christian fold. And particularly intelligent, young, educated, sophisticated people…professors, doctors, scientists, electronic engineers, Nobel Prize winners, artists, musicians….And what have the Christians been doing in the East? The missionaries have only been able to convert the beggars, the aboriginals. Not a single educated, cultured, rich person have they been able to convert to Christianity.So it was a real shock to them that I have been taking the very cream from their fold.Illegally they arrested me, illegally they destroyed the commune, illegally they have mistreated thousands of sannyasins and have thrown them out of America.I say that I suspect perhaps the pope’s hand was in it, because when he heard that I was coming to Italy he immediately informed all the Catholic news media. In Italy, all the news media are in the hands of Catholics. One of the Catholic journalists informed me –because he loves me he informed –that all Catholic news media had been informed by the pope that they had not to give any publicity to me. “Not only have you not to be positive, you should not even give negative publicity. Don’t even write against him; don’t write for him. Just don’t write about him –as if he is not here.”When I was in jail, he had not the guts to speak to the American government that this was not the right way to treat somebody who does not belong to your religion and is against it. But I say to the Hindus in India not to make the same mistake as they have always been making in the West.You should invite him, and you don’t have to be afraid, because you have such a great source of wisdom, compared to which Christianity has nothing. And it will be good that you expose the pope, intelligently, in every place he goes. Let the people hear. Let the Hindus hear and let the Christians hear. Those who have become Christians should know that what they have left they are not aware of it, and what they have found is nothing.But the way they are opposing is chauvinistic. It is terroristic, it will not help them. It will help the pope and his missionaries.You have to understand the subtleties of how the mind functions. Any ugly opposition simply creates sympathy. A right discussion about the fundamentals of religion will make him afraid to come back again to the East because then he has to face the giants, not the hooligans on the streets.I don’t see that any religion that is born outside India has anything comparable to the religions that are born in India. India’s whole genius is invested in religion, just as the whole Western genius is invested in science.So these pygmies have nothing to discuss. They cannot argue for their theology, for their religion –and they are not really religious people either. The pope particularly is a politician.A mystic will not like to be head of a state. The pope is not only the head of the Catholic religion, he is also a head of a small state –the Vatican. It is only eight square miles, but it is an independent nation, and that is a strategy. Because of that, when he comes to India, the president, and the prime minister have to come to receive him. They have not come to receive the Catholic pope, they have come to receive the head of a state. They have to come, that is just political courtesy.But the pope uses that in a cunning way, politically. These politicians –the Indian president or the prime minister – will not come to receive a shankaracharya, particularly now, will not come to receive the Dalai Lama. When he was head of a state they would have come, but now he is only a refugee.But why not have a discussion between the Dalai Lama and the pope? It would create a worldwide impact. Although the pope has informed the media in Italy that they have not to publish anything about me – negative or positive – an Italian television crew came here and they took a one-and-a-half-hour interview which was released on the twenty-seventh of last month. Thirteen million people listened and have seen the program. The program director informed me that this is the first time that any program has been heard by thirteen million people. And now the whole country is in a great discussion: “Half of the people are for you, half are against you, and the whole country is discussing only one thing –the repetition of the program.”I am going to go. They have been blocking the visa application for almost one month. They have been postponing it every day, and this must be through the instructions of the pope. But still I will not say that he should not be allowed entry into India or Nepal, or anywhere. He should be welcomed everywhere, and he should be allowed to speak, and he should be invited for discussions.The East is so rich. We have refined the whole past of the East and everything about spirituality to the utmost, almost exhaustively. More cannot be done. We have sharpened every logic and every philosophical approach. There is nothing to fear.This will be the right way to prevent these people –not by preventing their visas, or preventing the news media, or preventing the people, or preventing their path and throwing stones at them…. These are ugly things.I am absolutely against what the Hindus are doing to the pope. I would like him to be treated as a guest, but he should be shown clearly that he has nothing to teach to the East. If he wants to come to the East he has to come to learn. That will also help the Christians to understand what a mistake they have made moving from beautiful philosophies and great religions into a very third-rate theology which has no grounding, no roots. The visit of the pope should be used creatively.But the way it is happening now, it will simply become a condemnation of the Hindus and cause a sympathy for the pope which he does not deserve.Osho,What is prayer?It is a tremendously significant question because I do not have a God, but I still have some place for prayer in my vision, in my approach.Prayer ordinarily is towards the concept of a God. I do not think that is a right kind of prayer, because in the first place it is based on a belief. You don’t know God, you have only heard about him. And you have heard from people who have heard it from somebody else. It is simply a hearsay. How can you love someone you do not know exists or not?Prayer is love.Prayer is gratitude.Prayer is thankfulness.My sannyasins can pray to existence itself. To the sunrise or to the sunset, or to the sky full of stars, or to the earth, to the mountains, to the rivers…they can pray to this existence which is their experience. It is not a belief, we are part of it.Now prayer can be possible only if your life has become so beautiful, so blissful, that you feel a gratitude, a thankfulness towards existence. So prayer is not for everybody, it is only for those who have succeeded in meditation. It is the last word in meditation.When you have come to know the silence of existence, when you have experienced life itself, when you have experienced the unspeakable, when you are drowned in the beatitude of your meditation, the last word is a wordless gratitude, a thankfulness.It has to be of the heart. You need not say anything, because in such moments whatever you say will be a disturbance. It has to be simply of the heart.Your heart should be full of gratitude –”Existence has been compassionate to me that it has allowed me to come out of misery, it has allowed me to experience the ultimate of consciousness and I am grateful to its compassion. Without its help it was not possible for me alone to reach to this beautiful space.”So prayer is possible only for meditators –that too, when they have succeeded. It is a gratefulness, it is a thank you to existence.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 15 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,The more I watch the desires and needs of the mind, the more I come to a space that looks like madness. Please comment.It is madness, but it is higher than what you call sanity. There are two kinds of madness. Madness simply means out of the mind. You can be out of the mind, falling below the mind – that’s where insanity starts. But you can also be out of the mind going beyond the mind – that’s where meditation starts. In one sense they are similar in that both are out of the mind. Hence one can feel, living in the beauty of the present moment, as if it is madness, because madness and meditation have a similarity but only on one point: both happen outside the mind. In every other sense they are different.To go below the mind means to become unconscious. To go beyond the mind means to become super-conscious. And the super-conscious and unconscious are as distinct as two things can be, as far away from each other as there is possibility. They have nothing in common except that one point. Hence in the beginning every meditator feels that it is something like madness. But it is saner than your sanity. You have to wait a little, to become acquainted with the new territory of the world of meditation.Others may also think that you are mad, because sometimes you will be doing things like a madman. But the basic difference is that no madman ever acknowledges, ever accepts that he is mad. He refuses it vehemently. You can go to any madhouse, not a single madman will accept that he is mad. But the meditator can accept it smiling. He is aware of the similarity. He can understand the outsider’s judgment, and he can accept it. He can see also that the action…for example, a meditator sometimes feels so blissful that you will see a smile on his face although there is no reason at all to smile. And we forgive people for being miserable without any reason, but we cannot forgive people for being so happy without any reason. We ask people, “What is the cause? Why are you smiling?”And a man who is experiencing something within himself, joyful, something immensely sweet – what can he say to you? And whatever he is going to say, you are not going to believe it, because it is not your experience. You can believe only if it is also your experience. Two meditators can sit silently and smile without asking each other why they are smiling. They can laugh, they can dance without asking each other why they are doing it.Our life is always dominated by something from outside. The meditator’s life is inspired from inwards, he cannot show anything outside as a cause. He can simply say he is feeling so blissful he would like to dance just as the birds sing in the morning, or the flowers release their fragrance.It is a known fact that great poets cannot explain why they are writing certain poetry. One of the great English poets, Coleridge, when he died left forty thousand incomplete poems. And his whole life people were asking him why he went on collecting incomplete poems, and saying that he should complete them. Just one line was needed, or two lines were needed…but only a poet of the quality of Coleridge can understand why he was not completing them.People thought he was mad, because he used to say, “I don’t write. Something in me begins to write it. And if it completes, good, if it does not complete, I am not going to complete it, because I have tried it – it looks totally different. It does not have that quality, it looks ordinary. So unless it happens again, and the unknown in me completes it…I am always willing to complete it. But I cannot do it willfully, because whenever I have done it willfully it is not of the quality that I would like it to be.”It happened in one of the great Indian poets, Rabindranath Tagore’s life…. He translated his own book, Gitanjali – offering of songs. For this book he received the Nobel Prize. But before taking it to England, to show his poet friends, he showed it to one of the great Christian missionaries, C.F. Andrews – just a translation. He was a little suspicious whether he had been able to bring the quality of the original into the translation or not, and whether the language, the grammar, was correct or not.C.F. Andrews suggested to change four words at four different points, because they were not linguistically right. C.F. Andrews was not a poet, but he was a great scholar. Rabindranath understood it, and he changed those four words.In England, one of the great English poets, Yeats, called a meeting of all great poets to listen to Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. While listening to it, Yeats himself said that at four points it seemed somebody else had interfered in the translation. Exactly those four points were the four words that C.F. Andrews had suggested.Rabindranath was simply shocked. He could not believe it. He said, “These are the four words suggested by C.F. Andrews.”Yeats said, “You drop those words. They may be linguistically right, but they have not the poetic quality. They are like blocking stones – they stop the current, the flow, the spontaneity. Please put your original words that you had before C.F. Andrews suggested these four words to you.”Rabindranath put back his old words, and Yeats and the other poets said, “They are linguistically wrong, but they are far superior poetically. You leave what you had originally written. Don’t listen to anybody.”A poet cannot be corrected by a grammarian, by a linguist, by a scholar – and another poet of the same depth can immediately see. That was the trouble with Coleridge. He completed only seven poems in his whole life. Just those seven poems make him one of the greatest poets in the world. And he has left forty thousand incomplete poems. But that does not matter, he was sincere and honest. He could have managed, but that would not have been coming from the heart, it would have been coming from the head, and the head is far inferior to the heart. And the heart cannot be ordered, it is like a breeze – whenever it comes, it comes.The meditator enters into a world beyond mind, a space which is so beautiful and so blissful that he cannot contain it. It starts overflowing him. Then it will look as if he is mad.He will be silent where it is needed for him to speak. And he may be speaking when he is alone and there is nobody to speak to. There are moments when something in him wants to be expressed. If he is a poet, it may be expressed in poetry; if he is a musician, it may be expressed in music; if he is a dancer…It all depends on his talents, on his genius, on his qualities. If he is articulate, to say something – and he is so full of it – then it does not matter whether anybody is there to listen or not, he will say it; he has to say it. It is almost like a cloud full of rain. The cloud comes and showers itself. It cannot contain.A meditator is a rain cloud. The clouds don’t discriminate about where the fertile land is and where the mountain is and where the river is, and where one country’s boundary ends and another country’s boundary begins. The rain cloud does not care about all these things, he simply showers when he is too full.A meditator sometimes behaves…particularly in the beginning, when he is entering that wonderland of his own being for the first time. As he becomes more and more acquainted, his madness stops showing any indications to the outside world. As he becomes perfect in his meditation, there is no madness left at all. Then he is pure sanity. But it takes time to reach to such maturity.In the beginning it is such a surprise, the experience is such that one had never thought about, had never dreamed about it – it is unbelievable. Its unbelievability drives one crazy. And these are the moments when the master is helpful. He goes on telling you, “Don’t be worried and don’t be afraid. It is not madness, it only looks like madness. It is the beginning of meditation. You just have to become more acquainted, take it more calmly and quietly – just a few days more.”There is an anecdote in Gautam Buddha’s life….He and his disciple Ananda have lost their path into a forest. They inquired of an old woman who was collecting wood, “How far is the village?”The old woman said, “My sons, it is not very far, just two miles. You go directly.”Two miles passed, and there were no signs of any village. They come across another man, who was cutting a tree. They ask the woodcutter, “How far is the village? Have we lost the way?”And the woodcutter said, “No. The village is just close by, just two miles.”Ananda said, “It is strange. The old woman said two miles. We have gone two miles. This man again says two miles.”Buddha said, “After two miles, ask again.”Ananda said, “What do you mean? After two miles also we are not going to get to the village?”Buddha said, “I don’t believe them. They are just compassionate people. They are simply encouraging you. If they say it is ten miles, you may get discouraged.”It turned out to be exactly ten miles, and each time they asked everyone on the way, just simple villagers, all said, “Just two miles, it is just…you have almost reached.”When they reached the town Ananda asked, “How did you know that it must be at least ten miles? It turns out to be exactly ten miles.”Buddha said, “That is my whole business. That’s what I have been doing my whole life, telling people, ‘Just a little more. Soon you will be reaching,’ just to keep them going.”A friend, a guide, a master is immensely helpful in many ways; otherwise you may get tired, you may think you have lost the way. You may think it is a futile search, you may think it is really madness and it is better to stop doing such things. People may start to think of you as insane: you are getting into danger. Your own children, your wife, your father, your mother, your friends have started thinking that you are going a little cuckoo. It is best to stop right now, before it is too late, before you have gone too far and you cannot come back.A master is needed to assure you, “This is only a momentary phase, it will go away. You have to go a little farther. Going back is meaningless. Go on, in spite of what happens, in spite of what people think of you. You will pass over it.”Somebody with great authority and experience has to keep you inspired, courageous. There are moments of weakness, there are moments of doubt, and somebody is needed to keep your spirit awake, strong, ready to go on the full adventure.The master cannot take you to the goal, but without the master it is almost impossible to reach. There are so many other difficulties, which you alone may not be able to cross over. This is one, and this is one of the most significant because nobody wants to be thought about as crazy or mad. But it comes to every meditator. This is the price one has to pay.You cannot get the highest experience in life without paying any price. These are the prices you have to pay. And when these moments come, feel grateful to existence that the journey has started, that you have entered at least into the new space of your innermost being.Be thankful for this madness. It happens only to those who are blessed. And if it is happening to you, you are blessed.Osho,My question tonight is about causality. I am wondering what could produce the mystic's experience of the absolute. The absolute must be infinite and eternal, and yet the cause must be both spiritually and temporally distinct from what it produces. Since nothing could stand outside of eternity, or nothing could stand outside of infinity, there could be no cause which could produce this experience of the absolute.What possible chance, if this is the case, is there for me if all of my actions not only cannot produce this experience of the absolute, but would do the opposite, would perpetuate my finiteness and my temporality?The experience of the infinite is not a causal experience. There is no causality involved. The world knows only about one kind of happening – that is the world of causality. Every effect needs a cause – without a cause you cannot produce an effect.His question is very significant. He is saying that the experience of the infinite cannot be caused by anything because there is nothing outside the infinite and the cause has to be outside the effect. For example, you heat water…. At one hundred degrees it starts boiling. One hundred degrees creates the causality, and the effect is the transformation of water into vapor. If you give coolness to vapor it will again become water.Remember one thing: everything that is caused can be reversed, and the experience of the infinite is irreversible. You cannot reverse it.Secondly, it is absolutely true that nothing is outside the infinite, so nothing can cause it. But the world knows – particularly the scientific world which dominates our minds, our education, our thinking – only one way of things happening, and that is the way of causality. But there are some other ways also of things happening.For example, Carl Gustav Jung discovered a new law which has been known to the mystics all down the centuries. It is not a discovery, it can only be called rediscovery. He called it the law of synchronicity. Just as there is a law of causality, there is a law of synchronicity. It functions in a totally different way.Many things in life happen through it, and if you try to think of those things according to the law of causality, you will find yourself in absolute difficulty. You will have to deny those things, because they don’t happen according to the law of causality.Love comes under the law of synchronicity. I would like you to understand it so that you can see that there are things which do not follow the law of causality, and that it is not the only law. You can try it….In an empty room, absolutely empty, put a sitar or veena in one corner of the room, and let some good sitarist, a master, play on the sitar in another corner of the room. And a strange phenomenon happens that has been known for centuries to the musicians, that the sitar which is just kept at the other side of the room – and there is nobody playing it – starts moving, starts giving sound.If the master is really a master player, he can create the vibration in the room. And the room is so empty that the vibration is bound to reach to the sitar sitting on the other side, and the strings of the other sitar are bound to synchronize with the master’s music. Soon there will be two sitars resonating with each other.Now it is not causal, and Carl Gustav Jung discovered it in a strange situation. He was staying in an old castle where there were two famous big clocks. They were famous for one thing: you could change their times, but soon they would start showing the same time again. They were hanging on one wall, and he changed one clock five minutes further on. Soon, within two or three hours, slowly, slowly they synchronized – both became two and a half minutes fast. One did not remain five minutes further on, the difference was divided by both and they each became two and a half minutes fast – but they did it together.Jung tried this many times, and each time, after a few hours, they would again move together and show the same time. He tried to find out how it happened. And he found that these clocks were so big, so old, that their vibration, their moving pendulums created a subtle vibration in the wall – and they were both on the same wall. The other clock was receiving the new rhythm, and they synchronized slowly to the same rhythm. It is not causality, it is something totally different.Your question is not even under the law of synchronicity, it is something even more mysterious. The experience of the infinite, the absolute is acausal. You cannot cause it by any preparation, for the simple reason that it is already there. It is not something that has to be produced, it is something that you have forgotten, something that has only to be remembered.You will be surprised to know that the English word sin means forgetting. There is only one sin – that you have forgotten yourself. You are there in your totality, nothing has to be added, nothing has to be produced so there is no question of cause. You are not going to be an effect of something. You have been eternally there, and you will be eternally there.It is something that you all may have experienced sometimes: somebody asks you someone’s name you used to know, and you know that you know this name – it is just on the tip of your tongue. You say, “It is just on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot remember it.” It is a very strange experience: you know it; you know that you know it; you know that it is almost on the tip of the tongue – still, you cannot remember it. The more you try, the more difficult it becomes, because the more tense you are, the less is the possibility for it to surface. Finally, everybody has to give up.You drop the whole idea. You go into the garden, you start digging a hole you had left half done; you forget all about that name, you start doing something else – and suddenly it is there. The moment you do not try, you find it there; it has come.This is neither a question of causality, nor is it a question of synchronicity. It is something totally different. The ultimate experience of oneself, whatever the name one gives to it, is only of something forgotten.All that has to be done is to remember it. And for remembering what can you do? If you try too much, you will not get it. That’s what happened in Gautam Buddha’s life. I will remind you….For six years he was trying too hard to get it – and he could not get it. Then finally he dropped the idea, saying, “It is not worth it. I have simply wasted six years. I have renounced the world, renounced my kingdom. I have destroyed my body, I have tortured myself in every possible way – and nothing has happened.”And that very night it happened.It would not have happened if he had not tried for six years. But those six years are not the cause.You can try for six years and it may not happen. Millions of Buddhist monks have been trying for twenty-five centuries – there is no necessity. It may happen to different people in different ways. Causality is always the same. Synchronicity is something that may be helpful in remembering it, but just helpful, it cannot cause it. And the mystics have used synchronicity; they have called it satsang, sitting with the master. Just sitting with the master, not doing anything, just being in his presence – it is a very difficult thing for the Western mind to understand. And the Western mind is the modern mind. Even in the East the modern mind is Western.It is difficult to understand what you are doing just by sitting with a silent man. But his silence can create a synchronicity in you. His silence may vibrate silence in you. It is not necessarily certain, because it is not a question of causality, when at one hundred degrees the water is going to boil. Whether you do it in India or in Nepal or in Tibet or in Japan…it does not matter where, but at one hundred degrees water is going to boil – that is absolutely certain.Synchronicity is not such a certainty. It may happen, it may not happen. It depends on very mysterious things – how powerful is the presence of the master; how ready you are to allow his presence to enter you, to vibrate in you; how much trust you have; how much compassion the master has…. It will differ in every case. Sometimes it can happen, sometimes it will not happen.Synchronicity is not a law of certainty, but it is certainly a law. A few things happen that way. Love happens that way.What in the East we have called darshan – which is absolutely an Eastern concept, that people go to a master just to see him. In the West this seems absolutely absurd. Unless you have some question to ask, it is meaningless just to see a person, or just to touch his feet.But the West has not been aware of the law of synchronicity. Just seeing may do something miraculous. Just in the moment of touching his feet, something may transpire in you. Just seeing the master, something will immediately change within you. You are certainly not the same person in the presence of the master as you are ordinarily.These things can be just helpful, not causes to make you remember yourself. Coming close to a person who has remembered, falling in love with the person who already remembers, may create an atmosphere of synchronicity. And if you are available, open, receptive, something inside you which has always been there…and just because it has been always there, you have not taken any note of it.The obvious is always forgotten, and you are the most obvious thing to yourself.You are.You know you are.You may remember thousands of other things, but you need not remember yourself. Life goes on perfectly well without remembering yourself. That is not a need. It is absolutely useless. As far as life and its day-to-day work is concerned, you don’t need to know the absolute, the infinite. Naturally, you start taking yourself for granted, as if you know, as if you remember.It is only rarely…when you come in contact with somebody who makes you aware that you don’t remember yourself, you have forgotten yourself, you have fallen asleep. Unless somebody provokes you, creates a question in you, the obvious will remain forgotten.Being with a master is just to learn – not the answer but the question. The answer is within you. You have forgotten the question.Gertrude Stein was dying. The friends of the poet were around. The dying poet asked, “What is the answer?”Naturally, somebody said, “But you have not asked the question.”So the dying poet asked, “Then what is the question?”And the poet died….Neither do we know the question, nor do we know the answer – but the answer is within you. Nobody can give it to you, but somebody can certainly provoke the question, the quest. It is a very strange thing. You have come with questions to me, but my basic work is to create the real question in you. By answering your questions, I am simply eliminating all other questions so the basic question comes up. When there is nothing to be asked, only then are you going to ask about the real question. And the beauty is, that the real question has just to be asked, and the answer surfaces within your consciousness itself.The answer is already there, only the question is missing. The question is not a cause, it is not producing anything. It is simply removing perhaps a curtain at the most, and making you aware of something which has always been there.The experience of the infinite is not an ordinary experience, hence it does not come under the category of causality. It is not something that is produced in you. It is not something that has to be brought from somewhere. It is something that is already there, you have just forgotten it.Let me tell you a Sufi story….A very rich man became fed up with all the riches and all the luxuries and all the material things. He had everything. Naturally, if you have everything, and you are not retarded, you are going to become fed up because whatever money can purchase, you have purchased and you have found nothing – no contentment, no fulfillment, no peace.That man started asking saints, theologians, philosophers, “How can I get peace of mind?”Everybody suggested some method. He tried those methods – nothing happened. He became more tired, more frustrated. Finally, a man suggested, “I know a certain man. Only he can help.”So the man traveled on his fastest horse, with a bag full of diamonds to show to the man – “I have everything in the world. I have so many diamonds that in my house we don’t count them, we simply weigh them. Just to show you how rich I am, I have brought this big bag full of big diamonds. I want peace of mind.”The man was sitting under a tree. He said, “You will get it. Do you want it right now?”This was the first person who had asked it so directly – not giving a mantra, not giving some method: “Do it and after a few years you will have peace of mind.”The man said, “Do you want it right now?”For a moment the rich man was taken aback. Hesitantly, he said, “Yes, I want it right now.”And at that very moment when he was saying, “I want it right now,” the man took the bag and ran.The rich man jumped from his horse and followed the man. He had not thought that a saint would do such a thing.The saint knew every small nook and corner of the village, and the rich man had never run in his whole life – he had never even walked. But he had to run behind him, shouting, “I have been cheated, I have been deceived. I have been robbed.”And the whole town laughed, because the whole town knew about the saint – that he was a strange fellow. He did things – one never knew what he meant, but he always meant well.And he was even more surprised that nobody was helping him. The whole village was making a fool of him. They were simply laughing. Nobody was even moving. A crowd had gathered to see the whole scene, but nobody was helping to catch the thief. Perspiring and tired and huffing, finally, as the saint reached back to the tree from where they had started, the rich man reached there. And the saint gave him the bag and said, “Do you feel a little peace of mind?”And the rich man said, “It is strange, I really do! This is not good. You tired me and I am perspiring, and I have simply asked a question, not expecting this kind of misbehavior.”The saint said, “I have answered your question; you have tasted a moment of peace. Now just get on your horse and go home. Now you know what peace of mind is. It has always been there; you have just forgotten it. Somebody had to remind you and that’s why I had to take such trouble. I don’t like running myself! But what else to do? Other than that nothing was going to give you peace of mind.”And what had happened? Because he had started taking all the pleasures and everything that he had for granted, now this man gave him a gap. He took away a large quantity of his diamonds. And for the first time the rich man became worried about the diamonds, and he forgot all about peace of mind: “This man is not a saint. He is a thief pretending to be a saint.”But finally that man proved to be a saint, a great saint. What nobody was able to do, he managed. This is not caused, it is just creating a situation in which the man becomes mindful, remembers that if all his money gets lost and he regains it, he will have immense joy that he has never had before. All the money was with him. But it was so obviously with him that he had forgotten. And now he was going back towards home with really great relief.A master creates devices. All devices are just arbitrary, but they are not causes. They only create a certain situation in which perhaps you can remember yourself.What I call witnessing is only a device.What I call meditation is nothing but a device.It is not going to give you anything that you don’t have. It is only going to make you aware of all that you have, and that you have had it always. Now this is not even under the law of synchronicity, it is a totally different world of mystery which comes under no law.The world needs saints of that quality who can create such a situation. You have saints who are dull and dead, traditional, orthodox. You worship them because they fulfill your expectations. You have certain expectations of how a saint should be, and they fulfill it.It is a strange conspiracy against yourself. They fulfill your expectation of being a saint, and then you touch their feet because they are saints. But real saints cannot fulfill your expectations. Real saints will destroy all your expectations.A real saint is going to be almost an electric shock. That’s why the real saint is always misunderstood. People feel annoyed, irritated. You can think of that rich man when his bag is lost. In those moments he cannot believe that this man is a saint. If this man is a saint, then who can be a sinner? But when the saint returns the bag and asks him, “Do you have a little peace of mind?” then he falls at his feet and he thanks him for reminding him about something which has become absolutely certain for him. For a moment he lost that big bag of money. He got it back – it was the same bag which he had brought himself, but now it brings with it peace of mind.There are very few real saints in the world. The only definition of the real saint is that he will not fulfill your expectations, that he does not want you to worship him. He wants you to be awakened. He wants you to be in the same state in which he is. He does not want followers, he does not want worshippers. All that is simply nonsense. He wants people to be awakened so that they can remember their real treasure. It is infinite because it has no limits. And the moment you remember it, it is not just yours. It is something universal.Gautam Buddha remembered one of his experiences in a past life….He heard – he had not become awakened up to that moment – he had heard that one awakened man had come and was staying by the side of the river near the village where he lived. Just the very idea had never occurred to him.The awakened man was almost sixty years old, and in sixty years the idea – even the idea of the awakening – had never occurred to him. He went to see the man just out of curiosity.The man was certainly an experience, so graceful, so beautiful – in his eyes such depth, in his silence such music, in his words such poetry.Buddha said, “I touched his feet, not knowing why I was doing it. I had just gone there out of curiosity, but seeing the man something transpired. For the first time I became aware that there is something more to life than I have thought about. This man knows something more than I know. This man has experienced something which I have missed.”And without thinking, he simply touched his feet. And when he stood up, he was more amazed – the awakened man touched Buddha’s feet. He said, “What are you doing? I am just an ignorant person and you are touching my feet.”The awakened man said, “To you, you may be ignorant. To me, since I have known myself, nobody is ignorant. My experience is not only mine, it includes the whole universe. And it is only a question of time. Some day you may get the same experience which I have got. I am just touching your feet in advance.”Gautam Buddha, when he became enlightened, remembered that man’s words: “I am touching your feet in advance. One day you will come to know about it. It does not matter, a few years in this eternity are just like a few seconds. A few lives in this eternity don’t count.”So when you have the experience, it envelops the whole existence. It is cosmic. It is infinite. And the moment you know it, you laugh at yourself that you have been searching for something which you have never lost, that you have been looking for something which has been always with you, which even if you wanted to lose, you could not lose, it is your very nature.Every person who has become enlightened, his first act is to laugh at himself.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 16 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Why are people always ready to preach – no matter to whom, no matter about what, and no matter whether anybody receives it or not?Man is very much afraid of being ignorant. The reality is that he is ignorant. Now there are only two ways to get out of it. One is to seek and search the truth about his own being, which is a long path, arduous, needs guts. Very few travel on that path.The second is very easy. That is through accumulating borrowed knowledge. It gives you a false sense of knowing. You really don’t know, but you have a treasure in your memory. You can recite the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible without knowing anything actually, existentially, without ever being at the very center of your being. You can talk like a parrot. This is the easiest way to forget that you are ignorant – and it fulfills your ego, gives you the idea that you know. But this creates a trouble for others. You want to exhibit your knowledge – without exhibiting it how are you going to convince yourself that you know about the truth? That’s why everybody is ready to preach. Very few are ready to seek. Very few are ready to question.Everybody is ready to answer, because answers are cheap. They are available in books, millions of books. A man’s brain has the capacity to contain all the knowledge that is contained in all the books in existence.You can go on gathering as much as you want. And certainly then you need to exhibit it. Any chance of preaching, of giving advice, whether you have been asked or not, whether the person is willingly listening to you or is simply bored…you go on telling people. Advice is one of the things in existence which everybody gives and nobody takes. But to exhibit your knowledge gives a deep satisfaction to your ego.Today I received more than half a dozen questions from one Western woman. So I have dropped them. I have not chosen any of them for the simple reason that, in the name of questions, she is simply exhibiting her own knowledge. For example, she says, “You teach compassion, and still you have called a few thinkers idiots. There is a contradiction in it.” Now this is not a question. She is simply showing a contradiction in me – she understands better. The question is just an excuse.My difficulty is that I simply call a spade a spade. Who has told you that idiots cannot think? Who has told you that idiots cannot philosophize? In fact, only idiots do that! The intelligent person lives truth. He does not think about it, because by thinking nobody has ever found it. Only idiots think about it. By thinking he shows his stupidity. I have called many so-called great thinkers idiots because they are idiots. What can I do?For example, Aristotle is one of the great thinkers. He is thought to be the father of Western logic. But he himself is not very scientific in his approach. In his book of logic he writes that women have less teeth than men. He had two wives. Only one was enough, but he had two. So he could have asked Mrs. Aristotle 1, or Mrs. Aristotle Number 2 – whoever was less terrible – to open her mouth, and count the teeth before writing such a statement. That would have been a scientific approach, an intelligent approach. But because it has been believed for centuries that women have to have everything less than men, how can they have an equal number of teeth?So in Greece it was a long tradition, but not a single man ever tried to count. Not a single woman ever tried to count to prove that this is absolutely nonsense. And when a man like Aristotle writes in his book that women have less teeth than men, what do you want me to call him? What is the purpose of having two wives if you cannot even do such a small experiment…? His approach is not experimental, it is not existential. It is not scientific. He is simply accepting a superstition which is absurd. Now I cannot say that he is a man who knows. He has not even learned the ABC of knowing.The woman is very much troubled that I have called a few thinkers idiots. But what else is one supposed to do?Immanuel Kant, a great German thinker, remained unmarried his whole life for the simple reason that he could not decide whether to marry or not. He researched all possible sources about marriage. One woman had even asked him; they were friendly. She waited a long time so that he would ask. Women are not supposed to take the initiative – that looks unwomanly. But she was getting tired. And he could not ask because he was still continuing the research.Finally, the woman asked. He said, “I was worried that one day you were going to ask, and I have not come to the conclusion. I have found reasons for marriage; I have found reasons against marriage – and they are equal. If I find one reason more in favor or against I can be decisive. But how can I decide with such a situation? Just give me a little time.”He took three years more, and still he remained indecisive. This is not the way to get married. This is a very idiotic way. And after three years, finally, he managed one reason more in favor of marriage. It was a simple thing which should have been the first thing, not the last thing.Finally, he thought that marrying or not marrying may have equal reasons, but marrying has one thing: it will give you experience, and not marrying will not give you any experience. But this should have been the first intelligent thing. He ran towards the house of the woman – because it was already three years since he had seen her – and knocked on the door. The father opened the door. Immanuel Kant said, “I am ready, because I have found one reason more.”The father said, “It is too late. She has already two children; she is married. You will have to find some other woman.”But no other woman ever asked him, and he could never gather the courage to ask because he was afraid the woman would say no, and he was not willing to hear no from anybody.One has to take the risk. If you want to get married you have to ask, and you have to take the risk. There is the possibility somebody may say no, but there is no harm. You can ask another woman – there are so many women. Somebody is bound to go with you however idiotic you may be. Every idiot gets a wife. Why Immanuel Kant could not get…!Now this woman has already decided that I am in a contradiction – that I am not compassionate, and I teach compassion. To call an idiot an idiot – do you think it is against compassion? Should I call him a genius? Should I call a sick man healthy, a dead man alive…out of compassion?In another question, she asked, “You are a religious man, but you call Christianity a third-rate religion. There is a contradiction.” Now she is here just to find contradictions. What can I do if Christianity is a third-rate religion? As far as I am concerned, all the religions are no longer needed. All organized religions have hindered humanity from progress. But there is a difference of degrees.For example, Buddhism to me seems to be the purest. It is a chain, but it is made of gold. I would not like anybody to be chained because the chain is made of gold. A chain, after all, is a chain. It makes no difference whether you are encaged in a golden imprisonment. But the distinction is still there – Buddhism is the most refined religion. It has less superstitions than any other religion. It has even dropped the idea of God, seeing that it is a superstition, it is not a truth – nobody has ever experienced it. It needs tremendous courage to have a Godless religion. And that too, twenty-five centuries ago, when Jesus was not even born. It was still five hundred years before Jesus was born.Buddhism has no prayer. There is no God, hence there cannot be any prayer. It is one of the greatest contributions of Buddhism that it has developed meditations to their utmost purity. There is no prayer, there is only meditation.Prayer needs a God; meditation needs no God.Prayer needs a belief; meditation needs no belief.Prayer is some kind of motivation, some greed…you are asking for something. That is the meaning of praying: you are begging for something. You are asking God to do something for you, as if what he is doing is not right.For example, your wife is sick and you pray to God, “Make my wife healthy.” You are trying to advise God – who is omnipotent according to your religion, omniscient. He knows all, but you seem to think you know better. You are suggesting to him, advising him to do what is right. Perhaps he has forgotten your wife. But your religion says he is present everywhere, even by the side of your wife’s bed. He is more present than you are. Sitting by the side of your wife’s bed you are thinking about some actress! You are not present there.Prayer means you are begging for something, you are trying to improve on God, you are trying to advise him. He is going wrong, you are putting him on the right way.Buddhism has no prayer, only meditation. And meditation means a totally different dimension. Christianity has no meditation at all, except prayer. It does not lead you towards yourself, your own being. It simply projects a God in which you have just to believe. You cannot doubt it. Doubt is a sin. Now this is hindering man’s progress, man’s intelligence.Christianity has nothing parallel to Buddhism. It is a third-rate religion. And for two thousand years, whatever it has done has proved it a danger to humanity, more dangerous than Buddhism or Hinduism. Only Mohammedanism is a little further ahead. But for two thousand years, Christianity has been killing millions of people in the name of love, in the name of God, burning living people in the name of religion.Christianity has burned thousands of women – innocent women – declaring them witches. Nobody knows what criterion you have got to declare a woman a witch. Now there are no witches. How did Christianity manage? They forced women to accept that they were witches, that they were in the service of the devil. They tortured women – old women, innocent women – because the devil does not exist.Your God is bogus, your devil is bogus. Both are nonexistential. How could they have served the devil? But the pope made a special court of investigation, and that court tortured women in every possible way. Anybody was able to report that a certain woman was in the service of the devil. That was enough for beginning the investigation – and investigating was not just questioning.What communists are doing in the Soviet Union is similar to what Christians have done a long time ago. They tortured…they would not allow the woman to sleep for days unless she confessed. Finally, just out of torture, it seems a relief to accept and confess that, “Yes, I am in the service of the devil.” And once the woman herself said it, then it became a case against her, and the court decided that she should be burned in the middle of the city. Live women in thousands were burned by Christianity. And you want me not to call the religion a third-rate religion?All these popes have been making crusades for two thousand years. A crusade means a religious war. Now, no war can be religious. How can destroying, killing, arson, rape, murder, be religious? And these Christian crusaders were running over, killing Jews, killing Mohammedans. It was a religious phenomenon that the more you killed the non-Christians, the more virtue you gained, the greater possibility to be in paradise after death. You are accumulating a bank account in the other world by killing people!On the one hand you go on saying that God is love, and on the other hand your love simply proves poisonous, destructive. And these popes who represent Jesus Christ are infallible. Only idiots can say they are infallible. No intelligent man can say that. And the strangest thing is, before a person is chosen to be a pope, for example, the present pope – he is a Polack, and Polacks are well-known idiots all over the world….Before he is chosen to be a pope he is not infallible. Just the election by two hundred topmost cardinals, and within minutes the fallible man, through election, becomes infallible. Then whatever he says is absolute truth and whatever he does is absolute truth. And only five minutes before that he was a fallible person!There is proof and evidence that all these popes were as fallible as any man. One pope denounced Joan of Arc who was one of the most beautiful and one of the most courageous women born anywhere on the earth…. A male chauvinist mind was so against Joan of Arc simply because she proved herself more courageous, more strong than any man. And the chauvinist mind of man feels very inferior; he cannot allow that.So many reported that she was a witch – all her power…otherwise, women don’t have such strength. All her power and all her charisma, her influence over people was nothing but the devil behind her; otherwise an ordinary girl, a poor girl, uneducated – how could she lead the whole country to freedom? “The devil must be behind her” – and she was burned alive. The evidence was enough, there was no need for any investigation that these were not womanly acts that she had done. They are reserved only for men.This courage, this charismatic personality, this influence over thousands of people, this quality of inspiration to bring people together to fight for freedom and to bring the fight to a victory – it was enough proof that the woman was possessed and she should be burned alive. And she was burned alive. Thousands of people felt that this was absolutely ugly, because the woman had worked for the freedom of the country and this was not a reward, this was a punishment – and she was not more than twenty years old.After three hundred years, the sympathy for Joan of Arc became so strong that another pope declared that she was a saint. He had to declare it, because people had started worshipping her grave and they were becoming anti-pope. So the pope had finally to declare that the woman was a saint. Now, one pope declares her a witch; another declares her a saint. Certainly, at least one of them must be fallible? Most probably both are fallible – but both cannot be right.Now, because the pope declared that she was a saint, her bones were dragged out of the grave, worshipped. A beautiful marble memorial has been made, and now she is known as Saint Joan of Arc. And for three hundred years she remained a witch.This is not religion. This is politics. And because I called it third-rate, the woman was offended. She is a Western woman, and must be a Christian. I can understand that she feels hurt. But if truth hurts, be a little strong; otherwise, don’t listen to the truth.If your eyes are weak and you cannot open them in the light, then keep them closed. What else can be suggested to you? Do you want that the light should be destroyed, the sun should be destroyed because your eyes are weak and they feel hurt?All my life I have been facing hundreds of cases in the courts because somebody’s religious feelings are hurt. And I have been telling the courts, “This is strange. If their feelings are hurt, it simply means that whatever I have said, they could not argue against it. They have no evidence against it, otherwise there would have been no hurt feelings. If they had any other argument…because they don’t have any argument, I am not responsible for it. They should not have such a religion which is so weak, so stupid that it gets hurt. Religion should make you more understanding.”Just two days ago, one of the Mohammedan leaders, Gadhafi, called President Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler Number 2. I am in absolute agreement with Gadhafi. And when he hears my argument, I am absolutely certain he will agree with me.My certainty comes because I say that Ronald Reagan is millions of times more powerful than Adolf Hitler. And what Adolf Hitler has done was nothing compared to what Ronald Reagan can do and for which he is continuously preparing. No man in the whole history has been so powerful as he is. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So I would like Gadhafi to know that Ronald Reagan is Adolf Hitler Number 1. Adolf Hitler himself was Number 2!Whatever the second world war has done has been undone long ago. It has not left any wound; in fact, wherever the war happened, people have built better cities than were destroyed. Now Germany is much richer than it was before the second world war. Now Japan is much stronger and much more rich than it was before the second world war.The second world war was dangerous and harmful, but what is coming ahead is millions of times more dangerous. Ronald Reagan is a fanatic Christian who would like to have this war as quickly as possible, because right now America is in a better position. It has already made arrangements to defend itself against nuclear weapons. Because of this fact, that no nuclear weapon can enter America…they have a device which is protecting the whole of the USA. Within seven minutes any nuclear weapon will be returned. Now nobody will know where it is going to fall.Russia is still in the process of creating a protection; it has no protection yet. That’s why Russia is being very polite, nice, is ready to cut production of nuclear weapons. It is even ready by the end of the century to stop, to put a complete stoppage to nuclear weapons. But why the end of the twentieth century? Why not now? If you are really willing to be peaceful, then why go on for sixteen years still producing dangerous weapons of which you already have more than needed? Russia needs time. That’s why this polite talk of reducing.America is in an embarrassing situation, because this is the time for America: if the war happens, then Russia will be destroyed. And perhaps with Russia, the whole world will be destroyed. Only America will be saved. And Ronald Reagan is ready to risk the whole world just to save America. Russia would like to have a little time. Once its protection is ready, then it won’t be so nice. It has never been so nice. It is a sudden change. To say the truth hurts.One of the woman’s questions is that I am saying to people that they are my friends, that they need not worship me; that I am not their savior, I am only their friend. Now the woman again finds a contradiction: “Why are they wearing beads with my picture as a locket?”A Christian wearing a cross has a motivation: greed. That cross is going to save him. I am not a savior. I am not giving any motivation. Having my picture around your neck is not worshipping me – because you are not getting anything out of it. But what is the contradiction if people love somebody and want to be associated with the person? They love the person so much, and they have a certain reverence for the person – which is totally different from worshipping.Worshipping has greed in it that the person is going to give you something – you are going to get something in return. Reverence has no motivation. It is just the highest quality of love. If somebody has a loving reverence, there is no problem. I have not asked them to wear the mala. I will not ask them not to wear it. Who am I to decide for them?This is not a religion, this is not a church. This is simply a movement of love and meditation. In this love and meditation, if reverence grows, if you feel grateful, if you feel thankful, there is no harm. Just don’t have any motivation.I can show you the path. I cannot take you to the truth. You will have to go alone. And just to keep company, if you want to keep my picture with you, I have no objection. I don’t see any contradiction.But the woman seems to be determined to see contradictions. She is knowledgeable; she has already concluded. Your question is not a question. A question should be open. You should not conclude. You can ask the question, but you have to be ready to hear the truth. It may hurt you – that is one of the problems. People like to listen to preachers. I am not a preacher. I say things to you which may disturb you. You may feel hurt – and for strange reasons!I received a letter from the president of the American fascist association that I should not speak against Adolf Hitler. I have received thousands of letters: I should not speak against Krishna, I should not speak against Mahatma Gandhi…but I have never received anything like this. This was strange and very exciting. The president of the American fascist association says, “You, being a religious man, must know that Adolf Hitler was the reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. So our religious feelings are hurt when you speak against him.” Now, even to speak against Adolf Hitler is difficult! Religious feelings are hurt!This world seems to be strange, full of mad people. Adolf Hitler is the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah…! You cannot prevent them, because there is no guarantee or evidence. What is the proof? Except his own word, there is no proof. Any madman can declare himself anything he likes.Krishna declares himself to be the perfect incarnation of God. And all that he does is to persuade Arjuna to go into a great war that has broken the backbone of this country, and we have not again been able to stand up for five thousand years. This man is responsible for two thousand years of slavery in this country, for the poverty of this country, for the backwardness of this country; otherwise, this country was at the highest peak of its glory. But the war was so destructive that it simply damaged the whole genius, the whole intelligence of the land.And what was he saying to Arjuna? He was saying, “It is God’s will that you should fight.” If I had been in Arjuna’s place I would have said, “Let me listen to God’s will. It is strange that he should speak through you. Why can’t he speak directly to me? Because I am going to fight, he should speak directly to me. And what I am hearing is that this war is absolutely futile. It is simply destructive to the country, to its riches, to its people, and I don’t want to take part in it. That’s what I am hearing. I am hearing that I should retire from this war so that there is no need for this destruction to happen.”That’s what Arjuna was trying to say. But he was saying it on his own behalf and Krishna brought God in: “It is God’s will.”The moment God is brought in, the believing mind surrenders.It is a strange trick, a great cunning strategy, to tell people this is God’s will. Then naturally they cannot doubt it, because doubt is sin. You have to do it. Arjuna had to fight a war which destroyed the whole country and its whole destiny and future.All these so-called prophets, incarnations, saviors, messiahs – they are representing God. I am not representing any God. I am simply speaking to you as a man to a man, as one human being to another human being. Worshipping me is not going to help you. What is going to help you is meditation, is your own search for truth. I cannot give you the guarantee that just believing in me is enough; that you need not do anything else – your paradise is guaranteed…! I cannot promise anything.It is in your hands to have your paradise right now. Why wait for death? Only fools wait. Those who are intelligent start living right now, in this moment. Don’t listen to knowledgeable people. They are just parrots.I have heard that one woman was purchasing a parrot….She liked one parrot very much, but the owner of the shop said, “Please don’t purchase that parrot, there are many others. That parrot comes from a wrong place. Sometimes he uses dirty words, he has been in wrong associations. It is better you don’t take it, because you have children, you have a husband, and sometimes you may have guests. This parrot is a rascal. He looks so silent right now, so saintly, but the moment he finds an opportunity he may say something and disturb you.”But she said, “If he is so clever and so cunning, I am interested. I like the parrot and we will teach him.”She was so insistent, she took the parrot. She wanted to give a surprise to her husband, so she hid it with a curtain. And as her husband, Mulla Nasruddin, came in, she pulled off the curtain and the parrot said, “Hi, Mulla Nasruddin. Every day a new girl! Where have you found this woman?”Now…you cannot rely on parrots! The poor woman wanted to give a surprise to Mulla Nasruddin. She herself got a surprise! The parrot had come from a prostitute’s house where Mulla Nasruddin used to visit, so they were old acquaintances.All your pundits, your rabbis, your bishops are nothing but parrots repeating words which they don’t understand, which they have not experienced. Whenever somebody starts giving you advice, stop him. Just out of courtesy don’t listen, because the man must be stupid. You have not asked for the advice and he is giving it to you.It was a rule of Gautam Buddha that he would not answer a question unless the person asked three times. It was strange. Many times people asked, “Why three times?”Buddha said, “I want to be certain that you are really interested, that you really want the answer, that you are going to listen. Unless I hear you three times, I am not going to answer.”That will always be the attitude of the wise man. He will answer you, but only when you are thirsty for it. If you are not thirsty, if your being is not a question mark, he will remain silent. I receive many questions every day. Unless I feel some question is really coming from the heart, that the person means it and he will miss if he does not get the answer, then only will I choose it. Otherwise I go on resisting.It is not enough that you have asked, that I have to answer it. Unless I feel the intensity, a burning quest behind it, I am not going to answer, because I am not a preacher. I speak only for those who are ready to go on a pilgrimage towards the ultimate truth.Osho,Buddha told his disciples that he would come back to this earth. Twenty-five centuries have passed, but he has not yet come back. It seems his disciples are still expecting him. Will you do the same thing to us?I cannot do that. I cannot promise you anything, particularly about the future. I can do everything for you in the present, but to promise you about the future is dangerous.Gautam Buddha has said that he will be coming after twenty-five centuries exactly. His time has already passed. He should be here by now. He is not, and he is not going to come for the simple reason that once a person becomes enlightened he cannot come back. To come back into the womb of a mother one needs desires, and to become enlightened is to become desireless. You don’t have any desire, and without the seeds of desire you cannot be reborn.If Buddha was really enlightened he could not come back. If he were to come back, then he was not enlightened. The unenlightened person goes on coming back. Here he dies, and immediately he enters into another womb.Krishna has promised that he will come whenever there is a need, whenever religion declines, whenever people are evil and good has lost its value: “Whenever darkness starts winning over light, I will come again and again.” But when he himself was alive, he did not help in any way to make the world more religious, more virtuous, better, more human…no. And since then humanity has been going downwards every day. What more does he want? It is time enough.If he was enlightened he cannot come back. If he was not enlightened, he must have come back again and again. He can just remember. And if he was enlightened – which is suspicious…Now if it hurts you I cannot help it! An enlightened person will not lead people to war. His whole effort will be peace. His whole effort will be transforming people, rather than creating a situation or helping to make a situation in which people are destroyed. His promise stands there, and it will always stand empty, unfulfilled. Jesus has also promised that he will be coming back. This seems to be some old trick to befool people, to deceive people.Whatever you can do, do it right now. Why should you talk about the future? You will not be available again, so people cannot inquire, “What happened to the promise?” What did Jesus do while he was here?It is absolutely surprising that Christians go on talking about his miracles – that he walked on water, that he healed people just by touching, that he raised a man called Lazarus back to life who had been dead for four days. Just think, if somebody does this kind of thing, he will be mentioned by every newspaper, by every radio station, by every television. But not a single source, except the Bible, even mentions his name. No Jewish scripture – and he was a Jew! He was not a Christian, remember it. He never knew that he was going to be the founder of a Christian religion. He was born a Jew, he remained a Jew, he died as a Jew.No Jewish scripture, no Jewish book, no record anywhere – even of his name. Can you believe that a man who walks on water, a man who feeds thousands of people out of two loaves of bread, a man who turns water into wine, a man who raises dead people to life…will not be remembered by his contemporaries? Do you think his contemporaries will crucify such a man? I think it was enough proof that the man was not talking nonsense; he is really the “only son of God”!If he had done all these miracles, Jews would have been proud of him. He was a Jew. They would have accepted him as one of their greatest prophets. But they did not accept him at all, they crucified him.All these miracles are inventions of the Christians. They are not real facts. And nature never changes itself – nobody walks on water, and nobody can raise a dead man back to life.But Christians go on insisting on these things for the simple reason that if these things are fictitious then there is nothing in Jesus which is significant. So all these invented, fictitious miracles are the reason Christians go on believing in Jesus Christ. They don’t believe in Jesus, they believe in the miracles. And if the miracles are proved wrong, then naturally all their faith will disappear.When I call Christianity a third-rate religion, this is my reason: it depends on third-rate things. Buddha has never walked on water, Mahavira has never walked on water, Lao Tzu has never raised any dead man back to life…If they are remembered, they are remembered for some essential qualities of life: their compassion, their love, their silence, their attainment, their fulfillment, their enlightenment. They have not performed any miracles. There is no reason to remember Gautam Buddha at all. But all the contemporary sources remember him – not only Buddhist scriptures, but Hindu scriptures, Jaina scriptures. All contemporary sources – for or against, but they remember him. The man has left a tremendous impact on the interior being of man. Although he has not done anything on the outside, he has touched millions of hearts so deeply. But Christianity depends on stupid things.There is a parable….A man came to Ramakrishna – and it was just in the past century, not very long ago – and challenged him: “If you are really a saint, come with me. Let us walk on the water.”Ramakrishna used to live by the side of the Ganges, in Dakshineshwar. He was sitting under a tree. He laughed and he said, “Just sit down first. You must be tired. You have been walking for miles. Later on we can walk on water. First you sit down.” And Ramakrishna asked him, “I would like to know how long it took you to learn the art of walking on water?”The man said, “Thirty-six years.”Ramakrishna said, “My God! When I want to go to the other side it takes only two paisa. You have learned an art worth two paisa in thirty six years! You must be an idiot!”Ramakrishna could walk on water, but he has made it clear to the man that even if you walk on water, so what? It has nothing spiritual in it. And do you think walking on water is something spiritual? Turning water into wine is something spiritual? That is really criminal! It is against the law; nobody should do it.But the whole of Christianity is based on such stupid ideas, and ideas which are absolutely absurd. For example, that Jesus is born out of a virgin girl. Now, no virgin girl can give birth, so they had to make the story that part of God – the Christian God – is the Holy Ghost. It was the Holy Ghost’s adultery…!I cannot think that God can do such a thing as to make a virgin girl pregnant. Such a God should be in prison. But rather than condemning him, he is being worshipped. And the people who are worshipping have no arguments to save their God, their only begotten son of God. They don’t want to even change a single thing, although they know that it is impossible, scientifically impossible – a virgin girl becoming pregnant…and giving birth to a child…! It has never happened, either before Christ or after Christ.But Christians are not ready to drop such unnatural ideas. On the contrary, they insist that this makes Jesus a special prophet, gives him a specialty which no other prophet can claim. It can befool mediocre people – it has nothing to do with spirituality. And then promising…Promising seems to be very political, just like every politician goes on promising people and never delivers any goods.All your so-called religious leaders have been promising – after your death, after two hundred or two thousand years they will be coming back. And none of them has shown up. It is enough proof that those people were lying. But you go on waiting for them. You are simply wasting your time, your life. I cannot do that.I cannot promise you anything.I trust in the moment, in the present.For me there is no tomorrow.For me there is no future.And I want you to understand that existence is always now and here. If you want to live it authentically, intensely, then be now and here. Use this moment to its totality. Squeeze the whole juice out of it. Don’t wait for the next moment, because who knows about the next moment. And you are waiting for centuries, for thousands of years. This is simply wasting the great opportunity that existence has given to you.Life is a school. You have to learn something. Don’t postpone it till tomorrow – tomorrow may never come. Use this moment to learn. And the only thing life wants you to learn is to know yourself, to be yourself. Then whatever comes, you will be joyful. Whatever happens, you will find ecstasy in it. Don’t think in terms of the future; the future is nonexistential. Only the present is.My whole approach is rooted in the present. Hence I don’t have anything to promise you. You have to learn to live now, this very moment, as totally, as intensely as possible.Burn your life torch from both the ends together. That very intensity will make you afire, aflame. And to be aflame with the intensity of life is to know what godliness is, is to know what religion is, is to know all that spirituality has in it, the whole mystery. There is nothing more to it.Osho,Sigmund Freud has explained self-deception by postulating separate parts of the psyche, each part autonomous and capable of pursuing different goals, and each part unknown to the other because they function according to different principles: one according to rationality, and one non-verbal. I also feel this inner schism. Is something like this responsible for my unawareness?Sigmund Freud is as unaware as you are. And one should ask first if the mind has two separate divisions which know nothing of each other: one functions verbally, linguistically, rationally; one non-verbally, non-linguistically, non-logically.The first thing to remember to ask Sigmund Freud is, how does he come to know? Who is this third one who knows that there are two divisions? There must be a third one, a witness, because there is no connection between the two. The two are not in communication, they function separately. Then how does Sigmund Freud come to know that there are two separate divisions of the mind?He does not know anything of awareness – he never mentions it. He knows nothing of witnessing – he never mentions it. Unknowingly, he is using awareness. He is not aware that he is aware of a division, because a third principle is absolutely needed to be aware of the two. Otherwise, how can you know about the two?And if Sigmund Freud can know, it simply proves that in some unconscious way he has become a witness. From a distance he has watched the division of the mind. That’s where the Western psychology is missing – it has come very close to the witness.This is absolutely right. What he is saying is absolutely right. Mind is divided in two hemispheres, and they know nothing of each other. But to know it, the only way is that there must be a watcher behind and above and beyond who can see both functioning, separately, without any inter-communication. Not knowing, he has experienced a moment of meditation.Western psychology is still not aware of meditation. I feel sometimes very surprised when I come across such statements, and that nobody asked these people, “How have you come to know?” – which is a simple question. If they say that one part of the mind has come to know the other part, there is communication. That, they cannot say. They have closed that door themselves.One is verbal, one is non-verbal. There is no question of any communication. They function separately. Once they have recognized that there is a third principle of awareness, which is not mind but which is your consciousness, to accept the third principle is to know the infinite, is to know the absolute.This division of the mind has been known in the East for thousands of years. In fact, you will be surprised that the Eastern understanding is not of two divisions but of four divisions. The mind is split into four divisions. It is almost like a cross. The left side and the right side is one division, then the front mind and the back mind is another division. So there are four parts. Western psychology has only come to understand the front two parts. What Sigmund Freud is talking about is the two front parts. One is non-verbal, one is verbal.But there is another division between the front of the mind and the back of the mind. The front of the mind is active, and the back of the mind is absolutely inactive. There is also a clear-cut division. There is no communication between them; hence, physiologists particularly have become aware of this second division, because the back of the mind does not function at all – and nature never produces anything which is of no use. The back of the mind must have some use, otherwise why does nature go on producing it?All the centers in the back part are inactive. But for centuries the meditators in the East have known that both the divisions are valid. Mind is divided into four parts, and just as the verbal mind uses language, reason, logic, the non-verbal mind is irrational, has no idea of any language. And between them there is no communication. These are both active – the rational and the non-rational. But the back of the mind, the two parts behind these two front parts, is completely inactive.The meditators have come to see that the inactive part is also needed, because that is where you rest, otherwise you would go mad. The front of your mind works, acts, dreams, thinks; the back of the mind simply rests, in deep tranquility. That is the basis of your sanity, otherwise the front of the mind will lead you immediately into madness. The back of the mind is absolutely dark and silent. It is deep and very mysterious, but it is where your roots are.Just like the trees have their roots in the darkness of the earth, the front of the mind has its roots in the back part of the mind. There is no communication, but the back is continuously tranquilizing, helping the active mind to remain sane. It goes on giving you restful moments.In the night, when you are dreaming, the front of your mind is working. There are moments when you are not dreaming, you feel fresh. In the eight hours of sleep when you are just asleep, then your back part of the mind has taken over. It is inactive. There is not even a dream. Those are the moments of deep sleep which rejuvenate you, and in the morning you feel fresh.But in eight hours of sleep, you are dreaming for almost six hours. Only for two hours are you not dreaming – that too, not continuously. Those two hours are spread over the eight hours – sometimes fifteen minutes at a time – but those two hours are absolutely necessary. If you lose those two hours you will go mad – you have lost contact with your inactive mind.To know about these four parts of the mind one needs something beyond the four – and that is our consciousness, that is our awareness. It is not a thought, it is only a witness, a sakshin – just a witness, just a mirror.When the mirror reflects, it is not an action. The mirror does nothing; it simply reflects. To know this mirror is to know the whole mystery of existence.Sigmund Freud lived an unconscious life. He was as full of anger as anybody else. He was as full of hate as anybody else. He was as ambitious as anybody else. You should read his life story. That will give you a glimpse of a man who finds a science of psychoanalysis…a great discoverer, but who in his own life was an ordinary, very average, mediocre person, very possessive, and very much afraid of death. That is a strange thing.A man of awareness first gets rid of the idea of death. That is the first thing that disappears from his mind, because there is no death. Once you taste awareness, you have tasted eternity. Now you know: the body will go, the mind will go; you will still remain. You have always been here, and you will always be here – in the body or not in the body, but your being is eternal. Hence, the fear of death is the first thing to disappear. But about Sigmund Freud’s life you will be surprised: he was more afraid of death than you are. Even the mention of the word death, and he was so much afraid he would have a nervous breakdown – even the word death!He would be sitting on a chair, you would start talking about death, and just a moment later he would fall from his chair onto the ground in a coma! It happened three times in his life…and he would start foaming from the mouth. It would take half an hour to bring him back. So it became known to his disciples never to use the word death in front of him.His closest disciple was Carl Gustav Jung. He was going to be his successor, but he was very interested in death. That is again the same thing from another angle. He was fascinated by death, so although it was prohibited to mention death in front of Freud, he mentioned it three times on different occasions. This was the reason for the split between Freud and Jung, and why Jung was thrown out of the Freudian school. He was going to be his successor. He was the most intelligent of his disciples. And he founded another school – he was capable, but the reason he was expelled was that he was becoming a danger to the life of Sigmund Freud.But it was a strange thing that a man of such intelligence – the founder of a new science, psychoanalysis, so close to the spiritual being of man – was so mediocre, so afraid that even ordinary people will think that this was strange. But it was not strange. Perhaps it was because of his understanding of the mind that he became aware of death. He was going to die – it was absolutely certain, there was no question about it. And not knowing anything beyond the mind, he became so nervous, so alert in the mind that it made him very nervous about death – because he was going to die, don’t mention it! If anybody died – “don’t mention it to Freud.” He would never pass by a graveyard, because the graves may have reminded him of death.If the mystics who had meditated had heard about Sigmund Freud becoming the founder of psychoanalysis, they would have laughed. But my feeling is that he came very close…just a little push. If he had come in contact with a master, just a little push and he would have become aware of awareness, conscious of consciousness. And that is the miracle, the only miracle that has any great significance, meaning, that has something of truth in it. From there the real journey begins, and then you can be on your own, there is no need for the master. Just at the opening of the door, perhaps you need a push.You may have seen birds sometimes when they give birth…. The young one comes out of the egg, and the mother bird tries to teach the bird to fly. He flutters his wings, but does not leave the shelter…he is afraid. He can see the mother flying around the nest trying to persuade him not to be afraid: “You are my child, and just as I have wings, you have wings.” Seeing the mother’s wings, he also flutters his wings. This is synchronicity.And sometimes it is needed that if the child does not get it by himself and take a jump into the air, the mother has to push him. It is out of compassion and love. Once he is pushed – of course first he feels very much shocked at what his own mother is doing. He has never used his wings; it is natural to be afraid that he will fall and die. But just as he is thrown out of the nest, he hesitates for a moment. His use of the wings is a little haphazard, but soon he starts balancing.He goes to the other tree, and he is immensely happy. He calls the mother to come! And he wants now to go farther, longer, higher. And now he flies with the mother: once he has known the wings, soon he will not need the mother.One day he will fly and will never come back to the nest. That is the greatest day in the life of the disciple and the master both!Osho,May I ask you, what is darshan?Just look at my finger!!!

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 17 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Why have there been no women enlightened masters?Man suffers from a great inferiority complex because he cannot give birth to children. It is one of the deepest unconscious inferiorities in man. He knows the woman is superior, because in life there can be nothing higher than giving birth to life.Man’s function, his participation in giving birth to life, is negligible. It is not more than a syringe injection. It can be done by a syringe – he can be absolutely relieved of taking part in reproduction. He must have felt it from the very beginning. And the only way to overcome this inferiority complex was to reduce the woman in every possible way to such an inferior position that man can forget his inferiority complex and start believing that he is superior.All the societies of the world, all the cultures, all the religions in different ways have been doing the same: reducing the woman to a secondary category of humanity not equal to man – so inferior that in China, for thousands of years, to kill your own wife was not even considered a crime. The husband was not punished, for the simple reason that the woman was understood to be only a possession like your furniture. If you want to kill your chair, it is not a crime. You can destroy all your furniture; it is your furniture. The law has nothing to do with it. The woman has been thought of as just part of the furniture. The husband is the owner.In India, the woman has been taught for centuries that she is a dasi, a slave, and the man, her husband, a swami, a master – an owner. She has not been allowed by any culture to be educated, to be financially independent, to move in the society as freely as man. Her house is the periphery; she should not get out of it. The house is almost an imprisonment.How can you suppose a woman can be a spiritual master?For centuries she has not even been allowed to show her face in half of the world.In India, the husband and wife cannot talk in the daytime in front of the elders of the family. They can only whisper in the darkness of the night. For hundreds of years many husbands have not been able to see their own wife’s face, because in the daytime they cannot meet. In a joint family there is always some elder there. Only in the darkness of night…. And then too, in a joint family where fifty or sixty people are living in one house like cattle, there is no possibility of communication, of discussing something philosophical, something religious.Almost all the religions have denied women the possibility of entering into paradise from the body of a woman. She can be virtuous. Her husband is her god. She should serve the husband with total commitment and devotion. This is the only religion as far as the woman is concerned. This will bring her into the body of a man in her next life, and then the doors open. Then she can strive for spiritual heights. Then she can become an enlightened master.There are religions which don’t allow women to read the religious scriptures. There are religions which don’t allow the women to enter in their temples.She has been enslaved. She has been reduced into producing children, taking care of them her whole life. She has not to be respected as a human being. She is just a reproductive mechanism. Man has done everything wrong that can be done, everything inhuman that can be done.In Hinduism, if the husband dies, the woman has to jump alive into his funeral pyre. She cannot live without a husband – she was just a shadow. Now what is she going to do without a husband? Man has been so possessive, that not only when he is alive should his woman remain his, but he is afraid even after death. When he is no more, who knows? – the woman may fall in love with someone else. He has taken every precaution. What works best is that she jumps into the fire with the dead body of her husband. It is not an easy job.Just put your finger in the flame of a candle, and you will know what it means to throw your whole body alive into a funeral pyre. But millions of women have done that – have been forced to do that. If they had chosen not to do it, that was a sure sign that they had betrayed their husband. They were condemned for the rest of their lives. So rather than living a condemned life it was better to suffer a respectful death. But it was such an agony that the brahmin priest had to manage it in such a way that nobody else became aware of the agony the woman was going through.Whenever a woman had to jump on a funeral pyre tons of ghee, purified butter, had to be poured over her and over the funeral pyre. This created great smoke, a cloud of smoke; nobody could see what was happening. And there were priests standing around the funeral pyre with long torches, burning. If the woman tried to escape – because that is human and natural that she may start getting out of the funeral pyre – they pushed her back into the funeral pyre, with those burning torches.And then there was always a crowd of musicians playing as loudly as possible on musical instruments so that you could not hear the screams of the living woman that you were burning.This was thought to be something spiritual. This is pure murder – and a very crude and primitive murder. For millions of years it was a great spiritual thing, but it is strange that the man never did such a great spiritual thing. No man in the whole of history has ever jumped into the funeral pyre of his dead wife. No brahmin followed the rule that he has made for women.If it is true, then is it not very strange why the man is not doing the same? No, for the man things are totally different – a double standard of values. While the dead body of the wife is burning, people are thinking about the man – when he should get married again and to whom.It was with difficulty that this ugly ritual of murdering people was stopped, although it still happens once in a while.You have to understand that in the past, man has not behaved compassionately, lovingly, respectfully with women. His behavior has been very criminal.In spite of all this, you have to know that there have been women who were great spiritual masters. In spite of no education, no possibility to read the scriptures, no possibility to enter into the shrines, into the temples, into the synagogues. All the religions were prohibiting it, even the best of religions like Buddhism – even a man of the qualities of Gautam Buddha. Perhaps no other man has ever walked on the earth with such divine qualities.H.G. Wells has written about Gautam Buddha that he was the most godless man, yet the most godly. But even this godly man was afraid to initiate women into sannyas. For almost half his life he denied to give thousands of women initiation into his commune. It seems to be very uncompassionate from a person like Buddha, whose whole preaching is compassion.What was the fear? Why was he denying women? It was just a coincidence that the woman who had brought him up…because his own mother died immediately after giving birth to him. His mother’s sister sacrificed her whole life. She remained unmarried, so that she could give her whole attention and love and care to Gautam Buddha.Buddha never knew his own mother, he only knew this woman as his mother, who had proved more motherly than any mother and who had sacrificed more than any mother could do. In her old age when she came to ask to be initiated, he could not refuse. Reluctantly he gave initiation to her. But the statement he gave afterwards is a condemnation of women. He said, “My religion was going to last five thousand years. Now that I have allowed women into my religion, it will last only five hundred years.”Just by giving initiation to women, your religion has shrunk from five thousand years to five hundred years? You have really a great religion! Who is so afraid of women? But the fear arises because all these religions have been sex repressive. They have been saying that sex is against spirituality.Sex is a simple, natural phenomenon, and nature is not against spirituality. Anything that is against nature cannot be spiritual. Spirituality is the growth of the natural to its ultimate potential. But all the religions have been sex repressive, have been teaching celibacy – which is absolutely impossible…. And I simply cannot conceive that in the whole world there are thousands of great surgeons, millions of medical doctors, physiologists, biologists and chemists who all know that celibacy is impossible, but none of them speaks the truth. It goes against the traditions – against Christianity, against Hinduism, against Jainism, against Buddhism, against all the religions of the world.Millions of people know the truth, that there is no control of the mind over your biology. Do you have any control over your blood? It is only three hundred years ago that man came to know that blood circulates in the body continuously. For thousands of years it was believed that blood is a filling inside. There was no question of circulation because you don’t become aware of the circulation – but it is circulating. We have only been aware of this after surgery became capable of understanding the inside of the human body.Do you have any control over your digestion? Can you manage to eat something and transform it into blood? Do you know how your male sperms are created?If you don’t know anything about your biology, and even if you do know, there is no way to control it. Then it is a stupid teaching to tell people to be celibate. You are creating schizophrenia in those people’s minds; you are cutting them into two parts. You are condemning their bodies and you are making them feel guilty each time they fail to fulfill your requirements – and they will fail, because they have no power over nature.If you eat food, if you breathe air, if you exercise, walk…the male sperms are going to be created, and you have only a very small space for them. They demand release because they are living creatures, and if you don’t release them, they will find a way to be released by themselves.But it is a strange phenomenon that for ten thousand years no thinker has been against celibacy, has not said the truth that it is criminal to teach such an unnatural thing.This was the fear of Gautam Buddha.And because his monks were celibate, when women were initiated there was a danger that the women and men would be close together. This very fear shows that he knew perfectly well that all these monks had only repressed sex. If the woman becomes available, all that repression will disappear.That’s why the religion that was going to last for five thousand years, was going to last only five hundred years. In fact it did not last even that much. You know it. Buddhism was born in India and completely disappeared from India – totally – so much so that even the temple which was raised as a memorial, where Buddha became enlightened…The priest was a brahmin, because there was not a single Buddhist left to be a priest in that temple. And still the priest is a brahmin.The brahmin does not believe in Gautam Buddha. He does not believe in his teachings – nor was Buddha in favor of Brahmanism and the teachings of the Hindus. Still, a strange thing: the statue of Buddha needed a priest, and no Buddhist was available in the whole of India. And brahmins are professionally priests, they can worship anything – you just pay them! They don’t care what you are telling them to worship. It has nothing to do with their own inner convictions, it is simply an expertise.Jainism, another great religion, has denied women to enter into their liberation from the body of a woman. First they have to be born as a man. And it is strange that these same people are continuously saying that the soul, that the innermost consciousness, is neither male nor female.If consciousness is neither male nor female, then what is the problem? Why can a woman not attain to liberation, to the ultimate truth from the body of a woman? Consciousness is not a woman. The body never goes to liberation, so there is no problem. Neither is the man’s body going to enter into the ultimate, nor is the woman’s body going to enter into the ultimate. The bodies will be burned here on the funeral pyre!Do you think consciousness is also male and female? None of these religions have the courage to say that, because that will be absolutely untrue. Still, they go on insisting that woman cannot attain. And do you know what the reason is? The reason is that the woman cannot control her monthly period. She has a visible symptom of sexuality – she cannot be celibate.But these people are absolutely blind that man cannot be celibate either, even though he does not have a periodical expression of his sexuality. He may have to release his sexuality more often – not less, but more.Even Mahatma Gandhi, at the age of seventy, was having nocturnal emissions…trying hard to be celibate. It looks so stupid. And he was feeling guilty that he had not been able to control his sex. But all the monks in the monasteries of Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists and Jainas – none of them is celibate. And if anybody is celibate, he should come out to a medical institute and be examined.I challenge it:Nobody is a celibate; nobody can be.The poor woman has suffered much because of her monthly period, because she cannot hide it. Perhaps now, if Mahavira the great Jaina prophet comes back, he will have to change his mind, because if a woman remains on the pill, the period stops. That means a woman is more capable of being celibate than a man – and has more potential to become liberated than a man. All that she needs is just to continue on the pill.The pill is the great revolution sexually, spiritually. There has never been anything which can be called a greater revolution. Now the woman can say to Mahavira and all these people who have been preventing her, “The period has stopped completely. Your monks are not reliable, but the pill is reliable.”The pill functions biologically. This period was the problem, and all over the world it has been thought that particularly when a woman is in those four or five days of menstrual period she is dirty. She cannot be touched, she cannot be allowed to make food.The more orthodox Hindus and Jainas kept the women in a dark room in the house so not even her shadow fell on anybody, because even her shadow is dirty. This was a very simple method to make the woman feel guilty and helpless. What could she do about it? And this is all nonsense. She is not dirty! She may have been dirty the remainder of the month. Inside she was thought to be pure, but when she was cleansing it out, then she was dirty. I don’t understand the logic.In spite of all this condemnation of the woman by all the religions, there have been great masters – of course very few. There would have been an equal number of great masters from women if they had been allowed the freedom, the same opportunity. But in spite of all the barriers for their growth, I would like to give you a few names – and man has been so cunning that he has even changed the names.One of the tirthankaras of the Jainas – they have twenty-four great masters – one of them is a woman. But they have changed her name from a woman’s to a man’s name, so anybody reading about those twenty-four names will not detect that one of them is a woman. You go to a Jaina temple, and you will find twenty-four statues. They are all of men. Strange…what happened to the one woman?One woman, Mallibai, become a tirthankara. She must have been a woman of great and immense courage, because first she had to fight the whole of the orthodox monks, the whole of the man-made society. Secondly, in Jainism one can become ultimately liberated only when one renounces everything including clothes. That means unless one becomes naked and remains naked, one cannot attain to liberation. Mallibai must have been a tremendously courageous woman. She remained naked, and she proved to have all the qualities of a great master. In spite of all opposition she had such a charismatic personality that people had to accept her finally. But the moment she died they changed her name.Unfortunately I was born into a Jaina family. In my childhood I thought always that all these twenty-four tirthankaras were male – their names were male. Mallibai I never heard, I heard always Mallinath. Bai indicates a woman. Bai means sister. Nath means swami. They changed the name from Mallibai to Mallinath. And they never made the statue of a woman. It was only when I grew up and looked into the scriptures…I was so angry with my parents that I said, “You have been deceiving me.”I was angry at the priest of the Jaina temple and told him, “You have been deceiving the whole of humanity.”I was so angry. You will not believe – I removed one of the statues from the temple, and I told them, “Unless you make a statue of a woman, that place has to remain empty to indicate to everybody what has happened – and you will have to answer. And if you replace it with a male statue, I am going to remove it. While I am here in this town that place either has to remain empty or you have to put a statue of a woman.”That place remained empty until I left the town. Later on I heard that the moment I went to the university they replaced it with another male statue.You think these people are religious, spiritual – who for centuries have been lying…? But this is not the case only with Jainism, it is the case with all religions. For example, Christianity accepts twelve apostles, but the day Jesus was crucified, all the apostles had escaped out of fear – great males! Only three women who loved and respected Jesus…One was Jesus’ mother, Mariam, one was a prostitute, Mary Magdalen, and another also was a woman, the sister of Martha – her name was also Mary. So all three Marys, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen, the prostitute, and Mary, the sister of Martha – these three remained while all the twelve apostles escaped, fearing that if they were caught they would be crucified. Those three women proved more courageous.And when Jesus’ body was brought down from the cross, none of the apostles were present there. These three women brought the body down – and Jesus had never been respectful to these women. Even to his own mother he had never been respectful.There is an incident….Jesus is preaching to a crowd and somebody says to him, “Your mother, Mary, is standing behind the crowd and she wants to meet you. She has not seen you for years.”And Jesus says, “Tell that woman…” Not even mother – “Tell that woman that nobody is my mother. I have my father above in heaven; I am the only begotten son of God. I don’t have any mother…”“Tell that woman…” It is ugly, disgusting! And this man is thought to be the prince of peace. He is not even cultured. He does not even know how to behave.But that woman was present at the crucifixion without any fear. Everybody knew that she was the mother of Jesus. She was the first to help the body, to bring it down from the cross.Jesus never included in his apostles a single woman. Although these women, Mary Magdalen; Mary, sister of Martha; his own mother – they were far more close to him and they were far more understanding of his teachings. They were all better in every way than those twelve fools who had become apostles – they were all uneducated fishermen, woodcutters, farmers. Jesus himself was a son of a carpenter.Mary Magdalen was far more cultured – she was one of the most beautiful women in Judea. She was a prostitute who stopped her profession the moment she became interested in Jesus. But because she was a woman she could not be included in the apostles.In the Christian holy trinity you can see the strangeness: God is the father; Jesus is the son. One wants to ask, “Where is the mother?” No, there is no mother. That would have been a good, simple family – a family who believes in birth control, very contemporary.But there is no woman. Just to avoid a woman in the trinity – because to give that much height to a woman no man can tolerate – they have replaced the woman with a strange figure, the Holy Ghost. Nobody knows who this guy is, what is his purpose, and why he is needed in the trinity. He is a strange fellow. Nobody knows whether he is a man or a woman – or neither! Most probably he belongs to a third sex…just a ghost? I have never heard that ghosts have sex! He belongs to the third sex.But a woman has not been accepted in the highest trinity just because man is so much against it. Although in the whole of history, just as I have said, Mallibai proved that Jainism is wrong. A woman can attain to perfection in the body of a woman because it is not the body which attains perfection, it is awareness, and awareness has nothing to do with the body.A blind man can attain, a dumb man can attain, a man who has lost both his legs can attain, a man who cannot hear, is deaf, can attain…then what is the problem? Why cannot a woman attain?Mallibai is not only an exception, she has really destroyed the whole doctrine of Jainism and proved that this doctrine is male chauvinistic, and that women should assert themselves.In Kashmir there was another woman – her name was Lalla. She also lived naked her whole life, and she is thought to have been one of the most beautiful women. Kashmir produces very beautiful people, some of the most beautiful people in the world. And in Kashmir, because now it is ninety percent Mohammedan, it is said that Kashmir knows only two persons to worship: one is Allah and the other is Lalla.Lalla was not a Mohammedan, but she impressed the Mohammedans, who won’t even allow their women to remove the curtain that they continue wearing on their face – the mask. You can see only the Mohammedan woman’s eyes, nothing else. Every Mohammedan woman looks beautiful.I have heard that when Mulla Nasruddin got married…This is a ritual – that the woman in Mohammedan families first asks her husband when she enters the husband’s house for the first time after marriage: “Before whom can I remove my veil?” It depends on the husband. He can say, “These are the people before whom you can reveal your face, otherwise you have to keep your face veiled.”Mulla said, “I have not seen your face myself. First reveal to me, and then only can I decide.” He was a man of intelligence. The woman removed her veil; Mulla closed his eyes and he said, “Except me, you can open your veil to anybody. Just forgive me!” He had never seen such an ugly woman!You cannot look before marriage, you can only see the eyes, and through the eyes it is very difficult to decide.Mohammedans don’t allow even the faces of their women to be seen, but they worship Lalla equal to Allah. The woman must have impressed the whole of Kashmir tremendously. I have traveled all over Kashmir and I have heard it repeated again and again that Kashmir knows only two names: Allah and Lalla.She was a great master with a great following. And she had one great quality that I appreciate: she never belonged to any organized religion, she was an independent master. Still, people from other religions worshipped her, had to worship her.In Arabia there has been a woman, a Sufi mystic, Rabiya al-Adabiya….Mohammedanism is not a great religion, but it is the second greatest religion as far as numbers are concerned. As far as quality is concerned, it is the last of all. But it is a strange thing, that a few religions have produced a small rebellious section which has risen to the highest peaks of spirituality. Mohammedanism is a very earthbound, ordinary religion. Just in name only is it religion. But it has created an offshoot which has reached to the highest peak of spirituality – and that is Sufism.Sufis are one of the best products of all the religions. There is no comparison. And in Sufism there is no one compared with Rabiya al-Adabiya. She is at the very top. One of the great Sufis was Hassan. He was a very respected saint.I am reminded of one incident….Just to make it clear to you, Rabiya is far above even the great masters.Hassan is a great master, has a following of thousands. He was staying at Rabiya’s house, and as usual, in the morning he wanted to read the holy Koran. But he had not his own copy with him so he asked Rabiya for her copy. Rabiya gave him her copy. As he opened it he was surprised that in many places Rabiya had edited it – which is very much against Islam. The Koran is the last message of God, and Mohammed is his final messenger. Now there is not going to come any other message. Nobody can edit the Koran; nobody can change anything. And Rabiya had even crossed out a few words, dropped a few paragraphs – she had simply cut them out…!Hassan said, “Rabiya, somebody has destroyed your Koran.”Rabiya said, “Why should somebody destroy my Koran? All that has been done is done by me. I had to do it. For example, just look at the page you are at.” There was a sentence that said, “When you come across the Devil, hate him…” Rabiya had cut out this one word, “hate him,” and had written “love him.”Hassan said, “But Rabiya, this is God’s message; you can’t change it.”She said, “It doesn’t matter whose message it is, it is against my experience. Since I became aware of myself, there is only love left. Even if the Devil comes in front of me, I cannot do anything but love him. And this is my copy of the Koran! It reflects me. It has to be according to me and my experience. Hatred has completely disappeared from me, so I am helpless. I cannot follow this sentence.“Even if God comes to tell me, I am going to argue against it, because this is not my experience. And I can say with authority that there comes a moment when you are pure love. Then whoever comes in front of you, you simply can look with love. You can share your love, you can radiate your love. It does not matter who the person is, whether it is God or the Devil. Even if you are sitting alone, a man of realization radiates love, although there is nobody to receive it. It is simply the nature of enlightenment.”Hassan had to agree. He said, “I had never thought in that way.”On another occasion, another great Sufi mystic, Junnaid, was praying in front of a mosque. He always used to pray outside the mosque where people leave their shoes, because he used to say, “I am not yet so pure as to come in to meet God. The day I am ready he will call me and I will come in.”He was praying there and Rabiya was just passing by. She stood and heard what Junnaid was saying. Junnaid had his eyes closed and he was saying, “My God, open the doors and call me in. How long have I to wait?”Rabiya went behind him, shook him holding his collar – and this must not be done; it is against Mohammedanism. When somebody is praying, you should not disturb him.Rabiya shook the man in the middle of his prayer, and he had to open his eyes. She said, “You seem to be absolutely stupid. The doors are always open and he has always been calling. You are deaf! And you are blind! If I hear again, ‘My God, open the doors!’ I will hit your head because the doors are always open. God’s doors are never closed, and he does not wait for a certain moment to call you. His call is a standing call – he is always calling you. Don’t be stupid, and stop all this nonsense. If you want to go in, go in. If you don’t want to go in, remain out. But this prayer I will not allow.”This woman must have been courageous – and Junnaid, a master of thousands of people, a master of masters. Al-Hillaj Mansoor, who became a very famous mystic, was his disciple. But Rabiya was certainly right, and Junnaid had to touch her feet and thank her, saying, “You are right. I am blind. Perhaps the doors are always open. I am deaf. Perhaps he is always calling. I will not make such a prayer again. You forgive me, Rabiya.”There have been just a few more women around the world. They can be counted on the fingers. I have given you these three examples, but they are enough to prove that there is no intrinsic incapacity in being a woman that prevents you from rising to the status of being a master.But the woman needs to assert her equality in every other field too. She has to assert herself in education, in finance, in service, in jobs. Everywhere she has to stand by the side of man and assert her equality and her qualities, talents, her genius.Remembering one thing: she has not to imitate man – which is what is happening in the women’s liberation movement. That is again a wrong step. It happens always: one starts moving from one extreme to another. Man has repressed woman so much, that the woman can start imitating the man. In that way she will never become equal to man, because a carbon copy is a carbon copy; it can never be the original.So I don’t want you to become like a man. You have to be a woman. You have to keep your uniqueness, you have to keep your differences – and yet, you have to assert your independence, your freedom in every field. Only then will it be possible for you to declare your freedom in the spiritual field too, because alone the spiritual field is not possible. It depends on many other factors.In all the other factors the woman has to be expressive. You have to be artists, you have to be poets, you have to be painters, you have to be sculptors, you have to be musicians, you have to be dancers. You have to assert yourself in all the dimensions, wherever your talent and your genius lead you. Don’t imitate man. Remain grounded in your womanhood.Your differences with man are your attraction, your beauty. Your differences with man are a necessary tension, otherwise life will become flat. A woman has to be a woman. A man has to be a man. The farther they are from each other, the greater will be the attraction between them. They are polar opposites, and that is the reason for their love and their fights.But the women’s liberation movement is creating a very stupid ideology around the world: just imitate men. Because they are smoking cigarettes, you smoke cigarettes. Don’t be ugly. If they are stupid, you need not be stupid to be equal!The woman’s liberation movement has gone towards insanity. Now they are teaching that women should not love men, that women should love each other. They are teaching lesbianism. This is sheer insanity, the same kind of insanity that all the religions have been teaching in the past – that men should be monks. And monks naturally become homosexuals; there is no other way.Lesbianism is an ugly phenomenon, as is homosexuality – perversion. This is not the way to prove your mettle. You have to prove your womanhood, your separateness, your differences, your seeing things in a different way to man. You have to preserve those qualities. Those qualities are your treasures. Yet you have to demand equal opportunity to be expressive, to do whatever you want to do. It has to happen in all the spheres of life. Only then can you hope to have the opportunity of becoming spiritually free, independent, even to the extent that you can attain to masterhood.It is possible. It has happened before, and there is no natural hindrance. All hindrances are created by men. The people who love me, who understand me, should start dropping those hindrances. That will be your great work of compensation. What your ancestors have done to women, you have to undo. Then men and women can live in a friendship. There is no need for man to be the master and woman the slave. They are equal. But for thousands of years you have been taught that you are not equal.The ancient biblical story is that God created Adam. The word adam means mud; he created Adam from mud. The word human also means humus, mud. God created man out of mud.It is strange that even your God – it is created by man; God is created by man – makes a difference. He does not create Eve with the mud – as if mud is such a costly thing! He does not want to give equality. From the very beginning he sows the seeds of inequality. He creates Eve from a rib of Adam. He performs the first surgery in the whole history of man. While Adam is asleep, he takes out one of his ribs, and out of the rib he creates the woman, the first woman, Eve.I have heard that when Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, before they were expelled, every night when Adam came home and went to sleep, Eve would count his ribs. She was always afraid that God may have created another woman – hiding somewhere…otherwise, why was he late?But I cannot conceive the complexity. God could have created both from the same humus, from the same mud. But he only created the woman out of a rib. Naturally, the man thinks himself to be the master, and the woman is only a rib.We have to drop all these nonsensical stories which have become very deeply ingrained in the mind if we want to create a new humanity, if we want to create a new kind of relationship. The woman does not need to be like the man, nor does the man need to be like the woman. Both have been trying this – otherwise what is the reason for the man to go on shaving his beard and mustache?I was a student in the university….I wanted a scholarship badly, because my family told me, “If you go to study philosophy, then we are not going to finance you. We are in financial difficulty and you are learning philosophy! If you go to engineering, if you become a doctor, that is understandable, we will try to help in every possible way. Even if we have to borrow money, we will borrow money, but not for philosophy.”So I said, “You need not worry about it. I will manage.”I went directly to the vice-chancellor and I told him, “This is the situation; my parents say they cannot help me if I go into philosophy, and I don’t want to study anything else because my whole life is going to be fighting philosophy. I have to understand it! So where is the form for a scholarship?”The man was taken aback. He said, “Cool down. You just sit! You seem to be very hot tempered.” He said, “Can I inquire one thing: why are you growing your beard?” – it had just started growing.I said, “You are not in the right situation. You should not ask me. I am not growing it – it is growing itself. I can ask you why you have been shaving your beard – because that is what you are doing. It is not happening by itself.”The man looked here and there and said, “That’s right. This is the form. You take the scholarship. I will think it over.”I said, “I will come every day until I get the answer. Either you find the answer why you are shaving your beard, your mustache…”He could not find the answer. Then I told him, “I know the answer. You may not be aware, you may be simply imitating other men, but the basic thing is that man thinks that the woman looks beautiful – but he forgets that it is beauty to his eyes. He thinks because the woman looks beautiful to him, he should also shave his beard and mustache and then he will look beautiful to the woman too. He is wrong! The woman simply says nothing – that is another matter – but no woman likes a man with a shaved beard and mustache, because it looks just like another woman.”OshoI love you.And now the next koan is coming up:Why are you here? Why am I here?It is a beautiful question. I will just answer with a small story….Mulla Nasruddin was returning from a village to his house. He was passing by the side of a graveyard, when he saw – it was evening, but it was still a little light – just in front of him a few people on horses with swords. A great crowd was following them, with great torches burning in their hands. He became very much afraid. He had heard that there are people who invade small villages, burn their houses, kill the men, rob their treasures and rape their women. It seemed like these were the people.It is maybe dangerous even to pass them. There was a wall dividing the road and the graveyard. He jumped the wall to find a place to hide. There was one grave open. It had been made ready because somebody had died, and the message had come that the body would soon be brought, so the gravediggers had made it ready. He simply lay down in it, pretending to be dead.Those people who were on the horses were nothing but a marriage party. They were going to the other village, and it was the custom of their tribe that the bridegroom sits on a horse with a naked sword in his hand, and a few of his friends, close friends, were also on horses. And the whole marriage procession, a big crowd, was following with torches because the night was coming on.They saw this man just like a shadow, jumping inside the graveyard. And they wondered, “It seems to be some kind of thief. Something is strange.” So they opened the gate of the graveyard and they all went in.The Mulla heard them coming. He closed his eyes. He tried to stop his breathing. And they were all standing around with torches looking at him. They could not believe it: this man has just come in and suddenly is dead!But how long could Mulla remain without breathing? And when he heard their laughter…and then somebody said, “We should not waste our time. He seems to be some kind of idiot. The people in the other village will be waiting, and we will have to get there soon; it is a marriage procession.”The moment he heard it was a marriage procession, he immediately opened his eyes. Somebody in the crowd said, “That man is not dead.”He sat up. Somebody asked, “What is the matter? What are you doing here? Why are you here?”Mulla Nasruddin said, “That is exactly the question I was going to ask: What are you doing here? Why are you here? But now there is no need to ask anything or answer anything. I know I am here because of you, and you are here because of me.”Osho,Why is it that sincere, gentle and kindhearted men are suffering and neglected? Why is it that the cunning, the cheap and the evil are flourishing and respectable? Is it the result of their past life karma, prarabdha?There is no need to believe in prarabdha, in fate. There is no need to believe that people are suffering because of their past evil acts, karma. The reality is that the good people, the nice people, the virtuous people are bound to suffer. You cannot have everything in life. If you have goodness, enjoy it; if you have virtue, enjoy it; if you have a niceness, enjoy it.Why should you be jealous of the cunning people becoming prime ministers, of the evil people becoming rich? The evil people are bound to win in the race with the good people if the race is for money, if the race is for power, prestige, respectability. But if the race is for inner silence, peace, calm, coolness, silence, meditation, godliness, then the evil people will not get anything, anywhere. I don’t see any problem at all. If you had asked this to anybody else, he would have explained it through past lives because there seems to be no other way for the logicians, for the theologians.They have been telling you that good people should not suffer, that evil people should suffer. But in life you see just the opposite happening: good people are suffering; evil people are on the top, enjoying. Naturally, the theologian has to create a fiction of past life, of faith, of prarabdha, of karma – all bogus and fictitious things. The reality is very simple: goodness has nothing to do with earning money. Goodness earns something more valuable, it earns peace of mind.The virtuous person need not be worried about mundane things. He may not have a palace, but he will live more blissfully in his hut than a king lives in his palace. The virtuous will not be able to manage a palace, but he will be able to manage blissfulness. The cunning will manage to reach to the palace, but he will lose all peace of mind, he will lose all contact with himself.So it is very simple to me. If you want the inner world and inner riches, be good, be virtuous, be nice, and don’t be jealous of those poor people who are simply cunning and earning money, who are doing every kind of criminal act and reaching to high posts and respectability. Do you want to have both? Do you want money and also meditation? You are asking too much. Something has to be left for the cunning too! He is making a lot of effort. And he is suffering so much inside. You may be suffering on the outside, he is suffering inside – and that is a bigger suffering than you know of.So I don’t see that life needs to be explained by fictions. Life is a simple mathematics. You get what you deserve. Just don’t ask anything which is not related to your qualities, and then there is no problem. Then you will not see it the way you are seeing it – that the virtuous are suffering. No. No virtuous person is suffering.Every virtuous person is enjoying every moment blissfully. And if he is suffering, then he is not virtuous, he is simply a coward. Basically he is cunning, but he is not courageous. He wants the same things that the cunning man has, but he is not courageous enough to be cunning, nor is he clever enough to be cunning. Cunningness is an art.The cunning should have what they can manage. The evil ones should have what they can manage. But the good ones don’t have to be jealous, because they have the real treasures of the innermost being. They should be compassionate. They should see those poor, cunning politicians, the super-rich – they should see their inner poverty, their inner darkness, their inner hell, and they should be compassionate, not competitive!Osho,Buddhist scriptures talk about the nature of reality as emptiness. Sometimes it feels that it would be such a relief to be empty rather than so full and heavy. Please talk about emptiness.The Buddhist scriptures talk about shunyata, which is translated as emptiness. But the English word emptiness has not the quality of the word shunyata. The word shunyata has no equivalent in English, so I will have to give you a few examples so you can understand that it is a very strange word.For example, this hall is full of people, furniture, lights. And if I say remove everything from here: the people go out, the furniture goes out, the lights go out – everything that can be removed from here is removed – you will say, now the hall is empty. But it is a half statement. You should say that the hall is empty of people, empty of furniture, empty of all other things, but now it is full of space. Before, it was full of people and empty of space. Now the people have gone out, the space is there, the spaciousness.So shunyata means emptiness with fullness of space. Then it will be correct to translate it as emptiness. It is not just empty. The word empty is negative, and the word shunyata is not negative. It simply says that you will be empty of anger, you will be empty of jealousy, you will be empty of mind, you will be empty of ego – you will be empty of the whole furniture of your being. Except your consciousness, everything in you will be empty and there will be immense space for your consciousness to fill it. You will be full of consciousness.So it is a question of which aspect you look at it from. If you look at the things that have been thrown out – the ego, the jealousy, the anger, the violence – then you will say, “Now the person is empty.” But if you think of his inner being, his consciousness, you will say, “Now his inner consciousness is filling the whole space. He is over-full.”“Shunyata” has a positiveness in it, which the word empty does not have.So in your mind make the word empty be connected with positiveness – empty of everything that is false but not empty of truth, not empty of being, not empty of consciousness. You will be over-full. And remember, being over-full does not mean heavy, because consciousness has no weight. That is the only existential phenomenon in the world which has no weight. Even light has some weight.It was thought in the beginning that light had no weight, but recently scientists have found that if you collect the sun rays of five square miles on a single point, the weight is nearabout two hundred and fifty grams. There is weight.Light is very light, but still it has weight. Consciousness is absolutely light – it has no weight. You will be over-full, but not heavy.The last question:Osho,Who am I? Who am I? Who am…?My God, the guy has forgotten his name! Listen, and note it down so you don’t forget again: your name is Swami Govindanand Bharti! You live in Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat in India!Don’t laugh, that is the situation of everybody!I know this won’t satisfy him. He wants really to know himself. But millions of people are satisfied with their name. They think this is it. They look in a mirror and they think this is their face, this is their body, these are their eyes….I have heard of one drunkard who had been fighting in the pub….Somebody hit him hard on the face, so it was bleeding and scratched. Coming home…the wife has tremendous power, almost miraculous power. Even the drunkard, as he comes closer to home, becomes sober!The moment he reached his door, he thought, “Again I am too late, and again I am too drunk, and my whole face seems to be full of blood. In the morning there is going to be trouble.”Right now he had the key, so he opened the door silently, went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and said, “There is going to be great trouble in the morning, because these marks on my face will tell the whole story. I cannot find any excuse, so somehow I have to hide them.”He found some ointment and put the ointment over every scratch, over every place where blood was oozing – and he felt very good that now it was perfect. So he went to sleep.In the morning the wife screamed from the bathroom, “Who has destroyed my mirror? Who has painted my mirror?”He had put ointment all over the mirror!He was drunk, and he thought that was his face!Millions of people are living according to the mirror. They think this is their face. They think this is their name, this is their identity and that is all.You will have to go a little deeper. You will have to close your eyes. You will have to watch within. You will have to become silent. Unless you come to a point of absolute silence inside, you will never know who you are. I cannot tell it to you. There is no way of telling it. Everybody has to find it.But you are – that much is certain. The only question is, to reach to your innermost core, to find yourself. And that’s what I have been teaching all these years. What I call meditation is nothing but a device to find yourself.Don’t ask me. Don’t ask anybody. You have the answer within you, and you have to go deep down into yourself to discover it. And it is so close – just a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and you will be facing it.And you will be surprised that you are not your name, you are not your face, your body, you are not even your mind.You are part of this whole existence, of all its beauty, grandeur, blissfulness, its tremendous ecstasy.Knowing oneself is all that religion means. Everything else is just ritual. Going to the church, going to the temple, chanting a mantra – all these are absurd rituals.Knowing yourself in deep silence is the only reality and the only authentic religion.

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The Sword and the Lotus 01-25Category: THE WORLD TOUR

The Sword and the Lotus 18 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Osho,Please make me understand what it is to live “rightly.”There are two ways to live, to be, to know: one is of effort, will, ego; the other is of no effort, no struggle, but being in a let-go with existence.All the religions of the world have been teaching you the first way, to fight – fight against nature, fight against the world, fight against your own body, fight against the mind. Only then can you achieve the truth, the ultimate, the eternal. But it is enough proof that this will to power, this path of the ego, this fighting and war has utterly failed. In millions of years, very few people have achieved the ultimate experience of life, so few that they only prove the exception, they don’t prove the rule.I teach you the second way: don’t go against the current of existence, go with it; it is not your enemy. Just as a person can try to go upstream, fighting with the river, soon he will be tired and he is not going to reach anywhere. The river is vast and he is a small part.In this vast existence, you are smaller than an atom. How can you fight against the whole? The very idea is unintelligent. And you are produced by the whole – how can it be your enemy? Nature is your mother, it cannot be against you. Your body is your very life, it cannot be antagonistic to you. It serves you in spite of your continuous fight with it. It serves you when you are awake, it serves you even when you are asleep. Who goes on breathing? You are fast asleep and snoring. The body has its own wisdom. It continues to breathe, the heart continues to beat, the body goes on functioning without you. In fact, it functions better when you are not present. Your presence is always a disturbance, because your mind is conditioned by people who have told you to be against it.I teach you a friendship with existence. I do not want you to renounce the world, because the world is ours. Nothing that exists is against you. All that you have to learn is the art of living – not the art of renouncing, but the art of rejoicing. It is only a question of learning an art and you can change the poison into nectar.On so many medicines you will find written, poison, but in the hands of a scientific expert the poison has become a medicine. It does not kill you, it saves you.If you find that somewhere your body, nature, the world is against you, remember one thing: it must be your ignorance, it must be some wrong attitude. It must be that you don’t know the art of living. You are unaware that existence cannot be against you. You are born out of it, you live in it, it has given everything to you and you are not even grateful. On the contrary, all the religions have been teaching you to condemn it from the very beginning.Any religion that teaches you condemnation of life is poisonous. It is anti-life, it is in the service of death; it is not in the service of you, it is not in the service of existence. But why does the question arise?All these religions went against nature. Why did they create a certain logic that unless you are against this world, you will never be able to achieve the other world, the higher one? Why did they make such a division between this world and that world? There is a reason to it.If this world is not to be renounced but lived in its totality, then the priest is no longer needed. If this world has to be fought, renounced, you have to repress your natural instincts. Then of course, you are going to be in a sick state. Against nature you can never be healthy, you can never be whole. You will always be split and schizophrenic. Naturally, you will need somebody to guide you, somebody to help you – you will need the priest.Religion up to now has been the profession of the priest. It has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with the other world. It has just one purpose: how to exploit you, how to enslave you. And the priests have made the whole world into a vast slave camp.There are different religions; they are simply different slave camps. When you get fed up with one slave camp, you enter into another thinking that perhaps there will be freedom, but you are only changing jails.A Christian becomes a Hindu, a Hindu becomes a Christian: perhaps for the time being he may think that there is freedom, because of the newness. But soon he will be surprised that he is again in chains. Although the chains have different colors, are made of different metals, he has again been encaged into a certain theology. His mind is programmed again into lies he is being asked to believe.When he was a Hindu he was asked to believe that Rama is God, that Krishna is the perfect incarnation of God. Now he is a Christian – Rama and Krishna are no longer relevant, they are no longer gods – now Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God. Just the language differs, but deep down it is the same bondage.Just the other day I rejected one question, seeing that it must have come from a Hindu. The question was: “Mohammed has nine wives, eats meat, and his whole life is nothing but a continuous war – killing people; Jesus eats meat, drinks wine. Gautam Buddha is against wine; Mahavira is against wine, against meat. How can we decide who is the right savior?”But he left out the Hindus – and his name is Hindu. He had not mentioned that Rama is always pictured, sculpted, with a bow and arrows. He is not nonviolent. He fought a war; he must have killed thousands of people. He has the guts to ask why Mohammed had nine wives, but he does not ask why Krishna had sixteen thousand wives.The very question of how one is to choose who is the right savior is basically wrong. If you understand me, you are the only savior for yourself. There is no question of choice. Whenever you will choose, you will choose something wrong. Choice is wrong, so it doesn’t matter whom you are going to choose.You are always asking which prison to choose. This is painted white, this is painted blue, this is painted green…which prison to choose? But can’t you choose freedom? Have you decided to remain a slave forever, a prisoner?And I can see the cunning mind. You are only asking about other religions, not mentioning your own religion. All the religions are criminals, more or less. There may be a difference of degrees, but they are criminals, for the simple reason that they have been promising you something which they cannot deliver. Otherwise, the whole world would have been saved long ago. So many saviors have been around, and I simply wonder how you escaped from being saved!Every religion has saviors, prophets, gods, and the followers are in the same misery. Misery is neither Mohammedan nor Christian, nor Hindu nor Buddhist. Misery is simply misery. And everybody in the world is in misery, in suffering, in anguish. They have believed for thousands of years, but their belief has not helped at all.It is time enough. You have to declare a certain maturity, and you have to say to these saviors and these prophets and their representatives, “Enough is enough. Now close the doors of all your shops. We are not interested in being saved, we are interested in being totally alive.” It is total living that is going to save you, and all these religions have been cutting your life: this is wrong, that is wrong…making your life more miserable, making your life nothing but a guilt, full of wounds.Naturally, when you are guilty, you go to the church, you go to the mosque, you go to the synagogue; you ask the priest, you ask the minister, you ask the rabbi to help you, because in your deep darkness – which they are responsible for creating – you are so helpless, you need somebody to protect you, somebody to help you, somebody to show you the light. You are in such a desperate need that you don’t ever think whether the priest knows anything more than you, or that he is just a paid servant.It happened in Ramakrishna’s life….One sudra woman – sudras are the lowest caste of Hindus, reduced almost to inhuman beings. Cows are more respected, and human beings are not even that much respected. The woman was a queen, but she was a sudra. She had enough money. She could not go to any temple, although she was the queen. And the story is not very old, just one hundred years old.She made a beautiful temple in Dakshineshwar, near Calcutta, so that she could worship. But then a problem arose: no priest was willing to worship in her temple. The temple also became untouchable. The god inside the temple also became untouchable because an untouchable woman had made the temple – strange logic. The woman had not even touched the temple – and all the temples are made by untouchables. The bricks are made by them, everything that a temple needs for its construction is made by the lowest untouchable class, but no temple is untouchable. Even the statues of the gods are carved by untouchables – stonecutters – but those gods are not untouchables. And this woman had simply used her money…Now can you say because the money comes from an untouchable, it becomes untouchable?Money passes through thousands of hands. That’s why it’s other name is currency – it is always moving, it is a current. The notes that you have in your pocket may have moved through thousands of hands. Many untouchable people, Mohammedans, Christians, may have touched them. They may be carrying all kinds of diseases, because people who have tuberculosis, who have cancer, who have AIDS, may have used them. In fact, the whole system of currency is absolutely unhygienic and it should be changed. It is unscientific.You should have credit cards which belong to you and remain with you and that don’t change hands. Currency is simply ugly, and it may be spreading many diseases. But no medical experts are raising their voices against it.But in Dakshineshwar, Rani Rasmani Devi’s temple remained empty, because no brahmin was ready to worship in it. She searched all over Bengal, and this young man, Ramakrishna – he was only twenty years old – said, “There is no problem. I will come.”His whole society condemned him. People told him, “You are destroying yourself. You will be expelled from brahmin status. You are falling down. You are becoming an untouchable.”He said, “I don’t care, but I cannot see one god remaining unworshipped. I am ready to risk myself, but I cannot risk that poor god.”Against everybody – against his family, against everybody – he went, but he was a strange person. He started worshipping.Rani Rasmani was really a graceful woman, very wise. Even though the temple started with a priest, she never entered the temple. She would always come, remain outside where people leave their shoes, sit there – and she was the queen – and just watch from the door, the worship, Ramakrishna dancing, singing…But the problem was that sometimes Ramakrishna would sing for hours and dance for hours. All the other people who had come would leave – he would continue alone. And sometimes he would not even open the doors of the temple, he would put a lock on the door.Rani Rasmani called him and asked, “What is the matter? Sometimes you worship for hours. I have heard that some days you worship the whole day, and sometimes for days you don’t open the temple.”He said, “It is between me and my god. Nobody has to interfere. When he is graceful to me, I am graceful to him. When he starts behaving rudely, then I give him a lesson! Then I tell him, ‘Remain without food for two or three days and you will come to your senses.’”Rani Rasmani Devi said, “What are you talking about? It is just a stone statue.”Ramakrishna said, “If it was just a stone statue, I would not have lost my caste. Against the whole society I would not have come. To me it is not.”Rani said, “And I have also heard that the food you prepare to offer to the god – first you taste it. That is against all scriptures. You have to offer it first to the god, then it can be distributed to the devotees and then you can take it. But you are not supposed to taste it first.”He said, “You can take your temple and I resign from it, because I know perfectly – my mother used to taste first before she would give anything to me. And when I asked her why she was doing that, she said, ‘If it is not good, I will not give it to you.’ How can I do otherwise? I don’t care about your scriptures; I don’t know them. I have learned only from my mother that if there is love, love cannot give something which is not tasteful. First I have to taste it, and then only can I offer it.”Now this man, Ramakrishna, is expelled from Brahmanism, and you will not find another brahmin of the same status, of the same insight. He was not there just to get some salary. He was there really to worship, and worship is a love affair. It knows no other rules except love. Love is decisive, not any other law.So it is not a question of whom you have to choose, the question is, are you going to love existence, are you going to love existence as divine? Then it does not matter in which religion you are born. All those things become unnecessary. You have found the essential core. And if you are going to decide, you will never be able to decide.For example, no Jaina is going to accept Christ as enlightened, for the simple reason that it is inconceivable according to the Jaina perception that any enlightened man will drink alcohol. When you are enlightened, you have tasted the ultimate ecstasy – now what can alcohol give to you? Alcohol is for miserable people to forget their misery. Alcohol helps you to forget something. You want to forget misery and suffering, but nobody wants to forget blissfulness, ecstasy.If an ecstatic person drinks alcohol, he will forget all about it. No meditator is going to drink alcohol. That is simply illogical, unscientific. So no Jaina, no Buddhist, is going to agree that Jesus is enlightened. But on the other hand, the Christian also has questions, because Buddha neither served the poor nor helped the sick to become healthy, nor did Mahavira raise the dead back to life. They had no concern at all for other people.According to the Christian attitude, these people are utterly selfish, they are simply meditating for their own enlightenment. While millions of people are dying, starving, or sick, they are not doing anything for them. How can these people be enlightened if they don’t have compassion, service, as their prayer? If they can’t serve others, it is certain they don’t see the divine in others. You will be caught into such difficult arguments that you will not be able to choose – but there is no need at all.The very need to choose is wrong. You are not to decide who is right and who is wrong. That is their problem. Whether Jesus is enlightened or not, whether Gautam Buddha is enlightened or not, is not your problem. Your problem is whether you are enlightened or not!There is no way to decide about Jesus, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, but there is absolute certainty about you. You can decide yourself. You know perfectly well you are not enlightened. Is this the time, when you are not enlightened, to decide about others…wasting your life, your time, your energy? And still you cannot come to any conclusion, because they all have their arguments.Christians say Jesus is crucified to save humanity; he gives his own life. And in the Christian context it looks perfectly right. But looked at from the Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist or Tao context it is absurd. According to these four religions, the crucifixion of Jesus is possible only if he had done some great evil acts in his past life. Otherwise crucifixion is not possible. What to say of the crucifixion?Jainas say that Mahavira is naked, walks barefooted and that even thorns on the way, seeing that Mahavira is coming, get out of his way. They simply jump out of his way because his karmas are finished! He cannot have even that much suffering, because suffering needs some cause, and he has destroyed all the causes. The thorn has to move.The Buddhists say that when Buddha sits underneath a tree, it may not be the season for the tree to blossom, but it simply blossoms abundantly. It has to because the existence of an enlightened man is so rare, so precious, that the tree even forgets that this is not the season to blossom. But who cares about the season? When an enlightened person is sitting underneath, the tree is so joyous; it is her way of singing and dancing and celebrating.Now Buddhists cannot believe that Jesus comes to a tree, a fig tree – for three days he has been hungry, and because there are no figs on the tree, he is very angry. Although he is called the prince of peace and he talks about loving your enemies just like yourself, he behaved in such a retarded way with the fig tree. He cursed it “because you are not welcoming me and my friends who have been hungry for three days. Where are the fruits?” But it was not the season. What could the poor fig tree do?And to curse a tree which is incapable of producing fruits out of season is simply nonsense. It simply shows a man in absolute anger, almost insane. He is behaving like a retarded child, who because he stumbles on a table, starts beating the table as if the table had struck him. That’s what Jesus is doing – cursing the fig tree because there are no fruits.No Eastern religion can accept Jesus and his behavior. But Christians cannot accept the thousand and one things in the Eastern prophets. Mahavira standing naked simply shows that he is an exhibitionist. You will know exactly. Just tomorrow stand on the road naked. Nobody is going to worship you. Immediately the police will be called and you will be taken to the police station, because to stand naked on the road is illegal and criminal.Sigmund Freud has decisively given his testimony that when you want to show your naked body to people it is exhibitionism, and that is a mental disease. And there are other things which go along with it. There are mad people all around the world who pull their hairs out; Mahavira used to do that. He never got shaved by a barber, because he never wanted to be dependent on anybody. He never used a poor razor blade, because he never wanted to use any technology. So the only way was to pull his own hairs, beard, mustache. Every year he would do it, and thousands of his followers, with tears in their eyes, would watch it thinking what great austerity he was showing.But according to Sigmund Freud, this man had some streak of insanity. And these people who were standing there, dropping all their jobs, closing their shops, tears in their eyes…they are also psychologically sick. According to psychoanalysis, these people are sadists; they enjoy somebody torturing himself.And the person who tortures himself – and I don’t think in the whole history of man anybody has tortured himself more than Mahavira – is a masochist. He loves to torture himself, and he loves to show how much he is torturing himself. He will attract only the sadistic people – those who want to see somebody torturing himself. They want to torture, but they are not brave enough to do it because that is risky and dangerous. But when somebody is doing it on his own, this is a beautiful moment not to be missed.If you go on analyzing these people you will never come to any conclusion, you will get more and more confused. My suggestion is that it is none of your affair whether they were enlightened or insane, it is their problem. Your problem is basically to look within yourself, where you are. And if you are in misery, in suffering, in anxiety, in anguish; if you are missing something in life, if you are discontented, if you don’t see any meaning anywhere and you are simply dragging yourself towards death…The darkness goes on growing darker, every day death goes on coming nearer – is this the time to get into great theological problems? It is the time to change your being. You don’t have much time.You will be surprised to know that one of the great masters of this age, George Gurdjieff, has stated something which has never been stated in the whole history of man by any mystic, by any master. He has said to his disciples, “Don’t remain in the illusion that you all have souls. You are not born with souls. You are soulless. Only very few people have been able to create a soul. Those who create a soul may survive death, but the majority are simply vegetables. You will die completely; nothing will be left behind.”It was very shocking, because all the mystics down the ages have been telling you just the opposite – that you are born with a spiritual being, you are just not aware of it. So learn the art of awareness and you will discover it.Why did Gurdjieff say that that is absolutely wrong – “The reality is that nobody is born with a soul. The soul is something to be created with arduous effort and intelligence, and very few succeed. Only those go on living in a future life, others disappear with death, they did not use the opportunity.”I have often been asked what the truth is, whether what Gurdjieff said is true or what all the mystics of all the ages have said is true. Both are true. The mystics of the past have told you the truth simply, but man is so unconscious and cunning. Listening to the truth, whether you do anything or not, you always have the hidden potential of becoming an enlightened person.The sleepy people thought, “Then there is no hurry. First, do other things which tomorrow you may not be able to do” – and there are a thousand and one things in the world which attract your attention. As far as the soul is concerned, it is always there. You can have it today, you can have it tomorrow, you can have it in the next life. It is only a question of time – and anyway, you have it. It is just a question of becoming aware. So why not do other things which you don’t have and just by becoming aware you won’t get?By becoming aware you won’t become rich. On the contrary, you may become poor, because you will start trusting people and people will start cheating you. You may start being compassionate and people will take advantage of it.I was coming from Indore, and going to Nagpur….In the middle, at the junction Khandwa, I had to change trains. I had almost two hours to wait, so I waited in the old train which had brought me to Khandwa. I was sitting alone in the compartment when one beggar came towards me and he said, “My wife has died.”I said, “That’s very bad,” and gave him one rupee.He looked at me. He could not believe – he looked at the rupee – whether it was authentic or fake.I said, “Don’t be worried. It is absolutely authentic. It is not like your wife.”He said, “What do you mean?”I said, “I don’t mean anything. Just by the way, I reminded you that it is not like your wife, it is a real rupee.”He went away, but he remained puzzled.After five to ten minutes he came back again. Last time he had a coat and a cap; this time he had dropped the coat and the cap, thinking that now he would not be recognized. But as he came I asked, “What happened? Has somebody else died?”He said, “What? How did you know? My father has just died.”I said, “I knew it, and I would like you to know that I am going to be here for two hours, so you can let your relatives die – as many as you want. And it is not costly for me. Take one rupee and finish another relative.”He said, “It is a sad thing and you are making a joke of it.”I said, “It is really sad: first your wife died, and within ten minutes your father died. You just go home to find…somebody else must have died!”He said, “If you say, I will go.”“But you should go and you should come back, because somebody is bound to be dead. I am here for two hours.”Within ten minutes he was back. He said, “You seem to be very prophetic. I went home and my mother has died.”And I said, “Take one rupee. How many relatives do you have in all, the total?”He said, “What do you mean?”I said, “I can give you advance money. You let them die, because it is such a torture for you….” the poor man running home, coming back…again somebody will die…. “Your whole family is going to die today, so you just tell me the whole number – how many people have you got still alive?”At that moment something happened in the man and he said, “No. I cannot take advance money. This is too much. This is too much, because I have been cheating people. Every day my wife dies. Today you have killed three of my people and now you are giving me the advance for everybody. No, that is too much. I cannot do that.”And he asked me did I not feel cheated. I said, “No, I am enjoying! Just sitting here alone – I have nothing else to do, and you are such an entertainment. I am enjoying the whole scene. I was simply wondering how many relatives you could invent. You must have a joint family: uncles and their wives and their children. You just count them all and I am ready to give one rupee for each.”He took the three rupees that I had given to him and he said, “Please take them back. I cannot cheat you.”I said, “What happened? What is the trouble? You have been doing this business your whole life, and I am just another man who passes in these trains, and you cheat.”He said, “No, you are not one of them. You…you are making me feel so bad that it is not only a question of cheating you. I am showing my ugliness too – that just to get some money, every day I have to kill my people. No, I cannot take, and you please take these three rupees back. If you don’t take it, I am not going to leave from here. You will have to take these three rupees back, because my wife is alive, my father is alive and my mother is alive.”Then I said, “Take them just as a celebration because they have not died, they are alive. If I can give for the dead, why cannot I give for the living ones? I give them more joyously; don’t you feel guilty.”The more aware you become, the more loving you will be, the more compassionate you will be. You will not be cunning, you will not be cheating, and everybody around you will take advantage of you.Naturally, the whole world of sleepy people decided that the soul is something which you need not bother about – even death cannot take it away! It is with you always, whatever you do. Be a sinner, be a saint, but the soul is your eternal possession. It can be postponed; you can do other things first.Seeing this, Gurdjieff told a lie out of compassion, out of sheer compassion. He wanted to shock you that you have misused the old mystics’ simplicity, their innocent statements about truth. He shocked his disciples by saying, “You have to do something urgent. This is the most important thing to do, the first priority. You cannot postpone it even for a single moment.”To make it such an intense longing in you, he had to lie. And he helped many people to go into deep, arduous training, self-discipline, to become aware. Because if somebody declares that you don’t have a soul, naturally, you will forget all about your factory and your shop, and all about your children and all about your wife. Your first priority will be how to attain your innermost being, because all these things that you have will be taken away. And if you don’t have a soul, death will be total, nothing will survive.I don’t want to say to you that you don’t have a soul. But still, I want you to understand and not misinterpret what I am saying. You have a soul as much as anybody else has ever had. In fact there is no possibility of any communism other than the communism of spirituality. Only spirituality is equally the same. The greatest was Gautam Buddha, and you are no different in potential. He has actualized it, he has recognized it; your potential is lying dormant.And the methods that all the religions have been teaching to you are methods of fighting; they don’t lead anywhere. They simply spoil your joys of life. They poison everything enjoyable in this life. They have created a sad humanity. I would like a humanity full of love and full of song and full of dance.So I want it to be clearly understood that my method is the second, and by the second method I mean you are not to fight the current and go upstream – that is stupid. You cannot fight, the current of nature is too big and too strong. The best way is to learn from a dead body. Dead people know a few secrets which living people don’t know.Living people, if they don’t know how to swim, drown. This is very strange. By the time they are dead, they surface again. When they were living, they went down; when they died, they came up. Certainly, the dead person knows something which the living person does not know. What happened? Why do the river and the ocean behave differently with the dead person? The dead person is in absolute let-go. He is not even swimming. He is not doing anything.The best swimmer simply floats. The ultimate swimmer just goes like a dead body with the current, wherever the river leads – it always leads to the ocean. Every river leads to the ocean, so you need not be worried whether you are in a holy river or not. Holy or unholy, every river is destined to reach sooner or later to the ocean. You just go on floating with the river. And this I call trust – trusting in existence that wherever it is leading, it is leading to the right path, to the right goal. It is not your enemy. Trust in nature that wherever it is taking you, there is your home.If the whole of humanity learns relaxation rather than fighting, learns let-go rather than making arduous effort, there will be a great change in the quality of consciousness. Relaxed people, simply moving silently with the flow of the river, having no goals of their own, having no egos…In such a relaxed floating you cannot have any ego. Ego needs effort – you have to do something. Ego is a doer, and by floating you have become a non-doer. In this inaction, you will be surprised how your anxieties and miseries start dropping away and how you start becoming contented with whatsoever existence gives to you.One Sufi mystic was traveling….And every evening he would thank existence: “You have done so much for me and I have not been able to repay, and I will never be able to repay it.” His disciples were a little disgusted, because sometimes life was so arduous.The Sufi mystic was a rebellious person. It happened this time that for three days they had no food, because every village they passed refused because they were not orthodox Mohammedans. They had joined a rebellious group of Sufis. They wouldn’t give them shelter for the night, they were sleeping in the desert. They were hungry, they were thirsty, and it was the third day. At the evening prayer, the mystic again said to existence, “I am so grateful. You have been doing so much for us and we cannot ever repay it.”One of the disciples said, “This is too much. Now for three days please tell us what existence has done for us? For what are you thanking existence?”The old man laughed. He said, “You are still not aware of what existence has done for us. These three days have been very significant for me. I was hungry, I was thirsty; we had no shelter, we were rejected, condemned. Stones were thrown at us, and I was watching within myself – no anger arose. I am thanking existence. Its gifts are invaluable. I can never repay them. Three days of hunger, three days of thirst, three days of no sleep, people throwing stones…and yet I have not felt any enmity, any anger, any hatred, any failure, any disappointment. It must be your mercy; it must be existence supporting me.“These three days have revealed so many things to me which would not have been revealed if food had been given, reception had been given, shelter had been given, stones had not been thrown – and you are asking me for what I am thanking existence? I will thank existence even when I am dying, because even in death I know existence is going to reveal mysteries to me as it has been revealing in life, because death is not the end but the very climax of life.”Learn to flow with existence so you don’t have any guilt and any wounds. Don’t fight with your body, or nature, or anything, so you are at peace and at home, calm and collected.This situation will help you to become more alert, more aware, more conscious, which finally leads to the ocean of ultimate awakening – nirvana.Osho,My surrender is goal-oriented, and I surrender to you in order to be free from misery and suffering – which is not real surrender at all. I am watching it, but the problem is, who is watching? The realization from watching is a realization of the ego. I feel tricked by the ego.A little more watching – who is being cheated by the ego, who is feeling, “I am being cheated by the ego”? There must be something more than the ego, otherwise, you could not feel it. If you are only ego, then there is no way to get out of it. But you are already aware. You have not taken note of it. You have not yet emphasized the fact that you are already aware that “My surrender is goal-oriented,” and you always have some motivation. Even if you want to be free from all misery, suffering, it is always I – but who is making this statement? Just a little more watching….You are already on the verge of it. Just a step more so that you can see clearly. And in the very seeing is the transformation. You have not to do anything, you have just to become aware that you are not the ego and that the ego falls with all its desires, motivation – good or bad, religious or irreligious, this-worldly or the other-worldly – the ego simply falls down. Its whole structure collapses, and the moment you see it collapsing, that moment is the moment of freedom.This question is significant for everybody. The person who has asked the question – I have answered many of his questions, but I have not answered any for a few days. Yesterday he wrote a question – very angry. I still did not answer it because I wanted him to realize that unless he asks an authentic question, he is not going to get the answer. And today, he has come to his senses.Yesterday he was very angry, saying that all questions are equally important. I know it. They are equal, but not in importance. All questions are equally unimportant.In your state of consciousness you cannot ask a really important question. If you can ask a really important question there will be no need to ask it, you will be almost awake. You are asking while you are asleep. In your sleep many people go on talking.I used to travel a lot all over India from one corner to another corner, continuously, for years. And sometimes it happened – I was always in the air-conditioned compartment in a small coupe. Perhaps there was one person…sometimes the coupe was not available and I had to travel in a bigger, four-seat compartment, so there were four persons…. And it was a great joy to listen to them in their sleep. Ordinarily I miss that because I sleep alone. And people say such strange things in their sleep, that I was surprised. If you wake them up, they will deny that they have said this, but in their sleep they are more truthful. Sometimes it was a great trouble.Once it happened…I was with three persons, and all the three persons were great snoring people. And they snored in such a way that one would snore, the other would reply with loudness, the third would surpass the both, and then the number one would come up again.I could not understand how they were managing the arrangement even while they were asleep. Exactly the same round went on and on. Finally, I had to start snoring while I was awake – and so loudly that they all three woke up.They looked at me – and I was sitting with my eyes open – and they said, “You are strange. You snore while you are awake.”I said, “That’s the difficulty. When I am asleep, I am asleep, but because of you three, I cannot sleep. And this is the problem with me: when I am awake, I snore. So we have to decide. I am ready for any negotiation: either I have to be awake, but then you three cannot sleep. If you allow me to sleep, then you three cannot snore. You can choose. I am not in a hurry. The journey is long. We will be together for forty-eight hours – two nights – so you can decide.”They said, “This is a strange kind of person.” All three discussed, “We have never heard anybody snoring while awake! But from the very beginning this man looked strange. Now what are we going to do?”I said, “There is no problem. You just don’t snore. If I am asleep, I will not snore.”They said, “Okay. We will try.”Out of fear, it worked! They did not snore the whole night. In the morning they said, “You have done a miracle. Our whole lives we have been trying to stop snoring. We are all three brothers, and the oldest is the loudest. Our whole family is disturbed by us. They have put all the three of us in one room to sleep. In the night, they don’t allow us to sleep in different places – even with our wives! Even our wives are not willing to sleep with us. So we three sleep together.”Then I said, “I can understand. Otherwise, I was puzzled at how you were managing a certain synchronicity. Then I can understand. If you have been sleeping together for years, then naturally, there is a certain arrangement in sleep. One snores, two are silent; when he stops, the other begins; when he stops, the third one begins; when the third one stops, the first again is back, and this goes round and round.”And they said, “You have done a miracle – you have broken our circle! And now tell us, really, is it true that you snore while you are awake?”I said, “What else can you do when there are three persons, snoring so loudly?! I had to snore while awake to make it clear to you that if you want to sleep, then you have to allow me to sleep.”In your sleep also you may sometimes ask very logical questions, and they may seem to you to be very relevant.But just because you have asked, does not mean that I am obliged to answer it. And the person was getting angrier, and I was watching him every day. And I knew that I would bring him to his senses – and he has come back. I guessed that he must be in the legal profession. I know how to treat people who deal with law and logic and that kind of expertise. But I am happy that he is back to humanity – he is no longer a legal expert.This question is significant. You have just to emphasize more the understanding part within you, the observing part within you which is making you feel that every motivation, every goal, every desire, is based on the ego. How can you get out of the ego?You cannot get out of the ego.You are out of it!There is a Zen story….One Zen master – and Zen is the cream of Buddhism. In Zen it has come to its ultimate flowering. I don’t think there is anything possible more than Zen.It is a strange thing: Buddhism has reached to its peak in a rebellious group of people who have created Zen. It is not the orthodox Buddhism. Mohammedanism has reached to the same peak in the Sufis, who are the rebellious people, not the orthodox. Judaism has reached in Hassidism to the same peak as Zen, as Sufism. But Hassidism and Hassids are not orthodox. Jews don’t accept them even as religious. But these three rebellious schools of three different religions, belonging to three different races, have come to the same status when they flowered, and reached to the highest peak.This should give you an insight, that if you want to be religious, you have to learn to be rebellious. You cannot remain orthodox and become religious. That is impossible. That has never happened and it is not going to happen.You have to go beyond traditions.You have to go beyond the past.You have to be really rebellious in spirit. Then whether you are born in a Jewish family or in a Buddhist family or in a Mohammedan family does not matter, you will attain.These three religions, of different categories, have produced the same result through rebellion. That can give you a certain insight. There are religions which have remained barren. Christianity has not created anything equal to Zen; Hinduism has not created anything equal to Zen; Jainism has not created anything equal to Zen. Those three have remained barren, so they have only orthodoxy, they don’t have the rebellious spirit.The three religions which have attained to the heights – their orthodoxies don’t accept those heights. But anybody who is impartial – a person like me who does not belong to any tradition, who does not belong to any orthodoxy – can see the same fragrance in Zen, in Sufism, in Hassidism.I am trying to emphasize the point that to be rebellious, against dead traditions, is part of becoming really spiritual. And the greatest rebellion is when you become an authentic watcher of your ego. The ego is always nourished by tradition. The ego is always nourished by the orthodox people. The ego is always respected by the old, by the dead.When you are egoless, you will not become humble. Remember, don’t get into that fallacy. The egoless person is not humble, because in humbleness the ego can hide, it can play a new role. It can give you the sense that you are the most humble person around, but then the ego has come from the back door.An egoless person is neither egoistic nor humble, he is simply authentic, he is simply true. Whether you enjoy his truth or you are hurt by his truth, does not matter.I have been answering one Western woman’s questions. I am still waiting, because she is around. She has again asked today. I will call her to ask her question on the microphone, only on the day when I see that she has come to an individual problem, her problem. She is still bothering about others. Now she has asked, “You have said that all the Polacks are idiots. What do you mean by this?”I am not a pope. I am fallible. What I really wanted to say is that all the idiots are Polacks. They may be born anywhere, it does not matter, but they have the qualities of a Polack. So to satisfy the Western woman, I change my statement. But she is cunning.She had another question which is an indication that she is coming closer to asking something really concerning herself. And if she is around here, getting so many hits, it certainly means she is interested. No matter what, no matter what I say, she is finding some kind of nourishment in it.I will wait for her. The moment she asks a question relating to her own spirituality…because what business has she with Polacks?I am reminded of George Bernard Shaw….He was visiting America for the first time. And at his reception – there was a great meeting in New York. All the celebrities, all the bureaucrats, intellectuals, were present. And he said, “I have always thought that fifty percent of Americans are idiots.”It was very shocking. The Americans are giving a reception, it is his first day in America, and to start it with such a statement that fifty percent of Americans are utter idiots…The mayor who was in the chair could not contain the temptation to ask immediately, “What do you mean?”George Bernard Shaw laughed. He said, “I mean that fifty percent of Americans are very intelligent people.”And they all clapped!And Bernard Shaw leaned towards the mayor and said, “Do you see? What I said before was right.”