The Golden Future

Talks given from 19/04/87 pm to 31/05/87 pm

English Discourse series

40 Chapters

Year published: 1988

The Golden Future

Chapter #1

Chapter title: The language of the golden future

19 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704195

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN01

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

91

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

A WHILE AGO YOU SAID SOMETHING ABOUT SILENCE WHICH STARTLED

ME. IN MY SLEEPINESS, I'D SIMPLY THOUGHT OF IT AS JUST AN ABSENCE --

AN ABSENCE OF NOISES. BUT YOU WERE SAYING IT HAD POSITIVE

QUALITIES, A POSITIVE SOUND. AND IN MY MEDITATIONS, I'VE NOTICED

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN A SILENCE IN MY BODY AND A SILENCE IN

MY MIND. I CAN HAVE THE FIRST, WITHOUT THE SECOND. BELOVED

MASTER, PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT SILENCE.

Anand Somen, silence usually is understood to be something negative, something empty, an absence of sound, of noises. This misunderstanding is prevalent because very few people have ever experienced silence. All that they have experienced in the name of silence is noiselessness. But silence is a totally different phenomenon. It is utterly positive. It is existential, it is not empty. It is overflowing with a music that you have never heard before, with a fragrance that is unfamiliar to you, with a light that can only be seen by the inner eyes. It is not something fictitious; it is a reality, and a reality which is already present in everyone -- just we never look in. All our senses are extrovert. Our eyes open outside, our ears open outside, our hands move outside, our legs... all our senses are meant to explore the outside world.

But there is a sixth sense also, which is asleep because we have never used it. And no society, no culture, no educational system helps people to make the sixth sense active.

That sixth sense, in the East, is called "the third eye." It looks inwards. And just as there is a way of looking in, so there is a way of hearing in, so there is a way of smelling in.

Just as there are five senses moving outward, there are five counter-senses moving inward. In all, man has ten senses, but the first sense that starts the inner journey is the third eye, and then other senses start opening up.

Your inner world has its own taste, has its own fragrance, has its own light. And it is utterly silent, immensely silent, eternally silent. There has never been any noise, and there will never be any noise. No word can reach there, but you can reach. The mind cannot reach there, but you can reach because you are not the mind. The function of the mind is again to be a bridge between you and the objective world, and the function of the heart is to be a bridge between you and yourself.

The silence that I have been talking about is the silence of the heart. It is a song in itself, without words and without sounds. It is only out of this silence that the flowers of love grow. It is this silence that becomes the garden of Eden. Meditation, and only meditation, is the key to open the doors of your own being.

You are asking, "A while ago you said something about silence which startled me in my sleepiness. I had simply thought of it as just an absence -- an absence of noises. But you were saying it had positive qualities, a positive sound. And in my meditations, I have noticed a distinction between a silence in my body and a silence in my mind."

Your experiences are true. The body knows its own silence -- that is its own well-being, its own overflowing health, its own joy. The mind also knows its silence, when all thoughts disappear and the sky is without any clouds, just a pure space. But the silence I am talking about is far deeper.

I am talking about the silence of your being.

These silences that you are talking about can be disturbed. Sickness can disturb the silence of your body, and death is certainly going to disturb it. A single thought can disturb the silence of your mind, the way a small pebble thrown into the silent lake is enough to create thousands of ripples, and the lake is no longer silent. The silence of the body and the mind are very fragile and very superficial, but in themselves they are good.

To experience them is helpful, because it indicates that there may be even deeper silences of the heart.

And the day you experience the silence of the heart, it will be again an arrow of longing, moving you even deeper.

Your very center of being is the center of a cyclone. Whatever happens around it does not affect it; it is eternal silence. Days come and go, years come and go, ages come and pass, lives come and go, but the eternal silence of your being remains exactly the same -- the same soundless music, the same fragrance of godliness, the same transcendence from all that is mortal, from all that is momentary.

It is not your silence.

You are it.

It is not something in your possession; you are possessed by it, and that's the greatness of it. Even you are not there, because even your presence will be a disturbance.

The silence is so profound that there is nobody, not even you. And this silence brings truth, and love, and thousands of other blessings to you. This is the search, this is the longing of all the hearts, of all those who have a little intelligence.

But remember, don't get lost in the silence of the body, or the silence of the mind, or even the silence of the heart. Beyond these three is the fourth. We, in the East, have called it simply "the fourth," turiya. We have not given it any name. Instead of a name we have given it a number, because it comes after three silences -- of the body, of the mind, of the heart -- and beyond it, there is nothing else to be found.

So, don't misunderstand. Most of the people... for example, there are people who are practicing yoga exercises. Yoga exercises give a silence of the body, and they are stuck there. Their whole life, they practice, but they know only the most superficial silence.

Then there are people who are doing concentrations like transcendental meditation, of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It can give you a silence which will be only of the mind. Just by repeating a name or a mantra... the very repetition creates in its wake, a silence in the mind. But it is not meditation, and it is not transcendental.

And there are Sufis who know the third, which is the deepest of the three. But still it is not the goal, the target; your arrow is still falling short. It is very deep because Sufis know the heart more than anybody else. For centuries they have been working on the heart, just as yogis have been working on the body, and people of concentration and contemplation have been working on the mind.

The Sufis know the immense beauty of love. They radiate love, but still the home has not been reached. You have to remember the fourth. Unless you reach the fourth, continue the journey.

People misunderstand very easily. Just a little bit of experience and they think they have arrived. And mind is very clever to rationalize.

There is a Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin. The Mulla hears a commotion in the street outside his house in the middle of the night. His wife tells him to go down, and after many arguments he puts a blanket on his shoulders and goes down to the street. There were many people in the street and a lot of noise, and in the crowd somebody steals his blanket.

The Mulla goes home naked, and his wife asks him, "What was that all about?" The Mulla says, "It seems to be about my blanket, because as they got the blanket they all disappeared. They were just waiting for the blanket. And I was telling yoùDon't force me to go there.' Now I have lost my blanket and I have come naked. It was none of our business."

He has found a rationalization, and it looks logical, that as they got his blanket they all disappeared. And the poor Mulla thinking that perhaps that was the whole problem....

"Their argument and their noise just in front of my house in the middle of the night, and my foolish wife persuaded me finally to lose my blanket!"

Mind is continuously rationalizing, and sometimes it may appear that what it is saying is right, because it gives arguments for it. But one has to beware of one's own mind, because in this world nobody can cheat you more than your own mind. Your greatest enemy is within you, just as your greatest friend is also within you.

The greatest enemy is just your first encounter, and your greatest friend is going to be your last encounter -- so don't be prevented by any experience of the body or the mind or the heart. Remember always one of the famous statements of Gautam Buddha. He used to conclude his sermons every day with the same two words, charaiveti, charaiveti." Those two simple words -- just one word repeated twice -- means "Don't stop; go on, go on."

Never stop until the road ends, until there is nowhere else to go -- charaiveti, charaiveti.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IS IT REALLY WORTH PUTTING ANY ENERGY INTO IMPROVING MY

PERSONALITY?

Anand Tarika, have you ever heard me? I have been constantly telling you that the personality has to be dropped so that your individuality can be discovered. I have been insisting that the personality is not you; it is a mask people have put over you. It is not your authentic reality, it is not your original face. And you are asking me, "Is it really worth putting any energy into improving my personality?"

Put your energy into destroying your personality. Put your energy into discovering your individuality. And make the distinction very clear: individuality is that which you have brought from your very birth. Individuality is your essential being, and personality is what the society has made of you, what they wanted to make of you.

No society up to now has been able to give freedom to their children to be themselves. It seems risky. They may prove rebellious. They may not follow the religion of their forefathers; they may not think the great politicians are really great; they may not trust in your moral values. They will find their own morality, and they will find their own lifestyle. They will not be replicas, they will not repeat the past; they will be beings of the future.

This has created fear that they may go astray. Before they go astray, every society tries to give them a certain direction how to live, a certain ideology of what is good and what is evil, a certain religion, a certain holy scripture. These are ways to create the personality, and the personality functions like an imprisonment. You are asking me, Tarika, that you want to improve this personality. Are you your own enemy?

But this is not only you. Millions of people in the world know only their personality; they don't know that there is anything more than personality. They have completely forgotten themselves, and they have forgotten even the way to reach themselves. They have all become actors, hypocrites. They have become puppets in the hands of the priests, of the politicians, of the parents; they are doing things which they never want to do and they are not doing things which they are hankering to do.

Their life is split in such a diametrically opposite way that they can never be at peace.

Their nature will assert itself again and again, will not leave them at peace. And their so-called personality will go on repressing it, forcing it deeper into the unconscious. This conflict divides you and your energy -- and a house divided cannot stand long. This is the whole misery of human beings -- why there is not much dance, much song, much joyfulness.

People are so much engaged in warfare with themselves. They don't have energy, and they don't have time to do anything else except fight with themselves. Their sensuality they have to fight, their sexuality they have to fight, their individuality they have to fight, their originality they have to fight. And they have to fight for something which they don't want to be, which is not part of their nature, which is not their destiny. So they can pretend to be false for a time -- again the real asserts.

Their whole life goes on, up and down, and they cannot figure out who really they are: the repressor or the repressed? the oppressor or the oppressed? And whatever they do, they cannot destroy their nature. They can certainly poison it; they can certainly destroy its joy, they can destroy its dance, they can destroy its love. They can make their life a mess, but they cannot destroy their nature completely. And they cannot throw away their personality, because their personality carries their forefathers, their parents, their teachers, their priests, their whole past. It is their heritage; they cling to it.

My whole teaching is, don't cling to personality. It is not yours, and it is never going to be yours. Allow your nature full freedom. And respect yourself, be proud of being yourself, whatever you are. Have some dignity! Don't be destroyed by the dead.

People who have been dead for thousands of years are sitting on your head. They are your personality -- and you want to improve on them? So call a few more dead! Graves have to be searched for... bring out more skeletons, surround yourself with all kinds of skeletons. You will be respected by the society. You will be honored, rewarded; you will have great prestige, you will be thought to be a saint. But living with the dead, surrounded by the dead, you will not be able to laugh -- it will be so out of place -- you will not be able to dance, you will not be able to sing, you will not be able to love.

Personality is a dead thing. Drop it! -- in a single blow, not in fragments, not slowly, today a little bit and then tomorrow a little bit, because life is short and tomorrow is not certain.

The false is false. Discard it totally!

Every real human being has to be a rebel... rebel against whom? -- against his own personality.

The Japanese-American was a long-time customer at this Greek restaurant, because he had discovered that they made specially tasty fried rice. Each evening he would come in the restaurant, and he would order "flied lice." This always caused the Greek restaurant owner to nearly roll on the floor with laughter. Sometimes he would have two or three friends stand nearby just to hear the Japanese customer order his "flied lice."

Eventually the customer's pride was so hurt that he took a special diction lesson just to be able to say "fried rice" correctly. The next time he went to the restaurant he said very plainly, "Fried rice, please."

Unable to believe his ears, the Greek restaurant owner said, "Sir, would you repeat that?"

The Japanese-American replied, "You heard what I said, you flucking Gleek!"

How long can you go on pretending? The reality is going to come up some day or other, and it is better that it comes sooner.

There is no need, Tarika, to improve your diction! Just drop that whole personality thing.

Just be yourself. Howsoever raw and howsoever wild it appears to be in the beginning, soon it starts having its own grace, its own beauty.

And the personality... you can go on polishing it, but it is just polishing a dead thing which is going to destroy not only your time, your energy, your life, but also the people who are around you.

We are all affecting each other. When everybody is doing something, you also start doing it. Life is very contagious; everybody is improving his personality -- that's why the idea has arisen in your mind.

But my people are not doing that. My people are not a herd, not a mob. They are respectful of themselves, and they are respectful of others. They are proud of their freedom and they want everybody else to be free, because their freedom has given them so much love and so much grace. They would like everybody else in the world to be free, loving and graceful.

This is possible only if you are original -- not something put together, not something false, but something that grows within you, which has roots in your being, which brings flowers in its time. And to have one's own flowers is the only destiny, is the only significant way of life.

But the personality has no roots; it is plastic, it is phony. Dropping it is not difficult; it needs just a little courage. And my feeling of thousands of people is that everybody has that much courage, just people are not using it. Once you start using your courage, sources which are dormant become active, and you become capable of having more courage, of more rebelliousness.

You become a revolution in yourself.

A man who is a revolution unto himself is a joy to see, because he has fulfilled his destiny. He has transcended the ordinary mob, the sleeping crowd.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

IN THESE DAYS I FEEL A LITTLE PLANT GROWING INSIDE OF ME, WHICH IS

STILL VERY DELICATE AND FRAGILE. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO TAKE

IMMENSE CARE OF THIS LITTLE FLOWER JUST STARTING TO OPEN, NOT TO

WATER IT TOO MUCH, NOR TOO LITTLE, NOR TO EXPOSE IT TOO MUCH TO

THE WIND. MY BELOVED OSHO, PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO TAKE CARE OF

THIS LITTLE PLANT, SINCE IN THIS MOMENT IT WOULD STILL BE VERY

EASY FOR ME TO DESTROY IT.

Deva Premal, it is good news that you are feeling a little plant growing inside you.

Naturally it will be, in the beginning, very delicate and very fragile. And your feeling is right, that you "have to take immense care of this little flower just starting to open, not to water it too much, nor too little, nor to expose it too much to the wind."

All that is needed are three things.

When your consciousness starts growing, you need more meditation. And there is no limit to meditation, so you need not be worried that meditation can be too much and can kill the flower. Meditation is always too little, because there is always too much ahead of you, and meditation will make the fragile and delicate flower more and more strong.

You need a silent being.

Caring too much can be dangerous, it can become an anxiety. Being worried too much that you should water less or you should water more, that you may expose it to the winds, to the sun, to the rain too much or too little... caring can become a tremendous turmoil in your being, and your very caring can destroy the flower. Instead of caring, you need a more silent, more conscious, more peaceful being, which will give a strength to something new that is growing in you.

Secondly, care is not enough; love is needed. Care is more a technical word; love is totally different. Care needs a certain education. Care is just like a nurse who knows what has to be done, what is right to be done -- but there is no love in her heart, she functions technically.

Love is more like a mother, who may not know the art of nursing, but she need not know.

Love is enough unto itself. Love is a mysterious phenomenon; it knows what is needed. It simply knows without any education.

So what you need is meditation, love, and the third thing -- which you may not have thought of at all -- a joyous life, because all that is great in you only grows when joy is showering on it. It grows only when you are in a space of blissfulness, when there is laughter, there is song and there is dance.

And I know perfectly your fear. You say, "Please tell me how to take care of this little plant." I will not say how to take care, because I don't want you to become a nurse. I want you to become a mother. I want you to be love, not technical knowledge, because these flowers don't need technical knowledge.

You are afraid, "since in this moment, it would still be very easy for me to destroy it."

That danger is very real. When something inside you grows it brings new responsibilities, because now you need more meditation, you need more love, you need more joy.

This flower inside you can become a burden to you if you don't understand the language of meditation, the language of love, the language of blissfulness. You can destroy the flower by your own hands, just to get rid of the responsibility. But this flower is not only responsibility: it is also your growth, your maturity.

This flower is not something separate from you.

It is your own being.

To destroy it means to commit suicide.

But your question is more concerned about the technicalities of care, and I would like you to change the focus.

Inner growth does not need any technical knowledge, any technical expertise. All that it needs is very simple and very joyful, and it is not a burden. Meditation will make you lighter, less loaded with all kinds of rubbish. Love will also give you new skies, new freedoms. Blissfulness will give you wings to move into those new skies and new spaces.

But the question carries the implication that for centuries in the West the mind has become technically oriented. It has created great technology, great science, but it has destroyed man completely. The house is full of all kinds of gadgets, just the master of the house has disappeared, is lost in the gadgets.

The East has never been technically oriented; it is more concerned with values than with techniques. For example, in the East if somebody is sick, then the wife will not be ready for her husband or her lover to be taken care of by a nurse. It simply will not come to her mind. This is the time when she is needed, and if love cannot heal, then no other technique is going to heal. It is not a question of expertise.

In the West the same situation will have a totally different response. The wife or the husband would like to call a nurse to take care. And he seems, or she seems, to be more logical because the nurse is trained in taking care; She knows the know-how.

But in the East it is almost inconceivable that love can be replaced by expertise of any kind. Expertise can be called in only when there is no love, when the wife feels it is a burden and it is a good chance to get rid of this fellow... call a nurse. And she has good reason; every logic is in her support. The doctor will support her, that this is a very loving decision. But the reality is just the opposite; it is not a loving decision.

So don't ask me about how to take care. Ask me how to be more meditative, how to be more loving, how to be more joyful, because that which is growing within you needs nourishment -- and your meditation will give it nourishment, your joy will give it warmth, your love will give it dignity.

A man, narrowly reared by a widowed mother, got married. He telephoned back to his mother from the honeymoon hotel to say that he knew there was something he had to do in bed, but he did not know what it was.

"Why," said his mother, "you put your... eh, that is, you put the hardest part of yourself in the place where your wife wee-wees."

At midnight the hotel rang the fire brigade for help. "We have got a young man with his head jammed in a chamber pot."

Avoid technical knowledge!

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

HOW COME I HAVE ALWAYS FELT, EVER SINCE CHILDHOOD, THAT I AM

MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE? COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING PLEASE?

Prem Prabhati, everybody is born as one single individual, but by the time he is mature enough to participate in life he has become a crowd. It is not anything special that you are feeling; it is almost the case with everybody. The only difference is that you are becoming aware of it, which is good. People are not aware of it.

If you just sit silently and listen to your mind, you will find so many voices. You will be surprised, you can recognize those voices very well. Some voice is from your grandfather, some voice is from your grandmother, some voice is from your father, some voice is from your mother, some voice is from the priest, from the teacher, from the neighbors, from your friends, from your enemies. All these voices are jumbled up in a crowd within you, and if you want to find your own voice, it is almost impossible; the crowd is too thick.

In fact, you have forgotten your own voice long before. You were never given freedom enough to voice your opinions. You were always taught obedience. You were taught to say yes to everything that your elders were saying to you. You were taught that you have to follow whatever your teachers or your priests are doing. Nobody ever told you to search for your own voice -- "Have you got any voice of your own or not?"

So your voice has remained very subdued and other voices are very loud, very commanding, because they were orders and you had followed them -- in spite of yourself.

You had no intention to follow, you could see that this is not right. But one has to be obedient to be respected, to be acceptable, to be loved.

Naturally only one voice is missing in you, only one person is missing in you, and that is you; otherwise there is a whole crowd. And that crowd is constantly driving you mad, because one voice says, "Do this," another voice says, "Never do that! Don't listen to that voice!" And you are torn apart.

This whole crowd has to be withdrawn. This whole crowd has to be told, "Now please leave me alone!" The people who have gone to the mountains or to the secluded forests were really not going away from the society; they were trying to find a place where they can disperse their crowd inside. And those people who have made a place within you are obviously reluctant to leave.

But if you want to become an individual in your own right, if you want to get rid of this continuous conflict and this mess within you, then you have to say goodbye to them --

even when they belong to your respected father, your mother, your grandfather. It does not matter to whom they belong. One thing is certain: they are not your voices. They are the voices of people who have lived in their time, and they had no idea what the future was going to be. They have loaded their children with their own experience; their experience is not going to match with the unknown future.

They are thinking they are helping their children to be knowledgeable, to be wise, so their life can be easier and more comfortable, but they are doing just the wrong thing. With all the good intentions in the world, they are destroying the child's spontaneity, his own consciousness, his own ability to stand on his feet, and to respond to the new future which their old ancestors had no idea of.

He is going to face new storms, he is going to face new situations, and he needs a totally new consciousness to respond. Only then is his response is going to be fruitful; only then can he can have a victorious life, a life that is not just a long, long drawn-out despair, but a dance from moment to moment, which goes on becoming more and more deep to the last breath. He enters into death dancing, and joyously.

Prabhati, it is good that you are becoming aware that it seems you are more than one person. Everybody is! And by becoming aware, it is possible to get rid of this crowd.

Be silent, and find your own self.

Unless you find your own self, it is very difficult to disperse the crowd, because all those in the crowd are pretending, "I am your self." And you have no way to agree, or disagree.

So don't create any fight with the crowd. Let them fight amongst themselves -- they are quite efficient in fighting amongst themselves. You, meanwhile, try to find yourself. And once you know who you are, you can just order them to get out of the house -- it is actually that simple! But first you have to find yourself.

Once you are there, the master is there, the owner of the house is there. And all these people, who have been pretending to be masters themselves, start dispersing. A man who is not a crowd is truly the "superman" of which we have been talking as Zarathustra's great hope.

The man who is himself, unburdened of the past, discontinuous with the past, original, strong as a lion and innocent as a child... he can reach to the stars, or even beyond the stars; his future is golden.

Up to now people have always been talking about the golden past. My people have to learn the language of the golden future.

There is no need for you to change the whole world; just change yourself and you have started changing the whole world, because you are part of the world. If even a single human being changes, his change will radiate in thousands and thousands of others. He will become a triggering point for a revolution which can give birth to the superman.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Peaks beyond peaks unending

20 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704200

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN02

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

93

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU SAID THAT IF WE DON'T ACHIEVE TOTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN

THIS LIFE, WE WILL HAVE TO START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING AGAIN, AND GO THROUGH THE WHOLE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND ONE MORE

TIME, I WAS VERY TOUCHED. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT WE WILL TOTALLY

LOSE THESE FEW GLIMPSES OF LIGHT, BEAUTY, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

THAT WE'VE GOT THROUGH BEING SANNYASINS?

Antar Ashiko, it is a very complicated question. Whatever you achieve in this life will remain with you, but it has to be an achievement not just a glimpse. And there is a great difference between an achievement and a glimpse. You can see the Himalayan peaks from thousands of miles away -- it is a glimpse; but to reach those peaks will be an achievement.

A glimpse helps you to move onward, towards achievement; but unless something becomes a crystallized experience in your life, it is going to be lost -- you will have to start from the very beginning.

There will be a little difference, and that will be that in your unconscious a shadow of your past life, a faraway echo -- as if you have seen something -- will remain. And when you again get the glimpse you may feel that this is not new, I have known it before. But otherwise, only crystallized achievements go with you, consciously, into the other life...

knowingly, not just a dark shadow, a faraway echo in the unconscious, but consciously knowing that these Himalayan peaks exist, and you have been on those peaks. There will be no doubt about it, no wavering about it, no question about it.

You are asking, "Is it possible that we will totally lose these few glimpses of light, beauty, and consciousness that we have got through being sannyasins?" Such glimpses you have got in many lives before too, and you have lost them. They never became part of your being; they remained only beautiful memories. But the memories are not achievements. It is as if you have seen something in a dream -- perhaps it may be true, perhaps it may not be true.

So if you feel that there is something happening now, make every effort that it does not remain only a glimpse but becomes an actual experience, becomes part of your being.

Only then can it go with you into another life.

It is possible to take all your experiences with you into another life, and never to begin from scratch but always to begin where you had left off in the past life. But be clear that just a glimpse is very fragile, just a glimpse is very superficial. Howsoever touching it may be in the moment, even tomorrow you may start doubting whether it really happened or you imagined it. And the life after this life is a faraway journey.

Glimpses are simply incentives to move towards crystallization. Make it an experience so deep that it becomes part of you, and there is no way to forget it or to lose it. Don't remain satisfied with glimpses. Enjoy them, but use them only as an indicator towards greater things to happen.

To see something from far away is one thing, and to become that thing is totally another.

A glimpse of love is just like a breeze that passes within seconds; a glimpse of silence is just like the fragrance of a rose flower that you felt for a moment, and now you don't know where it has gone.

When I say, "Crystallize your experience," I mean it is not enough to have beautiful glimpses. It is good, but not good enough. You should become the fragrance of the rose itself; the glimpse was only an arrow pointing towards the possibility -- it did its work, but you remain there. In the past life also, many times you have come across many beautiful experiences and right now you don't know even that there have been past lives.

Only once in a while you see somebody, and you have a very strange feeling, almost weird, as if you have seen this man before -- and certainly not in this life. You come to a place, and suddenly you are startled, as if you had come to this place before too --

although certainly not in this life. Everything seems to be known, but has been dormant in your unconscious.

Life has a mechanism that whenever a person dies, unless he is enlightened, he becomes almost unconscious; he goes into a coma before death, actual death, happens. So he knows nothing about the death, and he remains in a state of coma till he is born again. All those nine months in the mother's womb are a state of coma; the child is fast asleep twenty-four hours a day for nine months.

It rarely happens that somebody dies consciously. It happens only to great meditators, who know well the path death will be coming on because in their meditations they have traveled on the path again and again -- it is the same path. As they go deep in their meditation the body is left far away, mind is left far away, the heart is left far away; only a beautiful silence -- fully alert and conscious -- remains.

The same happens when you die. If you have been meditating, then death is not a new experience. You will be surprised that in your meditation you have been dying every day, and you have been coming back to life every day. Such a person dies very consciously, so he knows what death is -- and such a person remains conscious in the mother's womb. He is also born consciously. From his very first moment on the earth, he knows all that has passed before in the past life, and he remembers it.

I have come across many children.... And this happens most particularly in India, because outside India -- where Christianity is prominent or Judaism is prominent or Mohammedanism is prominent -- they have conditioned the mind that there is only one life. They don't know anything about meditation. They have substituted meditation with prayer, and prayer is praising a fictitious god; it is very childish.

Meditation needs no god -- you are enough. You are a reality, and you explore your reality to the deepest core.

In India all the religions are agreed on one point; they differ in their philosophies, they differ on every other thing, but on one thing they are all agreed -- that life is a continuity; death comes millions of times. Death is only a change of the body, a change of the house, and this process goes on -- unless you become totally enlightened. Then there is no need to enter another womb, because life was just a school, a training; you have completed it.

Your enlightenment is the culmination of your education about existence. Now you need not enter into another body. You can enter into the womb of the universe itself -- you are prepared for it.

So whenever you are having glimpses, don't be satisfied with them. Your glimpses should create great discontent in you, not content. They should create a longing that what is seen far away you would like to come closer, and closer, and closer. You don't want just to see it, even from c closeness; you want to become it.

You can become love, you can become silence, you can become joy, you can become all these experiences: beauty, light, consciousness. These are not things that you cannot become; they are your potentials. So take every glimpse to its ultimate end. That's what I call crystallization.

Once it is crystallized, once you have known yourself to be love, yourself to be light, yourself to be consciousness, then there is no problem of forgetting it. Then these experiences will go with you. And in your future life you will be growing further ahead, from consciousness to superconsciousness; you will be going beyond these experiences.

But if you remain satisfied with your glimpses, there is every danger they will be erased.

Death is such a shock and such a surgery and such a long coma that when you wake up, you will have forgotten all those glimpses.

"Someone stole my bike," complained a priest to his minister friend.

"Bring up the Ten Commandments in your sermon tomorrow, and as soon as you mention, `Thou shalt not steal,' look around in your congregation; you will find the guilty party. Invite him to come forward. Tell him that this is the way to confess, and this is the way to get the forgiveness of God," the minister said confidently.

The next day the priest visited the minister and happily reported that he had found his bike. "Yes", he went on, "when I came tòThou shalt not commit adultery' I remembered where I had left it."

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT I ALWAYS TRANSFORM MY FEELINGS AND

EXPERIENCES INTO WORDS AND IMAGES ONLY TO GET RID OF THEM? IS IT

POSSIBLE THAT I COME TO YOUR FEET WITH TREMENDOUS THIRST, AND

WHEN I AM FILLED WITH ENERGY, I AM OVERWHELMED WITH THIS

ABSOLUTE NEED OF SHARING -- ONLY TO GET RID OF IT? IS IT POSSIBLE

THAT THIS URGE FOR SHARING IS ONLY MY ILLUSION, OR JUST MY WAY

TO ESCAPE? SOMEBODY TOLD ME THAT I SHOULD BE MORE GENEROUS

WITH MYSELF. WHAT CAN I DO IF I KNOW NOT ANY OTHER WAY TO BE

GENEROUS WITH MYSELF THAN SHARING? IS IT TIME FOR ME TO LEARN

ANOTHER WAY? PLEASE HELP ME WITH YOUR GUIDANCE.

Sarjano, what you are experiencing and what you are doing is perfectly right. Sharing your experiences, your energy, your love, your blissfulness, is not an escape from them, neither is it a way to get rid of them. On the contrary, the more you share, the more you will have.

It is not the ordinary economics. In the ordinary economics you share and you lose; in the spiritual economics you share and you get more. In ordinary economics you have to be a miser, then only you can become rich... accumulate, never share. In the spiritual economics, if you are a miser whatever you have will be lost. It can live only if you share; it is a living experience. By sharing it continues a dynamic movement.

I have heard about a young man who had just received a great lottery prize, and he was immensely pleased. He stopped his car because a beggar was standing there. He used to stand there every day, but he had never stopped his car. But today was different. He gave him a note of one hundred rupees. The beggar laughed.

The man said, "I don't understand. Why are you laughing?"

He said, "It reminds me... once I used to have my own car and I used to be just as generous as you are. I am laughing because soon you will be standing by my side. Don't be so generous! Learn something from my experience."

In the ordinary economics, the moment you give something, that much is less. But have you felt that by giving love you have less love? Or by sharing your joy, have you felt that your joy is a little bit less?

If you have watched, you will be surprised: by sharing, your joy is a little bit more; by loving, your sources of love are flowing more -- you are juicier. By dancing... just to share yourself with your friends you will not find yourself losing something, but gaining something.

Sarjano, don't listen to other people. They know only about the ordinary economics. They don't know anything about a higher economics, where giving is sharing and where not giving is very destructive.

The more you give, the more you will have, the less you give, the less you will have. And if you don't give at all, you will not have anything at all.

But the people who are suggesting to you that this is not right are creating a problem in your mind about whether you are doing right or wrong. You are doing absolutely right.

Do it with more totality, without any hesitation, and without holding anything back. Don't listen to others. Listen to your own experience; watch your own experience -- when you give, do you lose something or do you gain something? That should be the decisive thing, not people's advice. The advice of others is dangerous....

When the Eisenbergs moved to Rome, little Hymie came home from his school in tears.

He explained to his mother that the nuns were always asking these Catholic questions and how was he, a nice Jewish boy, supposed to know the answers?

Mrs. Eisenberg's heart swelled with maternal sympathy. "Hymie," she said, "I'm going to embroider the answers on the inside of your shirt, and you just look down and read them the next time those nuns pick on you."

"Thanks Mum," said Hymie, and he didn't bat an eye when Sister Michele asked him who was the world's most famous virgin. "Mary," he answered.

"Very good," said the nun. "And who was her husband?"

"Joseph," answered the boy.

"I see you have been studying. Now, can you tell me the name of their son?"

"Sure," said Hymie, "Calvin Klein."

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

TO ME, YOUR FANTASTIC VARIATION OF DYNAMIC MEDITATION YOU DO

WITH US AT THE END OF EVERY EVENING DISCOURSE IS ONE OF THE

MOST ENERGY-LADEN EXPERIENCES I'VE EVER HAD. ALL YOUR LOVERS

ARE RADIATING, EVERYTHING IS VIBRATING. I FEEL WE ARE

BROADCASTING ENERGY WAVES LIKE A HUGE RADIO ANTENNA. THE

GLOW MUST EVEN BE VISIBLE FROM OUTER SPACE. OSHO, IF WE DON'T

WAKE UP THIS TIME, THEN WHAT? OR ARE YOU KEEPING EVEN LOUDER

ALARMS UP YOUR SLEEVE?

Premda, it is almost impossible for you not to wake up this time. I am going to do everything to wake you up. I have ice cold water prepared; I am preparing people to pull you out of your bed and give you a good beating.

But anyway, you have to wake up, because for me this is the last time. I will not be here again, so I have to do everything that I can do. And if you miss it will be really unfortunate, because one never knows when you will come across a man who loves you so much that he can be so hard and so cruel as to hit on your head, not bothering what happens to your skull -- but somehow you should get up and open your eyes.

The masters in the past have done strange things to wake up their disciples. One Zen master, Fui Hai, had a big monastery. It had two wings, right and left, and in the middle was his cottage. He had a beautiful cat, and all the monks of the monastery loved it.

There were almost one thousand monks, five hundred on one side and five hundred on the other side. And they all used to fight, particularly when the master was not at home.

The problem was the cat -- who should have it?

The right wingers said, "It belongs to us, we are older than you." It was true; the right wing was made first and the left wing was added later on. But the left wingers said, "It is true that your wing was made first, but then there was no cat. The cat came when the left wing was being made. We own it."

It was a constant fight, and the cat was being taken from this wing to that wing, and the master got fed up with this whole thing -- every day complaints.

One day he gathered all the monks, except one monk who was not present; he had gone to the city to purchase a few things for the monastery.

The master said, "Today I am going to decide this constant quarrel amongst the two wings." He took a knife and said, "Either you say that this cat belongs to one wing, then it's life can be saved; otherwise I'm going to cut it in two and give to both wings half of the cat. There seems to be no other way; it has to be divided."

They all loved the cat, they all wanted it to be in their wing... they were all silent.

The master said, "If somebody can do something which shows his understanding and his deep meditation, to whichever wing he belongs, he will be the owner of the cat and that wing will have the cat. Come out! You can save the life of the cat; otherwise the cat is finished."

But people knew that you cannot deceive the master. He had such a clarity of vision that you cannot pretend that you are great meditators; so nobody came out. He cut the cat in two and gave half of the cat to each wing. Everybody was sad -- because what can you do with half the cat? And the master was also sad that out of one thousand monks not a single man could do something to save the cat.

At that very time, when he was sitting sadly and the whole monastery was sad, the man who had not been in the monastery came back from the city. He heard the whole story of what had happened. There was blood, the cat had died, and both the wings had half of the cat.

They said, "We had never expected that our master will be so cruel, so hard; he is such a loving and compassionate person. But we cannot blame him; he had given us chances."

But the man came in front of the master and gave him a good slap on the face.

The master laughed and said, "If you had been here, the poor cat would have been saved.

You show your meditativeness. Without your meditations you cannot hit your master; to hit your master you have to know that the body is not you, so the master's body is also not the master. You are not hitting the master but just the body, and that's what I have done. I have cut only the body, not the cat. The cat is still alive, must be born somewhere else. But you have come a little late."

There is another story about Lin Chi, a Japanese Zen master. He had a disciple to whom he had given the traditional Zen koan to meditate -- "Meditate on the sound of one hand clapping." Now this is absurd. One hand cannot clap, and one hand cannot make any sound. Without clapping there is no possibility of any sound. "Meditate on it and when you have found the sound of one hand clapping, come and report."

The young monk went out into the garden, sat under a tree, tried in many ways to think what could be the sound of one hand clapping. Suddenly, he heard a cuckoo in the bamboo grove and he said, "This must be it!" He rushed and told the master, "I have found it. It is the cuckoo in the bamboo grove."

The master hit him hard on the face and said, "Don't be foolish; next time be a little more intelligent. Go and meditate again!"

Every day he would come, and by and by it became such a situation; sometimes he would come... the wind passing through the pine trees creates a certain sound, perhaps that is the.... Or sometimes the water running down creating sounds, perhaps that is it.... Or sometimes the lightning in the clouds. Slowly, slowly it became a routine thing. The master would not even ask; as he entered he would slap him, and tell him, "Go back and meditate."

But the monk said, "I have not even told you...."

The master said, "I know what it will be. You just go. Meditate more!"

He said to many other monks, "This seems to be too much. First he used to at least hear my answer; now he assumes that the answer is going to be wrong!"

But one day he did not come. Two days passed, and seven days passed.... The master went to the tree where he used to sit and meditate, and the monk was sitting there, utterly silent.

His master shook him and told him, "So at last you have heard it. This is the sound of one hand clapping, this silence.... But why did you not come to report?"

He said, "I forgot everything; the silence was so sweet, so blissful. I am grateful to you that you never listened to my answers, and you went on giving me hard hits. Your compassion is beyond the grasp of ordinary people."

So Premda, don't be bothered and don't be concerned about others. You have to wake up.

And waking up is such a simple thing -- just the way you wake up in the morning. Have you ever observed... do you do some gymnastics, some exercises, some chanting? You simply wake up! The night is over and you open your eyes and jump out of the bed.

Spiritual awakening is not different from that. Once you understand that you are spiritually asleep.... and that is the problem. People don't think they are spiritually asleep, that's why they go on sleeping. Once you understand you are spiritually asleep, then waking is a very simple matter.

The hardest thing is to accept that deep in your being there is a sleep, an unconsciousness.

Whatever meditations are being done here are just to shake you, to bring you to a point where the sleeping consciousness cannot sleep anymore; it has to wake up. It is only a question of simple understanding: You can wake up right now! This silence is enough.

Brigitte lay in bed on the first night of their honeymoon while Pat sat fully clothed on an armchair in the bedroom. "Why don't you come to bed?" Brigitte asked him.

"My mother told me that this would be the most exciting night of my life," said Pat, "and I don't want to miss any of it by going to sleep!"

It is very easy to misunderstand.

It is also very easy to understand.

It all depends on you.

Are you ready to wake up? Then nothing can prevent you, and no technique is needed.

But if you are not ready to wake up, then no technique can help you. You have to see your life as the life of a somnambulist who is sleep-walking, doing things asleep...

fighting, saying the same things which he has said before and have always brought anger, irritation, in other people.

It is a question of watching your life. Is it a life of a man who is awake? Can a man who is awake behave the way the world is behaving?

You have been angry, you have been sorry for it thousands of times, and it has still not become clear to you that again you will be angry and again you will be sorry. What you are doing, it cannot be said that you are doing it fully awake. Your whole life is more like a robot; you are just going through mechanical actions. You suffer, and you decide to change, but when the time to change comes, you forget it completely.

I have heard about a Christian monk who used to give sermons in different places, and his basic sermon was based on Jesus' teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. He would say again and again that if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other cheek too.

One man had been listening to this so many times, he got bored. One day he stood up when the monk was saying this, and went ahead and slapped him. There was great anger in the Christian monk's eyes, but seeing the crowd -- and remembering what he has been telling them for so many years -- he gave the other cheek, hoping that this idiot will not hit it. But that man was also a unique individual -- he hit even harder!

And that very moment, chaos broke; the Christian monk jumped on the man and started hitting him. The man said, "What are you doing? It is against your preachings! I have been listening to your sermons."

The monk said, "Forget all my sermons. Jesus only said `Give the other cheek.' There is no third cheek. Now I am free, and I will show you...."

But the man said, "Giving the other cheek means you should not be revengeful."

The monk said, "Forget all that nonsense! Giving the other cheek simply means giving the other cheek, and there is no third cheek. You have made me completely free, and now I will teach you the real lesson!"

And he has been teaching his whole life... but perhaps that was also talking in his sleep, never penetrating to the meaning of the words he is saying and what he is doing.

Gurdjieff remembers his father. His father died when Gurdjieff was only nine years old, and must have been a very unique man. He called Gurdjieff close to him and told him,

"I'm dying, and I don't have anything as a heritage for you. I'm leaving you poor and orphaned. Just one advice I want to give to you -- that is the advice given to me by my father. I have found that that advice has proved to me the richest thing that any father can give to his son. You are so young; perhaps you may not be able to understand it. Just remember it; soon you will be able to understand it also, and whether you understand it or not, start behaving accordingly. Listen very closely and then repeat to me what I'm saying."

It was simple advice. The advice was that "If somebody insults you, humiliates you, hurts you, you are not to react immediately. You have to say to that person, "You will have to wait twenty-four hours, and then I will come to answer you. This is something sacred to me; I have given a promise to my dying father. So wait twenty-four hours and then go to the person. In those twenty-four hours you will see that he was right, or you may see that he was not right, but it is absolutely stupid to get into a quarrel. Those twenty-four hours will have given you a chance to be more alert. People react immediately -- there is not time enough to be aware. They react just like machines. So if you find that he was right, go and thank him. If you find he was wrong, there is no need to go; or if you want to go, you can go and say `You seem to be in a misunderstanding.'"

And Gurdjieff used to say, later in his life, "That simple advice of my dying father has transformed my whole life because it gave me a certain awareness, a certain awakening. I could not do anything immediately, instantly. I had to wait for twenty-four hours. And you cannot remain angry for twenty-four hours."

A man who is awake behaves in a totally different way from the whole humanity, which is fast asleep.

One of my friends, he was a colleague in the same university where I was a teacher, said to me "I have been trying to drop my smoking, for almost twenty years."

I said, "That is too long a time to drop a cigarette; just give me a cigarette and I can drop it right now."

He said, "Don't make a laughing stock of me. I have worked hard to drop it, and sometimes for a few hours, or sometimes even for few days, I manage not to smoke. But finally I have to give way. And now I have even dropped fighting; it is meaningless --

twenty years fighting."

I said, "You don't understand simple laws of life. You are a man fast asleep, and in sleep you cannot make any decisions, any commitments. My suggestion is that you do one thing: you smoke more consciously."

He said, "What -- smoke? I want to drop it."

I said, "Just listen to what I am saying, you smoke more consciously. Take the packet from your pocket very slowly and consciously. Pull the cigarette out very slowly -- there is no hurry. Look at the cigarette from all sides, put it in your mouth, wait. There is no hurry. Go very slow-motion, just as if a film is going in slow motion.

He said, "What is that going to do?"

I said, "That we will se later on... then take your lighter, look at it."

He said, "You are making me a fool -- what is that going to do?"

I said, "You just.... Twenty years you have done it your way; twenty days you do it my way. Look at the lighter, then light the cigarette, then smoke as slowly as possible. And be watchful that the smoke is going in, then the smoke is going out. That is the oldest meditation, vipassana. Gautam Buddha may never have thought that it will be used with a cigarette and a cigarette lighter -- but I have to manage for him.

He would not do Vipassana, but this.... He said, "Okay, I will try it, twenty days it is not much."

But the second day he came to me and said, "This is strange. Doing things so slowly makes me so alert; smoking, and watching the smoke going in and the smoke going out makes me so silent that already, in two days, I am smoking almost fifty percent less.

I said, "Just wait twenty days."

He said, "I don't think it will last twenty days; at the most five days and it will be finished."

I said, "Don't be in a hurry to finish it, because if anything remains clinging it will enforce you again. So go very slowly; there is no hurry, and there is no harm. It does not matter -- at the most you may die two years earlier. But anyway, what were you going to do in those two years -- just smoke... more! So there is no harm anyway; the world is too populated, and if people go on disappearing a little earlier, making space for other people, it is very compassionate of them."

He said,"You are a strange fellow." And after the fourth day he told me, "Now, as my hand moves towards the pocket, suddenly a stop comes -- from where, I don't know. I have not been smoking for one whole day because each time I try to take a cigarette, I cannot take the packet out. What is the secret of it?"

I said, "There is no secret; you have just learned to smoke consciously, with awareness.

And nobody can smoke with awareness, because smoking is not a sin -- smoking is simply a stupidity. If you are alert and awake, you cannot be so stupid. There is fresh air available; you can go and have good breathing, deep breaths, fresh air, perfumed with flowers. You must be an idiot if you have to pay money to make your breathing dirty, dirty with nicotine, harming your lungs, harming your life; and there is no point in it."

Premda, people are really fast asleep; it is a wonder they don't snore with open eyes.

King Arthur, going on a two-year dragon hunting expedition, ordered Merlin the Wise to make a chastity belt for Guinevere to wear whilst he was away. Merlin came up with a very unorthodox design -- one that had a large gaping aperture in the area that would normally be most strongly fortified.

"That's absurd," said Arthur. "This belt is not functional."

"Yes, it is," said Merlin. Picking up a spare magic wand, he passed it through the opening

-- instantly a guillotine-like blade came down and chopped the wand in two.

"Ingenious!" cried Arthur.

After outfitting Guinevere with the belt, he rode off to slay dragons, his mind at peace.

Two years later, when Arthur came back, his first official act was to assemble all of the Knights of the Round Table and send them to the court physician for a special inspection.

His frown grew severe as he learned that every member of the Round Table was nicked, cut, or scratched -- all but one. Sir Lancelot was impeccable.

Arthur called for him immediately, and smiled at his best knight. "Sir Lancelot," he declared, "you are the only one of my knights who did not assail the chastity of my lady while I was off slaying dragons. You have upheld the honor of the Round Table and I am proud of you. You shall be rewarded. You may have anything in the kingdom you desire, you have but to name it. State your wish Sir Lancelot."

But Sir Lancelot was speechless....

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #3

Chapter title: Untry and untry again

23 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704235

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN03

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

104

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

MANY YEARS AGO, IT SEEMS, I USED TO BE ABLE TO MEDITATE -- I THINK.

A BEAUTIFUL, SILENT, TRANSPARENT STATE WOULD ARRIVE FROM

SOMEWHERE; I PRESUMED THIS WAS MEDITATION. NOW, NOTHING COMES

EXCEPT A RACING MIND. WHAT HAPPENED?

Prema Veena, it always almost happens this way. The days when you were feeling a kind of meditation happening to you were the days you were not looking for it -- it was happening to you. Now you are trying to make it happen, and that makes all the difference. All the things that are really valuable in life only happen; you cannot make them happen, you cannot do them. It may be meditation, it may be love, it may be blissfulness, it may be silence.

Anything that goes beyond your mind is beyond your capacity to do it; you can only do things which come in the territory of the mind.

The mind is the doer, but your being is not a doer. Your being is just an opening, and a deep acceptance of whatever happens, with no complaint, with no grudge -- just a pure gratefulness. And that, too, is not done by you; that is also part of the happening. We have to make this distinction very clear; almost everybody gets confused. Something happens to you -- it is so beautiful, so blissful -- the mind starts immediately desiring that it should happen more, that it should happen more often, that it should go deeper. The moment mind comes in, it disturbs everything. Mind is the devil, the destroyer.

So one has to be very aware that mind should not be allowed to interfere in things of the beyond. Mind is perfectly good as a mechanic, a technician. Give your mind what it can do, but don't let it interfere in things which are beyond its capacity. But one of the problems is that mind is nothing but desiring -- desiring for more. As far as the world of doing is concerned, you can have a bigger house, you can have a better house, you can have better furniture -- you can do everything better; it is within the capacity of the mind.

But beyond the mind... mind can only desire, and each desire is going to be frustrated.

Instead of bringing more meditation, it will bring you more frustration. Instead of bringing you more love, it will bring to you more anger. Instead of silence and peace, it will bring more traffic of thoughts -- and that happens to almost everybody. So it is something natural that one has to grow out of.

You are saying, "Many years ago, it seems, I used to be able to meditate. A beautiful, silent, transparent state would arrive from somewhere; I presumed this was meditation."

Neither were you expecting it, nor were you desiring it; it was just a guest, like a breeze that comes to you. But you cannot keep it, and you cannot order it to come. It comes when it comes. And once you understand this, you stop trying.

You have heard the expression,"Try and try again. I would like to say to you: Untry and untry again. Whenever the idea of trying arises, immediately drop it. It is going to lead you into failure, into frustration, and if you can drop it... and everybody can drop it, because it never brings anything. What is the problem in dropping the failure, frustration, despair and hopelessness? Just drop them and forget all about meditation.

One day, suddenly, you will find a window opens, and a fresh breeze with new rays has filled your heart. Again, don't commit the same mistake! Be thankful for what is happening, but don't ask for more -- and more will be coming. Don't ask, "Come again" --

your asking will become the barrier.

It will come again, it will come more often. Slowly, slowly it becomes your heartbeat; waking, sleeping, it is always there, it never goes. But it is not your doing. You cannot brag that "I have done it." You can only say, "I have allowed the unknown to do it to me." It is always from the unknown that great experiences enter into our small hearts, and when we are trying hard to get them, we become so tense that the very tension prevents them.

When you are not trying, and you are relaxed -- you are not even bothered about meditation and things like that -- you suddenly find the footsteps of the unknown, something from nowhere, approaching you. Look at it with wonder, not with desire. Look at it with gratitude, but not with greed.

You are saying, "Now, nothing comes except a racing mind. What happened?" You became aware of the unknown. A little taste of meditation, and you became greedy, desirous. Your desire, your greed spoilt the whole game. Still, everything can be put right. You see the mind continuously racing; let it race -- you simply watch, just be a bystander, an observer.

Just watching the mind is one of the greatest secrets of life, because it does not show that it works -- but it works! Just as you watch, indifferent, uninterested, as if it has nothing to do with you, those thoughts start getting thinner; there is less traffic on the track of the mind.

Slowly, slowly there are small gaps, and in those gaps you will have a glimpse of what you used to have. But don't jump upon it, don't be greedy. Enjoy it, it will also pass; don't try to cling to it. Thoughts will start coming again; again a gap will come, a bigger gap.

Slowly, slowly bigger gaps will be happening when the mind will be empty.

In that empty mind the beyond can enter into you, but the basic condition is that you should not cling to it. If it comes -- good; if it does not -- good. Perhaps you are not ripe, perhaps it is not the time -- still, be grateful. One has to learn watchfulness and gratefulness. Even when nothing is happening that you deep down want to happen, still be grateful. Perhaps it is not the right time for you, perhaps it will not help your growth.

I have often told you the story of a Sufi mystic, Junnaid. He was the master of Al Hillaj Mansoor and because of Mansoor he became very famous. Mansoor was killed by the orthodox, traditionalist fanatics, and because of Mansoor, Junnaid's name also became famous -- Mansoor was Junnaid's disciple.

Junnaid used to go for a pilgrimage every year to the Mohammedan holy place, Kaaba. It was not very far from his place, and Mohammedans are expected by their tradition at least once in a life to go to Kaaba; otherwise they are not complete Mohammedans. But Kaaba was so close to his place that every year he used to go with his disciples. He was the revolutionary kind of saint. In fact, any kind other than the revolutionary are not saints -- just facades, actors, pretenders, and hypocrites.

The people in the villages where Junnaid had to pass were very angry with him. A few villages were so angry that they would not give him anything to eat, or even water to drink and would not allow him to stay in the village.

It was Junnaid's usual prayer -- Mohammedans pray five times a day -- and after each prayer he would raise his hands to God and he would say, "I am so grateful to You. How should I express my gratefulness? You take care of me in every possible way; Your compassion is infinite, your love knows no bounds."

The disciples were tired because five times every day, and in situations where they could see there is no care taken by God -- they have not received food, they have not received water, they have not received shelter from the hot sun in the desert.... Once it happened that for three days continually they were thrown out, stoned, given no food, no water, no shelter; but Junnaid continued his prayer the same way.

On the third day, the disciples freaked out. They said, "Enough is enough. Why are you saying, `You are compassionate', `Your love is great', `You take care of us in every possible detail?' For three days we have not eaten a single thing, we are thirsty, we have not slept under shelter, we have been sleeping in the desert, shivering in the cold night.

For what are you being grateful?"

The answer that Junnaid gave to his disciples is worthy of being remembered. He said,

"For these three days, do you think I cannot see that food has not been given to us, that we have been thrown out, that we have been stoned, that we are thirsty, that for three days we had to remain in the open desert...? Don't you see that I am also aware of it? But this does not mean that he is not taking care of us. Perhaps this is the way he is taking care of us; perhaps this is what we need at this time.

"It is very easy, when life is going comfortably, to thank God. That thankfulness means nothing. These three days I have been watching. slowly, slowly, all of you have stopped thanking Him after the prayer; you failed the test. It was a beautiful test. Even if death comes to me, I will die with gratefulness. He gave me life; He took it away. It was His, it is His, it will be His. Who am I to interfere in His affairs?"

So there will be times when you will not find any moment of peace, silence, meditation, love, blissfulness. But do not lose hope. Perhaps those moments are needed to crystallize you, to make you strong. Be grateful not only when things are going good, but be grateful when everything is going wrong. A man who can be grateful when everything is going wrong is really grateful; he knows the beauty of gratefulness. For him, things can go wrong forever, but his gratefulness is such a transforming force, it is going to change everything.

So don't be worried about the racing mind; let it race. Allow it to race as fully as possible; don't prevent it, don't try to stop it -- you just be a watcher. You get out of the mind and let the mind race, and soon, without fail, as a natural law, gaps will start happening. And when gaps happen, don't get too happy that, "I have got it." Remain relaxed. Enjoy those gaps also, but without greed and without desire, because they will disappear; and they will disappear soon if you become greedy. If you are ungreedy, undesirous, they may stay longer.

This is the whole training of meditation. Soon, the day comes when the mind is completely silent, filled with great joy, silence. But remember, it is not your doing. If even for a single moment you think it is your doing, it may disappear. Always remember that you are the doing of existence. All that is great is going to happen to you not by your effort, but by your relaxed openness, availability.

Just keep your doors open.

The guest will come -- it has never been otherwise

The guest always comes.

Pat's son became an actor, and one evening rushed home to his father in a state of great excitement, "Guess what Dad," he announced, "I have just been given my first part. I play a man who has been married for twenty-five years."

"Keep it up my son," said Pat, "someday you may get a speaking part, too."

In the case of Veena, it is just the opposite. Right now you are in the speaking part; just keep on, someday you will certainly get the silent part too. But there is nothing to be worried about. Life has to be taken very playfully, with a great sense of humor. In good times and bad times, when things are happening and when things are not happening, when the spring comes and when, sometimes, the spring does not come to you....

Remember, we are not the doers as far as things beyond mind are concerned; we are only receivers. And to become a receiver, you have just to become a watcher of your mind because through watching those gaps appear. In those gaps your door is open. And through that door stars can enter into you, flowers can enter into you. Even when stars and flowers enter into you, don't be greedy, don't try to keep them in. They come out of freedom and you should remember, they will remain with you only in freedom. If you destroy their freedom, they are destroyed too. Their freedom is their very spirit.

It is my continual experience of thousands of people that when they come for the first time to meditate, meditation happens so easily because they don't have any idea what it is. Once it has happened, then the real problem arises -- then they want it, they know what it is, they desire it. They are greedy for it; it is happening to others and it is not happening to them. Then jealousy, envy, all kinds of wrong things surround them.

Always remain innocent as far as things beyond mind are concerned. Always remain amateur, never become an expert. That is the worst thing that can happen to anybody.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

A FEW DAYS AGO, I HEARD YOU SAY THAT THE VOICE SPEAKING INSIDE

OF US IS ALWAYS THE MIND, SO I WONDER WHO IN ME IS HEARING THIS

VOICE. WHEN I TRY TO FIND THE ANSWER, I ONLY FIND SILENCE.

Chidvilas, the moment you look into your self you only find silence. But are you not aware that you are also there? Who finds the silence? Silence itself can not find itself; there is somebody as a witness who is finding the silence. Just your focus is wrong; you are still focusing on the object. It is just an old habit, perhaps cultivated for many, many lives, that you always focus yourself on the object, and you always forget yourself.

An ancient Eastern story is that ten blind men crossed a stream. The current was very strong, so they took hold of each other's hands because they were afraid somebody may be taken away by the current. They reached the other shore, and somebody amongst them suggested, "It is better we should count because the current and the stream were really dangerous. Somebody may have slipped, and we may not even be aware."

So they started counting. It was a great shock, and they were all crying and weeping; everybody tried, but the count was always nine -- because nobody was counting himself.

Naturally, he would start counting, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine....

My God, one has gone!" So they all were crying.

A woodcutter was watching all this drama and he said... he had never seen ten blind men together, in the first place. Second, what a stupid idea these people had. What was the need to cross the stream when it was so strong and flooded? And, above all, now they were counting, and crying and weeping for someone -- they did not know who, but certainly someone had been taken away by the current. Watching them counting, he was simply amazed how was it possible that they were ten persons, but the count always came to nine?

Some help was needed, so he came down from his tree and he said, "What is the matter?"

They all said, "We have lost one of our friends. We were ten, and now we are only nine."

The man said, "I can find your tenth man. You are right, you used to be ten, but there is a condition."

They said, "We will accept any condition, but our friend...."

He said, "It is not a very big condition, it is a simple condition. I will hit on the first man's head; he has to say "one." Then I will hit on the second person's head two times; he has to say "two." Then I will hit on the third person's three times; he has to say "three." As many times as I hit, the person has to speak the number."

They said, "If this is the way to find the lost friend, we are ready."

So he enjoyed hitting very much, and he hit them in turn. When he had hit the tenth man ten times he said "ten." All the nine said, "You idiot, where have you been?

Unnecessarily we have all been beaten! Where you have been hiding up to now?"

He said, "I was standing here, I was myself counting, and it always came to nine. This man seems to be a miracle man; he managed to find the tenth man."

The story is significant for the simple reason that it has become our habit not to count ourselves. So when you are watching your thoughts, inside, you are not aware that there is a watcher too. When you are watching silence, you are not aware that you cannot watch silence if you are not there.

Chidvilas, you are asking, "A few days ago I heard you say that the voice speaking inside of us is always the mind, so I wonder who in me is hearing this voice?" Certainly I am not hearing it, and as far as I know nobody else is hearing it. You must be the guy who is hearing this voice.Everybody else has his own problem!

"When I try to find the answer I only find silence." But then too the question arises: Who finds the silence? It is the same guy who was hearing the voice. His name is Chidvilas.

You have to become more subjective, more alert to yourself; we are always alert to everything around us.

Pat followed his friend Mike's example and left Ireland to work in England. Though they had since lost contact, Mike had mentioned how easy it was to get a job at Whipsnade Open Zoo, so Pat applied. Unfortunately they had no keeper's jobs available; there was not even the position of a sweeper vacant.

"But I tell you what, Pat," the manager said, "the gorilla died a couple of days ago, and what is a zoo without a gorilla? But we have kept his pelt entire; now if you crawl into that skin and take over his enclosure, we will feed and house you, and pay you handsomely as well."

Pat had a look over the lovely field that was the gorilla enclosure; he surveyed the comfortable gorilla house, and tested the bed provided. He agreed to take the job. Very soon Pat had become a great favorite with visitors to the zoo. Being a bit of an extrovert, he would always put on a good act -- tumbling, chest-thumping, and growling. But the climax of his performance was most popular. Whenever there was a good crowd, Pat would scale a large oak tree at the side of his enclosure where it adjoined the lion's pen and pelt the lioness with acorns. The big-maned lion, in particular, would roar with rage and stamp about, and the crowd would roar with delight.

One public holiday a particularly large crowd had gathered, and Pat was aloft and reaching the peak of his performance. He had just finished off the acorn pelting with a bit of chest-thumping when the branch he was balanced on broke; he fell to the ground at the lion's feet. Pat jumped up, shouting for help, and was about to scarper when the lioness whispered, "Hold your tongue Pat, sure do you want to lose us the best jobs we have every had?"

Here, everybody has different skins only; inside is the same consciousness. Whether you are hearing a voice, or you are hearing silence, remember more about yourself -- who is the watcher? who is the witness?

In every experience, when you are angry, when you are in love, when you are in greed, when you are in despair, it is the same key: just watch -- are you really in danger, or are you only a witness. Here we are, just sitting. Deep down, who are you? Always a witness.

Whatever happens on the outside -- you may be young, you may be old, you may be alive, you may be dead -- whatever happens on the outside, inside is the same witness.

This witness is our truth. This witness is our ultimate reality, our eternal reality.

So all your work is concerned with shifting your focus from the object to the subject.

Don't be bothered about anger, or silence, or love. Be concerned about whom all this is happening to, and remain centered there. This centering will bring you the greatest experience of your life. It will make you a superman.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

ELEVEN YEARS AGO, WHEN I FIRST SAT IN FRONT OF YOU, I WAS SO

OVERWHELMED BY YOUR ENERGY, BY YOUR LOVE, BY YOU, THAT I

COULD DO NOTHING BUT CRY AND BOW DOWN TO YOUR FEET IN SILENT

EXPRESSION; AND YET I FELT VERY MUCH UNDERSTOOD BY YOU. AT

THAT TIME YOU TOLD ME TO KEEP MY ENERGY INSIDE AND BRING IT TO

MY HARA. SINCE THEN THIS SUGGESTION STAYS WITH ME, AND MY

BELLY HAS BECOME MY BEST FRIEND, AND THE PLACE BELOW MY NAVEL

A MIRROR OF MY FEELINGS. IN ALL THIS TIME TEARS AND LAUGHTER OF

JOY AND GRATITUDE FOR BEING ABLE TO SPEND THIS LIFE WITH YOU

HAVE KEPT BACK MOST OF MY WORDS. MY BELOVED MASTER, I FEEL

THAT BEHIND THIS SMALL SUGGESTION OF YOURS LIES MORE THAN I CAN

IMAGINE. WOULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT THE HARA, AND GUIDE ME FURTHER?

Deva Radhika, hara is the center from where a life leaves the body. It is the center of death. The word "hara" is Japanese; that's why in Japan, suicide is called hara-kiri. The center is just two inches below the navel. It is very important, and almost everybody in the world has felt it. But only in Japan have they gone deeper into its implications.

Even the people in India, who had worked tremendously hard on centers, had not considered the hara. The reason for their missing it was because they had never considered death to be of any significance. Your soul never dies, so why bother about a center that functions only as a door for energies to get out, and to enter into another body? They worked from sex, which is the life center. They have worked on seven centers, but the hara is not even mentioned in any Indian scriptures.

The people who worked hardest on the centers for thousands of years have not mentioned the hara, and this cannot be just a coincidence. The reason was that they never took death seriously. These seven centers are life centers, and each center is of a higher life. The seventh is the highest center of life, when you are almost a god.

The hara is very close to the sex center. If you don't rise towards higher centers, towards the seventh center which is in your head, and if you remain for your whole life at the sex center, then just by the side of the sex center is the hara, and when then life will end, the hara will be the center from where your life will move out of the body.

Why have I told Radhika this? She was very energetic, but not aware of any higher centers; her whole energy was at the sex center, and she was overflowing. Energy overflowing at the sex center is dangerous, because it can start releasing from the hara.

And if it starts releasing from the hara, then to take it upwards becomes more difficult. So I had told her to keep her energy in, and not to be so expressive: Hold it in! I simply wanted the hara center, which was opening and which could have been very dangerous, to be completely closed.

She followed it, and she has become a totally different person. Now when I see her, I cannot believe the expressiveness that I had seen at first. Now she is more centered, and her energy is moving in the right direction of the higher centers. It is almost at the fourth center, which is the center of love and which is a very balancing center. There are three centers below it, and three centers above it.

Once a person is at the center of love, there is very rarely a possibility for him to fall back down, because he has tasted something of the heights. Now valleys will be very dark, ugly; he has seen sunlit peaks, not very high, but still high; now his whole desire will be....

And that is the trouble with all lovers: they want more love, because they don't understand that the real desire is not for more love, but for something more than love.

Their language ends with love; they don't know any way that is higher than love, and love does not satisfy. On the contrary, the more you love the more thirsty you become.

At the fourth center of love, one feels a tremendous satisfaction only when energy starts moving to the fifth center. The fifth center is in your throat, and the sixth center is your third eye. The seventh center, the sahastrara, is on the top of your head. All these centers have different expressions and different experiences.

When love moves to the fifth center then whatever talents you have, any creative dimension, is possible for you. This is the center of creativity. It is not only for songs, not only for music; it is for all creativity.

Hindu mythology has a beautiful story. It is a myth, but the story is beautiful, and particularly for explaining to you the fifth center. Indian mythology says that there is a constant struggle between evil forces and good forces. They both discovered that if they made a certain search in the ocean they could find nectar, and that whoever drank it would become immortal. So they all tried to find it.

But as life balances everywhere, there too.... Before they found the nectar they found poison which was hiding the nectar underneath it. Nobody was ready to test it; even the very sight of it created sickness. One of them thought that the first hippie of the world, perhaps might be willing -- he was the god Shiva. So they asked Shiva, "You test it." He said, "Okay."

He not only tested it, he drank it all, and it was pure poison. He kept it just in his neck, at the fifth center. The fifth center is the creative center. It became completely poisoned, and Shiva became the god of destruction. So Hindus have three gods: Brahma who creates the world, Vishnu who sustains the world, and Shiva who destroys the world. His destructiveness came from his creative center being poisoned. And the poison was so great that it cannot be a small destruction; he can only destroy the whole of existence.

When Vishnu is tired of maintaining it, Shiva destroys it. By that time Brahma has forgotten -- millions of years have passed since he created the world; he again starts creating

it -- just an old routine! Brahma is the creator god, but in the whole of India there is only one temple devoted to Brahma, because who cares about him? He has done his work; it is futile to say anything to him. Vishnu has millions of temples, because he is the sustainer god. Krishna and Rama are all incarnations of Vishnu.

But nobody can compete with Shiva. Shiva has more shrines to him than anybody else.

He is a hippie, so he does not need very great temples or anything -- just anywhere, under any tree. Just put a round stone, oval shape, and he does not ask much -- a few leaves, not even flowers. A few leaves you can drop there, a few drops of water on his head, just to keep him cool... so people have created devices; they just hang a small pot on top of his head with a small drip, drip, drip. It keeps him cool, so he does not get annoyed with anybody and destroy the world.

Everybody is afraid of him, so naturally he has many more worshipers, many more temples, and many more shrines. In every small village you will find at least a dozen Shiva shrines, because they cost nothing; any poor man can afford it. And he has to be concerned about it because Shiva can destroy. Keep him satisfied! And he does not ask much; just keep his head cool. Flowers are costly, but any two leaves and his worship is finished.

Shiva became the destroyer of the world because his fifth center had accumulated the whole poison of existence in it. It is our creative center, that's why lovers have a certain tendency to creativity. When you fall in love, you suddenly feel like creating something -

- it is very close. If you are guided rightly, your love can become your great creative act.

It can make you a poet, it can make you a painter, it can make you a dancer, it can make you reach to the stars in any dimension.

The sixth center which we call the third eye is between the two eyes. This gives you a clarity, a vision of all your past lives, and of all the future possibilities. Once your energy has reached your third eye, then you are so close to enlightenment that something of enlightenment starts showing. It radiates from the man of the third eye, and he starts feeling a pull towards the seventh center.

Because of these seven centers, India never bothered about hara. Hara is not in the line; it is just by the side of the sex center. The sex center is the life center, and hara is the death center. Too much excitement, too much uncenteredness, too much throwing your energy all over the place is dangerous, because it takes your energy towards the hara. And once the route is created, it becomes more difficult to move it upwards. Hara is equally parallel to the sex center, so the energy can move very easily.

It was a great discovery by the Japanese: they found that there was no need to cut your head off, or shoot your brains out to kill -- they are all unnecessarily painful; just a small knife forced exactly at the hara center, and without any pain, life disappears. Just make the center open and life disappears, as if the flower opens and the fragrance disappears.

The hara should be kept closed. That's why, Radhika, I had told you to be more centered, to keep your feelings inside, and to bring it to your hara. "Since then this suggestion stays with me, and my belly has become my best friend, and the place below my navel a mirror of my feelings."

If you can keep your hara consciously controlling your energies, it does not allow them to go out. You start feeling a tremendous gravity, a stability, a centeredness, which is a basic necessity for the energy to move upwards.

You are asking, "I feel that behind this small suggestion of yours lies more than I can imagine." Certainly, there is much more....

A Pole is walking down the street, and passes a hardware store advertising the sale of a chain saw that is capable of cutting seven hundred trees in seven hours. The Pole thinks that it is a great deal and decides to buy one.

The next day he comes back with the saw, and complains to the salesman, "The thing did not come close to chopping down the seven hundred trees that the ad said it would."

"Well," said the salesman, "let us test it out back." Finding a log, the salesman pulls the starter cord, and the saw makes a great roaring sound.

"What is that noise?" asked the Pole.

So he must have been cutting by hand and it was an electric saw!

Radhika, your hara center has so much energy that, if it is rightly directed, enlightenment is not a faraway place.

So these two are my suggestions: keep yourself as much centered as possible. Don't get moved by small things -- somebody is angry, somebody insults you, and you think about it for hours. Your whole night is disturbed because somebody said something.... If the hara can hold more energy, then naturally that much more energy starts rising upwards.

There is only a certain capacity in the hara, and every energy that moves upwards moves through the hara; but the hara should just be closed.

So one thing is that the hara should be closed. The second thing is that you should always work for higher centers. For example, if you feel angry too often you should meditate more on anger, so that anger disappears and its energy becomes compassion. If you are a man who hates everything, then you should concentrate on hate; meditate on hate, and the same energy becomes love.

Go on moving upwards, think always of higher ladders, so that you can reach to the highest point of your being. And there should be no leakage from the hara center.

India has been too concerned about sex for the same reason: sex can also take your energy outside. It takes... but at least sex is the center of life. Even if it takes energy out, it will bring energy somewhere else, life will go on flowing.

But hara is a death center. Energy should not be allowed through the hara. A person whose energy starts through hara you can very easily detect. For example, there are people with whom you will feel suffocated, with whom you will feel as if they are sucking your energy. You will find that, after they are gone, you feel at ease and relaxed, although they were not doing anything wrong to you.

You will find just the opposite kind of people also, whose meeting you makes you joyful, healthier. If you were sad, your sadness disappears; if you were angry, your anger disappears. These are the people whose energy is moving to higher centers. Their energy affects your energy. We are affecting each other continually. And the man who is conscious, chooses friends and company which raises his energy higher.

One point is very clear. There are people who suck you, avoid them! It is better to be clear about it, say goodbye to them. There is no need to suffer, because they are dangerous; they can open your hara too. Their hara is open, that's why they create such a sucking feeling in you.

Psychology has not taken note of it yet, but it is of great importance that psychologically sick people should not be put together. And that is what is being done all over the world.

Psychologically sick people are put into psychiatric institutes together. They are already psychologically sick, and you are putting them in a company which will drag their energy even lower.

Even the doctors who work with psychologically sick people have given enough indication of it. More psychoanalysts commit suicide than any other profession, more psychoanalysts go mad than any other profession. And every psychoanalyst once in a while needs to be treated by some other psychoanalyst. What happens to these poor people? Surrounded by psychologically sick people, they are continually sucked, and they don't have any idea how to close their haras.

There are methods, techniques to close the hara, just as there are methods for meditation, to move the energy upwards. The best and simplest method is: try to remain as centered in your life as possible. People cannot even sit silently, they will be changing their position. They cannot lie down silently, the whole night they will be turning and tossing.

This is just unrest, a deep restlessness in their souls.

One should learn restfulness. And in these small things, the hara stays closed. Particularly psychologists should be trained. Also, psychologically sick people should not be put together.

In the East, particularly in Japan in Zen monasteries, where they have become aware of the hara center, there are no psychologists as such. But in Zen monasteries there are small cottages, far away from the main campus where Zen people live, but in the same forest or in the same mountain area. And if somebody who is psychologically sick is brought to them, he is given a cabin there and he is told to relax, rest, enjoy, move around in the forest -- but not to talk. Anyway there is nobody to talk to! Only once a day a man comes to give food; he is not allowed to talk to that man either, and even if he talks, the man will not answer. So his whole energy is completely controlled. He cannot even talk; he cannot meet anybody.

You will be surprised to know that what psychoanalysis cannot do in years, is done in three weeks. In three weeks time the person is as healthy as normal people are. And nothing has been done -- no technique, nothing. He has just been left alone so he cannot talk. He has been left alone so he can rest and be himself. He is not expected to fulfil somebody else's expectations.

Radhika, you have done well. Just continue whatever you are doing, accumulating your energy in yourself. The accumulation of energy automatically makes it go higher. And as it reaches higher you will feel more peaceful, more loving, more joyful, more sharing, more compassionate, more creative.

The day is not faraway when you will feel full of light, and the feeling of coming back home.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #4

Chapter title: Patience is the way of existence

24 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704240

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN04

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

74

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I KEEP GOING WHERE YOU ARE AND CAN'T MOVE AWAY. STILL,

SOMETHING IS MISSING. AT THE JUNCTION OF TWO PATHS, THE INNER

ONE AND THE OUTER ONE, WITH TEARS IN HIS EYES, THE STUBBORN

DONKEY IS STARVING. THE OUTER PATH DOES NOT ATTRACT HIM MUCH

ANYMORE, AND WHEN IT DOES THE HOPE IS QUICKLY SMASHED. SEEING

YOUR FINGER POINTING TO THE MOON, STILL HE IS NOT GOING VERY

MUCH ON THE INNER PATH. I DO NOT KNOW QUITE HOW TO SPEAK TO

HIM. DISGUSTED WITH TUNAFISH SANDWICHES, HE BECAME

ACCUSTOMED TO STARVATION. IS THIS JUST FEAR, LAZINESS,

IMPATIENCE? DOES HE JUST NEED A JUICY JOKE? BELOVED OSHO, GIVE

HIM A LITTLE PUSH.

Uttama, it is one of the significant things to understand that unless you attain the ultimate, the feeling of something missing is going to remain with you. And this feeling is not against you; this feeling is a kind of reminding you that you have not reached yet, that you have to go on and on.

Don't take the feeling of missing as negative; it is healthy and positive. It shows that you are aware of where you are and you are also sensitive to where you should be, and between the two, the gap is the feeling of missing.

I would like to read your question: "I keep going where you are and can't move away."

I have been aware of it. For the whole year I have been moving from one place to another place and you have remained constantly moving with me. It is not just attachment with me -- it is something more. It is not a question of being with me: it is a question of being in the same state of being as I am.

You don't want to miss any opportunity, any single moment. And one never knows --

your time may come and you may be far away from me.

Still something is missing. It will go on missing for a little time more. You are growing, but to reach to the flowers, to reach to the fruits, it takes a long time to grow. And spiritual growth is not like seasonal flowers; they come within weeks and they are gone.

The spiritual growth is of the eternal: once it comes, it remains -- remains forever.

Naturally, compared to eternity our time scale is very small. A few days pass or, a few months or a few years; we start feeling, is there something wrong? Am I doing right?

And these are natural feelings. But I have been watching you. Nothing is wrong, everything is as it should be. You are silently growing. All growth is silent, it makes no noise. And suddenly one day... the flowers appear.

Just by the side of Chuang Tzu hall there were no flowers three days ago. Then one day the storm came and the rains came, and in the morning suddenly there were beautiful sunflowers -- just in one night. I had seen the place; in the evening there were no flowers, in the morning there were flowers.

It takes time for the growth, but when the right moment comes it is an explosion.

Suddenly, all over, is the spring. And it is good that until it happens you go on feeling that something is missing. You should not forget for a single moment that something is missing. That will be dangerous.

Millions of people have forgotten it completely. They are absolutely content and feeling that all that they need they have -- nothing is missing. They are the poorest people in the world. They don't have a longing for higher reaches, they don't want to climb mountains, they don't want to go to the stars -- in their dark caves they are perfectly comfortable.

One should have compassion for them. Their contentment is their spiritual death.

You need a spiritual discontentment which constantly moves you, like an arrow, towards faraway goals.

"At the junction of two paths, the inner one and the outer one, with tears in his eyes, the stubborn donkey is starving. The outer path does not attract him much anymore, and when it does the hope is quickly smashed. Seeing your finger pointing to the moon, still he is not going very much on the inner path."

The inner growth is very still and very silent.

You cannot hear your own footsteps.

You only become aware when you reach a certain stage. And it is a surprise because all the time you were thinking nothing is happening... suddenly, the flowers have come. This is what I mean by patience.

To grow cedars of Lebanon one needs great patience. They are not seasonal flowers and you cannot see the growth. It is happening every moment, all these trees are growing every moment. But existence functions very silently.

You are growing, and even you cannot be aware of it unless something totally new happens and makes you aware that you have reached some space that was unknown to you. And that can happen any moment.

On your part great patience is needed, and a trust that the whole existence is in support of all those who are trying to grow spiritually. It is not you who are trying to grow spiritually; it is existence who, through you, is trying to reach to its utmost heights.

"I do not quite know how to speak to him. Disgusted with tunafish sandwiches, he became accustomed to starvation. Is this just fear, laziness, impatience? Does he just need a juicy joke?"

It is a combination of many things. Fear is always there, and will remain until you come to know that there is no death. Fear is the shadow of death. When death disappears the shadow disappears.

There is impatience, but you have to use your impatience not against your growth, but in favor of it. Be impatiently very patient. Your impatience should only show your longing.

It should not be against your patience; it should be simply a tremendous desire of your being to crystallize, to reach somewhere where life becomes meaningful, blissful, where fear disappears, death disappears, where one becomes acquainted with one's own immortality.

And it is not laziness. It appears so, because you don't see every day new spaces; it almost seems as if you are standing, not moving. In the inner journey this has been felt by many many people, by almost everybody. And the reason is the nature of movement.

You are sitting in a train and the train is moving; how do you know that the train is moving? Because you cannot see the wheels; the only idea that the train is moving is given to you by the trees and the houses and the stations that are passing by on both sides.

They are going in the opposite direction; the faster they are going, the faster you feel your train is moving.

Just for a moment imagine that your train is moving in a place where there is nothing on either side, you cannot see anything that is moving backwards. Will you feel that your train is moving? For example if the train is moving in the sky -- no trees, no houses, no stations -- you will not be able to feel the movement of the train. This is the reason why we cannot feel the movement of the earth. It is moving faster than any train, but there is nothing against which you can feel its movement.

In the inner journey this is the problem. You are alone. There are no trees, no stations, no houses; it is just like the sky. How can you feel if there is any movement happening or not? One becomes aware of the movement only when one comes to certain definite spaces which are different from those with which he is acquainted. Then suddenly one realizes that one has moved very fast. In fact, even if in many lives you can achieve enlightenment, it is too early. But I am saying you can achieve it now; all that is needed is that you don't look at things negatively.

Our mind is a very negative phenomenon. Relaxation it will call laziness, deep longing it will call impatience. Always remember mind is negative. It does not know how to say yes. And that is the meaning of trust: saying yes.

You are in a perfectly good situation, Uttama. Say yes to it, and say yes as deeply and as totally as possible. And any negative thing that mind brings, change it into the positive. It says it is laziness. Tell it, it is not; it is relaxation, it is restfulness. It says it is impatience.

Tell it, it is not; it is a great longing, a great passion to realize oneself, to realize one's treasures -- not to die without realizing oneself.

And you are asking, "Does he just need a juicy joke?"

That I can do! Whenever it needs any juicy joke, you bring your donkey to me.

Patrick's wife lived way out in the country and was taken ill one day, shortly before her child was due. It was quite dark when the doctor arrived and he asked, "Where is the little lady?"

Patrick: "She is over there in the barn where she collapsed." With Patrick holding the lamp the doctor set about his job.

"Patrick, you are the proud father of a little boy."

Patrick said, "Doctor, we will have a drink."

"Just a minute, hold the light a little closer. You are the father of two!"

"We will open a bottle," said Patrick.

"Wait!" said the doctor. "Hold the light a little closer. You are the father of three."

"And sure it is going to be a celebration and all," said Patrick.

"Just a minute," said the doctor, "hold the light a little closer."

"I don't want to be difficult, doctor," said Patrick, "but do you think this bloody light is attracting them?"

Children go on coming as the light is coming closer....

Uttama, remain joyous, wait with great love. Everything takes its own time, impatience makes no sense. Patience is the way of existence. Remain relaxed, because the more excited you become the farther away is the goal. The experience is going to happen only when you are utterly silent, just a pool of silence... your whole energy so relaxed, as if it is absent.

When you have become just a zero you become a womb. And out of this nothingness is born your original, your authentic reality.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I FEEL THAT I DON'T LOVE YOU ENOUGH, DON'T APPRECIATE YOU

ENOUGH, AM NOT OPEN ENOUGH. I FEEL LIKE I AM TRUNDLING ALONG IN

A CREAKY OLD BULLOCK CART, WHILE YOU ARE FLYING BY IN ALL YOUR

BEAUTY AND GRACE AND VASTNESS. BELOVED OSHO, I AM

EXASPERATED BY MY STATE OF RETARDATION. WHY IS IT THAT I DON'T

RESPOND?

Prem Veena, it is something intrinsic to love that it always feels it is not enough. Only a small love feels enough. The greater the love, the more you are aware of the feeling that

"I don't love enough." That is one of the signs of a great love.

If somebody comes and says to me, "I love you very much -- I love you totally," then his love is certainly going to be very small. Otherwise to love totally is a tremendous phenomenon; it will change you entirely.

So there is no need to be worried that your love is not enough. You want to love more, and if your love is great it will never be enough; it will always be something less than you wanted it to be.

And the same is true about appreciation. You say, "I don't appreciate you enough, am not open enough." Just a little appreciation and just a little opening is enough for my purposes. I can sneak in from any small opening! One thing is certain -- you are not a China wall.

I can understand. You have been long enough with me and it is natural to expect.... But you don't know how much you have changed. I remember exactly, photographically, the day you came to me. You had not come for yourself, you had come for a totally different reason. You had brought a young man; you had come for him.

He was a complete crackpot; he wanted to live only on water. And because in one of my lectures I had mentioned that I know a man who has lived for many years only on water, you brought that young man -- because he was moving from place to place, enquiring for somebody who can teach him the art of how to live on water.

You had not said a single word about yourself. You were only concerned that somehow either he drops this idea or he finds some way -- it had become a torture. There are ways people can live... but they need years of training, and they lead nowhere. What is the point? Even if you can live only on water that does not make you spiritual; that does not bring liberation to your being. And it takes fifteen to twenty years' long training to come to the point where you can drop all food, and just air and water are enough for you.

So I told the man, "It is possible and I can give you the address. But if you want my advice I would say don't go there because that man is cracked. You are only half cracked right now; there is still time to come back. What are you going to gain? Why are you obsessed with the idea?" The obsession was that if you live only on pure water and air, you become physically immortal.

I said, "That is nonsense! Many people have lived on water and air and none of them are alive; not a single one has become immortal. If you really want to become immortal, I can show you the way; because it is not a question of becoming immortal, it is a question of discovering. You are immortal already -- you are just not aware. Awareness has to be brought..." and just as I was talking to the man about awareness and meditation -- he was not interested; he disappeared, he never came again.

But Veena was caught. That was accidental! Since then she has been doing meditation, sometimes successfully, and whenever you succeed in meditation there are moments of failure; there are days and there are nights.

Naturally, after so many years, fifteen or sixteen years, she feels like "I'm trundling along in a creaky old bullock cart, while you are flying by in all your beauty and grace and vastness."

You should be happy, at least you have a creaky old bullock cart! There are millions who don't have even that. And if it is too creaky just ask some Italian sannyasin to make it a little greasy. Sarjano can do it. And to make a flying bullock cart will be a great joy and a miracle -- just take a little care with the bullock cart. Anyway it is moving. Or perhaps you would like it to go on being creaky because that gives you the idea that you are moving. But there is no hurry. You need not fly. Sometimes it is dangerous.

Just the other day I received a letter from Canada. A young woman wants to come here, but the problem is she is very much afraid of flying. Now from Canada to here, coming in a creaky old cart will really take so long. So she has asked me, "First help me to get rid of this paranoia. I cannot enter an airplane."

I have all kinds of crackpots all over the world! But they are very nice people. Just a day before another woman from Germany asked -- her problem is even more difficult -- her problem is that she is afraid to leave her house. "Help me, I want to come to Poona!"

Now this woman who is afraid of flying can have other means suggested to her: trains, cars, buses, a horse; but the woman who is afraid to leave the house.... But I have to suggest something to them -- and just because the suggestion is coming from me, it works. It has nothing in it; I just have to invent suggestions: "Just keep an onion in your mouth, and leave the house and no danger will ever happen to you! And when I am suggesting there must be some great secret in onions... soon the woman will be here, because these fears are all just mind-made, mind-manufactured.

There is no fear in flying, there is no fear of coming out of the house; millions of people are coming out of the house every day, and thousands are flying. And the rate of accidents is not much more than the rate of death which naturally happens, so whether you are sleeping on your bed or flying in an airplane does not make any difference. The rate of death is the same.

In fact, on the bed it is more, because 99% of people die on the bed. If somebody wants to be really afraid of any place, it is your bed. Avoid it! Keep it for show but never sleep on it! In the night close the doors and sleep on the floor, because I have never heard of anybody dying on the floor. And there are people who are trying....

My legal secretary Anando sleeps in her bath, just to avoid death! -- because nobody has ever died in the bath. She keeps her bed ready; that is just for show. Whenever I ask Shunyo to find her I have to tell her, "Look in her bathroom." And she is sleeping with her blanket and with her clothes in the bathtub. A great device to avoid death!

Veena, don't be exasperated by your state. You are growing. Everybody has his own pace of growth. Some people grow fast, some people grow slowly -- whatever is natural to them -- and there is no question of superiority or inferiority. But if you ask me I will say you are going perfectly right. You are responding to me as deeply as your nature allows in this moment.

Forcing anything is going against nature. Accepting, relaxing, contented, allowing the flow of nature to take you, is what Lao Tzu used to call `the watercourse way.'

Sometimes the river flows fast. Sometimes it flows very slowly. Sometimes it falls with great speed in waterfalls from the mountains to the plains. But one thing is certain: whether slow, fast or very fast, every river reaches to the ocean.

And it does not matter that somebody reaches a little earlier and somebody reaches a little later. What matters is that one reaches.

Just think of the moment -- your joy, your peace, your centeredness. The more you enjoy them, the more they grow, and faster. But don't think in terms of becoming rich very fast.

Even if the richness is of the inner world, to become rich fast one has to use wrong means

-- and in the inner world you cannot use wrong means. That will not be profitable; that will be a loss. In the outside world, if you want to become rich faster then you have to use wrong means.

But to be with me, at least one thing has always to be remembered: we are not looking for any profit, we are not looking for any reward. Our reward is in this moment. Our profit is our joy in this moment.

Farelli came from Italy, opened a restaurant and became very successful. He still practiced the simplest form of bookkeeping. He kept the accounts payable in a cigar box, accounts due on a spindle, and cash in the register. One day his youngest son, who had just graduated as an economics major, said to him, "Pa, I don't see how you run your business this way. How do you know what your profits are?"

"Well, sonny boy," replied Farelli, "when I got off-a the boat I no have nothing but-a the pants I was-a wearing. Just-a the pants. Today your brother is a doctor, your sister is-a the teacher and you just-a graduate."

"I know, papa, but...."

"Your mama and me have a nice-a car, a nice-a house, a good-a business and everything is-a paid for. So you add all-a that together, you subtract-a the pants and that's-a the profit."

Why get into so much unnecessary detail? That poor Italian was doing very well! Now to count all these things and then to subtract the pants-a... and the remaining is all the profit.

On the path there is no need to keep any accounts. Each moment live totally, joyously, and move on. Don't carry even the memory of that moment: that too becomes a burden, that too prevents you from responding to reality spontaneously. If you want to be spontaneous and responsive then you need a very clean, mirror-like mind. No dust should gather on it.

And Veena, as far as I see you are doing perfectly well. But these are human desires that again and again arise in people -- perhaps things can be done better; perhaps rather than going by a bullock cart I can go by an airplane. These ideas simply create anxiety in you and disturb your natural growth.

Live each moment and don't let it gather in your memory. Keep your memory clean.

And everything that you have never imagined, never dreamt of, is going to happen to you.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #5

Chapter title: Just a little knack of losing yourself

24 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704245

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN05

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

89

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

NIETZSCHE WROTE: "HE WHO FIGHTS WITH MONSTERS SHOULD LOOK TO

IT THAT HE HIMSELF DOES NOT BECOME A MONSTER, AND WHEN YOU

GAZE LONG INTO AN ABYSS THE ABYSS ALSO GAZES INTO YOU." THE

LAST PHRASE SEEMS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DESCRIPTION OF THE ART OF

MEDITATION. WOULD YOU COMMENT?

Maneesha, Friedrich Nietzsche is a strange philosopher, poet and mystic. His strangeness is that his philosophy is not the ordinary rational approach to life; his strangeness is also that he writes poetry in prose. He is also a strange mystic, because he has never traveled the ordinary paths of mysticism. It seems as if mysticism happened to him.

Perhaps being a philosopher and a poet together, he became available to the experiences of the mystic also. The philosopher is pure logic, and the poet is pure irrationality. The mystic is beyond both. He cannot be categorized as rational, and he cannot be categorized as irrational. He is both, and he is neither.

It very rarely happens that a philosopher is a poet also, because they are diametrically opposite dimensions. They create a tremendous inner tension in the person. And Nietzsche lived that tension to its very extreme. It finally led him into madness, because on the one hand he is one of the most intelligent products of Western philosophy, without parallel, and on the other hand so full of poetic vision that certainly his heart and his head would have been constantly fighting. The poet and the philosopher cannot be good bedfellows. It is easy to be a poet, it is easy to be a philosopher, but it is a tremendous strain to be both.

Nietzsche is not in any way mediocre -- his philosopher is as great a genius as his poet.

And the problem becomes more complicated because of this tension between the heart and the mind. He starts becoming available to something more -- more than philosophy, more than poetry. That's what I am calling mysticism.

His statement is of tremendous importance: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

I have always been telling you that you can choose a friend without being too cautious, but you cannot afford an enemy without being very alert -- because the friend is not going to change you, but the enemy is going to change you. With the friend there is no fight, with the friend there is no quarrel; the friend accepts you as you are, you accept the friend as he is. But with the enemy the situation is totally different. You are trying to destroy the enemy and the enemy is trying to destroy you. And naturally you will affect each other, you will start taking methods, means, techniques from each other.

After a while it becomes almost impossible to find who is who. They both have to behave in the same way, they both have to use the same language, they both have to be on the same level. You cannot remain on your heights and fight an enemy who lives in the dark valleys down below; you will have to come down. You will have to be as mean, as cunning as your enemy is -- perhaps you will have to be more, if you want to win.

Nietzsche is right. "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

The second part of the statement is actually the very essence of meditation: it is gazing into emptiness, nothingness, into an abyss. And when you gaze into an abyss it is not one-sided; the abyss is also gazing into your eyes.

When I am looking at you, it is not only that I am looking at you; you are also looking at me. The abyss has its own ways of gazing into you. The empty sky also gazes into you, the faraway star also looks into you. And if the abyss is allowed to gaze into you, soon you will find a great harmony between yourself and the silence of the abyss, you will also become part of the abyss. The abyss will be outside you and also inside you.

What he is saying is immensely beautiful and truthful. The meditator has to learn to gaze into things which he wants to become himself. Look into the silent sky, unclouded. Look long enough, and you will come to a point when small clouds of thoughts within you disappear, and the two skies become one. There is no outer, there is no inner: there is simply one expanse.

For thousands of years meditators have been gazing at the early sun in the morning, because later it becomes too difficult to gaze into it. But the early sun, just rising above the horizon, can be looked into without any danger to the eyes. And if you allow, then the light and the color that is spread all over the horizon starts spreading within you -- you become part of the horizon. You are no longer just a gazer; you have become part of the scenery.

An ancient parable in China is that an emperor who was very interested in paintings, and had a great collection of paintings, announced a great prize for the best painting. All the great painters of the country arrived in the capital and started working.

One painter said, "It will take at least three years for me."

The emperor said, "But I'm too old."

The painter said, "You need not be worried. You can give me the award right now. If you are not certain of your life, I am certain about my painting. But I'm not asking either. I am just saying that I am going to do a job that has never been done. I want to show you what a painting should really be; so forget about your death and forget about the award. You allow me three years and a separate place in the palace. Nobody can come while I'm working; for three years I have to be left alone."

Each day was such an excitement for the emperor. The man was a well-known painter, and not only a painter -- he was a Zen master too. Finally those three years passed, and the painter invited the emperor... he took him into the room. On the whole wall he had painted a beautiful forest with mountains, with waterfalls, and a small footpath going round about and then getting lost into the trees behind the mountains.

The painting was so alive, so three-dimensional, that the emperor forgot completely that it was a painting and asked the painter, "Where does this footpath lead to?"

The painter said, "I have never gone on it, but we can go and have a look at where it goes."

The story is that the painter and the emperor both walked on the path, entered the forest, and have not returned since then. The painting is still preserved; it shows the footprints of two persons on the footpath. It seems to be absolutely unbelievable, but the meaning is of tremendous importance.

The painter is saying that unless you can be lost in a painting, it is not a painting. Unless you can become part of the scene, something is dividing you; you are not allowing yourself, totally, to be one with it, whether it is a sunrise or a sunset....

A meditator has to learn in different ways, from different sides of life, to be lost. Those are the moments when you are no more, but just a pure silence, an abyss, a sky, a silent lake without any ripples on it. You have become one with it. And all that is needed is --

don't be just a passer-by, don't be a tourist, don't be in a hurry. Sit down and relax. Gaze into the silence, into the depth, and allow that depth to enter into your eyes, so that it can reach to your very being.

A moment comes when the gazer and the gazed become one, the observer and the observed become one. That is the moment of meditation -- and there are no more golden experiences in existence. These golden moments can be yours... just a little art, or rather a little knack, of losing yourself into something vast, something so big that you cannot contain it. But it can contain you! And you can experience it only if you allow it to contain you.

Friedrich Nietzsche is right; he must have said what he had experienced himself. It was unfortunate that he was born in the West. In the East he would have been in the same category as Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Bodhidharma or Lao Tzu. In the West he had to be forced into a madhouse.

He himself could not figure it out. It was too much: on the one hand his great philosophical rationality, on the other hand his insights into poetry, and those sudden glimpses of mystic experiences... it was too much. He could not manage and started falling apart. They were all so different from each other, so diametrically opposite... he tried hard somehow to keep them together, but the very effort of trying to keep them together became a nervous breakdown.

The same experience in the East would have been a totally different phenomenon. Instead of being a nervous breakdown, it would have been a breakthrough. The East has been working for thousands of years; its whole genius has been devoted to only one thing, and that is meditation. It has looked into all possible nooks and corners of meditation, and it has become capable to allow poetry, to allow philosophy, without any problem, without any opposition and tension. On the contrary they all become, under meditation, a kind of orchestra -- different musical instruments, but playing the same tune.

There have been many misfortunes in the world, but I feel the most sorry for Friedrich Nietzsche because I can see what great potential he had. But being in a wrong atmosphere, having no precedent and having no way to work it out by himself, alone.... It was certainly too much for an individual, for any individual, to work it out alone.

Thousands of people have worked from different corners, and now, in the East, we have a whole atmosphere in which any kind of genius can be absorbed. And meditation will not be disturbed by genius; meditation will be enhanced, and his own particular dimension --

poetry, literature, science -- will also be enhanced.

Nietzsche was just in a wrong place, surrounded by wrong people who could only think of him as mad.And to them, he appeared mad.

Two kids were playing on the sea beach. One of them asked the other, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

He said, "When I grow up I want to be a great prophet. I'm going to speak of profound truths."

The first boy said, "But they say nobody listens to the prophets, so why become a prophet?"

"Ah," he said, "us prophets are very obstinate."

This very obstinacy became a problem, because the whole society was against him, a single man single-handedly fighting for truths which people cannot even understand, but are absolutely ready to misunderstand. If a man is sincere and if he cannot understand a thing he should say, "I do not understand it." But people are not so sincere. When they don't understand a thing they immediately start misunderstanding it. Misunderstanding is their way of hiding their ignorance.

The people who have come to know some truth are certainly obstinate. You can crucify them, but you cannot change their minds. You can throw them into madhouses, but they will go on repeating their insights. Their insights become more valuable than their lives themselves.

The East, at least in the past, has been the best soil for prophets, for philosophers, for poets, for mystics. It is no longer the case, but still something of the past goes on echoing in the atmosphere. The West has corrupted the East too. The West knows the tradition of Socrates being poisoned, it knows Jesus Christ's crucifixion; the East was absolutely innocent. It was an accepted fact that everybody had the right to say his truth. If you don't agree with him, that does not mean that you have to kill him. Don't agree -- that is your right; at least we can agree to disagree with each other, but there is no need to bring swords when you don't have arguments. Swords cannot become arguments.

But the atmosphere has been changing for almost two thousand years, since this country became invaded again and again by barbarous, uncivilized, uncultured people who had no idea what philosophy was. And finally, for three hundred years the West has tried in every possible way to corrupt the mind of the East through its educational system --

through schools, through colleges, through universities.

Now even in the East crucifixion is possible. Just the other day one of the great Hindu religious leaders, equivalent to the pope of the Catholics, Shankaracharya Svarupananda, was here for a few days. I told Neelam, when she informed me of this, that he would say something against me certainly. But he spoke against me only on the last day, before leaving, so when the information came to me, he had already gone.

What he had spoken against me is so poor that one feels great pity. What has happened to the great philosophical traditions of the East? -- and these people represent those traditions. He said about me: "He is the most dangerous man, unparallelled in the history of mankind." He has not given any reason why. To me this is a compliment. But at least I have the right to ask what is the reason for giving me such a great compliment --

"unparallelled in the whole history of mankind." And what danger am I?

This was not the way of the East. When I was listening to his statement I remembered about the original shankaracharya, Adi Shankaracharya. He is a predecessor of nearly fourteen hundred years ago. He died a young man, he died when he was thirty-three. He created a new tradition of sannyasins, he created four temples in all the four directions, and he appointed four shankaracharyas, one for each direction. I remembered about him that he traveled all over the country defeating great, well-known philosophers -- that was in a totally different atmosphere.

One great philosopher was Mandan Mishra; he had a great following. Still in his memory a town exists. I have been there many times. It is on a beautiful bank of the Narmada, one of the most beautiful rivers. That is the place where the river descends from the mountains, so it has tremendous beauty. The city is called Mandala, in memory of Mandan Mishra.

Shankara must have been at the age of thirty when he reached Mandala. Just on the outskirts of the town, by a well, a few women were drawing water. He asked them, "I want to know where the great philosopher Mandan Mishra lives."

Those women started giggling and they said, "Don't be worried, you just go inside. You will find it."

Shankara said, "How will I find it?"

They said, "You will find it, because even the parrots around his house -- he has a big garden and there are so many parrots in the garden -- they repeat poetries from the UPANISHADS, from the VEDAS. If you hear parrots repeating, singing beautiful poetries from the Upanishads, you can be certain that this is the house of Mandan Mishra."

He could not believe it, but when he went and he saw, he had to believe. He asked Mandan Mishra -- he was old, nearabout seventy -- "I have come a very long way from South India to have a discussion with you, with a condition: If I am defeated, I will become your disciple, and if you are defeated, you will have to become my disciple.

Naturally, when I become your disciple all my disciples will become your disciples and the same will be true if you become my disciple -- all your disciples will become my disciples."

Old Mandan Mishra looked at the young man and he said, "You are too young and I feel a little hesitant whether to accept this challenge or not. But if you are insistent, then there is no way; I have to accept it. But it does not look right that a seventy year old man who has fought thousands of debates should be fighting with a young man of thirty. But to balance, I would suggest one thing" -- and this was the atmosphere that has a tremendous value -- "to substitute, I will give you the chance to choose the judge who will decide. So you find a judge. You are too young, and I feel that if you are defeated at least you should have the satisfaction that the judge was your choice."

Now where to find a judge? The young man had heard much about Mandan Mishra's wife. Her name was Bharti. She was also old, sixty-five. He said, "I will choose your wife to be the judge."

This is the atmosphere, so human, so loving. First Mandan Mishra gave him the chance to choose, and then Shankara chose Maridan Mishra's own wife! And Bharti said, "But this is not right, I'm his wife, and if you are defeated you may think it is because I may have been prejudiced, favorable towards my husband."

Shankara said, "There is no question of any suspicion. I have heard much about your sincerity. If I'm defeated, I'm defeated. And I know perfectly well if your husband is defeated, you will be the last person to hide the fact."

Six months it took for the discussion. On each single point that man has thought about they quarreled, argued, quoted, interpreted, and after six months the wife said, "Shankara is declared victorious. Mandan Mishra is defeated."

Thousands of people were listening for these six months. It was a great experience to listen to these two so refined logicians, and this was a tremendous experience, that the wife declared Shankara to be the winner. There was great silence a for few moments, and then Bharti said, "But remember that you are only half a winner, because according to the scriptures the wife and husband makes one whole. I'm half of Mandan Mishra. You have defeated one half; now you will have to discuss with me."

Shankara was at a loss. For six months he had tried so hard; many times he had been thinking of giving up -- the old man was really very sharp even in his old age. Nobody has been able to stand against Shankara for six months, and now the wife says his victory is only half. Bharti said, "But I will also give you the chance to choose your judge."

He said, "Where am I going to find a better judge than Mandan Mishra? You are such simple and fair and sincere people. But Bharti was very clever, more clever than Shankara had imagined, because she started asking questions about the science of sex.

Shankara said, "Forgive me, I am a celibate and I don't know anything about sex."

Bharti said, "Then you will have to accept your defeat, or if you want some time to study and experience, I'm willing to give you some time."

He was caught in such a strange situation; he asked for six months and six months were given. "You can go and learn as much as you can because this will be the subject to begin with, then later on, other subjects. It is not easy," Bharti said, "to beat Mandan Mishra.

But that half was easier! I am a much harder woman. If I can declare the defeat of my husband, you can understand that I am a hard woman. It is not going to be easy. If you feel afraid don't come back; otherwise we will wait for six months."

This atmosphere continued for thousands of years. There was no question of being angry, there was no question of being abusive, there was no question of trying to prove that you are right by your physical strength or by your arms or by your armies. These were thought to be barbarous methods; these were not for the cultured people.

Nietzsche was in a very wrong place in a wrong time; he was not understood by his contemporaries. Now, slowly, interest in him is arising; more and more people are becoming interested in him. Perhaps it would have been better for him to delay his coming a little. But it is not in our hands when to come and when to go. And people of his genius always come before their time. But he should have his respected place in the category of the Buddhas. That day is not far away.

When all other so-called great philosophers of the West will be forgotten, Friedrich Nietzsche will still be remembered, because he has depths which have still to be explored, he has insights which have been only ignored; he has just been put aside as a madman.

Even if he is a madman, that does not matter. What he is saying is so truthful that if to get those truths one has to become mad, it is a perfectly good bargain.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

RECENTLY YOU SPOKE ABOUT THE WILL TO POWER. YOU EXPLAINED THE

IMPORTANCE OF HAVING THIS WILL, THIS LONGING, TO BECOME A MASTER OVER ONE'S SELF. YOU ALSO OFTEN DECLARE THAT EVERY

DESIRE IS THE BASIC REASON FOR MAN'S FRUSTRATION. CAN YOU PLEASE

EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WILL AND DESIRE?

Gyan Saahaba, the difference between will and desire is great, although they appear almost similar.

Desire is always for things. More money, more prestige, more respectability, more knowledge, more virtue, a better place in the afterlife -- these are all desires. Desires can be millions, because there are millions of things in the world which can become objects of desire. A desire always needs an object.

Will is not objective; it does not want something else to be added to it. Will is simply your very life force, which wants to assert itself in its totality, in its wholeness, to bring all the flowers that are hidden in you, to be yourself.

The will knows only one thing and that is you and your golden future. You, right now, are only seeds. But you can become great trees, reaching to the stars.

Vincent van Gogh, one of the most significant Dutch painters, was also thought of just like Nietzsche -- a madman. He also had to live in a madhouse, and he was not a harmful man; his paintings were just not according to the ideas of people. Strange... in this world you are not even free to paint something according to your own idea, which is not harming anybody.

He had painted his trees so tall that stars were left far behind -- they go above the stars.

Naturally people used to ask him, "This is sheer madness. Where have you seen these trees going beyond the stars?"

And what was always his answer is immensely significant. He used to say, "To me, trees represent the will of the earth. The earth is trying to reach beyond the stars, and you will see one day that the earth has succeeded. It is just the beginning, that's why you don't see the trees that high. But I can see far away in the future."

But we cannot even forgive poets, we cannot forgive even visionaries for their harmless visions. But what a beautiful idea -- that the earth wants to reach beyond the stars. That defines will.

Desire is always for possessions.

Will is always for consciousness.

Will is a lifeforce; a flame of your very being. It does not want anything else -- it simply wants itself to be actualized in its totality. It does not want to remain a seed, it does not want just to remain a dream; it wants to become a reality, it wants to become an actual phenomenon.

Gyan Saahaba, I can understand your problem. It may have arisen in many people's minds, because I have always spoken against desire, and while speaking on Friedrich Nietzsche's ZARATHUSTRA I supported totally his idea of the will.

When on a rosebush flowers blossom, it is the will. They were hidden inside the bush and they were trying to come into manifestation -- just as a Gautam Buddha is hidden in you, or a Zarathustra is hidden in you and is trying to come out. You are a seed. Once this idea settles in you, you will find inside the seed a serpent starts uncoiling itself -- that is the will. Nietzsche has called it will to power. I myself would like to call it will to realization, will to actualization, will to become absolutely yourself.

Desire is a very dangerous thing, because you can get lost in desire and millions are lost.

The jungle of desires is very thick, and there is no end; one after another you will find desires and desires and desires. And no desire is fulfilling. Every desire only gives you a new frustration, every desire gives you a new desire. But this whole process of desiring takes your energy away from becoming a will to realization, a will to bring your potential into flowering, into its ultimate expression.

Desire is going astray from will.

My effort here is to pull you back from your desires to one single-pointed will -- the will that wants to know yourself, the will that wants to be yourself, the will that wants whatever is hidden in you to become manifest.

Mendel saves up for years to buy a really fine tailor-made suit, his very first, but after he has been out in it for an hour or so he notices there are things wrong with it. He goes back to the tailor.

"The arms are too long," says Mendel.

"No problem. Just hold your arms out further and bend at the elbows."

"But the trouser legs are too long."

"Right, no problem. Walk with your knees bent."

"The collar is too high; it is halfway up the back of my head."

"Okay. Just poke your head out further."

So Mendel goes out into the world with his first tailor-made suit. As he is passing a couple in the street the woman says, "Look at that poor man, he must have had polio."

The man says, "But what a fine suit he is wearing!"

Your desires may give you a fine suit, but they will also make you suffer from polio; everything will be wrong. Your desires will not allow you to be simply yourself, to be exactly your destiny.

Will is a longing to achieve one's destiny.

Okay Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #6

Chapter title: Loneliness is aloneness misunderstood

25 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

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8704250

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN06

Audio:

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Video:

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Length:

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Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY THAT WE ARE BORN ALONE, WE LIVE ALONE

AND WE DIE ALONE. YET IT SEEMS AS IF FROM THE DAY WE ARE BORN, WHATEVER WE ARE DOING, WHOEVER WE ARE, WE SEEK TO RELATE TO

OTHERS; IN ADDITION, WE ARE USUALLY ATTRACTED TO BEING INTIMATE

WITH ONE PERSON IN PARTICULAR. WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?

Dhyan Amiyo, the question that you have asked is the question of every human being.

We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone. Aloneness is our very nature, but we are not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it, we remain strangers to ourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss, silence and peace, at-easeness with existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness.

Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand your aloneness as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal.

Everybody is running away from loneliness. It is like a wound; it hurts. To escape from it, the only way is to be in a crowd, to become part of a society, to have friends, to create a family, to have husbands and wives, to have children. In this crowd, the basic effort is that you will be able to forget your loneliness.

But nobody has ever succeeded in forgetting it. That which is natural to you, you can try to ignore -- but you cannot forget it; it will assert again and again. And the problem becomes more complex because you have never seen it as it is; you have taken it for granted that you are born lonely.

The dictionary meaning is the same; that shows the mind of the people who create dictionaries. They don't understand at all the vast difference between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is a gap. Something is missing, something is needed to fill it, and nothing can ever fill it because it is a misunderstanding in the first place. As you grow older, the gap also grows bigger. People are so afraid to be by themselves that they do any kind of stupid thing. I have seen people playing cards alone; the other party is not there. They have invented games in which the same person plays cards from both sides.

Somehow one wants to remain engaged. That engagement may be with people, may be with work.... There are workaholics; they are afraid when the weekend comes close --

what are they going to do? And if they don't do anything, they are left to themselves, and that is the most painful experience.

You will be surprised to know that it is on the weekends that most of the accidents in the world happen. People are rushing in their cars to resort places, to sea beaches, to hill stations, bumper to bumper. It may take eight hours, ten hours to reach, and there is nothing for them to do because the whole crowd has come with them. Now their house, their neighborhood, their city is more peaceful than this sea resort. Everybody has come.

But some engagement....

People are playing cards, chess; people are watching television for hours. The average American watches television five hours a day; people are listening to the radio... just to avoid themselves. For all these activities, the only reason is -- not to be left alone; it is very fearful. And this idea is taken from others. Who has told you that to be alone is a fearful state?

Those who have known aloneness say something absolutely different. They say there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, more joyful than being alone.

But you listen to the crowd. The people who live in misunderstanding are in such a majority, that who bothers about a Zarathustra, or a Gautam Buddha? These single individuals can be wrong, can be hallucinating, can be deceiving themselves or deceiving you, but millions of people cannot be wrong. And millions of people agree that to be left to oneself is the worst experience in life; it is hell.

But any relationship that is created because of the fear, because of the inner hell of being left alone, cannot be satisfying. Its very root is poisoned. You don't love your woman, you are simply using her not to be lonely; neither does she love you. She is also in the same paranoia; she is using you not to be left alone.

Naturally, in the name of love anything may happen -- except love. Fights may happen, arguments may happen, but even they are preferred to being lonely: at least somebody is there and you are engaged, you can forget your loneliness. But love is not possible, because there is no basic foundation for love.

Love never grows out of fear.

You are asking, "You said the other day that we are born alone, we live alone and we die alone. Yet it seems as if from the day we are born, whatever we are doing, whoever we are, we seek to relate to others."

This seeking to relate to others is nothing but escapism. Even the smallest baby tries to find something to do; if nothing else, then he will suck his own big toes on his feet. It is an absolutely futile activity, nothing can come out of it, but it is engagement. He is doing something. You will see in the stations, in the airports, small boys and girls carrying their teddy bears; they cannot sleep without them. Darkness makes their loneliness even more dangerous. The teddy bear is a great protection; somebody is with them.

And your God is nothing but a teddy bear for grown-ups.

You cannot live as you are. Your relationships are not relationships. They are ugly. You are using the other person, and you know perfectly well the other person is using you.

And to use anybody is to reduce him into a thing, into a commodity. You don't have any respect for the person.

"In addition," you are asking, "we are usually attracted to being intimate with one person in particular."

It has a psychological reason. You are brought up by a mother, by a father; if you are a boy, you start loving your mother and you start being jealous of your father because he is a competitor; if you are a girl, you start loving your father and you hate your mother because she is a competitor. These are now established facts, not hypotheses, and the result of it turns your whole life into a misery. The boy carries the image of his mother as the model of a woman. He becomes conditioned continuously; he knows only one woman so closely, so intimately. Her face, her hair, her warmth -- everything becomes an imprint. That's exactly the scientific word used: it becomes an imprint in his psychology.

And the same happens to the girl about the father.

When you grow up, you fall in love with some woman or with some man and you think,

"Perhaps we are made for each other." Nobody is made for anyone. But why do you feel attracted towards one certain person? It is because of your imprint. He must resemble your father in some way; she must resemble your mother in some way.

Of course no other woman can be exactly a replica of your mother, and anyway you are not in search of a mother, you are in search of a wife. But the imprint inside you decides who is the right woman for you. The moment you see that woman, there is no question of reasoning. You immediately feel attraction; your imprint immediately starts functioning -

- this is the woman for you, or this is the man for you.

It is good as far as meeting once in a while on the sea beach, in the movie hall, in the garden is concerned, because you don't come to know each other totally. But you are both hankering to live together; you want to be married, and that is one of the most dangerous steps that lovers can take.

The moment you are married, you start becoming aware of the totality of the other person, and you are surprised on every single aspect -- "Something went wrong; this is not the woman, this is not the man" -- because they don't fit with the ideal that you are carrying within you. And the trouble is multiplied because the woman is carrying an ideal of her father -- you don't fit with it. You are carrying the ideal of your mother -- she does not fit with it. That's why all marriages are failures.

Only very rare marriages are not failures -- and I hope God should save you from those marriages which are not failures, because they are psychologically sick. There are people who are sadists, who enjoy torturing others, and there are people who are masochists, who enjoy torturing themselves. If a husband and wife belong to these two categories, that marriage will be a successful marriage. One is a masochist and one is a sadist -- it is a perfect marriage, because one enjoys being tortured and one enjoys torturing.

But ordinarily it is very difficult to find out in the first place whether you are a masochist or a sadist, and then to look for your other polarity.... If you are wise enough you should go to the psychologist and enquire who you are, a masochist or a sadist? and ask if he can give you some references which can fit with you.

Sometimes, just by accident, it happens that a sadist and masochist become married. They are the happiest people in the world; they are fulfilling each other's needs. But what kind of need is this? -- they are both psychopaths, and they are living a life of torture. But otherwise, every marriage is going to fail, for one simple reason: the imprint is the problem.

Even in marriage, the basic reason for which you wanted to have the relationship is not fulfilled. You are more alone when you are with your wife than when you are alone. To leave husband and wife in a room by themselves is to make them both utterly miserable.

One of my friends was retiring; he was a big industrialist, and he was retiring because of my advice. I said, "You have so much and you don't have a son; you have two daughters and they are married in rich families. Now why unnecessarily bother about all kinds of worries -- of business, and income tax, and this and that? You can close everything; you have enough. Even if you live one thousand years, it will do."

He said, "That's true. The real problem is not the business, the real problem is I will be left alone with my wife. I can retire right now if you promise me one thing, that you will live with us.

I said, "This is strange. Are you retiring or am I retiring?"

He said, "That is the condition. Do you think I am interested in all these troubles? It is just to escape from my wife."

The wife was a great social worker. She used to run an orphanage, a house for widows, and a hospital particularly for people who are beggars and cannot pay for their treatment.

I also asked her in the evening, "Do you really enjoy all this, from the morning till the evening?"

She said, "Enjoy? It is a kind of austerity, a self-imposed torture."

I said, "Why should you impose this torture on yourself?" She said, "Just to avoid your friend. If we are left alone, that is the worst experience in life."

And this is a love marriage, not an arranged marriage. They married each other against the whole family, the whole society, because they belonged to different religions, different castes; but their imprints gave them signals that this is the right woman, this is the right man. And all this happens unconsciously. That's why you cannot answer why you have fallen in love with a certain woman, or with a certain man. It is not a conscious decision. It has been decided by your unconscious imprint.

Amiyo, this whole effort -- whether of relationships or remaining busy in a thousand and one things -- is just to escape from the idea that you are lonely. And I want it to be emphatically clear to you that this is where the meditator and the ordinary man part.

The ordinary man goes on trying to forget his loneliness, and the meditator starts getting more and more acquainted with his aloneness. He has left the world; he has gone to the caves, to the mountains, to the forest, just for the sake of being alone. He wants to know who he is. In the crowd, it is difficult; there are so many disturbances. And those who have known their aloneness have known the greatest blissfulness possible to human beings -- because your very being is blissful.

After being in tune with your aloneness, you can relate; then your relationship will bring great joys to you, because it is not out of fear. Finding your aloneness you can create, you can be involved in as many things as you want, because this involvement will not anymore be running away from yourself. Now it will be your expression; now it will be the manifestation of all that is your potential.

Only such a man -- whether he lives alone or lives in the society, whether he marries or lives unmarried makes no difference -- is always blissful, peaceful, silent. His life is a dance, is a song, is a flowering, is a fragrance. Whatever he does, he brings his fragrance to it.

But the first basic thing is to know your aloneness absolutely.

This escape from yourself you have learned from the crowd. Because everybody is escaping, you start escaping. Every child is born in a crowd and starts imitating people; what others are doing, he starts doing. He falls into the same miserable situations as others are in, and he starts thinking that this is what life is all about. And he has missed life completely.

So I remind you, don't misunderstand aloneness as loneliness. Loneliness is certainly sick; aloneness is perfect health.

Ginsberg visits Doctor Goldberg. "Ja, you are sick."

"Not good enough. I want another opinion."

"Okay," said Doctor Goldberg, "you are ugly too."

We are all committing the same kinds of misunderstandings continually.

I would like my people to know that your first and most primary step towards finding the meaning and significance of life is to enter into your aloneness. It is your temple; it is where your God lives, and you cannot find this temple anywhere else. You can go on to the moon, to Mars....

Once you have entered your innermost core of being, you cannot believe your own eyes: you were carrying so much joy, so many blessings, so much love... and you were escaping from your own treasures.

Knowing these treasures and their inexhaustibility, you can move now into relationships, into creativity. You will help people by sharing your love, not by using them. You will give dignity to people by your love; you will not destroy their respect. And you will, without any effort, become a source for them to find their own treasures too. Whatever you make, whatever you do, you will spread your silence, your peace, your blessings into everything possible.

But this basic thing is not taught by any family, by any society, by any university. People go on living in misery, and it is taken for granted. Everybody is miserable, so it is nothing much if you are miserable; you cannot be an exception.

But I say unto you: You can be an exception. You just have not made the right effort.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY, YOU TALKED ABOUT THE THIRD EYE AS A DOOR FOR

CONNECTING WITH YOU AND EXISTENCE. WHENEVER I FEEL OPEN,

FLOWING, CONNECTING WITH YOU, OTHER PEOPLE, NATURE OR MYSELF, I MOSTLY FEEL IT IN MY HEART AS SILENCE AND EXPANDING

SPACIOUSNESS, AND SOMETIMES AS RADIATING LIGHT. BELOVED OSHO, IS THIS THE SAME KIND OF EXPERIENCE YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT, OR

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONNECTING THROUGH THE THIRD

EYE OR THE HEART; OR ARE THERE DIFFERENT STAGES?

Vedant Amod, what you are experiencing is in itself valuable, but it is not the experience of the third eye. The third eye is a little higher than your experience.

The way the mystics in the East have categorized the evolution of consciousness is in seven centers. Your experiences belong to the fourth center, the heart. It is one of the most important centers, because it is exactly in the middle. Three centers are below it and three centers are above it. That's why love is such a balancing experience.

Your description is, "Whenever I feel open, flowing, connecting with you, other people, nature or myself, I mostly feel it in my heart as silence and expanding spaciousness, and sometimes as radiating light. Is this the same kind of experience you were talking about?"

I was talking about the third eye, which is above the heart. There are three centers above the heart. One is in your throat, which is the center of creativity; one is between your two eyebrows, exactly in the middle, which is called the third eye. Just as you have two eyes to know the outside world... the third eye is only a metaphor, but the experience is knowing oneself, seeing oneself.

The last center is sahastrara, the seventh; that is at the top of your head. As consciousness goes on moving upwards, first you know yourself, and in the second step you know the whole universe; you know the whole and yourself as part of it.

In the old language, the seventh is "knowing God," the sixth is "knowing yourself," the fifth is "being creative," and the fourth is "being loving, sharing and knowing others."

With the fourth, your journey becomes certain; it can be guaranteed that you will reach the seventh. Before the fourth, there is a possibility you may go astray.

The first center is the sex center, which is for reproduction -- so that life continues. Just above it... the sex energy can be moved upwards, and it is a great experience; for the first time you find yourself self-sufficient.

Sex always needs the other. The second center is the center of contentment, self-sufficiency: you are enough unto yourself. At the third center you start exploring -- who are you? who is this self-sufficient being? These centers are all significant....

The moment you find who you are, the fourth center opens and you find you are love.

Before the fourth the journey has started, but there is a possibility you may not be able to complete it. You can go astray. For example, finding yourself self-sufficient, contented, you can remain there; there is no need to do anything anymore. You may not even ask the question, "Who am I?" The sufficiency is so much that all questions disappear.

A master is needed in these moments, so that you don't settle somewhere in the middle without reaching the goal. And there are beautiful spots to settle... feeling contented, what is the need to go on? But the master goes on nagging you and wants you to know who you are; you may be contented, but at least know who you are. The moment you know who you are, a new door opens, because you become aware of life, of love, of joy. You can stay there; it is so much, there is no need to move any more. But the master goads you on, "Move to the fourth! Unless you find the purest energy of love, you will not know the splendor of existence."

After the fourth, you cannot go astray. Once you have known the splendor of existence, creativity arises on its own. You have known beauty; you would like to create it also.

You want to be a creator. A tremendous longing for creativity arises. Whenever you feel love, you always feel creativity just as a shadow coming with it. The man of creativity cannot simply go on looking outside. There is much beauty outside... but he becomes aware that just as there is an infinite sky outside, to balance it there must be the same infinity inside.

If a master is available, it is good; if he is not available, these experiences will lead you onwards.

Once your third eye is opened, and you see yourself, the whole expanse of your consciousness, you have come very close to the temple of God; you are just standing on the steps. You can see the door and you cannot resist the temptation to go inside the temple and see what is there. There you find universal consciousness, there you find enlightenment, there you find ultimate liberation. There you find your eternity.

So these are the seven centers -- just arbitrarily created divisions, so the seeker can move from one to another in a systematic way; otherwise, there is every possibility, if you are working by yourself, to get muddled. Particularly before the fourth center there are dangers, and even after the fourth center....

There have been many poets who have lived at the fifth center of creativity and never gone ahead -- many painters, many dancers, many singers who created great art, but never moved to the third eye. And there have been mystics who have remained with the third eye, knowing their own inner beauty; it is so fulfilling that they thought they had arrived. Somebody is needed to tell you that there is still something more ahead; otherwise, in your ignorance, what you will do is almost unpredictable.

Mike had decided to join the police force and went along for the entrance examination.

The examining sergeant, realizing that the prospective recruit was an Irishman, decided to ask him a simple question. "Who killed Jesus Christ?" he asked.

Mike looked worried and said nothing, so the sergeant told him not to worry and that he could have some time to think about it. Mike was on his way home when he met Paddy.

"Well," said Paddy, "are you a policeman yet?"

"Not only that," says Mike, "but I am on my first case."

Man is such that he needs someone who has known the path and knows the pitfalls, knows the beautiful spots where one can remain stuck, and has compassion enough to go on pushing you -- even against you -- until you have reached to the final stage of your potentiality.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #7

Chapter title: Love: the purest power

25 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

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8704255

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN07

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

63

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU SPOKE ABOUT NIETZSCHE'S CONCEPT OF WILL, IT WAS SO

MUCH THE OPPOSITE POLE TO THE CONCEPT OF WILL THAT THE NAZIS

DEVELOPED FROM THE SAME SOURCE, AND THAT IS STILL SO PREVELANT

IN THE WEST. COULD YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE?

Prem Pankaja, it is the destiny of the genius to be misunderstood. If a genius is not misunderstood, he is not a genius at all. If the common masses can understand, that means the person is speaking at the same level where ordinary intelligence is.

Friedrich Nietzsche is misunderstood, and out of this misunderstanding there has been tremendous disaster. But perhaps it was unavoidable. To understand a man like Nietzsche you have to have at least the same standard of consciousness, if not higher.

Adolf Hitler is so retarded that it is impossible to think that he can understand the meaning of Nietzsche; but he became the prophet of Nietzsche's philosophy. And according to his retarded mind he interpreted -- not only interpreted, but acted according to those interpretations -- and the second world war was the result.

When Nietzsche is talking about "will to power," it has nothing to do with will to dominate. But that is the meaning the Nazis had given to it.

"The will to power" is diametrically opposite to the will to dominate. The will to dominate comes out of an inferiority complex. One wants to dominate others, just to prove to himself that he is not inferior -- he is superior. But he needs to prove it. Without any proof he knows he is inferior; he has to cover it up by many, many proofs.

The really superior man needs no proof, he simply is superior. Does a roseflower argue about its beauty? Does the full moon bother about proving its gloriousness? The superior man simply knows it, there is no need for any proof; hence he has no will to dominate.

He certainly has a "will to power," but then you have to make a very fine distinction. His will to power means: he wants to grow to his fullest expression.

It has nothing to do with anybody else, its whole concern is the individual himself. He wants to blossom, to bring all the flowers that are hidden in his potential, to rise as high as possible in the sky. It is not even comparative, it is not trying to rise higher than others

-- it is simply trying to rise to its fullest potential.

"Will to power" is absolutely individual. It wants to dance to the highest in the sky, it wants to have a dialogue with the stars, but it is not concerned with proving anybody inferior. It is not competitive, it is not comparative.

Adolf Hitler and his followers, the Nazis have done so much harm to the world because they prevented the world from understanding Friedrich Nietzsche and his true meaning.

And it was not only one thing; about every other concept too, they have the same kind of misunderstanding.

It is such a sad fate, one which has never befallen any great mystic or any great poet before Nietzsche. The crucifixion of Jesus or poisoning of Socrates are not as bad a fate, as that which has befallen Friedrich Nietzsche -- to be misunderstood on such a grand scale that Adolf Hitler managed to kill more than eight million people in the name of Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy. It will take a little time.... When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and the second world war are forgotten, Nietzsche will come back to his true light. He is coming back.

Just the other day, sannyasins from Japan informed me that my books are selling in their language at the highest rate and next to them are Friedrich Nietzsche's -- his books are also selling. And just a few days earlier the same information came from Korea. Perhaps people may be finding something similar in them.

But Friedrich Nietzsche has to be interpreted again, so that all the nonsense that has been put, by the Nazis, over his beautiful philosophy can be thrown away. He has to be purified, he needs a baptism.

Little Sammy tells his grandfather about the great scientist, Albert Einstein, and his theory of relativity.

"Ah yes," says the grandfather, "and what does the theory have to say?"

"Our teacher says that only a few people in the whole world can understand it," the boy explains, "but then she told us what it means. Relativity is like this: if a man sits for an hour with a pretty girl, it feels like a minute; but if he sits on a hot stove for a minute, it feels like an hour -- and that's the theory of relativity."

Grandpa is silent and slowly shakes his head, "Sammy," he says softly, "from this your Einstein makes a living?"

People understand according to their own level of consciousness.

It was just a coincidence that Nietzsche fell into the hands of the Nazis. They needed a philosophy for war, and Nietzsche appreciates the beauty of the warrior. They wanted some idea for which to fight, and Nietzsche gave them a good excuse -- for the superman.

Of course, they immediately got hold of the idea of superman. The Nordic German Aryans were going to be Nietzsche's new race of man, the superman. They wanted to dominate the world, and Nietzsche was very helpful, because he was saying that man's deepest longing is "will to power." They changed it into will to dominate.

Now they had the whole philosophy: the Nordic German Aryans are the superior race because they are going to give birth to the superman. They have the will to power and they will dominate the whole world. That is their destiny -- to dominate the inferior human beings. Obviously, the arithmetic is simple: the superior should dominate the inferior.

These beautiful concepts... Nietzsche could not ever have imagined they, would become so dangerous and such a nightmare to the whole of humanity. But you cannot avoid being misunderstood, you cannot do anything about it.

A drunk who smelt of whiskey, cigars, and a cheap perfume, staggered up the steps into the bus, reeled down the aisle, then plopped himself down on a seat next to a Catholic priest.

The drunk took a long look at his offended seat partner and said, "Hey father, I have got a question for you. What causes arthritis?"

The priest's reply was cold and curt, "Amoral living," he said, "too much liquor, smoking and consorting with loose women."

"Well, I'll be damned!" said the drunk.

They rode in silence for a moment. The priest began to feel guilty, that he had reacted so strongly to a man who obviously needed Christian compassion. He turned to the drunk and said, "I am sorry, my son. I did not mean to be harsh. How long have you suffered from this terrible affliction of arthritis?"

"My affliction?" the drunk said, "I don't have arthritis. I was just reading in the paper that the pope had it."

Now, what can you do? Once you have said something, then it all depends on the other person, what he is going to make of it.

But Nietzsche is so immensely important that he has to be cleaned of all the garbage that the Nazis have put on his ideas. And the strangest thing is that not only the Nazis but other philosophers around the world have also misunderstood him. Perhaps he was such a great genius that your so-called great men also were not able to understand him.

He was bringing so many new insights into the world of thinking, that even just a single insight would have made him one of the great philosophers of the world -- and he has dozens of insights which are absolutely original, which man has never thought about. If rightly understood, Nietzsche certainly could create the atmosphere and the right soil for the superman to be born. He can help humanity to be transformed.

I have tremendous respect for the man, and also a great sadness that he was misunderstood -- not only misunderstood, but forced into a madhouse. The doctors declared that he was mad. His insights were so far away from the ordinary mind that the ordinary mind felt very happy in declaring him mad: "If he is not mad, then we are too ordinary." He has to be mad, he has to be forced into a madhouse.

My own feeling is, he was never mad. He was just too much ahead of his time, and he was too sincere and too truthful. He said exactly what he experienced without bothering about politicians, priests and other pygmies. But these pygmies are so many and this man was so alone, that they would not hear that he was not mad. And the proof that he was not mad is his last book, which he wrote in the madhouse.

But I am the first man who is saying that he was not mad. It seems that this whole world is so cunning, so politically minded, that people say only things that bring reputation to them, which bring applause from the crowd. Even your great thinkers are not very great.

The book that he wrote in the madhouse is his greatest work, and is an absolute proof because a mad man could not write it. His last book is THE WILL TO POWER. He did not see it printed, because who is going to print a madman's book? He knocked on many publishers' doors, but was refused -- and now everybody agrees that that is his greatest work. After his death, his sister sold the house and other things to publish the book, because that was his last desire, but he did not see it in print.

Was he mad? or are we living in a mad world? If a madman can write a book like, THE

WILL TO POWER, then it is better to be mad than to be sane like Ronald Reagan, who is piling up nuclear weapons -- there are thousands of people employed in creating nuclear weapons twenty-four hours a day. You call this man sane, and you call Friedrich Nietzsche mad?

An old Indian was sitting in a bar, when a long-haired, bearded, dirty hippy stormed into the bar and ordered a drink. The hippy's raunchy insults drove everyone else out of the bar, but the old Indian sat calmly watching. Finally the old hippy turned to him and said,

"Hey, red man, why the hell are you staring at me? Are you crazy, or something?"

"No," the Indian replied, "twenty years ago I was arrested for making love to a buffalo. I thought you might be my son."

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU TALKED ABOUT THE SUPERMAN, YOU SAID THAT THE CAMEL

HAS TO BECOME A LION. I FEEL VERY ATTRACTED TO THAT LION, BUT I AM STILL AFRAID TO GET IN CONTACT WITH IT. I HAVE THE FEELING THE

LION IN ME HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH MY POWER. HOW CAN I USE MY

POWER WITHOUT LOSING MY LOVE? HOW CAN I USE MY POWER AND

STILL STAY WITH AN OPEN HEART? TO ME, LOVE AND POWER SEEM TO BE

CONTRADICTORY. IS THIS SO? CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, PLEASE?

Dhyan Agni, the question that you are asking is exactly the same as the question that Pankaja asked. You also have the same misunderstanding, although it is not related to Friedrich Nietzsche.

You are basically asking, "How can I use my power without losing my love? How can I use my power and still stay with an open heart? To me, love and power seem to be contradictory."

That's your misunderstanding.

Love and power are not contradictory.

Love is the greatest power in the world.

But you have to understand again: by power I don't mean power over others. Power over others is not love; power over others is pure hate, it is poison, it is destructive.

But to me, and to anyone who knows, love itself is power -- and the greatest power, because there is nothing more creative than love. There is nothing more fulfilling than love, there is nothing more nourishing than love. When you are in love, all fears disappear, and when you become love yourself, even death becomes irrelevant.

Jesus is not very far away from the truth when he says, "God is love." Certainly God is power, the greatest power. I want to improve upon Jesus: I don't say God is love, I say love is God. To me God is only a symbol and love is a reality.

God is only a myth -- love is the experience of millions of people.

God is only a word, but love can become a dance in your heart.

Your misunderstanding is that you think power means power over others. And it is not only your misunderstanding, Dhyan Agni, it is the misunderstanding of millions of people. And because of this misunderstanding they destroy the whole beauty of love.

Instead of creating a paradise out of it, they create a hell for each other, because everybody is trying to dominate everybody else in the name of love -- but deep down is the desire to dominate.

Love in itself is unconditional. It knows only giving, sharing; it does not know any desire for getting something in return. It does not ask for any response. Its joy and its reward is in sharing. And its power is in its sharing. It is so powerful that it can go on sharing with millions of people, and still the heart remains overflowing with love -- it is inexhaustible.

That is its power.

You are asking, "How can I use my power without losing my love?" If you want to dominate, then certainly you will have to lose your love. But if you want to love, you can love as powerfully as you want.

There is no contradiction between power and love. If there is a contradiction between power and love, then love will become powerless, it will become impotent, uncreative, weak; power will become dangerous, destructive -- it will start to enjoy torturing people.

Love and power separate are the misery of the world. Love and power together, as one energy, can become a great transformation. Life can become a blissfulness. And it is only a question of dropping a misunderstanding.

It is just as if you were thinking two plus two is equal to five, and then somebody points out to you that you are calculating wrongly: two plus two is not five, two plus two is four.

Do you think many austerities will be needed to change your misconception? Will you have to stand on your head for hours to change your idea that two and two are four, or five? Or you will have to go on a fast unto death to change your misconception? Or you will have to renounce the world and all its pleasures because your calculation is wrong and you have to purify your soul first; otherwise how can you calculate rightly?

These are simple calculations, and a man of understanding can change them within a second. It is just a question of seeing where you have gone astray. Bring yourself back.

"I had the strangest dream last night," a man was telling his psychiatrist. "I saw my mother, but when she turned around to look at me, I noticed she had your face. As you can imagine, I found this very disturbing; and in fact I woke up immediately and could not get back to sleep. I just lay there in bed waiting for the morning to come and then I got up, drank a coke and came right over here for my appointment. I thought you could help me explain the meaning of this strange dream."

The psychiatrist was silent for a few moments before responding, "A coke? You call that breakfast?"

The poor fellow has come to understand the dream, why his mother's face has turned into his psychiatrist's face; but that is not the problem to the psychiatrist. To him the problem is: "A coke? You call that breakfast?"

But just watch people talking, and you will be amazed -- everywhere there is misunderstanding. You are saying something, something else is understood; somebody else is saying something, you understand something else.

The world would be a more silent and peaceful place if people were saying only five percent of what they are saying now -- although that five percent will cover absolutely everything that is essential. And I am not taking a very minimum point, that is the maximum. You can try it: speak only the essential, as if you are giving a telegram, so you have to go on choosing just ten words. And have you watched? Your telegram means more than your long letter, condensed. Be telegraphic and you will be surprised that in the whole day there are very few times when you have to speak.

One retired mathematician used to live in my neighborhood in a city. His whole life he had been a teacher, and it was very difficult for him to suffer retirement. His wife had not been on talking terms with him for years; "Because" she said, "He is such a bore! It is better not to talk with him. He immediately goes into mathematics."

No other neighbor was welcoming to him; one of my neighbors was worried about me because he used to come to me for hours. He was worried that that old fellow must be torturing me. He came to give me a suggestion.

He said, "I give you a suggestion how to get rid of this old man. Whenever you see him coming, just take your umbrella, stand on the door as if you are going somewhere, and he will ask, 'Where are you going?' and you can say that you are going somewhere."

I said, "You don't know that man! If I say I am going somewhere, he will say, Ì'm coming along,' and that will be more torturous. It is better here. And it is not a torture, I enjoy it, because I have nothing to say, I simply sit silently. He alone does everything. He talks and he goes on and on, and finally he thanks me and says, `You are such a good conversationalist.' and I say, Ì am nothing compared to you, but I am learning just a little bit from you.'"

People don't want you to speak, they want you to listen. And if you learn a simple art of listening to people, so much misunderstanding in the world will be avoided.

The very elderly couple were listening to a religious revival on the radio. The preacher ended his stirring speech by saying, "God wants to heal you all. Just stand up, put one hand on the radio, then place the other on the part of the body that is sick."

The old woman tottered to her feet, put one hand on the radio and the other on her arthritic leg. The old man put one hand on the radio and one hand on his genitals.

The old woman snapped at him, "Fred! This preacher said God would heal the sick, not raise the dead!"

But you cannot avoid being misunderstood.

I don't know who has given you the idea that love and power are contradictory. Change it, because changing it will change you and your whole life.

Love is power, the purest power and the greatest power: Love is God. Nothing can be higher than that. But this power is not a desire to enslave others, this power is not a destructive force.

This power is the very source of creation.

This power is creativity.

And this power will transform you totally into a new being. It has no concern with anybody. Its whole concern is to bring your seeds to their ultimate flowering.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #8

Chapter title: You have forgotten the way home

26 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704260

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN08

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

97

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IN MY MEDITATIONS, AS I TRY TO LOOK MORE AND MORE INSIDE, I OFTEN

FEEL THAT THERE IS NOBODY. IT IS LIKE FALLING INTO AN ENDLESS

BLACK GAP. AND I FEEL A LOT OF TENSION, AND WANTING TO RUN AWAY.

IF THERE IS NO ME INSIDE, THEN WHOM SHOULD I LOVE? PLEASE HELP ME

FIND THAT LOVE FOR MYSELF, AND THAT TOTALITY THAT YOU HAVE

TALKED ABOUT SO MANY TIMES.

Shivam Annette, the question you have asked is one of the most important questions as far as the people who are meditating are concerned. Before I go into your question, a few necessary distinctions have to be understood.

When I say, "Go inwards," that does not mean that you will find someone there waiting for you. On the contrary, the more you go inwards, the less and less you are an ego. You are, but the feeling of I-ness starts disappearing -- for the simple reason that the I can exist only in reference to Thou. If the Thou is not present, the I starts melting.

Outside you are confronted with many Thous, they keep your I alive. But inside, there is no Thou; hence, there can be no I. That does not mean that you are not. It simply means you are in your purity -- not in reference to somebody else, but just yourself, without any reference, in your absolute aloneness. Because our whole life we live as an ego, as an I, this disappearance of the I naturally creates fear and an effort to run away. Although it is natural, it is not right.

You have to go through this fear, darkness, anxiety, tension, because your I is dying. Up to now, you have remained identified with the I, so it seems as if you are dying. But just look at a single point: you are watching fear, you are watching the disappearance of I, you are watching tension, you are watching blackness, darkness, you are watching a feeling of nobodiness. This watcher is you.

Going inwards is to find the witness in its absolute purity, unpolluted by anything -- just a pure mirror, not reflecting anything. If mirrors were thinkers -- fortunately they are not --

and if they were brought up always with somebody looking in them, that would have given them an idea of who they are. And for many years, always reflecting somebody, they would have created a certain image of themselves -- that they are the reflectors.

Just visualize that one day suddenly nobody reflects in the mirror. The mirror will feel fear. The mirror will feel as if he is falling into a deep abyss, dark, dismal, into nonexistence -- who is he? His identity is lost just because nobody is looking in the mirror.

The mirror has not changed, in fact the mirror is pure. But with this purity he has never been acquainted; nobody has introduced him to this purity.

Meditation takes you to your purity.

Your purity is witnessing, watching, awareness.

You have not asked, "Who is the watcher?" You are asking, "I find there is nobody."

Who finds it? -- that's you! You will find nothingness, you will find nothing reflected in you; you will find emptiness. You have to change your focus from the object to your subjectivity. One thing is certain: the witness is present, and the inward journey is to find the witness -- is to find the pure mirror of your being.

You say, "In my meditations, as I try to look more and more inside, I often feel that there is nobody." But you are not conscious at all that you are finding that there is nobody. But you are! Do you think you are going to meet yourself as somebody? Do you think you are going to meet somebody who will say, "Hello, Shivam Annette, how do you do?" That will really freak you out -- "My God, I'm not one, I'm two!"

This feeling that there is nobody is absolutely right. You are on the right track. Just go on being alert that you are still there, watching. All these are objects -- the nobody, the darkness, the fear, the tension.... "It is like falling into an endless black gap. And I feel a lot of tension and wanting to run away."

Watch all these things. They are just your old habits. You have never been into your own depths; hence the fear of the unacquainted, of the unknown. You have always been going around and around -- but outside -- and you have even forgotten the path to your inner home. In the beginning it will look like an endless black gap. Allow it. Blackness has a beauty of its own. Blackness is deep, is silent -- enjoy it! There is no need to run away from it.

"If there is no me inside, then whom should I love?"

There is certainly no me inside anyone. But there is something else far more important: there is something which can only be called your am-ness, your is-ness -- just your pure existence.

You call it me, because outside you need to refer to yourself.

Have you watched small babies? In the beginning they often refer to themselves by their name, "Johnny is hungry." They are far more accurate. But in a society they will be thought to be insane. "Johnny is hungry?" Why don't you say, "I'm hungry" "Johnny"

gives the idea that somebody else is hungry. Johnny is your name to be used by others.

You cannot use it when you are referring to yourself. Then you have to refer to yourself as Ì', `me', but not your name."

It happened in Thomas Alva Edison's life... he was one of the greatest scientists. As far as numbers of inventions are concerned he is unparallelled -- he invented one thousand things. It is almost impossible to find a thing which is not invented by Thomas Alva Edison. He was so much respected that nobody mentioned his name, just out of respect.

His colleagues called him Professor, his students called him Sir, and obviously he didn't use his own name.

Then came the first world war, and for the first time rationing was introduced, and he went to the rationing shop. There was a queue; he was standing in the queue and when the man in front of him had left, the clerk shouted loudly, "Who is Thomas Alva Edison?" And Thomas Alva Edison looked here and there, where is Thomas Alva Edison? The clerk was also a little puzzled, because this man ought to be Thomas Alva Edison; it was his number. And the whole queue was also puzzled. They were looking at each other, what is the matter?

Finally one man from the back of the queue said to him, "Sir, as far as I remember, I have seen you. You are Thomas Alva Edison."

And Edison said, "If you say so, perhaps I am."

The clerk said, "Are you insane or what?"

He said, "Not insane, but I have not heard this name for almost thirty years. I have forgotten it. Nobody calls me by the name. My father died when I was very young, my mother died. Now it is a far, faraway memory. I can remember that something like Thomas Alva Edison used to be my name, but for thirty years nobody has mentioned it. It is good that that man recognized me; otherwise I don't think that on my own I would have been able to recognize it myself."

It is a rare case, but thirty years is a long time, particularly for a man like Edison whose life is so full of creativity. His thirty years are almost three hundred years in your life.

It is simply a social invention that you refer to others by their name, and you refer to yourself by I, me. But inside there is no other, and with the other gone, the me, the I, is gone.

But there is no need to worry. You will not find your I, but you will find something greater: you will find your is-ness, your existence, your being.

When I say "Love yourself," this is for those who have never gone inside, because they can always... they are bound to understand only a language of duality. Love yourself --

that means you are dividing yourself into two, the lover and the loved. You may not have thought about it, but if you go inside you will not love yourself, you will be love.

You will be simply the energy called love.

You will be loving; you will radiate love. Love will be your fragrance.

Goldstein, who looked Jewish, was walking down a street in Berlin just before the war, when he accidentally collided with a stout Nazi officer.

"Schwein," bellowed the Nazi.

"Goldstein," replied the Jew with a courteous bow.

Sometimes you may need your name also; life gives strange situations. Goldstein did well. Rather than being offended, he introduced himself, just as the Nazi had introduced himself. But all these names can be used only on the outside.

Inside you are nameless, you are egoless. Inside you are just a pure existence -- and out of that pure existence arises the aroma of love.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

BEING WITH YOU, SEEING YOUR BEAUTY, HEARING YOUR COZY VOICE, FEELING YOUR PRESENCE -- THIS ALL UNCOVERED AGAIN THE DEEP

LONGING IN ME FOR THAT WHICH ZARATHUSTRA CALLED `THE GREAT

NOONTIDE'. IS THAT ENOUGH? DOES THAT LEAD ME TO THE ULTIMATE?

Shantu Abhinava, this is not enough. This will not bring you to what Zarathustra calls,

"the great noontide", but it is a good beginning.

You are saying, "Being with You, seeing Your beauty, hearing Your cozy voice, feeling Your presence -- this all uncovered again the deep longing in me for that which Zarathustra called `the great noontide'. Is that enough? Does that lead me to the ultimate?"

It is not enough, and it will not lead you on its own to the ultimate. You will have to understand something deeper on each point that you mention. "Being with You" is not enough; you have to be with yourself. Being with me may give you a taste, but that is not going to be enough nourishment. You have to learn, from that -- being with yourself.

"Seeing Your beauty"... these are good indications, but when are you going to see your beauty? I can only be an arrow. But the arrow is always pointing towards your center.

The arrow may be beautiful, you may appreciate it, that was not the purpose of the arrow.

The purpose of the arrow was for you to move to where it was pointing.

You have to see your beauty.

You have not only to hear my voice; you have to hear the still, small voice of your own being.

It is a good beginning to experience my presence, but one should not stop at it. You have to experience your presence. That will bring in you what Zarathustra calls `the great noontide'.

The master is just a milestone, on every milestone there is an arrow showing you -- move on, you are coming closer to the goal. And when you come to the milestone where there is no arrow but zero, you have come home. That is the great noontide.

This is not going to happen just by itself; you will have to move a little, make a little effort. And the effort has to be very relaxed -- that is the secret. We know efforts, but they become tensions, anxieties, worries.

You have to learn a different kind of effort -- what Lao Tzu calls effortless effort --

utterly relaxed, because you are not going anywhere. You are simply relaxing within yourself. You are not going to find some goal, some achievement far away which creates worries -- whether you are on the right path or on the wrong path, whether you are moving in the right direction, whether the goal really exists or it is just a fiction that you have heard from others. With me one thing is clear -- that you are not a fiction.

God may be a fiction and paradise may be a fiction.

You are a reality.

Relaxing within yourself simply means not going outwards, withdrawing all your energy which generally goes on moving outwards. Don't go anywhere -- just be now and here.

There is no question of tension, there is no question of any worry.

Silently you will slip into your own being and you will feel a great presence and you will hear a soundless sound -- what the Zen people call "the sound of one hand clapping."

You will see the most beautiful space which you cannot imagine, which you cannot even dream of. And it is so close by -- just at the very center of you.

The journey is small, but it has to be done, and done in such a strange way that there is no doer -- almost the way you fall asleep. You cannot be a doer, you cannot make any effort to bring sleep -- that will be a disturbance. This entering into your own being and presence is almost like allowing it to happen.

That is the great effort which is effortless, which will bring the noontide and the ultimate experience. In a single word: meditation is equivalent to total relaxation. Just doing nothing, sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

ONE LINE FROM DOSTOEVSKY'S WORK HAS IMPRESSED ME MUCH IN MY

CHILDHOOD. HE SAYS, "IN SUFFERING LOOK FOR HAPPINESS." I USED TO

THINK THAT NOTHING OF VALUE COULD BE ATTAINED WITHOUT

SACRIFICE AND HARD WORK. AFTER MEETING YOU AND DRINKING YOUR

MESSAGE OF LOVE, LIFE, ENJOYMENT AND CELEBRATION, I REALIZE THAT

MY PREVIOUS IDEA WAS QUITE MASOCHISTIC AND SUICIDAL. I LOVE

DOSTOEVSKY AND ALL HIS WORKS HAVE BEEN OF IMMENSE VALUE TO

ME. BUT NOW I FEEL THERE IS A DEPTH OF SADNESS IN HIM, WHICH HE

SEEMS TO STOP -- AS IF SOMETHING OF THE OPPOSITE IS MISSING. COULD

YOU PLEASE SHED SOME LIGHT ON THIS?

Jivan Mada, Fyodor Dostoevsky is a very special case -- he was a genius. If one has to decide on ten great novels in all the languages of the world, he will have to choose at least three novels of Dostoevsky in the ten.

His insight into human beings and their problems is greater than your so-called psychoanalysts, and there are moments where he reaches the heights of great mystics. But he is a sick soul; he himself is a psychological case.

He needs all the compassion, because he lived in suffering, utter suffering. He never knew a moment of joy; he was pure anguish, angst. But still he managed to write novels which perhaps are the best in the whole literature of the world. BROTHERS

KARAMAZOV is so great in its insights that no BIBLE or KORAN or GITA can be a competitor to it.

And this is the strange fact about him: that he was writing such great insights as if he was possessed, but he himself was living in hell. He created it himself. He never loved anybody, he was never loved by anybody. He never knew that there is something like laughter; he was sickly serious. I don't see that he ever felt even a single moment of blissfulness. There is nobody else in the whole history of man who was so sick, and yet had such clarity about things. He was a madman with a method.

You are saying, "One line from Dostoevsky has impressed me much in my childhood. He says, Ìn suffering look for happiness.'"

That statement will appeal to many people because many are suffering, and one can tolerate suffering only if one goes on looking for happiness; if not today then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Suffering can be tolerated only through hope. Then one can suffer his whole life, just looking for happiness.

Your being impressed by the statement is dangerous. One should not look for happiness; one should look for the causes of suffering, because that is the way to come out of suffering. And the moment you are out of suffering there is happiness. Happiness is not something that you have to wait for. You can wait for infinity and happiness will not come to you, unless you destroy the causes of suffering.

I will not agree with the statement. I will say, "In suffering look for the causes of suffering." Don't waste your time about happiness; it is none of your business. You are suffering; suffering is your state. Look what is causing it -- jealousy, anger, inferiority complex -- what is causing it?

And the miracle is: if you can go into your suffering as a meditation, watching, to the deepest roots of it, just through watching, it disappears. You don't have to do anything more than watching. If you have found the authentic cause by your watching, the suffering will disappear; and if it is not disappearing, that means you are not watching deep enough.

So it is a very simple process and with a criterion: if your watching is deep enough... just the way you pull out a plant to look at its roots, it dies, because the roots outside the earth cannot survive. In the light is their death.

Suffering can exist only if its roots remain in the unconscious of your being. If you go deep down searching and looking for the roots, the moment you become conscious of the roots of suffering, suffering disappears. The disappearance of suffering is what you call happiness.

Happiness has not to be found somewhere else; it was always with you, but the cloud of suffering was covering it. Happiness is our nature.

To say it in other words: for suffering you have to make much effort, for happiness you don't have to make any effort. Just stop making the effort to create suffering.

"I used to think that nothing of value could be attained without sacrifice and hard work."

That is the disease Christianity has been spreading all over the world. In fact, everything of authentic value is achieved by relaxation, by silence, by joy. The idea of sacrifice and hard work will create more suffering for you. But once the idea gets settled in your mind, your mind will go on telling you that you are suffering because you are not working hard enough, that your sacrifice is not total.

Hard work is needed to create things. Sacrifice is needed when you have something of value, truth, love, enlightenment. And when there is an attack by the mob on your experience, one is ready to sacrifice, but not to compromise.

Sacrifice is not in finding the truth; sacrifice is when you have found it -- then you will be in trouble. Sacrifice is not in finding love, but when you have found it you will be in trouble. Then either compromise or sacrifice. The cowards compromise. The people who have guts sacrifice -- but sacrifice is not a means to attain anything.

"After meeting you and drinking your message of love, life, enjoyment and celebration, I realized that my previous idea was quite masochistic and suicidal."

It is good that you understood something very significant. All your saints who have been sacrificing and working hard and torturing themselves, are just masochistic and suicidal.

And because they are worshipped, they go on continuing more and more masochistic torture to themselves.

And the people who are worshipping them also have the same desire, but not the courage; they also want to be saints, perhaps in a future life. At least in this life they can worship the saints.

The whole past of humanity has been dominated by masochistic, sadistic, and suicidal people. That's why there is so much misery. To be blissful in this world looks as if you are committing a crime; to dance with joy amongst so many dead people all around... you cannot be forgiven.

I have always thought that Christianity became the greatest religion of the world because Jesus was on the cross. Just think, if he was with his girlfriend on the beach there would not have been any Christianity, although he would have enjoyed....

And why did it become the greatest religion? Almost half of humanity is Christian.

Because he represents your deepest desire. You also want to be crucified, and in different ways you are crucifying yourself; in the name of duty, in the name of nations, in the name of the religion....

Jesus says, "Everybody has to carry his cross on his shoulders." But why? this will look very awkward -- wherever you go you will be carrying your cross. But nobody has objected to it. Nobody has said, "Why?" And if I say that everybody has to carry his guitar they all condemn me! The whole world is against a single man who is not saying anything sick.

This is a sick idea, carrying your cross. Can't you carry anything else? Just a flowerpot?

If you are determined to carry... then there are more beautiful things in the world. A cross is not something... just a bamboo flute will do, light in weight. And you can do something with it. You can play on it -- a beautiful tune, a song; you can dance. What are you going to do with the cross? -- except crucify yourself. So why carry it. Why not crucify it here and now? Unnecessarily carrying such weight....

Jesus was only thirty-three years of age, and he fell three times while he was carrying the cross -- the cross was so heavy. And naturally, if it becomes the fashion that everybody has to carry his cross, you will see that people will be carrying heavier and heavier crosses, heavier than everybody else! You will feel embarrassed if you are carrying a small cross -- are you childish or what? A heavy cross is needed so that you fall on the road many times and have many fractures....

But Christianity is masochistic. It does not know anything about enjoying life. It knows only about sacrificing life -- sacrificing for some stupid fiction. It knows nothing of singing and dancing and celebration.

You say, "I love Dostoevsky and all his works have been of immense value to me. But now I feel there is a depth of sadness in him, which he seems to stop -- as if something of the opposite is missing."

There is not only sadness in him, there is absolutely suicidal instinct; he is tired and bored with life itself. In his best book, BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, one of the characters, Ivan Karamazov, makes a very significant statement. Perhaps Dostoevsky himself is speaking through him.

Ivan Karamazov says, "If there is a God and I meet him, I am going to return his ticket and ask him, `Why did you send me life without asking me? What right do you have? I want to return the ticket to you.'" This is a suicidal instinct.

He lived very miserably and has always written that existence has no meaning, that it has no significance, that it is accidental, that there is nothing to find -- no truth, no love, no joy. All his conclusions are wrong. But the man was tremendously capable, a great genius. Even if he writes things which are wrong, he writes with such art and such beauty that millions of people have been influenced by him -- just like you, Jivan Mada.

The danger is: the words can be beautiful and the message can be poison, pure poison.

His insights are deep -- but they are always deep -- to find more suffering in life, more misery in life. He is determined in all his works to prove that life is an exercise of utter futility. He influenced the contemporary philosophical movement of existentialism -- he became a pioneer.

I also love him, but I also feel sad and sorry for him. He was a man who could have danced, who could have loved, who could have lived with tremendous totality and intensity. But he served death rather than life. Read him -- there is nothing better to read -

- but remember you are reading a psychopath, a man who is deeply sick, incurably sick.

His whole work is just a dark night which knows no dawn.

Okay Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #9

Chapter title: I want you to become the dance

26 April 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704265

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN09

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

93

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

NIETZSCHE'S MAXIM: "ONE IS PUNISHED MOST FOR ONE'S VIRTUES" I SEE

THE TRUTH OF MOST CLEARLY IN YOU. BUT EVEN A MAN WHO IS

VIRTUOUS BY SOCIETY'S STANDARDS IS SUBTLY PUNISHED TOO, ISN'T HE?

-- PUNISHED BY JEALOUSY AND CRITICISM. IT IS AS IF ONE IS ONLY

MEANT TO STRIVE TOWARDS; TO ATTAIN IS AN ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT

MATTER. IS THIS SO?

Maneesha, Friedrich Nietzsche's maxim: "One is punished most for one's virtues" has a very deep and different meaning from what you have seen in it.

The man of virtue is not in any way a hypocrite; he is sincere, truthful. Society consists of hypocrites; they want virtue also to be a hypocrisy, and they have created false virtues which have no relation at all to any authentic virtuousness.

The people who conform to the society's idea of virtues are never punished; they are rewarded, they are respected. They are not stoned to death, they are not crucified. They are crowned as saints, as sages, as wise people; every kind of honor is given to them. But the basic condition is that they should conform to the idea of the society. They should not bother whether it is really virtuous; they should not even inquire.

Absolute surrender is needed by the society, a total enslavement. Only then the society gives respectability -- only to the slaves, only to those who have committed spiritual suicide. They are not really virtuous people. Just look around in different societies so that you can have a sense of how real virtue and the so-called virtue of the societies are diametrically opposite.

In India you will find Hindu monks all getting fat and ugly because it is thought by the Hindus that to eat milk products is a virtue, because the cow is a holy animal. So the Hindu monk goes on eating milk products, goes on gathering fat -- bigger the belly, bigger the saint. If you want to measure the height of the saint you have to measure his belly.

The Jaina monks eat only one time a day -- and that too, standing. To make everything as uncomfortable as possible is a virtue. Now I cannot conceive what sin there is in sitting comfortably and eating. And because they have to eat only one time a day, they eat as much as possible -- to compensate, because then they have to wait twenty-four hours again. So their bodies become thin and their bellies become big -- but it is respected.

One of the sects of the Jainas believes that a saint is perfect only when he starts living naked. But what is the virtue in being naked? All the animals are naked. First these monks torture their bodies in every way. They cannot use anything except their own hands; for eating they will have to make a cup of their hands, they cannot use a plate.

That is thought to be renunciation, great renouncing of the world and worldly things.

Then it goes to the extreme of stupidity. They cannot use razor blades, so they have to pull out their hairs with their own hands. It is such an ugly scene. Thousands of people, men, women, children, gather to see -- this is a very special occasion, a very holy occasion -- when a Jaina monk pulls out his hairs, beard, mustache. Tears are coming from his eyes. He is standing naked, surrounded by people; his whole body is a skeleton except the belly, and all these people are looking at the scene with such respect. They will take those hairs and make lockets of them -- they are holy hairs. They will kiss the ground on which the saint was standing -- it is holy ground.

But I don't see that there is any virtue in it. Certainly the man who is doing this act, performing this stupidity, is a masochist -- and the people who have gathered there to see him do it are certainly sadists. They love to see people being tortured, and when somebody is torturing himself, that is a delicacy. Both are sick. But the masochist becomes a great saint and the sadists become followers.

Authentic virtue is a totally different thing. It needs a deep exploration of your own being, living according to your own insight, even if it goes -- and most often it will --

against the social norms, the ideals, and the conditioning.

Friedrich Nietzsche is saying, "One is punished most for one's virtues." But the virtues have to be your own, they have to be your own discoveries. And you have to be courageous and rebellious enough to live them, whatever the cost.

Socrates was asked by the judges, "We can forgive you if you stop speaking completely.

What you think is truth is not accepted by the people amongst whom you have to live.

They are offended by your truth. If you promise -- and we can trust you, we know you are a man of your word -- if you promise not to speak again, to just be silent, you can save your life."

The answer that Socrates gave is to be remembered forever by all those who, in some way, are interested in truth. He said, "I'm living only to speak the truth. Life was given to me by existence to experience truth, and now I'm repaying life by spreading the truth to those who are groping in the dark. If I cannot speak then I don't see any point -- why should I live? My life and my message of truth are synonymous. Please don't try to seduce me. If I am alive I will speak."

The judges were at a loss. One of the judges said, "You are too stubborn, Socrates."

Socrates said, "It is not I who is stubborn; it is truth, it is virtue which is stubborn. Truth knows no compromise. It is better to die than to be condemned forever because I compromised for a small life. I'm already old; death will come anyway. And it is far more beautiful to accept death, because then death also becomes meaningful. I'm accepting it on the grounds that even death cannot stop me from speaking."

Society has virtues. There are hundreds of societies in the world, so naturally there are hundreds of different kinds of virtues. Something is virtuous in one society and the same thing is unvirtuous in another society.

For example, the whole world economy depends on the system of charging interest. A society becomes richer if the money moves faster and does not remain stuck in one hand, but the money can move faster only if there is some incentive. Why should I give my money to somebody else unless I can earn something out of it? Interest is nothing but a strategy to make the money move from one hand to another hand. And the faster the money moves, the richer the society becomes.

Mohammedans are poor because interest is condemned by their religion as a sin. To take interest or to give interest is a great sin. Now Mohammedans can never be rich; or if they become rich, they have to be condemned by the society. They cannot take loans from the banks because interest will have to be paid. Mohammedanism is the world's second largest religion after Christianity, and they have remained poor for a single reason: that interest is thought to be a sin.

No other society thinks interest is a sin. What is the sin in it? You take somebody's money, you have to pay something; otherwise why should he give his money to you?

Interest is just a kind of rent. But the Mohammedan considers interest to be so unvirtuous that anybody who commits the sin loses all respect in the society. The same person will gain respect in any other society because he will become richer -- and richness is respected.

The vegetarians are not willing to see a simple fact, that not a single vegetarian has received, up to now, a Nobel prize. Forty percent of Nobel prizes go to the Jews, which is simply out of proportion to their numbers; sixty percent go to the rest of the world and forty percent to the Jews alone. And why have vegetarians not been able to find a single Nobel prize? The reason is in their food, because it lacks a few vitamins which are absolutely necessary for intelligence to grow. It is virtuous, in a vegetarian society, not to eat meat -- but you are losing your intelligence.

Substitutes could have been found and I have been for thirty years continually telling vegetarians, "You should start eating unfertilized eggs. They are absolutely vegetable because there is no life in them. And they contain all the vitamins that intelligence absolutely needs; otherwise you will remain retarded."

Vegetarians stopped asking me to speak at their conferences; they became my enemies, and I was simply suggesting to them something that is purely scientific and in their favor.

But they would rather listen to their tradition; they will not see the facts.

The virtues that society's concepts create are just manufactured by man's mind. If you agree with them you will be rewarded greatly. But what Nietzsche is saying is not about those virtues which are acceptable to any society, but about those virtues which an individual finds in the clarity of his own intelligence, in the silences of his own heart, in the understanding of his own being -- and follows them. He will be crucified, he will be stoned to death, because he will not be acceptable to the crowd.

You are saying, "Nietzsche's maxim: Òne is punished most for one's virtues' I see the truth of most clearly in You. But even a man who is virtuous by society's standards is subtly punished too, isn't he? -- punished by jealousy and criticism."

No, Maneesha, he is not punished by jealousy or criticism. He is certainly punished by his own virtue -- that is another thing -- because he will have to do something stupid, he will have to torture himself, he will have to go against his own intelligence. Only then can he fulfill the demands of the society that he should be virtuous.

But these saints and virtuous people are not punished by jealousy and criticism. Criticism is for those who are not following the virtuous; jealousy is for those who are enjoying life and are not being ascetics. The virtuous people are punished, they are punished by their own virtue, but their egos are so immensely satisfied that they are ready to do anything --

they can even commit suicide.

Jainism is the only religion in the world where even suicide is considered a virtue. Of course it has to be done in a certain methodological way: one has to fast unto death. It is a very torturous, long awaiting, because a healthy person can live without food for ninety days. And those ninety days, continuous hunger and waiting for death... and people around him are singing religious songs and worshiping him. His pictures are printed in the newspapers with great respect, as though he is doing something very spiritual; he is leaving the condemned body. And even today, people do it.

So they are punished, but by their own virtue, not by others. Do you think anybody will feel jealous that somebody is committing suicide? Do you think somebody will criticize him? His worshipers will kill whoever criticizes him.

"It is as if one is only meant to strive towards; to attain is an altogether different matter."

That's true. Society talks about, scriptures talk about, great virtues of truth, of love, of silence, of peace, of brotherhood. But they are only to be talked about; you are not supposed to practice them. Yes, in the name of love you can kill as many people as you want. Millions of people have been killed in the name of Christian love; millions of others have been killed in the name of peace, by the Mohammedans.

These beautiful words are just decorative. They give you a good feeling that you have such a beautiful philosophy to live by, such beautiful, distant stars to reach -- but don't try to reach to those stars, because a man of truth will not be acceptable in society!

The society lives by lies, so many lies that the man of truth is going to expose it -- he is a danger. The man of love cannot be acceptable because the society lives by hate: one nation hates another, one religion hates another, one color hates another. There are so many groups, sects, cults and they are all hating each other and are ready to destroy each other. Just talk about love, write about love, but don't practice -- because a man of love is dangerous. That means he will be against you whenever he sees any hatred, any anger.

For a man of love, nationality is nothing but a beautiful name for hatred. Religious organizations are nothing but sophisticated ways of hating others who don't belong to your organization, to your herd, to your crowd.

Friedrich Nietzsche is right; his whole life's experience is condensed in that small statement. He suffered for his virtues.

The Italian priest was preaching about sex and morality to his congregation. "Sex is-a dirty", he shouted. "I wanna see only good-a girls today. I wanna every virgin in-a church to-a stand up."

Not a soul moved. Then after a long pause a sexy looking blond holding an infant in her arms got to her feet. "Virgins is-a what I want," said the outraged priest.

"Hey father," she asked, "you expect a two month old baby to stand by herself?"

I was in Greece and one of my sannyasins, Amrito, who was my hostess, told me that virginity is the most important quality preached by the Greek Orthodox church. I said,

"But are there virgins in Greece?"

She said, "That is a different matter. I have not come across any virgins."

As a doctrine it is beautiful, but in reality virginity should not be a virtue; it is going against nature. In fact, a man who has any intelligence should not marry a girl who is a virgin; you should expect some experience.

When you employ a servant you ask, "What are your qualifications? Bring all your certificates." You are going to marry a woman for your whole life; you should at least think that if she has remained a virgin that means no man was attracted to her up to now, so why are you being stupid? First ask how many people she has been in love with. The more experienced she is the better companion she will prove to be, because experience is always valuable. Experience is a virtue in every field!

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHILST YOU WERE SPEAKING ON KAHLIL GIBRAN AND ZARATHUSTRA, YOUR WORDS SEEMED TO PENETRATE WITHOUT MY INTERPRETATION

DIRECTLY TO THE CENTER OF MY BEING. I EXPERIENCED AN

ATTUNEMENT, A COMMUNION HAPPENING AS NECTAR THAT WAS FILLING

MY BEING. SOMETIMES, WITHOUT SOBBING, TEARS SIMPLY POURED FROM

MY EYES, AND AFTER ALMOST EVERY DISCOURSE I FELT FOR A LONG

WHILE IN TOUCH WITH SOMETHING FAR BEYOND WHAT I KNOW OF AS

MYSELF. WITH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I STILL

FEEL THAT SPECIAL WHATEVER-IT-IS THAT COMES WHEN SITTING WITH

YOU, BUT NOT WITH THE DEPTH OF INTENSITY I HAVE JUST DESCRIBED.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Prabodh Nityo, the question you have asked raises many other questions too. I would like to cover all the implications in short, because it is important not only to you but for everyone else here.

The first thing: as far as I am concerned, the question-answer sessions are more significant because they relate to you, they relate to your growth. Certainly you are groping in darkness, trying to find a way. You cannot ask questions of the heights of Zarathustra, of Kahlil Gibran -- and I have to answer your reality.

Listening to Zarathustra and Kahlil Gibran is a good and great entertainment: you may sob and you may have tears and you may feel great, but it is all hot air! You remain the same -- nothing changes in you. I speak sometimes on Buddha, on Chuang Tzu, on Zarathustra, just to give you an insight into the heights people have reached, just to make you aware of those distant stars. They are not so distant as they look -- people like us have reached there. It is within your grasp.

That is the reason why, on Zarathustra and Buddha and Bodhidharma and a thousand others, I have spoken: to create a longing in you. But just the longing is not enough. Then I have to give you the path; then I have to sort out the mess that you are, and put your fragments, which are spread all over the space... to find out where your legs are and where your head is and put them all together, and somehow push you on the path.

The question-answer sessions are concerned with you, your growth, your progress -- the place where you are. And the discourses on Zarathustra or Kahlil Gibran are concerned with the places where you should be -- but you are not yet there.

So I disagree with you. I can understand that you enjoy the dream that is created when one is hearing about Buddha.... You have nothing to do; you are just listening to great poetry, listening to a great song, listening to great music, seeing a great dance. But you are not singing, you are not becoming the poetry, you are not becoming the dance. And I want you to become the dance; I want you to reach to the greatest heights that anybody has ever reached.

So I have to keep a balance, talking about the dreamlands and then talking about the dark caves where you are hiding, very reluctant to come out in the light. You want to hear about light and you enjoy, but you remain hiding in your dark cave. You want to hear about strange lands, beautiful stories and parables, but it is mere entertainment.

You should be more concerned when I am answering the questions, because they can change your reality. I have to do both jobs: create the longing, give a glimpse of the goal, and then clean the path and grease your parts -- because you have never moved in many many lives, you are sitting in a junkyard -- to put you back on the wheels and rolling.

The second job is difficult, and not very juicy either. But it is absolutely necessary.

Secondly, I have to remind you of one thing. When I was speaking on Zarathustra... it is a very complicated affair, because I was not speaking directly on Zarathustra; I was speaking on a Zarathustra who is an invention of Friedrich Nietzsche. All the great insights are given by Nietzsche to Zarathustra.

Zarathustra... many times his original books have been brought to me, and they are so ordinary that I have never spoken on them. Nietzsche has used Zarathustra only as a symbolic figure, just as Kahlil Gibran was using Almustafa, which was a completely fictitious name. Nietzsche has used a historical name, but in a very fictitious way. He is putting his insights into the mouth of Zarathustra.

So first you should remember it is Nietzsche's Zarathustra; it has nothing much to do with the original Zarathustra. And secondly, when I am speaking on it, I don't care what Nietzsche means, and I don't even have any way to know what he means; the way he used Zarathustra, I am using him! So it is a very complicated story. It is my Nietzsche, and via Nietzsche it is my Zarathustra. So whatever heights you are flying in have nothing to do with Zarathustra.

I have been speaking on hundreds of mystics, but it is always that I am speaking. And I know perfectly well that if by chance, somewhere, I meet these people, they are going to be very angry. They are going to be really enraged and say, "I never meant that." But my problem is, "How can I know what you had meant?" I can only mean what I mean. So whether it is Zarathustra or Buddha or Jesus or Chuang Tzu, once they pass through me they have my signature on them. You are always listening to me.

When I am answering your questions I am more concerned with your growth, with your actual problems; they are more earthly. So don't be deceived; many people have been deceived. I have been reminding you, but people's memories are not great.

I was speaking on Gautam Buddha in Varanasi and one Buddhist, a very renowned scholar in Buddhism, said to me, "I have been reading the same scriptures. But you have revealed such great depths and heights that I was never aware of; you have confirmed my faith in Gautam Buddha."

I said, "If you don't get angry with me... you should confirm your faith in me."

He said, "What?"

I said, "Yes, because whatever you were reading was perhaps exactly what Buddha meant, and the depths and heights I am talking about are my experiences."

But what to do? There are idiots all over the world. If you want Buddhist idiots to listen to you, you just have to say the name "Buddha" and that's enough; then you can say anything you want. If you want Hindus to listen to you, you have to talk about Krishna.

I am always talking about myself; I cannot talk about anybody else -- how can I? Five thousand years ago, what was Krishna thinking, what was in his mind?... but when they listen to me they think, "My God, we were not aware that Krishna had such depths, such heights." Krishna had nothing. Those heights and those depths are my experiences that I am hanging on anybody; these people function like hooks, I simply hang my idea on them.

And even great scholars... this man was Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap; he was dean of the faculty of Buddhism in the University of Varanasi, a very learned man. But when I said this to him, he became a permanent enemy. I said, "What happened to the heights and to the depths?"

People are much more concerned with names. If I say to you that "Zarathustra said this,"

you listen with great attention. The very name Zarathustra looks so ancient, so prophetic, that he must have said something... and trust me, I know him, he is a poor guy. But don't tell this to anybody! This is just a private conversation with you.

Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was getting tired of lying on his back, so he rolled over and saw an old woman praying, down in the chapel. He leaned over the edge of the scaffold and shouted, "I'm Jesus Christ! I'm Jesus Christ!

Listen to me and I will perform miracles!"

The Italian lady looked up and clasping her rosary answered back, "Shut up-a your mouth. I'm talking to your mother!"

Michelangelo must have been thinking that he was joking with the old woman, but he was at a loss when he heard this. Of course, a mother is a mother, and you should not interfere between two old women talking... just go on and play outside!

So don't be disturbed. If you want I can go on talking about any historical, mythological, fictitious figure; I can create my own fictions. Do you think all the stories that I have told you have happened? They should have happened! -- they are so significant. But if I tell you that I am just making up this story, you will not be very interested; you will not be flying high.

Once in a while I want you to fly high, but it is just an imaginary flight. Really, I want you to be one day actually on those heights but for that, practical work is needed, pragmatic work is needed.

Just for you to fly a little high....

Goldstein, a string merchant from New York, was trying desperately to sell some of his goods in Alabama, but wherever he went he kept encountering anti-semitism. In one department store the manager taunted him, "Alright, Goldstein. I will buy some of your string -- as much as reaches from the top of your nose to the tip of your Jewish prick."

Two weeks later, the manager was startled to receive a shipment containing eight hundred cartons of grade-A string. Attached was a note: "Many thanks for your generous order. Invoice to follow. Signed: Jacob Goldstein, residing in New York, circumcised in Kiev."

Okay Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #10

Chapter title: Life is not short life is eternal

27 April 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8704270

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN10

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

94

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU ONCE TOLD ME TO OPEN ALL MY WINDOWS SO I COULD HAVE THE

SUNRISE IN THE EAST, AND THE SUNSET IN THE WEST. I FEEL SO MANY

POSSIBILITIES INSIDE ME THAT I OFTEN DON'T TAKE ENOUGH TIME TO

EXPLORE THEM IN DEPTH; RATHER, I FEEL THAT BY SIMPLY TOUCHING ON

THEM I KNOW THEM ALREADY SO WELL THAT I FEEL THE URGE TO MOVE

ONTO THE NEXT ONE. IT SEEMS LIFE IS TOO SHORT, AND SO MUCH STILL

NEEDS TO BE DISCOVERED AND DEVELOPED. AM I SUPERFICIAL AND TOO

MUCH IN A HURRY? THE ONLY CONTINUITY IN MY LIFE IS YOU, AND I FEEL I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TOUCH YOUR DEPTH. PLEASE, BELOVED

MASTER, GIVE SOME GUIDANCE TO ME.

Indradhanu, everybody has to go according to his own heart feeling; if you feel at ease to move from one thing to another, it is perfectly right for you. The whole question is that whatever you do should be a deep pleasure, without any tension. If you force yourself to explore any possibility more deeply, you may create tension in yourself. If it feels enough, that touching a certain possibility has given you enough juice to move on, then move on. Perhaps that is natural; to you that is your natural pace.

One should never go against one's nature. That is the only sin, according to me, to go against one's nature; and the only virtue is to go with your nature in total harmony. And never compare yourself with others; everybody is different, and everybody's liking is different. Once you start comparing, thinking that, "Somebody is going deeper into things, moving more slowly, and I am moving faster," then tension will arise in you:

"Perhaps I am hurrying too much." All these tensions arise out of comparison.

Remember one thing: You have to be in tune with your own nature, not in tune with anybody else. So always feel within yourself. If it is pleasant, do it. If it feels tense, forced, then it is not for you. Don't do it.

Always go with the river of life. Never try to go against the current, and never try to go faster than the river. Just move in absolute relaxation, so that each moment you are at home, at ease, at peace with existence.

The second thing you have to remember is that life is not short; life is eternal, so there is no question of any hurry. By hurrying you can only miss. In existence do you see any hurry? Seasons come in their time, flowers come in their time, trees are not running to grow fast because life is short. It seems as if the whole existence is aware of the eternity of life.

We have been here always, and we will be here always -- of course not in the same forms, and not in the same bodies. Life goes on evolving, reaching to higher stages. But there is no end anywhere, and there has been no beginning anywhere either. You exist between a beginningless life and an endless life. You are always in the middle of two eternities on both sides.

Your conditioning has given you the idea of one life. The Christian idea, the Jewish idea, the Mohammedan idea -- which are all rooted in the Jewish conception that there is only one life -- has given the West a tremendous madness for speed. Everything has to be done in such a hurry that you cannot enjoy doing it, and you cannot do it in its entire perfection. You somehow manage to do it and rush to another thing.

The Western man has been living under a very wrong conception: It has created so much tension in people's minds that they can never be at ease anywhere; they are always on the go, and they are always worried that one never knows when the end is coming. Before the end they want to do everything. But the result is just the opposite; they cannot even manage to do a few things gracefully, beautifully, perfectly.

Their life is so much overshadowed by death that they cannot live joyously. Everything that brings joy seems to be a wastage of time. They cannot just sit silently for an hour, because their mind is saying to them, "Why are you wasting the hour? You could have done this, you could have done that."

It is because of this conception of one life that the idea of meditation never arose in the West. Meditation needs a very relaxed mind, with no hurry, with no worry, with nowhere to go... just enjoying moment to moment, whatever comes.

In the East, meditation was bound to be discovered, just because of the idea of life's eternity -- you can relax. You can relax without any fear, you can enjoy and play your flute, you can dance and sing your song, you can enjoy the sunrise and the sunset. You can enjoy your whole life. Not only that, you can enjoy even dying, because death too is a great experience, perhaps the greatest experience in life. It is a crescendo.

In the Western concept, death is the end of life. In the Eastern concept, death is only a beautiful incident in the long procession of life; there will be many, many deaths. Each death is a climax of your life, before another life begins -- another form, another label, another consciousness. You are not ending, you are simply changing the house.

I am reminded of Mulla Nasruddin. A thief entered into his house; Mulla was sleeping, not really, just with closed eyes, in between opening them and seeing what the thief is doing. But he did not believe in interfering in people's work. The thief was not interfering with his sleep, why should he interfere with his profession? Let him do it.

The thief was a little concerned that this man seemed to be strange. As he was carrying everything out of the house, sometimes something fell from his hands and there was noise, but Mulla remained completely asleep. A suspicion arose in the thief's mind that this type of sleep is possible only if a man is awake: "What a strange man that he does not say anything; I'm just emptying his whole house!." All the furniture went out, all the pillows went out, everything that was in the house went out.

And when the thief was collecting everything, binding them to carry home, he suddenly felt, "Somebody is following me." He looked back, it was the same man who was asleep.

He said, "Why are you following me?"

Mulla said, "No, I'm not following you; we are changing the house. You have taken everything. Now what am I going to do in this house? So I am also coming."

This at-easeness is the Eastern way; even with death the East has followed the idea... just changing the house.

The thief was worried; he said, "Forgive me, take your things."

Mulla said, "No, there is no need. I was thinking myself to change the house; it is almost in ruins. You can't have a worse house than this, and anyway I am a very lazy man. I need somebody to take care of me, and when you have taken everything, why leave me alone?"

The thief became afraid that... he had been stealing his whole life. He had never come across such a man. He said, "You can take your things."

Mulla said, "No, there is not going to be any change. You will have to carry the things, otherwise I am going to the police station. I am behaving like a gentleman, I am not calling you a thief, but just a man who is helping me to change the house."

There is no hurry, so your idea of a short life is a dangerous idea. That's why even though the East is very poor, there is no despair, there is no anguish. The West is rich, but the richness has not brought anything to its spirituality, or its growth; on the contrary, the West is very tense. It should be more relaxed, it has all the comforts of life.

But the basic problem is that deep down the West knows that life is such a short thing; we are standing in a queue, and every moment we are coming closer to death. Since we were born, we started the journey towards the graveyard. Every moment life is being cut --

becoming shorter and shorter. This creates a tension, an anguish, an anxiety. All the comforts, all the luxuries, all the riches become meaningless, because you cannot take them away with you. You will have to go into death alone.

The East is relaxed. First, it does not give death any importance; it is just a change of form. Second, because it is so relaxed, you become aware of your inner riches, which will be going with you -- even beyond life. Death cannot take them away.

Death can take everything that is outside you and, if you have not grown your inner being, naturally there will be fear that you cannot save anything from death; it will take everything that you have. But if you have grown your inner being, if you have found peace, blissfulness, silence, joy, which are not dependent on anything outside, if you have found your garden of being and seen the flowers of your own consciousness, the question of fearing death does not arise at all.

Indradhanu, again I say to you, remember only one thing: You are an immortal being.

Right now, it is not your experience; right now, if you love me, if you have any trust in me, you can accept it as a hypothesis -- not as a belief, but a hypothesis to experiment with.

I never want anybody to accept anything from me as a belief, but only as a hypothesis.

Because I know the truth of it, I need not enforce belief and faith on you. Knowing the truth I can say to you, "It is just for experiment, a temporary hypothesis," because I am absolutely certain that if your experiment, your hypothesis will change into your own knowing -- not in a belief, not in a faith, but in a certainty. And only certainties can save you. Beliefs are boats made of paper.

One should not think that one can cross the ocean of existence on a boat made of paper.

You need a certainty... not a belief, but a truth that is experienced by yourself. Not somebody else's truth, but your own. Then it is a joy to go into the unknown, uncharted ocean; it is a tremendous excitement and ecstasy.

But always keep in tune with your own nature.

Some trees grow slowly, some trees grow fast; there is nothing special in growing fast or in growing slowly. One thing is similar to both trees -- they are both following their natures. It is only man who looks all around, starts comparing, and gets into unnecessary anxieties.

Whenever you feel a problem, look within your heart. If you are at ease, you are on the right path. Your heart is the criterion. If it is disturbed, that means you have to change the path; something has gone wrong, you have gone astray.

The heart is your guide. When it is completely in harmony with nature, there is a beautiful dance and a music in your heart. When you go away from nature the music becomes just noise, the dance becomes disturbed. These are the signs and the language of the heart to make you aware whether you are going right or wrong.

You don't need any guidance from anybody. Your guide is within yourself.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

YES, YOU HAVE DISTURBED MY SLUMBER; NOW, WAKING TO A MORNING

SUN, BIRDS SING AND LEAVES DANCE IN THE BREEZE. SITTING IN YOUR

GARDEN IS SO SWEET. SITTING WITH YOU, THERE IS MORE AND MORE JOY

EACH DAY. IS THIS JUICE IN YOUR PRESENCE INCREASING SO MUCH

THESE DAYS, OR AM I JUST NOW NOTICING WHAT'S BEEN HERE ALL

ALONG?

Nityanando, what you are experiencing now has always been here, but you were not here.

For the first time you are also here -- that's why you are noticing.

You may have come here many times, but it was only a coming of your physical body.

Your mind was wandering somewhere else, your being was not here. Now you have known the knack to be here and now, and the juice that you are feeling will go on growing, because your presence will go on becoming more and more crystallized.

The juice has always been here, the flowers have always been blossoming here, the cool breeze was always blowing here, the trees and the sun rays... but you were blind.

For the first time you have opened your eyes, for the first time your senses have become alive. The more alive they become, the more profound are the experiences waiting for you. It all depends on your sensitivity, your awareness, your being silently just here and now.

It is possible that there may be somebody else who is not feeling any juice, who is not feeling anything at all, and he will go with the idea that there is nothing. This is how your mind befools you; it never allows you to be aware of your blindness, your unawareness, your unattentiveness. On the contrary, if somebody says to such a person, "You have missed something," he will retort, "You are hypnotized! I am a rational man; you have allowed yourself to be hypnotized and you have forgotten all rationality."

People protect their blindness, protect their unconsciousness, they protect their misery; anything that is theirs -- it may be hell -- they will protect it.

But to be really with me, you have to put all your defenses away, you have to be vulnerable -- because we are not here to fight with each other. We are here to have a deep rapport, a deep accord, a harmony in which all differences dissolve... and there are not so many people, but a single silence, a single peace that passeth understanding.

Those who cannot put their defenses away need all the compassion. They may think that they are rational beings, but they are really unconscious beings. Eyes don't need reason, because eyes can see light without any reason; only blind men think about light, reason about light -- for or against, believe in light, disbelieve in light -- but the man who has eyes neither believes nor disbelieves, he is neither for nor against. He simply knows: light is there. It has to be enjoyed, not argued about.

Nityanando, you are in a state in which I want everybody to be. But people are so strange! I have heard... a great astronomer was concluding his lecture at the synagogue:

"... And some of my colleagues believe that our own sun will probably die within four or five billion years."

"How many years did you say?" asked Mrs. Siegel, from the back of the room.

"Four or five billion," replied the scientist.

"Phew," said Mrs. Siegel. "I thought you said million."

People are very strange... as if she has understood! It does not matter in existence -- four billion or four million -- but perhaps million is the biggest number she knows. If it is four billion, no problem.

If you are listening with your mind there will come many such moments; if you are not listening with the mind but with the heart, there will not come any such moment. And listening with the heart is the only true listening.

Ronald Reagan came home and found his wife Nancy in bed with his very best friend, Edwin Meese.

"Hey, what do you think you are doing?"

"See," Nancy said to Meese, "I told you he was stupid. Now he can see everything and he is asking, `What is going on?'"

Your experiences are fresh. This is the beauty of the inner experiences, that they always remain fresh. You cannot make them mechanical. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, whenever you will be here... the same perfume, the same presence, the same juice -- but with a new taste, with a deeper understanding, with a greater sensitivity.

In the spiritual life nothing becomes old, it always remains fresh. And its freshness keeps you, even to the last breath of your life, young.

The mystic always dies young. His age may be a hundred years or a hundred and twenty years, it does not matter. He always dies young because his sources of life are continuously being refreshed; a fresh breeze is passing through him, fresh rays of the sun are passing through him, fresh moonlight and fresh stars are always arising in him.

Nityanando, you are blessed. Don't lose track. You have come to the right point. Become more and more centered on that point.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE MANAGED TO TIE UP MY CAMEL. THE LION ROARS IN DISTANT, UNKNOWN JUNGLES, THE CHILD IS NOT YET CONCEIVED, AND THE

STUBBORN MULE GOES NOWHERE. CAN YOU COMMENT?

Devaprem, Zarathustra has no idea about a stubborn mule; you seem to belong to a totally different category. You are neither a camel, nor a lion, nor a child -- you are a mule. And with the mule there are many difficulties.

Have you ever thought that the mule cannot conceive a child? Mules don't give birth to children; they are cross-breeds between donkeys and horses. They have all that is the worst in donkeys and all that is worst in horses. But one thing is good about them: they don't leave a new generation, they simply die.

I would like you to consider again. Look into a mirror... because Zarathustra has absolutely categorized, and there is no place for the mule. You will find a camel in the mirror.

And you say, "I have managed to tie up my camel." If you have managed to tie up your camel, then the only criterion to prove it will be the lion's roar. But you are saying, "The lion roars in distant unknown jungles." The camel has to become the lion... the camel has the capacity to become the lion.

These are metaphors that Zarathustra has used. The moment the camel rebels against slavery, he becomes a lion, and suddenly there is the roar! One of the most beautiful experiences is to hear the lion roar. And the process is such that if the mule becomes the lion... the lion is only a passage, a bridge. The child is always there. It is not a question of conceiving a child; everybody is pregnant, born pregnant with the child, just the right opportunity....

In the camel the right opportunity is not there; in the lion is the right opportunity for the child to be born. But rather than going the simple way, you are stuck with some mule, a stubborn mule. Do you know any other kind? All mules are stubborn, that is their great quality.

But recognize exactly where you are. No man is a mule, because man is not a crossbreed. You have to begin with the camel. And you are not supposed to hear the lion roar faraway, "in distant unknown jungles." That lion's roar will not help. The roar has to come from your deepest heart. And in that very roar you will become, for the first time, aware that the child is coming.

The child is our destiny.

One has to become, finally, as innocent as a child, full of wonder and surprise, full of trust and love, absolutely in tune with existence. That's what is meant by the child. These are metaphors. But I can understand what you mean by, "the stubborn mule goes nowhere."

The pope stood before a hushed crowd of attentive Italian villagers. "My flock, you musta not use-a the pill," he warned.

Just then a beautiful young Signorina stepped forward and said, "Look -- you no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules!"

A simple thing: You don't play the game -- you don't have the right to make the rules.

This is the quality of the mule; he does not like to move even an inch, wherever he is. In that sense our minds can be compared to mules.

You can watch your mind; it does not want to change anything. Every change means difficulty, readjustment, rearrangement -- but no change signifies death. I would like you to remember that the mind is a dead machine, it is simply a biocomputer. It resists all change, it is against evolution, and all the evolution that has happened in the world has happened through the people who were courageous enough to put the mind aside.

Putting the mind aside is what I mean by meditation. Mind is a mule; meditation is an eagle, flying to the farthest horizon across the sun, always ready to go into the unknown.

Devaprem, if the mule goes nowhere, get down from the mule. What is the need to go on sitting on the mule and looking stupid? Get down from the mule! It is better to walk on your own feet -- at least you can move, you can evolve to a better state of consciousness.

The whole religion can be condensed in one single word, and that is meditation. And meditation is a simple way to get down from the mule, to get down from the mind. Let the mind remain where it is; you start moving without it. And once you are not thinking through the mind, you will be able to understand Zarathustra's categories. You will find yourself first a slave in thousands of ways -- a slave of your tradition, a slave of your education, a slave of your religion, a slave of all kinds of superstitions. You will find so many slaveries. Just a little courage, and let the camel revolt against any enslavement.

All the great teachers of the world have been insisting for a revolution against the slavery that keeps your spirit in a status quo. And once the slavery is thrown away, the camel goes through the metamorphosis, becomes a lion. He had always been a lion; he became a camel because of the slavery.

And the moment he becomes a lion -- courageous and brave, ready to go into the unknown, ready to be alone -- the child is not faraway. The second metamorphosis will happen; you will find the lion turning into a child. And the child is the ultimate state of liberation.

The innocence of the child is his wisdom; the simplicity of the child is his egolessness.

The freshness of the child is the freshness of your consciousness, which never becomes old, which always remains young. It has passed through thousands of bodies: they became young, they became old, they died. But the consciousness continues, a young river, fresh, dancing towards the ocean. The wondering eyes of the child is the opening of your being to all the great mysteries of existence.

The scientist also tries to discover the mysteries and their secrets, but his method is violent; it is more a rape than a love. He dissects, he attacks. The behavior of the scientist with nature is not human; it is very inhuman.

The child and the sage also come to know the mysteries of existence, but in a way that can be called only playfulness, that can be called only loving radiation. And existence itself is eager to open its heart to the loving child, to open its secrets to the wondering eyes of the child.

Lao Tzu says, "The moment you drop knowledge, you become wise."

The moment you stop inquiring into the mysteries of existence, existence itself opens up all its doors, invites you. And to enter the mysteries of existence as a guest is dignified.

To attack nature, to force nature is barbarous. Science is still barbarous, and science will remain barbarous unless it learns to be meditative too. Only meditation can change the barbariousness of science and can make it an innocent love affair with existence.

That will be a golden future: when science becomes a love affair with existence -- not a struggle, not a conflict, but a deep harmony, a friendship.

Up to now, even the greatest thinkers like Bertrand Russell talk in terms which are barbarous. He has written a famous book; the title is THE CONQUEST OF NATURE.

The very idea of conquering nature is ugly. We are part of nature; how can the part conquer the whole? Can you conceive that my left hand can conquer me? And we are such a small part of existence that the very idea of conquering it is quixotic.

But a different science is certainly needed; this science has failed. The old religion has failed. It has not delivered salvation to humanity, it has not brought what it has promised

-- blissfulness, benediction, godliness. All its promises have proved lies.

And now I want to say, science has also failed. In conquering nature, it has only created destructive weapons, atomic energy, nuclear missiles. Rather than conquering nature, it has succeeded in preparing a graveyard of the whole planet. Science has failed. It has not been able to serve life for the simple reason that the very idea of conquering is barbarous and violent.

We have to find a new religiousness and a new scientific approach, and they cannot be two different things. They can be two sides of one coin: Applied to the inner consciousness, it becomes religiousness; applied to the objective world, it becomes science.

But the basic reality is innocent, wondering, and loving eyes... a friendship, a harmony, a love affair.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #11

Chapter title: The sacred makes you speechless

17 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705170

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN11

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

84

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT GAUTAM BUDDHA'S WORK CAME TO AN

END WHEN HE BECAME ENLIGHTENED, AND YOU STARTED YOUR WORK

AFTER YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT. COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT

THIS?

Prem Pankaja, one of the most important things to be remembered by all is the way you have started your question. The question is, "I have heard You say." Usually, people drop the first part. They simply say, "You have said this." And there is such a great difference between the two, such an immense difference that it is unbridgeable, and needs a great understanding.

Whatever you hear is not necessarily the thing said; what is said is not necessarily what you hear. The obvious reason is that I am speaking from a different space of being, and you are hearing from a totally different space. In the transmission, many things change.

It is always a sign of understanding to remember that whatever I have said may be totally different than what you have heard. Your question should be about what you have heard, because how can you ask a question about something which you have not heard?

Gautam Buddha, in his whole life, never allowed people to write down what he was saying. His reason was that if you are writing it down, your attention becomes divided.

You are no longer total. You have to hear and you have to write, and what he is saying is so subtle that unless you are total, you are going to miss it. So rather than writing it down, try with your totality and intensity to approach your heart, to let it sink within you.

He spoke for forty-two years continuously. After his death, the first question was to write down whatever the disciples remembered; otherwise it would have been lost to humanity.

They did a great service, and also a great disservice. They wrote down... but they came to see a strange phenomenon -- that everybody had heard something different. Their memory, their remembrance, was not the same.

Thirty-two schools sprang up, proclaiming, "This is what Buddha has said." Only one man -- a man to be remembered forever, his closest disciple, Ananda -- who was not even enlightened before Buddha died.... Just out of his humbleness, knowing, "I was unenlightened, how can I hear exactly what comes from an enlightened consciousness? I am going to interpret it, I am going to mix it with my own thoughts, I am going to give it my own color, my own nuance. It cannot carry within me the same meaning it has brought, because I don't have yet those eyes that can see and those ears that can hear."

Out of this humbleness, the memories that he remembered and wrote down became the basic scriptures of Buddhism. They all start with "I have heard Gautam Buddha say."

And all the thirty-two philosophical schools -- they were great scholars, far greater than Maitreya, than Ananda, far more capable to interpret, to bring meanings to things, to make systems out of words -- those thirty-two schools slowly, slowly became rejected.

And the reason for their rejection was that they had missed a single beginning: "I have heard...." They were saying, "Gautam Buddha said" -- the emphasis was on Gautam Buddha.

Ananda's version is the universally accepted version. Strange... there were enlightened people, but they remained silent because what they had heard was not possible to be expressed. And there were unenlightened philosophical geniuses who were very articulate, and they wrote great treatises -- but they were not accepted. And the man who was not enlightened, not a great philosopher, but just a humble caretaker of Gautam Buddha, his words have been accepted. The reason is these beginnings -- "I have heard...." I don't know whether he was saying it or not. I cannot impose myself on him.

All that I can say is what echoed in me; I can talk about my mind -- not the mindless silence of Gautam Buddha."

Buddhist scriptures, in this way, are the only scriptures in the world which have this quality of the great difference between the master and the disciple, between one who has arrived and one who is trying to arrive.

You are asking, Pankaja, "I have heard You say that Gautam Buddha's work came to an end when he became enlightened, and You started Your work after Your enlightenment."

It is one of those strange incidents of history, where the obvious is completely ignored. I have talked, discussed, with a few very great scholarly Buddhist monks. One was Bhikshu Sangharakshita. He was an Englishman, but while he was young, searching, he found that Christianity had nothing to give and became a Buddhist. When I met him, he had become very old. He used to live in the Himalayas, in Kalimpong. He has written great books on Buddhism with such love and such insight that one feels full of awe.

I have been discussing many times with Bhikshu Ananda Kausalyayan, who is the most prominent Buddhist scripture scholar and who has written much with depth and profundity. And the third man was Doctor Bhikshu Jagdish Kashayap. He was the head of the great Institute of Buddhist Studies.

None of these three people have noticed the difference -- that Ananda's version is humble and truer because he is saying what is reflected in his being, and he can authoritatively say only that. When I pointed it out to them, they were all surprised -- "We have been studying our whole life, but we never thought that this has any significance. We always thought that it is just the way Ananda writes."

And when I said to them, "No Buddhist, except a few Zen masters, are going to agree with me...." The whole of Asia is Buddhist. In different countries it has taken different shapes, different rituals. But one thing is similar everywhere -- that Buddha worked for six years, hard enough to attain enlightenment. He attained enlightenment after six years of hard work -- this is just accepted.

But when I came to see the life of Gautam Buddha, I was simply amazed, because in a way it can be said that he attained his enlightenment after six years of hard work, but that is not the whole truth. It is not even a small fragment of the truth. The truth is, he attained enlightenment only when he dropped all desire for it, all work for it, all hope for it.

This gap between the hard work and relaxing and dropping the idea that anything like truth exists.... He had done everything that was told to him, and yet no silence had descended on him. He had not been able to enter into his innermost being. He had knocked on all the doors, but no door was opened. His work was so total and intense that he could not conceive that there was anything more to be done.

I have been to the small river Niranjana, by the side of which he had become enlightened one full-moon night. That day, the most important experience happened -- which is not even talked about by the Buddhists, by the followers. It does not look important, they are not to be blamed. He had tortured his body, he had been fasting for months, and he had become so weak... and Niranjana is a very small river. He had got into the river for his morning bath, but even the smallest river and its current was too much; he started going down with the river. He could not manage to get out of it. He hung to the root of a tree.

That moment was momentous. Hanging to the root of the tree in the river, a thought arose in him, "What kind of stupid life have I been living? All this asceticism, all this arduous effort, has led me nowhere to truth, but only to weakness. It has not given me an abundance of life; it has brought me closer to death. How is this kind of discipline, which is being taught by all the schools, going to help me cross the ocean of life and reach the further shore?"

A question mark about his whole lifestyle, and in a clear moment, in a transparent moment on that morning -- the sun was rising -- something changed in his whole being.

He had renounced his kingdom; in that moment he renounced his renunciation too. He had renounced this world; in that moment he renounced that world too. He had renounced ambition, power, prestige -- and now he saw that in a subtle way even the effort to achieve enlightenment is nothing but ambition, that it is also a desire. A desire for a more eternal life, desire for truth, but anyway it is also a desire.

As he struggled to get out of the river, that desire was also dropped. He rested under a bodhi tree. For the first time in his whole life he was utterly relaxed. There was nowhere to go, nothing to find, no effort to be made. And amazingly, the silence that he was seeking started descending on him like rain.

By the evening he was a totally changed

man -- calm and cool, at home, at ease. The center that he was searching for -- he laughed about it, because the seeker himself was the sought. He had been doing something absurd. The center of his being was not something separate from himself. Unless all desires disappear, all ambitions disappear -- unless you have nothing to do, nothing left to be done; you are just sitting, peacefully....

He found the center.

He was the center.

There was no object anywhere else.

One of the most important Danish philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, has said that

"Subjectivity is all." You can call it religion, you can call it truth, you can call it nirvana.

But your own subjectivity, your own being....

And by the evening, a beautiful incident happened. It was a full-moon night -- it has just passed here, one or two days ago; it was the same full-moon night -- a woman in the nearby village.... In India people worship trees, they worship animals, they worship stones, they worship mountains, they worship the sun, the moon. On the surface it looks very childish, but deep down the question is not what you worship; the question is that you worship. Whether it is the sun or the moon or a tree or a river, these are only excuses; the real thing is worship. That woman was a worshiper of the tree under which Gautam Buddha was sitting.

The moon had risen... this is the strongest moon in the whole year, the most beautiful.

And Gautam Buddha was looking almost like a god under the tree in the silence of the forest, by the side of the river -- particularly to that woman. She had asked the tree something and her desire had been fulfilled, and so she had promised that she would come with delicious food to offer to the god of the tree. She thought perhaps the god of the tree had come out of the tree and was sitting and waiting.

And Buddha was hungry; he had not eaten for many days, so when she offered -- her name was Sujata -- he accepted. He slept for the first time in these six years of torturous search, without any tension, without any dreams. Just a silence was the only experience that was becoming deeper and deeper; his sleep was becoming samadhi. When there are no thoughts, no desires, and the mind is quiet, sleep becomes samadhi; it becomes enlightenment.

And in the morning, when he opened his eyes... just visualize... nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. And as he saw the last star disappearing in the sky, he saw himself also disappearing in the sky. This he called nirvana, disappearing. He became absent, just a pure silence, a nothing... a joyful silence, a silence that has a song in it, a silence which is an invisible dance.

This was the day of his enlightenment. Buddhist scholars for twenty-five centuries have thought that he achieved this state because of those six years of arduous effort. I differ from them absolutely. And they have not been able to prove to me... and they think that I am crazy because they think that if it were true, then in twenty-five centuries people would have seen it. But I say that he attained enlightenment because he dropped the desire to attain it.

Pankaja, I said Gautam Buddha's work came to an end when he became enlightened. He worked too hard. I have never worked for enlightenment; I have never followed any discipline, any scripture, any religion, any ascetic path. Where Buddha reached after six years of arduous effort, I found myself there from the very beginning -- sitting under a tree, relaxed. People used to think -- my teachers, my friends -- that I must be mad. Even sometimes I used to think, "Perhaps they are right, because everybody has ambition; I don't have any. Everybody wants to become this and that, and I want simply to sit silently and not to do anything, and just be myself."

Enlightenment to Buddha was the culmination of his whole work. My work started after my enlightenment. I have never searched for it. It is one of those mysteries which have no explanation. It knocked on my door, and I said to it, "Come in, it is open." I have not even taken the trouble to open the door. I have left it open always.

The day I became enlightened, then my work began. My work is you; Gautam Buddha's work was himself.

I have lived for you.

I have no other reason to be alive, because all that life could give to me, it has given to me without asking. It has been very generous to me. But after my own enlightenment, I felt the first urge in my being -- that this is so simple, so natural, that it should happen to everybody. And unless it happens to everybody, the world is going to remain in misery and in suffering. Gautam Buddha was enlightening himself; I have been enlightening others. So where his work was completed, my work starts.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHENEVER I TRY TO WRITE WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU BEFORE

GOING BACK TO THE WEST, I FIND MYSELF AS SPEECHLESS AS LANCELOT.

IT IS MORE THAN GRATITUDE, MORE THAN LOVE, MORE THAN YOU AND

ME. AND YET, SOME LONGING TO CONVEY THIS FEELING IS THERE, STRONG, AND DOESN'T GO;THERE IS A QUIET SADNESS AND A BURNING

FIRE. BELOVED MASTER, HOW CAN I EXPRESS THE IMMENSITY THAT HAS

FILLED ME SO MANY TIMES WHEN SITTING IN YOUR PRESENCE AND

LIVING IN YOUR BUDDHAFIELD?

Satyam Svarup, the moment it happens it is always more than love, it is always more than joy, it is always more than gratitude, because life is more than you and more than me. It is so multi-dimensional, it is so vast.... Only if you are not aware of it, are you capable to express your feelings. But the moment awareness enters in your life, explanations start disappearing, expressions become impossible, because whatever you can say falls very short.

There have been many people on the earth who have achieved the ultimate, but we don't even know their names for the simple reason that the moment they achieved, they became dumb -- the silence was so deep, they could not find a way to convey what had happened to them.

There are many mystics in the world, but very few masters. Every mystic is not a master.

It is a rare combination of articulateness, of using words in such a way that they carry wordlessness in them, to say things in such a way as if nothing has been said, to be in such a way as if you are not. And the more you are absent, the more you are a pure presence.

You are asking me, "Whenever I try to write what I would like to tell You before going back to the West, I find myself as speechless as Lancelot."

You are fortunate. It is part of blissfulness to be so silent; you know something has to be said, but there is no way to say it. You know there is a great blissfulness overflowing you, a gratitude in your heart, and it does not look right not to express them. But all words are so earthly, and all these experiences are so unearthly, that there is no way of translating them. Even the great masters who tried to convey something of the inexpressible had to find strange ways.

Just the other day, I received the news of a man in the part of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan. He is one hundred and twenty-five years old, and he has joked about death three times. This was the third time.

He dies; doctors declare that he is dead and there is great mourning -- friends and relatives, and preparations -- and at the final moment when they are taking him to the graveyard, he opens his eyes and he starts laughing! The first time he did it people thought, "It may have been just a coma, and we were misled." The second time they were more alert not to be deceived by the old fellow; in every way they made certain that he was dead. But still, the same thing happened: at the last moment, just when they were putting him into the grave, he said, "Wait!" He said, "Can't you see the joke?"

And he has performed it now again at the age of one hundred and twenty-five. This is his way, a strange way of saying to you that life is eternal and death is just a joke. He is saying it by his own life. And this time he has said, "Now I am very old, and I cannot go on doing this strategy for long, so perhaps this is the last time. Remember -- the fourth time I may be really dead."

But they said, "We can't believe you. Every time you say, `Next time I may be really dead.'"

He is showing the eternity of life and consciousness. He is a master. Without words, he is saying what the UPANISHADS have said: Amritasya putra -- "You are sons and daughters of eternity." But his way of saying it is far more significant, because words can be used in a very poetic way and still they may not be true, they may not be the experience of the poet. But this man knows how to go deep -- so deep into himself that there is no medical way to find out that he is still alive.

Speechlessness is bound to happen with anything that you can experience but you cannot bring to words. You see a beautiful sunset -- what can you say? You see a bird on the wing in the sky -- so beautiful, just the expression of freedom -- but what can you say?

And whatever you say will always fall short of the target.

Only mundane things can be said.

The sacred makes you speechless.

Because "it is more than gratitude...." You say "gratitude" and you certainly feel you have not said it; the word is so small and the experience is so big -- and yet there is a great longing to convey the feeling.

These are the mysteries of life: when you cannot say, the urge becomes more and more powerful to say it. The musician says in his own way, the poet says in his own way, the painter says in his own way, but nobody succeeds -- something remains beyond all expression.

That something beyond expression is God, is truth, is enlightenment, is liberation. But these words also don't say it; they only indicate -- just fingers pointing to the moon.

You are right, "There is a quiet sadness and a burning fire... how can I express the immensity that has filled me so many times when sitting in Your presence and living in Your buddhafield?"

You will have to go through an alchemical change. That sadness is beautiful; it is not misery, it is just the sadness of experiencing the beyond and the inability to express it.

And the burning desire to express it turns into creativity -- you can paint, you can sing, you can dance; you can find your own way somehow to indicate the beyond, and the burning fire will not be a torture to you. It will become a great joy of creativity.

So don't make it sadness, and don't make it a suffering. Feel blessed! Change it into a great laughter. It is only a question of getting out of the bed from the right side.

The Mother Superior of the convent awoke in a happy mood, dressed and set off to visit her flock. "Good morning, Sister Augusta. God bless you. Are you happy at your work?"

"Yes, Reverend Mother, but I am sorry to see you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning."

The Mother Superior ignored the remark, and passed on to another nun. "Good morning, Sister Georgina. You look pleased with yourself."

"I am, Reverend Mother, but it is a pity you got out of bed on the wrong side today."

The Mother Superior, greatly puzzled, moved on to a young novice, "Tell me, little sister, do you also feel I got out of bed on the wrong side?"

"I am afraid so."

"But why? Am I not as happy as a songbird? and pleasant to you all?"

"Yes, Mother, but you are wearing Father Vincenzo's slippers."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #12

Chapter title: That beyondness is you

17 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705175

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN12

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

84

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THESE DAYS, LOOKING INSIDE, I DO NOT FIND A PERSONALITY WITH

CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS, BUT RATHER AN EVER-CHANGING FLUX, TOTALLY UNPREDICTABLE. IT MAKES LIFE IN THIS BODY FEEL VERY

FRAGILE, VULNERABLE AND MOMENTARY -- A FEELING WHICH EXTENDS

ITSELF TO EVERYTHING AROUND ME, SHAKING ME TO THE ROOTS.

Deva Surabhi, man is not one, man is many: man is a multitude, a crowd. The feeling of being a personality is a mirage. It arises because you never go in, and you never face the crowd. Perhaps to avoid the crowd, you never go in.

You are living outside your own home and the home is being occupied by your neighbors, many of whom are dead. And when I say many, I mean many! -- centuries, queues of old and dead people are living within you; hence, when for the first time one enters on the path of meditation, the first encounter shakes one to the very roots. One sees many faces and many people -- except one face, except the one individual that he is.

Most people, out of fear, simply run out again and get engaged in things so that they can forget what is happening within themselves. To find oneself alone needs such courage because the moment you find yourself alone you have to face a multitude, a crowd. Each in the crowd pretends to be your real self, and there is no way for you to find out who is your real individual. Millions of people live their lives without meditation for the simple reason that they cannot cope with this encounter.

The method is very easy. Bodhidharma used to say to his disciples, "When you enter into yourself you will find many pretenders who look almost like you. Some of them are even better than you, because they have been practicing your act, your part, for years -- or perhaps for lives. You have to behave the way the elephant behaves when a crowd of dogs starts barking: the elephant goes on without even bothering, as if there is nobody...

You have to be an elephant and treat the crowd within you as if they are barking dogs."

In India it is now becoming a rare scene, but in my childhood it was an everyday scene because all the Maharajas, and there were many, and all the great religious leaders, and they were many, all had many elephants. In fact, a religious leader's religiousness was measured by how many elephants he had, because to keep an elephant is not easy; it is very costly.

It was an everyday scene -- the elephants passing on the road and the dogs barking. A strange feeling arises when you see a dog bark at the elephant; the elephant pays not even the smallest attention -- as if there is nobody, nothing is happening. And if you look at the face of the dog, you can understand the meaning of the word `despair'..."This fellow is strange: we are barking, so many dogs, and he is going his way as if nothing is happening."

Soon those dogs start disappearing -- "What is the point? The elephant seems to be an idiot, or maybe he is deaf, but not our equal. Perhaps he does not understand our language, but whatever the reason, the task is hopeless."

Bodhidharma is right; the meditator has to behave like an elephant. And he will be surprised: all those who are surrounding his inside -- many facades, many voices -- start becoming distant. Soon a moment comes when they are so far away that it seems you have only seen them, heard them, in a dream. And as they go, receding... a great silence, a tremendous tranquillity settles in your being.

Surabhi, your question is, "These days, looking inside, I do not find a personality with certain characteristics, but rather an ever-changing flux, totally unpredictable. It makes life in this body feel very fragile, vulnerable and momentary -- a feeling which extends itself to everything around me, shaking me to the roots."

It appears as if it is a curse -- it is not.

The roots that can be shaken are not your roots, and that which is fragile, that which is momentary, does not belong to you. Only one thing belongs to you in this whole experience: that is the watcher, the witness. Who is witnessing the fragileness, the ever-changing flux of personalities? Who is watching the shaking of the roots? Certainly he is beyond all of it.

That beyondness is yours.

That beyondness is you.

That is your individuality, that is your being.

Settle in that witnessing, and all that you are feeling disturbed by will disappear. It is just the first encounter of entering into oneself. Don't go back; go deeper into it.

Ginsberg sits down in a Moscow cafe and orders a glass of tea and a copy of pravda.

"I will bring the tea," the waiter tells him, "but I can't bring a copy of pravda. The Soviet regime has been overthrown and pravda is not published anymore."

"Alright," says Ginsberg, "just bring the tea."

The next day, Ginsberg comes to the same cafe and asks for tea and a copy of pravda.

The waiter gives him the same answer.

On the third day, Ginsberg orders the same and this time the waiter says to him, "Look, sir, you seem to be an intelligent man. For the past three days you have ordered a copy of pravda and three times now I have had to tell you that the Soviet regime has been overthrown and Pravda is not published anymore."

"I know, I know," says Ginsberg, "but I just like to hear you say it!"

It is good news, Surabhi, that you don't exist as a personality. You should rejoice --

rejoice in the fact that you are only the witness, the watcher, because that is the only thing which is eternal and immortal. It is the only thing which cannot be transcended by any more beautiful experience, any deeper ecstasy, any greater enlightenment.

Just let this personality, this fragileness, this momentariness, this fear, this trembling of the roots, not be identified with yourself. Remain aloof, a watcher on the hills, and soon the whole scene changes.

The pope lay dying. His doctor called the cardinals together and announced, "We can only save his life with a heart transplant."

"We must tell the people," said one of the cardinals, "perhaps a donor will volunteer to give his heart for the pontiff."

An announcement was made and thousands gathered beneath the pope's balcony shouting, "Take-a my heart, take-a my heart!"

The cardinals now had to decide on the person who would donate his heart to the holy father. "We will drop a feather from his holiness' head," said the head cardinal.

"Whosoever it lands upon will be the lucky person."

As the feather floated down from the balcony, from the multitudes below came, "Take-a my heart -- phew! Take-a my heart -- phew!"

It is one thing to say, "Take-a my heart," but when it comes so close, "Phew!" Everybody wants to know his inner reality, but you will have to lose something; you will have to pay for it.

There is nothing in existence available without payment. If you want to know yourself, you will have to drop all false identities. They are your investments, they are your power, they are your prestige, they are your religion, they are your qualifications. It is difficult to drop them; it feels like death.

Certainly meditation is a death, a death of all that is false in you. And only then, that which is not false is experienced. That experience is resurrection -- a new life, the birth of a new man.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I AM MOST AWARE OF A BIG FEAR OR GUILT IN ME WHEN I SIT WITH YOU, AND I AM LONGING SO MUCH TO BE TOTALLY OPEN TO YOU. RECENTLY I COULD FEEL THE SERPENT ROLLED UP IN THE BOTTOM OF ME, SLEEPING, AND THE DOOR, THE THIRD CHAKRA STILL CLOSED. MY HEART WANTS TO

FLY WITH YOU. IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO?

Sambodhi Amrita, what is fear? There are fears and fears; I am not talking about them. I am talking about the most fundamental fear -- all other fears are faraway echoes of the basic fear -- and that fear is of death. Life is surrounded by death. You see every day somebody dying -- something dying; something that was alive a moment before is dead.

Each death reminds you of your own death.

It is impossible to forget your own death; every moment there is a reminder. So the first thing to be understood is that the only possibility of getting rid of fear is to get rid of death. And you can get rid of death, because death is only an idea, not a reality.

You have only seen other people dying; have you ever seen yourself dying? And when you see somebody else dying, you are an outsider, not a participant in the experience. The experience is happening inside the person. All that you know is that he is no longer breathing, that his body has become cold, that his heart is no longer beating. But do you think all these things put together are equivalent to life? Is life only breathing? Is life only the heartbeat, the blood circulating and keeping the body warm? If this is life, it is not worth the game. If only my breathing is my life, what is the point of going on breathing?

Life must be something more. To be of any value life must have something of eternity in it; it must be something beyond death. And you can know it, because it exists within you.

Life exists within you -- death is only an experience of others, outside observers.

It is simply like love. Can you understand love by seeing a person being loving to someone? What will you see? They are hugging each other, but is hugging love? You may see they are holding hands together, but is holding hands love? From the outside, what else can you discover about love? Anything that you discover will be absolutely futile. These are expressions of love, but not love itself. Love is something one knows only when one is in it.

One of the greatest poet's of India, Rabindranath Tagore, was very much embarrassed by an old man who was his grandfather's friend. The old man often used to come because he lived in the neighborhood, and he would never leave the house without creating trouble for Rabindranath. He would certainly knock on his doors, and ask, "How is your poetry going? Do you really know God? Do you really know love? Tell me, do you know all these things that you talk about in your poetry? Or are you just articulate with words?

Any idiot can talk about love, about God, about the soul, but I don't see in your eyes that you have experienced anything."

And Rabindranath could not answer him. In fact he was right. The old man would meet him in the marketplace and hold him and ask him, "What about your God, have you found him? Or are you still writing poetry about him? Remember, talking about God, is not knowing God."

He was a very embarrassing person. In poets' gatherings, where Rabindranath was very much respected -- he was a Nobel prize winner -- that old man was bound to reach. On the stage, before all the poets and worshipers of Rabindranath, he would hold him by his collar and would say, "Still it has not happened. Why are you deceiving these idiots?

They are smaller idiots, you are a bigger idiot; they are not known outside the land, you are known all over the world -- but that does not mean that you know God."

Rabindranath has written in his diary: "I was so much harassed by him, and he had such penetrating eyes that it was impossible to tell a lie to him. His very presence was such that either you had to say the truth, or you had to remain silent."

But one day it happened... Rabindranath had gone for a morning walk. In the night it had rained; it was very early morning and the sun was rising. In the ocean it was all gold, and by the side of the streets water had gathered in small pools. In those small pools also the sun was rising with the same glory, with the same color, with the same joy.... And just this experience -- that in existence there is nothing superior and nothing inferior, that all is one whole -- suddenly triggered something in him. For the first time in his life he went to the old man's house, knocked on the door, looked into the eyes of the old man and said,

"Now, what do you say?"

He said, "Now there is nothing to say. It has happened. I bless you."

The experience of your immortality, of your eternity, of your wholeness, of your oneness with existence is always possible. It only needs some triggering experience.

The whole function of the master is to create a situation in which the experience can be triggered; and suddenly the cloud of death disappears and there is all sunshine --

tremendous life, abundant life, life full of song and full of dance.

So the first thing, Amrita, is to get rid of death. All fears will disappear. You don't have to work on each single fear; otherwise it will take lives and still you will not be able to get rid of them.

You say, "I am most aware of a big fear...."

Everybody is more or less aware of the big fear, but the fear is absolutely rootless, baseless. And you say "... or guilt in me, when I sit with You."

The fear is natural, because death is known by everybody around. Guilt is not natural; it is created by religions. They have made every man guilty -- guilty of a thousand and one things, so burdened with guilt that they cannot sing, they cannot dance, they cannot enjoy anything. The guilt poisons everything.

Sitting with me it becomes more clear to you, because I am a stranger amongst you; I don't have any guilt. Guilt is an absolutely non-existential thing. It is the conditioning of religions.

Sitting with me, everything inside you starts becoming clear by contrast: Here is a man who has no guilt, a man who has no fear, a man who is absolutely alone in this whole world -- a single man against the whole world. All your guilt that ordinarily remains unconscious, because you are living with the same kind of people, with the same kind of conditioning....

Being with me is being with a mirror.

And to see yourself and the mess that you are carrying within you, is certainly saddening.

But it is also important, because if you become aware of it, it can be dropped. Guilt is an idea accepted by you. You can reject it, and it can be rejected because it is not part of existence. It is part of some stupid theology, of some old primitive religion.

You are saying, "and I am longing so much to be totally open to You." And you become afraid because the closer you become, the more open you become, the more you feel yourself full of guilt, sadness, misery, condemnation. You have been humiliated so much.

All the religions have conspired against innocent human beings to make them guilty, because without making them guilty they cannot be made into slaves. And slaves are needed. For a few people's lust for power, millions of people are needed to be enslaved.

For a few people to become Alexander the Great, millions have to be reduced to a subhuman status.

But all these are simply conditionings in the mind, which you can erase as easily as writing in the sands on a beach. Just don't be afraid, because those writings you have accepted as holy, you have accepted as coming from very respectable sources, from great founders of religions. It does not matter. Only one thing matters: that your mind should be completely cleaned, utterly empty and silent.

There is no need of Moses or Jesus or Buddha to reside inside you. You need a totally silent, clean space. And only that space can bring you not only to me, but to yourself, to existence itself.

"Recently I could feel the serpent rolled up in the bottom of me, sleeping, and the door, the third chakra, still closed. My heart wants to fly with you. Is there anything I can do?"

There are things which have to be done, and there are things which have not to be done.

Things that can be done are ordinary, mundane, mediocre, of the objective world. Things which happen, and cannot be done, belong to a superior, higher order of existence.

If you are feeling that you would like your love to grow, to blossom, then wait with deep longing -- as a seed. The longing has to be the seed. And the waiting, the patient waiting for the time when the spring comes and seeds start changing from dormant beings into alive, active blossomings....

The longing is there.

Just waiting is needed.

And the waiting should not be impatient, because impatient waiting means you don't trust existence. And your impatience cannot bring the spring a single moment earlier. On the contrary, your impatience may block the door for the spring to come to you.

Just remain available, with a deep longing, just like a thirst in every cell of your body, a passion.

And spring has always come.

Your spring will also come.

You need not do anything else.

Just long as lovingly, as intensely, and wait as patiently, as possible.

The religions of the world have given so many diseases to man that they are uncountable.

One of the diseases is that they have made every man ambitious for reward -- if not in this world then in the other world. They have made man so greedy, and at the same time they are all talking against greed. But their whole religion is based on greed.

Don't let your longing be a greed.

Your longing should be a love affair.

Your longing should not be a sad state but a joyful state, just as a pregnant mother. Your longing makes you pregnant. You can feel the child inside you which is growing every day, and each moment becomes a reward -- not that your reward will be delivered in heaven.

Religions have done such harm that they cannot be forgiven. They have taken away all dignity of man -- his joy of longing, of love, his pleasure in waiting, his trust that the spring will come. They have taken everything away from you. You will be rewarded only if you do certain rituals which have no relationship, no relevance. Now, going around a statue seven times -- what relevance can there be that you have earned virtue?

There are people who are continuously counting beads. I have seen people who are tending their shop and their hand is holding the beads so others should not see. It looks strange that you are haggling about the price of a certain thing with a customer and at the same time moving the beads, so they keep their hands and their beads in a bag so you cannot see. But anybody can see -- why should one have one's hand in a bag?

So the religion is going on inside the bag; outside they are haggling for the price and everything, and trying to cheat and exploit -- lying. And inside, how many times they have moved the beads -- means they have earned that much virtue. Virtue is the coin in heaven -- how much virtue have you in your bank account?

In Tibet they have done even better than counting beads. They have made small prayer wheels; each spoke represents one bead. So they go on doing all kinds of work, their prayer wheel by their side, and just once in a while they move it. And it goes on moving; when it slows down, they again give a push....

When I first came to know a lama with his prayer wheel I said, "You are stupid. Just plug it into the electricity. It will go on eternally, irrespective of whether you are alive or dead!"

But the lama could not understand that I was making a laughingstock of him. He said,

"Your idea is great, because then we are completely free; otherwise this is a hindrance and everything -- you cannot do anything wholeheartedly." Even making love, they are moving their prayer wheel -- both the wife and the husband, they both have their prayer wheels. Now, it is very difficult: in the first place, the exercise of love is difficult -- such primitive gymnastics -- and on top of it you have to go on moving those prayer wheels.

A simple and innocent religion would have changed the whole earth. But the cunning priests would not allow a pure and innocent and childlike religion, with wondering eyes, with joy, not bothering about stupid ideas about heaven and hell but living each moment with great love.

And waiting for more -- not desiring, but by waiting, deserving, creating more and more space, silence, so that the spring comes. And not only a few flowers, but so many flowers....

One of the Sufi mystics has a small poem about it: "I had waited long for the spring -- it came. And it came so abundantly, with so many flowers, that there was not a place left where I could make a nest for myself."

Life gives abundantly; you just have to be a recipient. But never wait for any reward.

Three men die on the same day and go to heaven. One by one they are interviewed by Saint Peter, who asked the first man how many times he had made love: "Never! I am a virgin," is the first guy's answer. Saint Peter gives him a Mercedes Benz to get around in, and poses the same question to the second man. "Only once," he says, "on my wedding night."

Giving him the keys to a Toyota, Saint Peter turns and asks the third man how often he has made love in his life. "I have gotten laid so many times I have lost count," the fellow confesses. And Saint Peter gives him a bicycle.

Not too much later, the first man is driving around in his Mercedes Benz when he sees something so extraordinary that he turns his head to look. He crashes headlong into a tree, and when he comes to, in Heaven Hospital, the angel doctors and police are standing by his bedside, waiting to find out what caused the accident.

"It was shocking, simply shocking!" whispers the poor man, "I saw Pope John Paul on roller skates."

All your old religions are based on reward and punishment, on more and less. Even on the last night when Jesus is departing from his disciples they ask only one question --

"Certainly in heaven you will be standing at the right hand of God, but what about us?

Who will be standing next to you? And what are going to be our positions?" It is shocking to think that the man they had loved, lived with, is going to be crucified tomorrow -- it is almost certain -- but their whole concern is about their position. This is the corruption that religions have put into man's mind.

I want you to be absolutely innocent of all religious corruption and pollution. Have a silent, loving mind, waiting for more to happen. Life is so much that we go on exploring it -- but we cannot exhaust it. The mystery is timeless.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #13

Chapter title: Nothing goes right without meditation

18 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705180

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN13

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Yes

Video:

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Length:

104

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I FEEL A STRONG CONNECTION BETWEEN DEATH AND MEDITATION, A FASCINATION AND A FEAR. WHEN I SIT WITH YOU, IT IS SOMEHOW SAFE

TO CLOSE MY EYES AND MEDITATE; WHEN I AM ALONE, IT IS

FRIGHTENING. PLEASE COMMENT.

Dhyan Sagar, there is not only a strong connection between meditation and death, but they are almost the same thing -- just two ways of looking at the same experience.

Death separates you from your body, from your mind, from all that is not you. But it separates you against your will. You are resisting, you don't want to be separated; you are not willing, you are not in a state of let-go.

Meditation also separates all that is not you from your being and reality -- but the resistance is not there; that is the only difference. Instead of resistance, there is a tremendous willingness, a longing, a passionate welcome. You want it; you desire it from the very depth of your heart.

The experience is the same -- the separation between the false and the real -- but because of your resistance in death, you become unconscious, you fall into a coma. You cling too much in death; you don't allow it to happen, you close all the doors, all the windows.

Your lust for life is at the optimum. The very idea of dying frightens you from the very roots.

But death is a natural phenomenon and absolutely necessary too -- it has to happen. If the leaves don't become yellow and don't fall, the new leaves, the fresh and young will not come. If one goes on living in the old body, he will not be moving into a better house, fresher, newer, with more possibilities of a new beginning. Perhaps he may not take the same route as he has taken in his past life, getting in a desert. He may move into a new sky of consciousness.

Each death is an end and a beginning.

Don't pay too much attention to the end. It is an end to an old, rotten, miserable life style, and it is a great opportunity to begin a new life, not to commit the old mistakes. It is a beginning of an adventure. But because you cling to life and you don't want to leave it --

and it has to happen by the very nature of things -- you fall unconscious.

Almost everyone, except those few people who have become enlightened, dies unconsciously; hence they don't know what death is, they don't know its new beginning, the new dawn.

Meditation is your own exploration.

You are searching to know exactly what constitutes you: what is false in you and what is real in you. It is a tremendous journey from the false to the real, from the mortal to the immortal, from darkness to light. But when you come to the point of seeing the separation from the mind and the body, and yourself just as a witness, the experience of death is the same. You are not dying... a man who has meditated will die joyfully because he knows there is no death; the death was in his clinging with life.

You say, Sagar, I FEEL A STRONG CONNECTION BETWEEN DEATH AND

MEDITATION. There is. In the ancient scriptures of this land, even the master is defined as death because his whole function, his whole work is to teach you meditation. In other words, he is teaching you to die without dying -- to pass through the experience of death, surprised that you are still alive; death was like a cloud that has passed; it has not even scratched you. Hence the fascination, and the fear. The fascination is to know the mysterious experience everybody has to pass through, has passed through many times, but became unconscious. And the fear -- that perhaps death is only the end and not another beginning.

It happened, just in the beginning of this century, that the King of Varanasi was to be operated on; the operation was major. But the King was very stubborn and he wouldn't take any kind of anesthesia. He said, "You can do the operation, but I want to see it happen; I don't want to be unconscious."

The doctors were puzzled. It was against medical practice... such a major operation was going to be too painful; the man might die because of the pain. Surgery needs you to be unconscious.

Perhaps the science of surgery has learned the art of anesthesia from the experience of death, because death is the greatest surgery. It separates you from your body, from your heart, and you have remained identified with all this for seventy years, eighty years. They have become almost your real self. The separation is going to be very painful, and there is a limit to pain.

Have you ever noticed? -- there is no unbearable pain. The words"unbearable pain" exist only in language -- all pain is bearable. The moment it becomes unbearable, you fall unconscious. Your unconsciousness is a way to bear it.

If he had been an ordinary man, the doctors would not have listened to him -- but he was a king, and a very well-known king, known all over the country as a great wise man. He persuaded the surgeons, "Don't be worried, nothing is going to happen to me. Just give me five minutes before you start your operation so that I can arrange myself into a meditative state. Once I'm in meditation, I am already far away from the body. Then you can cut my whole body into pieces -- I will be only a witness, and a faraway witness, as if it is happening to somebody else."

The moment was very critical; the operation had to be done immediately. If it was not done immediately, it might cause death. There were only two alternatives: either to operate and allow the patient to remain conscious, or not to operate, but follow the old routine of science. But in that case, death was certain. In the first case, there was a chance that perhaps this man could manage, and he was so insistent... finding no way to persuade him, they had to operate.

That was the first operation done without anesthesia, in a state of meditation. The king simply closed his eyes, became silent. Even the surgeons felt something changing around the king -- the vibe, the presence; his face became relaxed like a small baby, just born, and after five minutes they started the operation. The operation took two hours, and they were trembling with fear; in fact, they were not sure that the king would survive -- the shock might be too much. But when the operation was over, the king asked them, "Can I open my eyes now?"

It was discussed in the medical field all over the world as a very strange case. The surgeons asked him what he did. He said, "I have not done anything. To meditate is my very life. Moment to moment I am living in silence. I asked for those five minutes because you were going to do such a dangerous operation that I had to become absolutely settled in my being, with no wavering. Then you could do anything... because you were not doing it to me. I am consciousness -- and you cannot operate on consciousness, you can operate only on the body."

You say," WHEN I SIT WITH YOU, IT IS SOMEHOW SAFE." There is really no difference whether you sit with me or you sit alone -- it is just a mind security, the idea that the master is present so there is no harm to take the jump. If something goes wrong, somebody is there to take care of it.

In meditation, nothing goes wrong -- ever.

Without meditation, everything is going wrong.

Nothing goes right without meditation; your whole life is going wrong. You live only in hope, but your hopes are never fulfilled. Your life is a long, long tragedy. And the reason is your unawareness, your unmeditativeness.

Meditation looks like death, and the experience is exactly the same. But the attitude and the approach is different, and the difference is so vast that it can be said that meditation is life and death is just a dream.

But this is the function of a mystery school, where many people are meditating, where a master is present. You feel safe, you are not alone. If something goes wrong, help will be available immediately. But nothing goes wrong.

So meditate while you are sitting with me, and meditate in your aloneness. Meditation is the only thing with an absolute guarantee that nothing goes wrong with it. It only reveals your existence to yourself -- how can anything go wrong? And you are not doing anything; you are really stopping doing everything. You are stopping thinking, feeling, doing -- a full stop to all your actions. Only consciousness remains, because that is not your action, it is you.

Once you have tasted your being, all fear disappears, and life becomes a totally new dimension -- no longer mundane, no longer ordinary. For the first time you see the sacredness and the divineness not only of yourself, but of all that exists. Everything becomes mysterious, and to live in this mystery is the only way to live blissfully; to live in this mystery is to live under blessings showering on you like rain. Each moment brings more and more, deeper and more profound blessings to you. Not that you deserve them, but because life gives them out of its abundance -- it is burdened, it shares with whomsoever is receptive to it.

But don't get the idea that meditation is death-like, because death has no good associations in your mind. That will prevent you experiencing consciousness -- "It is death-like." In fact, it is a real death. The ordinary death is not a real death, because you will be again joined with another structure, another body. The meditator dies in a great way; he never again becomes imprisoned in a body.

An Italian missed a day at work and the foreman wanted an explanation.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

"It was-a my wife. She give-a birth to a wheelbarrow."

"If you can't do any better than that," said the foreman, "I'm gonna have to fire you."

"I think-a I got it wrong," said the Italian. "My wife, she's in-a bed having a push chair."

"That's it, wise guy," shouted the foreman, "You are fired!"

The Italian went home and asked his wife, "Hey, what was wrong with you yesterday?"

"I told-a you, I had-a miscarriage."

"I knew it was-a something with-a wheels-a on it."

There are misunderstandings piled upon misunderstandings in you. Some misunderstandings can be tremendously harmful. Getting the association of meditation and death identified in your mind is one of the greatest harms that you can do to yourself.

Although you are not wrong, your associations with the meaning of death are such that they will prevent you from getting into meditation.

That is one of the reasons I want to make death more and more associated with celebration rather than with mourning, more and more associated with a change, a new beginning, rather than just a full stop, an end. I want to change the association. That will clear the way for meditativeness.

And if you are feeling, here with me, silent and meditative -- still alive, more alive than ever -- then there is no need to be afraid. Try it in different situations, and you will always find it a source of great healing, a source of great well-being, a source of great wisdom... a source of great insight into life and its mysteries.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN SOMEONE LIKE NIETZSCHE OR GERTRUDE STEIN DIES -- A GENIUS

WHO WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BECOME ENLIGHTENED IF THEY HAD MET

A MASTER -- WHAT SORT OF CONSCIOUSNESS DO THEY CARRY INTO THE

NEXT LIFE, AND WHAT WAS IT THAT IN THEIR PREVIOUS LIVES ALLOWED

THEM TO EXPERIENCE SUCH A HUGE POTENTIAL, SUCH A GREAT

FLOWERING, AND SUCH A GREAT KNACK? WAS IT THE IDEA OF WANTING

TO GO THEIR OWN WAY WITHOUT A MASTER?

Pankaja, there are many things in your question. First, you ask, "When someone like Nietzsche or Gertrude Stein dies -- a genius who would probably have become enlightened if they had met a master -- what sort of consciousness do they carry into the next life?

The first thing to be understood is that consciousness has nothing to do with genius.

Everybody can be a Gautam Buddha. Everybody cannot be a Michelangelo, everybody cannot be a Friedrich Nietzsche.

But everybody can be a Zarathustra, because the spiritual realization is everybody's birthright. It is not a talent like painting, or music, or poetry, or dancing; it is not a genius either. A genius has tremendous intelligence, but it is still of the mind.

Enlightenment is not of the mind, it is not intellect; it is intelligence of a totally different order. So, the first thing to remember is that it is not only people, like Friedrich Nietzsche who have missed the journey towards their own selves; they were great intellectuals, geniuses unparalleled -- but all that belongs to the mind. And to be a Gautam Buddha, a Lao Tzu, or a Zarathustra is to get out of the mind, to be in a state of mindlessness. It does not matter whether you had a big mind or a small mind, a mediocre mind, or a genius; the point is that you should be out of the mind. The moment you are out of the mind, you are in yourself.

So the strange thing is that the more a person is intellectual, the farther he goes away from himself. His intellect takes him to faraway stars. He is a genius, he may create great poetry, he may create great sculpture. But as far as you are concerned, you are not to be created, you are already there.

The genius creates, the meditator discovers.

So, don't make a category of Nietzsche and Stein and Schweitzer separate from others. In the world of mind, they are far richer than you, but in the world of no-mind, they are as poor as you are. And that is the space which matters.

Secondly, you ask, "What sort of consciousness do they carry into the next life?" They don't have any consciousness to carry into another life. They have a certain genius, a certain talent, a certain intelligence; they will carry that intelligence into another life, but they don't have consciousness.

Consciousness is an altogether different matter. It has nothing to do with creativity, it has nothing to do with inventiveness, it has nothing to do with science or art; it has something to do with tremendous silence, peace, a centering -- they don't have it. So the question of carrying a certain consciousness into the next life does not arise; they don't have it in the first place. What they have, they will carry into the next life. They will become greater geniuses, they will become better singers, they will become more talented in their field, but it has nothing to do with meditation or consciousness. They will remain as unconscious as you are, as anybody else is.

It is as if you all fall asleep here; you will be dreaming. Somebody may have a very beautiful dream, very nice, very juicy, and somebody may have a nightmare. But both are dreams. And when they wake up, they will know that the beautiful dream and the nightmare are not different -- they are both dreams. They are non-existential, mind projections.

When an ordinary man meditates, he comes to the same space of blissfulness as Nietzsche or Albert Einstein or Bertrand Russell. That space of blissfulness will not be different, will not be richer for Bertrand Russell because he is a great intellectual. Those values don't matter outside of the mind; outside of the mind, they are irrelevant.

This is great and good news because it means a woodcutter or a fisherman can become Gautam Buddha. An uneducated Jesus, an uneducated Kabir, who doesn't show any indication of genius, can still become enlightened, because enlightenment is not a talent, it is discovering your being. And the being of everyone is absolutely equal. That is the only place where communism exists -- not in the Soviet Union, not in China.

The only place where communism exists is when somebody becomes a Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu. Suddenly all distinctions, talents of the mind, disappear. There is only pure sky where you cannot make any distinctions of higher and lower.

And you are asking, "What was it that in their previous lives allowed them to experience such a huge potential?"

You are growing every moment in whatever you are doing. A warrior will attain a certain quality of warriorness, a sharpness of the sword, and he will carry that quality into the next life. A mathematician will carry his mathematical intelligence to higher peaks in another life. That's why people are so different, so unequal, because in their past lives everybody has been doing different things, accumulating different experiences, molding the mind in a certain way. Nothing is lost, whatever you are doing will be with you like your shadow. It will follow you, and it will become bigger and bigger.

If Nietzsche is a great philosopher, he must have been philosophizing in his past lives --

perhaps many, many lives -- because such a genius needs a long, long philosophical past.

But the same is true about everybody. Everybody has a certain talent, developed or undeveloped; it depends on your decision, on your commitment. Once you are committed, you have accepted a responsibility to grow in a certain direction. Even whole races of people have developed in different directions, not only individuals.

For example, the Sikhs in India are not different from Hindus. They are only five hundred years old, following an enlightened man, Nanak. They became a different sect -- but they are Hindus. And for these five hundred years, a strange phenomenon has happened, which has not happened anywhere else in the world. You cannot find in a Jewish family that one person is a Christian; you cannot find in a Mohammedan family that one person is a Hindu. But for five hundred years it has been a convention that in Punjab, where Sikhs dominate, the eldest son of the family should become a Sikh. He still remains in the family. His whole family is Hindu -- his father is Hindu, his wife may be Hindu; he is a Sikh.

And the strangeness is that just by being Sikhs, the whole character of those Hindus has changed. Hindus have become cowards in the name of nonviolence; they are boiling with aggression within but, nonviolence is the ideal. Sikhs don't believe in nonviolence; neither do they believe in violence -- they believe in spontaneity.

A certain situation may need violence and a certain situation may need nonviolence; you cannot make it a principle of life. You have to remain open, available, and responsive to the moment. And there is no difference of blood -- the differences are such that one can only laugh at them -- but they have created a totally new race.

Any Hindu can become a Sikh, any Mohammedan can become a Sikh, because the change is very simple. You have to have long hair, you cannot cut your beard or mustache; you have to use a turban, and you have to keep a comb in your turban; you have to wear a steel ring, a bracelet, just to show that you are a Sikh, and you have to carry a sword. You always have to wear underwear.

How these things have changed people is a miracle, because the Sikh is totally different from Hindus in his behavior. He is a warrior; he's not cowardly. He's more sincere, more simple, more of the heart.

It happened... I was going to Manali, the mountainous part, and it had rained, and the driver of my limousine was a Sikh. He started becoming afraid. The road was very small, the limousine was very big. The road was slippery; there were water pools collected on the road. At a certain point it looked very dangerous. A great river was flowing by, thousands of feet down -- and just a small road. He stopped the car, went out, and sat there. And he said, "I cannot move anymore, it is simply going into death."

I said, "Don't be worried, you just sit; I will drive."

He said, "That is even more dangerous! I cannot give you the key."

I said, "This is very strange, because we have been traveling the whole night, twelve hours; now we are in the middle."

I tried to explain to him, "Even going back, you will have to travel twelve miles, twelve hours again on the same dangerous road. Whether you go backwards or you go forwards, it is the same."

He said, "It is not the same, because the road that we have passed, we have survived -- I can manage. But ahead it seems to be simply committing suicide -- I cannot go."

At that very moment, the inspector general of Punjab, who was coming to participate in the camp, came in his jeep. Seeing me standing there, and the limousine and driver sitting there, he said, "What is the matter?"

I said, "It is good you have come at the right moment; this driver is not ready to move ahead."

The inspector general of Punjab was also a Sikh. He came close to the driver and told him, "You are a Sikh. Have you forgotten this? Just get into the car."

And strangely enough, he immediately got into the car. We moved. I asked him, "What happened? I have been arguing with you...."

He said, "It is not a question of argument. I am a Sikh! I am supposed not to be afraid, and I had forgotten it."

Just a slight idea can change not only the individual, it can change the whole race.

We have seen how Adolf Hitler created in Germany a race of warriors as nobody has done ever before, just by giving them the idea that "you are the purest Aryans, that you are born to rule all over the world. "And once the idea got into their minds, he almost conquered the world. For five years, he went on conquering. People became so afraid that a few countries simply gave way to him without fighting. What was the point of fighting with those people? They were superhuman. These ideas also are carried from one life to another.

In India there are sudras, untouchables. For five thousand years they have been condemned, oppressed, as nobody else in the whole world. I used to go to their functions and they would not let me sit with them. I would tell them, "You are as human as anybody else, and in fact you are doing a service which is far more valuable than any prime minister or any president of any country. The country would be more peaceful without these presidents and prime ministers, but without you, the country cannot live.

You are keeping the country clean, you are doing the dirtiest jobs; you should be respected for it."

They would listen to me, but I could see that they were not ready to accept the idea that they are equal to other human beings. For five thousand years they have not revolted against such oppression, such humiliation -- just they go on carrying it from one life into another life; it becomes more and more ingrained.

Pankaja, you are asking, "Was it the idea of wanting to go their own way without a master?" No, they had no idea of the great experience that happens between a master and a disciple. They have never consciously decided to go on their own way.

In fact in the West, masters have not existed. There have been saviors. They are not masters; they don't help you to become enlightened, they help you to remain unenlightened. Just believe in them and they will save you, you are not to do anything.

The West has known prophets, messengers of God, but the West has not known masters.

It has known mystics, but the mystics have remained silent in the West seeing that they will not be understood.

It is the atmosphere of thousands of years in the East that has made a few people take courage, and say things which cannot be said. It was the long heritage that allowed a few mystics to become masters. The West has missed completely a whole dimension of life.

The East has also missed many things -- it has missed the scientific mind, it has missed the technological progress. It has remained poor, it has been invaded very easily by anybody, because its whole soul was devoted towards only one thing -- everything else was irrelevant: Who rules the country does not matter, what matters is whether you are enlightened or not. Whether you are rich or poor does not matter, what matters is whether you know yourself or not -- a single-pointed devotion. And because of this, the East has a climate of its own.

As you enter into the Eastern climate, you suddenly feel a difference. The West is more logical; the East is more loving. The West is more of the mind; the East is more of mindlessness, of meditation.

No, Pankaja, they have not missed a master; the very idea was non-existent to them. Even today, millions of Western people are unaware of the fact of masters, disciples, meditations. It is only the younger generation -- and that too a very small portion of it --

which has entered into the Eastern dimension, and has been shocked that the real richness is not of the outside world, the real richness is of the inside.

Ginsberg is dying. "Call the priest," he says to his wife, "and tell him I want to be converted into the catholic religion."

"But Max, you are an orthodox Jew all your life. What are you talking about? You want to be converted?"

Ginsberg says, "Better one of them should die than one of us."

People have lived as Jews, as Christians, as Mohammedans, but people have not lived as simply religious.

In the East also only, a very few people have lived in pure religiousness. But only those very few people have filled the whole of the East with a fragrance which seems to be eternal.

God asked Moses to choose whatever promised land he wished. After weighing several factors, Moses settled on California. But Moses, according to legend, had a speech impediment and he begin to answer, "C... C...."

Whereupon God said, "Canaan, that wasteland? Well, okay Mo. If you want it, you got it."

Poor Moses, because of a speech impediment got Canaan, which is now Israel -- its old name is Canaan.

But from the very beginning in the Western mind, the desire was for California. He could have asked for Kashmir where finally he came and died; he could have asked for the land of Gautam Buddha.

But the East has appealed only to those who are called by psychologists "introverts"; and the West has appeal for those who are known as extroverts. Going Eastward means going inward; going Westward means going outward.

For thousands of years, authentic seekers have been coming to the East. They have found a certain magnetic pull; where so many people have meditated, they have created a tremendous energy pool. Being in that atmosphere, things become simpler, because the whole atmosphere is supportive, is a nourishment.

I have been around the world, and I have seen how the West is absolutely unaware of the Eastern grace. How is it that the Western man is unaware of himself? He's thinking of the farthest star, but not about himself. The East has remained committed to a single goal --

to be oneself, and to know oneself. Unless you know yourself, and you are yourself, your life has gone to waste; it has not blossomed, it has not flowered. You have not fulfilled your destiny.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #14

Chapter title: The love that never ends

18 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705185

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN14

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

65

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE, IN KATHMANDU, I ASKED YOU ABOUT THE NEED OF THE DISCIPLE

FOR A MASTER. THEN I ASKED YOU IF THE MASTER NEEDS THE DISCIPLE, AND YOU SHOWERED ON ME SOME WORDS THAT I RECEIVED IN TEARS, LIKE PETALS OF AN UNKNOWABLE FLOWER. WOULD YOU PLEASE BE SO

KIND AND SPEAK TO US ABOUT THE NEED OF THE MASTER FOR THE

DISCIPLES. AREN'T YOU THE FORMLESS FORM, WITH WHOM EXISTENCE IS

FULFILLING OUR LONGING? AREN'T WE, IN SOME WAY, YOUR FOOD, YOUR

NOURISHMENT?

Sarjano, I do not remember what I said in response to your question in Kathmandu. I never remember anything I have said. That keeps me responsible. I cannot repeat, because I do not remember. I can only respond to the question, and to the questioner in this very moment.

Between Kathmandu and this moment, neither you have remained you, nor I have remained I. And so much water has gone down the Ganges, that any repetition is always out of date. Any repetition is dead, is not alive.

That's how the whole of humanity is only pretending to live, but deep down is dead, because it has forgotten the language of response. It knows only the language of reaction.

It reacts according to the memory. It does not respond according to the awareness of the moment, of the need here and now. It is full of the past.

There is no present in millions of people around the world. Millions of people live without knowing the taste of the present. And when you are full of the past you are a graveyard. Howsoever beautiful the past may be, it is still dead. And beauty is meaningless if it cannot dance, if it cannot sing, if it cannot even breathe.

I am here, you are here, why bring Kathmandu in? I don't know what Kathmandu means in Nepalese, but in Hindustani we have a phrase which immediately reminds one of Kathmandu. The phrase is kath ke ullu. It means, "You are an owl. And that too not real, but made of wood." I don't know what Kathmandu means; Kath certainly means wood....

Why bring Kathmandu in? You really want to listen to the same answer again, but it is impossible Sarjano. You will have to forgive me, because I don't remember a single word. Kathmandu is almost as far away as the farthest star, as if it happened in some other life.

While we are alive, why waste your time? You can ask a new question and you can receive a new response. The new will be fresher, and the new will be better. The new will be more mature.

But people have lived to live in the past. It has become almost a second nature to them. It is very difficult to drag them out of their graves and tell them, "You are not dead yet.

Start breathing, you are still alive."

An elderly Jewish man walks into a jewelry store to buy his wife a present. "How much is this?" he asks the assistant, pointing to a silver crucifix.

"That is six hundred dollars, sir," replies the assistant.

"Nice," says the man, "and how much without the acrobat on it?"

People cannot forgive the past, people cannot forget the past. Two thousand years have passed, but Jesus is not yet acceptable to the Jewish mind. Not a single Jew in two thousand years has repented that crucifying Jesus was a criminal act, and that he finds himself also part of the conspiracy. You will be surprised to know that not a single Jewish scripture even mentions the name of Jesus. It is so unworthy. Such is our approach to life....

I will take your question as fresh, because we are not in Kathmandu. And I will answer you in this moment, responding to your question and to you. I am not in the habit of quoting myself.

You are asking, what is the need of the disciple for a master, and vice versa -- what is the need of a master for a disciple? Condensed to its essentialness, the question is, "Does love exist in the lover or in the beloved? Or does love exist in the harmony of both?"

Only in those rare moments, when there is no "I" and no "thou," love blossoms. It does not exist in the lover, it does not exist in the beloved, it exists in the disappearance of their separation.

That's why all lovers are disappointed, because they cannot remain organically one for more than a few seconds. Just a small thing and the separation returns; it was just waiting.

If in twenty-four hours you can find twenty-four seconds of organic unity and harmony, you should think yourself immensely blessed, tremendously rich.

The same is the situation between the disciple and the master. Something higher than love, something deeper than love and togetherness exists in those moments of silence, those moments of communion, when the disciple forgets that he is separate from the master, when the disciple melts and merges into the master.

The master is already merged into existence. Merging into the master you are really merging with existence itself. The master functions only as a door, and a door is an emptiness; you pass through it.

The master is the door to the beyond.

And the beyond exists in the organic unity, in the communion, in the merger, in the melting of the master and the disciple. It is the highest form of love. It is the greatest prayer, the deepest gratitude, and the most ecstatic experience available to human consciousness.

The master is missing something when he is alone; he is like an ocean into which no rivers melt. A disciple is certainly just a nobody without a master. With a master, he becomes the whole existence. Both are fulfilled in a togetherness. And because this togetherness is not of the body, not of the mind, but of that which is beyond the mind in you, it is possible to attain and never lose it.

Love is always up and down, one moment joyful, another moment sad. But the love that we are talking about -- love between two spirits, between two beings -- only begins, it never ends.

The masters ordinarily will not accept what I am saying, but if they don't accept it they are insincere. And if they are insincere, what kind of masters are they?

The masters have been pretending that they don't need anything -- they don't need you, they don't need your eyes, they don't need your heartbeat, they don't need your love, they don't need your merger and meeting. That is an egoistic attitude. And anybody who pretends that he needs nothing is only a teacher, not a master. He himself needs to be a disciple. He has heard many beautiful truths, but he has not known anything on his own.

A true master, out of his sincerity, out of his humbleness, will accept the simple fact that he is not beyond any need. Of course, his needs are of a very spiritual kind.

He cannot live unless he can share. Even to exist is impossible for him -- he loses all meaning -- unless he can wake up people who are fast asleep, unless he can make people who are miserable become transformed into dancing roses. In their fulfillment he becomes again and again enlightened.

His enlightenment is not an incident: the authentic master is becoming continuously enlightened each moment. His enlightenment is a progress, an eternal progress; otherwise, the world would have been far more poor. It is already poor.

If Gautam Buddha needed nothing, then for forty-two years walking the whole land, talking to people, knowing perfectly well that they cannot understand, is an arduous task.

Why is he doing it? He is helpless, he has to do it. It comes as an intrinsic part of his own enlightenment.

Before, it was a longing to become enlightened. Now it is a longing to make the whole world enlightened.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I LOVE THE WAY YOU SPEAK SO INTIMATELY TO SANNYASINS WHO HAVE

BEEN WITH YOU FOR A LONG TIME, REMEMBERING VEENA WITH

PHOTOGRAPHIC CLARITY AND WHETHER SOMEONE ELSE'S HANDS WERE

COLD OR WARM, AND WHERE HE USED TO STAND TO GREET YOU. THE

INTIMACY OF YOU ACKNOWLEDGING US IS SUCH AN INCREDIBLY

BEAUTIFUL GIFT IT MAKES ME WEEP. COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING

ABOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT?

Prem Pankaja, one of the most important secrets of life is that the something can be of immense spiritual value, and the same thing can be a great hindrance for your growth.

Such is acknowledgement. It can arise out of your ego -- to be acknowledged -- then it is dangerous. Then it is going to strengthen that which is false in you and block the doors for the real to open up.

But if it arises out of a simple, innocent heart -- not as a nourishment to the ego but just as a blissful recognition that you are also there, that you are also in existence, that you are accepted as you are, that you are respected as you are -- then acknowledgement can become a tremendous experience and transformation.

It all depends on you, what you make of it.

There are people whom I feel afraid to recognize -- not that it is going to do any harm to me, but because it is going to do harm to them. I can see in their eyes, in their faces, a deep desire, a greed to be recognized. I ignore it. But there are people who are simply here -- just enjoying. It is more than enough that they are breathing the same air, that they are sitting under the same roof, that they are surrounded by the same trees.

I am reminded of a strange story about Ananda, one of Gautam Buddha's most intimate disciples.

And he was not only a disciple, he was also his elder cousin-brother. Just the fact that he was more deeply related with Gautam Buddha, the fact that blood is thicker than water, the fact that, "Not only I am related, he is younger in age to me," became a hindrance.

Forty-two years he remained with Buddha, but could not attain enlightenment. And many, many others came and became enlightened. It was the day when he was taking initiation that he had asked Gautam Buddha, "I have come to be initiated. After initiation I will be your disciple. Right now I am your elder brother." And in India, even cousin-brothers, if they are elder, have to be respected just like your real brothers.

Ananda said, "I want you to remember three conditions, and give me a promise that you will not go against your word, because after initiation your order will be my life, your word will be my law -- then I cannot say anything. So just before initiation I want three promises. As your elder brother you have to respect my desires."

Sariputra, one of Gautam Buddha's earliest disciple's, said to Ananda, "Don't be stupid, these promises will become hindrances for your growth. These conditions will prohibit all for which you are taking the initiation. You are saying, Ì am going to become your disciple,' but deep down you will never be a disciple. You will always know that you are the elder brother, and those three conditions will always make you certain about it."

Initiation has to be taken unconditionally, but Ananda was not going to listen to an ordinary sannyasin. Sariputra was one of the wisest disciples of Gautam Buddha, but in the eyes of Ananda he was nobody. Ananda was a king, had his own kingdom; Sariputra was just a commoner. Ananda said to him, "You keep quiet. It is a question between two brothers, you need not interfere."

After forty-two years Ananda wept when Gautam Buddha was dying. And he said, "I did not listen to Sariputra. I was ignorant, I insisted. Those conditions were nothing but an enhancement of my ego."

The first condition was, "I will always remain with you. You cannot send me anywhere else to spread the word." Second, "I can ask any question. You cannot say to me, `Wait, and when the time is right you will receive the answer.' No, you will have to give me the answer immediately." And third, "If I bring a friend -- even if it is in the middle of the night, and I wake you up -- you will have to receive him and answer his questions."

Gautam Buddha laughed. There are very few occasions when he laughed -- in his whole life maybe three or four occasions. He laughed, laughed at the stupidity of human ignorance. What he was asking was just meaningless, and what he was losing he was not aware of.

Buddha said, "You are my elder brother. I have to obey you, respect you. Your conditions are accepted. You will never find a fault. I give my promise -- but I am giving it with a very heavy heart, because you don't know what you are missing. You are thinking you are becoming special, and this is the place where you have to become humble."

But a blind man is a blind man. He took initiation only after those conditions were accepted. And he wept tears of blood, because he remained always with a subtle ego: "I have a certain speciality amongst ten thousand disciples.

Nobody has any promise from Gautam Buddha except me."

But the people who had no promise, their promises were fulfilled. Those who had come without asking anything and surrendered themselves, they attained. He remained lagging behind. He could not believe it: "What is the matter? Very junior people have attained to liberation, and I am one of the most senior persons. And I am the closest."

But closest only physically. He slept in the same room in which Gautam Buddha slept.

He moved just behind him like a shadow, and he felt greatly proud of his specialness. He was acknowledged by Gautam Buddha and by everybody else; but his acknowledgement became his fault, his failure.

Pankaja, never desire acknowledgement. Enjoy when it comes, relish it, dance... but when it comes on its own, not asked for. The master always recognizes -- but only those who will be helped by it. And he ignores those who will be helped by his ignoring them.

Perhaps they will come to an understanding of why they are being ignored: because they want to be special, because they want to be acknowledged.

Drop that! If you cannot drop, even with a master, then what kind of discipleship is it?

What kind of initiation have you taken? Now leave it to him. If he feels that you need being ignored, he will ignore you -- and you have to be thankful for it. And if he feels you need acknowledgement he will acknowledge you, and you have to be thankful for that too. But it should not be a demand on your part.

The moment you demand you miss the intimacy, the deep spiritual connection. You fall far away, because the desire is not of your being, it is of your ego, of your personality --

which is not you, which is your enemy. This enemy has to be crucified.

Without ego, without any sense of "I", you will know the innocence of a child. Then the whole starry sky and its freedom is yours.

A smart New York career girl married Stefano, a handsome young Italian farmer. She was not too happy with his social manners, and started trying to improve him immediately. Throughout the wedding reception she continuously corrected his mistakes, telling him what to say, which knife to use at the table, and how to pass the butter.

Finally, the celebrations were over, and they were in bed at last. Stefano fidgeted between the sheets, unsure of himself, but finally he turned towards his new wife and stuttered,

"Could you pass the pussy please?"

It is better to recognize whatever you are: ignorant, uneducated, knowledgeable, moralistic, puritan, egoist -- it is better to recognize whatever you are.

There is no need to hide yourself from the master.

The function of the master is not to improve upon you, but to transform you -- and these are two different processes.

To reform you means to decorate you, to polish you; to transform means to help you die as an ego and be born as an innocent child, who knows no idea of "I-ness".

Only the childlike consciousness is capable of understanding all that is beautiful in life, all that is great in existence. And the whole existence is full of greatness, full of glories.

This is the only existence there is; its beauty, its truth, is the only beauty and the only truth. But they are available only to the innocent people.

Blessed are the innocent, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #15

Chapter title: Most people return unopened

19 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705190

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN15

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

79

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IT FEELS SO HOPELESS. I FEEL ASHAMED TO HAVE BEEN A SANNYASIN

FOR TEN YEARS AND STILL BE IN THIS STATE. I HESITATE TO ASK FOR

YOUR HELP, BECAUSE EVEN YOUR WORDS BECOME MECHANICAL IN ME

AFTER A FEW REPETITIONS. WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?

Prem Indivar, it is not yet hopeless enough. Just make it a little more hopeless. There comes a point in hopelessness where you stop hoping.

Hopelessness is still deep down nothing but hope. Let the hope fail completely and totally, and a dramatic experience arises out of that space when you don't have any hope -

- because hope is another name of desire, another name of expectation, another name of ambition. And before you can realize yourself, all desires, all expectations, all ambitions must have failed you, must have left you alone. Hoping nothing, desiring nothing, expecting nothing -- where will you be? There is no way to go out.

Hope is a way of going out, desire is a way of going away, ambition is a way to avoid going in. On the path, to be utterly hopeless, so hopeless that you stop hoping... suddenly you are in -- without taking a single step.

Hope is a kind of opium; it keeps you intoxicated. To tolerate the miserable present, your eyes remain fixed on a faraway star: your hope. Millions of people live without finding themselves -- not because of any sin that Adam and Eve committed, or that they committed in some of their past lives. The sin is that people go on looking in the future and the present goes on passing by. And the present is the only reality; the future is a dream, and howsoever sweet, dreams never come true.

Self-realization is not a dream. It is a realization in the present moment of your own being. So don't be worried; you are on the right path, Prem Indivar -- becoming hopeless.

Go on more and more, exhaust hopelessness. Come to the optimum hopelessness. Then hope disappears automatically.

And when there is no hope, you are.

When there is no hope, the present is.

An old spinster died, and her two old friends went to a stone mason to have a gravestone made. "And what message would you like to have on the stone?" asked the mason.

"Well," said one of the old maids, "It's quite simple really. We would likèShe came a virgin, she lived a virgin, and she died a virgin.'"

The mason replied, "You know, you ladies could save a lot of money by just saying,

`Returned unopened.'"

Most of the people return unopened, and nobody is responsible except themselves.

You are asking, "It feels so hopeless...." Not yet; otherwise even this question would not have arisen. There is still hope. You say, "I feel ashamed to have been a sannyasin for ten years, and still be in this state." That is your ego feeling hurt; otherwise you would feel humble, not ashamed. What is there to be ashamed of?

Life is not a small thing. It is so vast, and we are so small. The ocean is so big, and we have to swim in it just with our own small hands. Only those people who never start swimming and go on standing on the bank looking at others, should feel ashamed. One who has started swimming... ten years is nothing much, even ten lives are short.

One should be so patient. It is your impatience that is feeling ashamed; it is your ego that is feeling ashamed. You should feel humble -- humble before the vastness of existence, humble before the mysteries of life... just humble, a nobody. And in that humbleness, the ocean becomes small and your hands become bigger.

You say, "I hesitate to ask for your help...."

You go on saying things which you don't mean. If you really hesitate, then why are you asking? In fact, hesitation is your question. You should ask a little more so that you can open up, so that you can become more exposed. Don't go on hiding yourself. What is the hesitation in asking? And you go on rationalizing everything within yourself; you have rationalized your hesitation.

Everybody hesitates to ask, and the reason and the rationalization are two different things. The reason for feeling hesitation is that one does not want to show one's ignorance, and every question shows your ignorance. One hopes that some other stupid person is going to ask the question, just wait... because the human reality is one, and human problems are one, and the search for oneself is one. So some day somebody is going to ask the question that you cannot gather courage to ask yourself.

But I want you to remember that even in asking there is something valuable. In asking, you are exposing your ignorance; in asking, you are accepting that you don't know; in asking, you are dropping your so-called knowledgeability.

To ask a question is more important than the question itself. The question may be anything -- XYZ -- but the very asking is significant. It brings you closer to me, and it brings you closer to all other sannyasins, the fellow travelers. You don't remain closed, afraid that somebody may know that you know not. Exposing yourself -- that you are ignorant -- all fear disappears. You become more human, and you become more intimate with everyone who is a fellow traveler, because the same is his situation. That is the reason why one hesitates.

But rationalizations are a totally different thing. You rationalize that, "I hesitate to ask for your help because even your words become mechanical in me after a few repetitions."

What is the need of repeating them? One repeats a thing because one wants to make it mechanical. In your mind, there is a robot part; if you repeat a certain thing, the robot part takes it over. Then you don't have to think about it; the robot part goes on doing it. You are unburdened of thinking, you are unburdened of responsibility. And the robot part is very efficient; it is mechanical. It has its use, and it has its misuse.

When you are working in the ordinary world, the day to day world, if you have to remember every day where your house is, who your wife is... if you have to search every day in the crowd looking into every face -- who is your wife? -- it will become a little difficult. The robot part takes over. It knows the way home; you need not think on every turn whether to go right or to go left. You go on listening to the radio, and your hands will go on turning the steering wheel exactly to your own porch.

If one has to think about everything, life will become too clumsy. Once in a while, it happens with a few people, who don't have a very strong robot part -- and these are the people who are very intelligent -- that their whole energy moves into intelligence, and their robot part is left starving.

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the cases to be considered. He was leaving and going to an institute to deliver a lecture on some new scientific project he was working on. Saying goodbye to his wife, he kissed her and waved to his maid. His chauffeur could not believe his eyes -- because he had kissed the maid, and he was waving to the wife. His robot part was very, very small; his whole life energy was devoted to scientific investigations where a robot part is not needed.

One day, he was sitting and working on some calculations, and his wife came with the breakfast. Seeing him so much involved, she left the breakfast by his side, thinking that when he sees it, he will understand why she has not disturbed him. Meanwhile, one of his friends came. Seeing him so much absorbed, he also felt not to disturb him. Having nothing else to do, he ate the breakfast, and left the empty dishes by his side. When Edison looked up and saw his friend, he looked at the empty plate and said, "You came a little late. I have finished my breakfast. We could have shared it."

The friend said, "Don't be worried."

You say that everything becomes mechanical in you after a few repetitions. But why repeat? The repetition is a method to make a thing mechanical. Always do something fresh, something new, if you do not want to get caught in repetitions. But in ordinary life, repetitions are perfectly good.

As you enter into the world of higher consciousness, repetitions are dangerous. There you need always a fresh mind, an innocent mind, which knows nothing and responds to a situation not out of the mechanical, robot part of your mind, but from the very living source of your life.

Here we are not concerned about the mundane world. Our concern is to raise the consciousness.

Don't repeat, don't imitate. Remember one thing: you have to respond always in a fresh way. The situation may be old, but you are not to be old. You have to remain young and fresh. Just try new responses. They will not be as efficient as mechanical responses, but efficiency is not a great value in spiritual life... freshness is.

A rabbi and a minister were sitting together on a plane. The stewardess came up to them and asked, "Would you care for a cocktail?"

"Sure," said the rabbi. "Please bring a Manhattan."

"Fine, sir," said the stewardess. "And you Reverend?"

"Young lady," he said, "before I touch strong drink, I would just as soon commit adultery."

"I've missed," said the rabbi." "As long as there is a choice, I will have what he's having."

People are imitative and imitation is bound to be unintelligent. They want to do exactly the things which others are doing. That destroys their freshness. Do things in your own style; live your life according to your own light. And even if the same situation arises, be alert to find a new response.

It is only a question of a little alertness, and once you have started enjoying... and it is really a great joy to respond to old situations always in a new way, because that newness keeps you young, keeps you conscious, keeps you non-mechanical, keeps you alive.

Don't be repetitive. But when I am saying don't be repetitive, I don't mean in the ordinary life, in the marketplace; there, repetition is the rule. But in the inner world, the freshness of your response is the law.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE NOTICED THAT WHEN YOU LEAVE THE DISCOURSE AND PASS

THROUGH THE DOOR, YOU OFTEN LOOK TO YOUR LEFT. ARE YOU SIMPLY

SAYING "HELLO" TO THE GHOST?

I have to. That room, Anando's room, has so many ghosts. I had not told Anando when she came into the room for the first time -- but how long can you hide a fact? The ghosts started declaring themselves. In the middle of the night, they would wake her. They would knock -- she would jump out of her bed. And she was afraid to tell anybody what was the matter. Finally she gathered courage and asked me, "What is the matter?

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, somebody knocks, and if I don't jump up, he tries to pull my leg."

I said, "Nothing to be worried about. It is a very nice assembly of ghosts." I keep them in Anando's room just so they can also listen to the discourse -- in fact, it is their room.

They are not ghosts, they are the hosts -- Anando is the guest. But she was very much afraid I said, "You don't be afraid. Start introducing yourself to them."

She said, "But what will others think?"

I said, "Nobody is there in the middle of the night."

She said, "That's right." So she introduced herself: "I'm a nice Australian girl and I don't want any trouble." And now she has even started making a bed in the bathroom, in the bathtub, with cozy blankets and many clothes for the ghosts, so they can rest there.

I have to pass that room just because of those fellows. Just a "hello" is needed. And now it has become known to a few people. Milarepa is asking, "Why, when you enter the room, do you look to the left and say, `Hello'?" Mukta has even approached Anando to say, "I enjoy the company of ghosts. I would like to invite them for tea -- just to be friendly with them."

But Anando is very much afraid. She has to talk to them every night. I have asked her whether they answer. She said, "They never answer."

I said, "They will not answer because they don't exist. You have to create them; it is a very creative dimension."

Nirupa became interested, because everybody wants to know mysterious things. She stayed with Anando, and she also heard the knocks. She said, "My God, they are!" But in fact, all those knocks are made by Milarepa. It is by arrangement with me, just to keep a place in the commune for nice ghosts.

You can create ghosts very easily. Anything else is very difficult because it needs some material. Ghosts are absolutely immaterial. It just needs a good imagination, and Anando has a good imagination. And it is a good exercise to talk to the ghosts, because you can be more truthful than you can be with human beings -- it is a good meditation. You can tell them secrets which you cannot tell to anybody else, because they are not going to spread rumors. You can trust them; they are your own creation.

Slowly, slowly, Anando will make it a meditation -- it is becoming one by and by. I am giving her as much encouragement as possible. There is nothing to be afraid of, because ghosts don't exist anywhere -- Anando's room included. But to have a good company of ghosts, and to talk with them, can be transformed into a meditation, as if you are talking to your own different selves.

Every man has many selves. He can make each self a ghost, and then it is easy to talk to them. And just one step more -- talk from your side and answer from his side. Between this conversation, between you and the non-existential ghost, you will find treasures hidden within yourself, secrets and mysteries of which you were not aware before.

So Anando's room is a special room. When you walk through it, never forget to say hello to the ghosts.

Goldstein applies for membership in the Communist Party, and he is requested to answer a few questions.

"Who was Karl Marx?"

"I don't know," replies Goldstein.

"Lenin?"

"Sorry, I don't know him either."

"What about Leonid Brezhnev?"

"Never heard of him."

"Are you playing games with me?" asked the official. "Not at all," says Goldstein. "Do you know Herschel Salzberg?"

"No," says the official.

"What about Yankl Horovitch?"

"Never heard of him."

"Sammy Davidovitch?"

"No."

"Well," says Goldstein, "I guess that's the way it goes. You have got your friends, I have got mine."

People think Anando lives alone -- she has such a beautiful congregation! Right now I am telling her to have some conversations, and soon you will see her addressing the congregation. There will be nobody, but she will enjoy her own revelations. And one thing is good about ghosts: you can say anything to them, in any language; right or wrong, it does not matter.

Ghosts are almost like God. People are praying all over the world every morning, every evening, to a god. And it is not that their prayer is absolutely useless -- although there is no God. If they are praying with tears in their eyes and love in their hearts, and a feeling of gratitude surrounding them, whether God exists or not is not the point. The prayer changes the person. It gives him a new experience. God was just an excuse.

So are the ghosts of Anando's room an excuse for her to stand up and address the congregation. I think tonight she's going to do it, and enjoy it, and tell those poor fellows... because they are so old. Somebody may have died thousands of years before.

Just visualize a few skeletons sitting around you -- it is an exercise in visualization -- and then start addressing them, "Brothers and sisters...." And you will not be surprised that they applaud, they laugh, at exactly the right moments.

Milarepa has another question. He is afraid that Anando's ghosts are just underneath his room, and someday they may start moving around the house. You need not be afraid, Milarepa, because I have asked a few ghosts... they are afraid of you! So you remain courageous. Even if you feel some ghost has entered, behave as if nobody has entered.

Go on playing on your guitar a little louder. Ghosts don't particularly like the contemporary music because they are not contemporary -- they are very classical people.

Two Italians were watching a jet fly overhead.

"Hey, that's-a the pope up-a there," declared one.

"How you know-a that?" asked the other.

"That's-a easy" replies the first. "The airplane-a, said TWA on it. That means Top Wop Aboard."

Milarepa, you can write on your door TWA: Top Wap Aboard. And don't be afraid of the ghosts. I am always here. If some ghost plays tricks on you, you can just inform me, because I have such an intimacy with everything in life -- ghosts and gods, trees and rivers, mountains and clouds -- that I will prevent them... Don't Disturb the Musician!

You are allowed to be present in the court of Anando. She is my legal secretary, and if you want to learn about law, she can teach you things. I don't think that any ghost is interested in things like law -- so technical. But they are interested in Anando. She is very juicy!

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN I SAW YOU THE OTHER MORNING, YOU SEEMED SO TOTALLY

FRESH, SO NEW, SO RADIANT -- DEEPER, AND HIGHER, AND VASTER THAN

EVER BEFORE. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU IN THESE DAYS OF SILENCE?

Anand Suresh, there are many things that have not been told by the mystics to people, just so that they don't freak out. One of the things is the moment you become aware, conscious, reaches which were unknown to you before become available. Your contact with the body becomes loose, particularly after enlightenment.

The general understanding is that you will be more healthy. You are in an inner sense more healthy, but as far as your body is concerned, you become more fragile. So whenever I have a great opportunity of being sick, I use it -- just resting under my blankets, being utterly silent. I love to be sick, to tell you the truth, because then I can sleep twenty hours, at least. It is sleep to the outside people; but to me it is a deep meditation.

So, because both my arms and their joints are in bad shape, I cannot even participate in your rejoicing and in your music. I have been resting completely. And whatever I do, I do totally. That may have given you the idea that I looked "totally fresh, new, radiant --

deeper and higher and vaster than ever before."

I am always the same. But as you become more and more centered inward, even to look outside is a strain on the eyes, even to speak a word is a strain because effort has to be made. Otherwise the silence cannot be translated in any way and conveyed to you.

So whenever I get some chance.... For example, when I was in American jails for twelve days, all I did was sleep for twenty hours, waking up twice to take a bath and to eat something, and then go to sleep again. When I came out of the jail, the jailer said, "You are my first experience of someone... from when you entered, till now when you are coming out, I can compare: You are looking so radiant, so fresh."

I said to him, "Jail life suits me!"

He said, "What?"

I said, "Yes, because there is no disturbance."

Each of your presidents, your prime ministers, your senate members should be given a chance every year, at least for twelve days, to be in jail. They will all feel nourished.

They just have to know the art: take it easily. Easy is right.

An American from Texas is visiting France, and feeling thirsty, he stops at a house along the road. "Can you give me a drink of water?" asked the Texan.

"Of course," says the Frenchman.

"What do you do?" asks the Texan.

"I raise a few chickens," says the Frenchman.

"Really," says the Texan. "I'm also a farmer. How much land do you have?"

"Well," says the Frenchman. "Out front it is fifty meters, as you can see, and in the back we have close to a hundred meters of property. And what about your place?"

"Well," says the Texan proudly. "On my ranch, I have breakfast, and I get into the car, and I drive and drive, and I don't reach the end of the ranch until dinnertime."

"Really," replied the Frenchman. "I once had a car like that."

It all depends how you take it.

Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterand, and Ronald Reagan were lunching together.

Naturally, they talked about their respective heartaches.

Margaret Thatcher said, "I have thirteen undercover agents and one of them is a double agent, but I don't know which."

Mitterand spoke up, "I have thirteen mistresses and one of them is cheating on me, but I don't know which."

Reagan said, "I have thirteen cabinet ministers, and one of them is intelligent -- but I don't which."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #16

Chapter title: Life is an eternal incarnation

19 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705195

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN16

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

106

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

SOMETIMES IN DISCOURSE, I SUDDENLY COME TO CONSCIOUSNESS AND

REALIZE THAT I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN, AND YET THE DISCOURSE

IS COMING TO A CLOSE. YOUR WORDS WERE COMING THROUGH, BUT I'M

NOT SURE IF I WAS AWAKE. IF I'M NOT CONSCIOUS, AM I ASLEEP? ARE

THESE THE ONLY TWO POSSIBILITIES? IS THERE SOME STAGE IN-

BETWEEN? HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE?

Mary Catherine, the question you have asked is the question everybody needs the answer for. Man is asleep, but it is no ordinary sleep; he is asleep with open eyes. His sleep is spiritual, not physical.

Just as in physical sleep your consciousness is filled with dreams, in spiritual sleep your consciousness is filled with thoughts, desires, feelings -- a thousand and one things.

It is not that you are unconscious in the sense of being in a coma; you are unconscious in the sense that your consciousness is covered with too much dust. It is exactly like a mirror: if covered with many layers of dust, it will lose the quality of reflecting, will lose the quality of being a mirror. But the mirror is there; all that is needed is to remove the dust. Your consciousness is there -- even while you are physically asleep your consciousness is there, but now more covered than when you are awake.

You are asking, "If I'm not conscious, am I asleep? Are these the only two possibilities?

Is there some stage in between? How to tell the difference?"

You are not unconscious in the sense a person falls into a coma; you are not conscious in the sense a Gautam Buddha is conscious. You are in between. A thick layer of thoughts does not allow you to be in the present. That's why, while you are listening to me, you are listening and yet the listening is very superficial -- because deep down there are so many thoughts going on. You are listening but it is not reaching you, and as I stop speaking, suddenly you realize that you have been listening, certainly, but you have not understood it. It has not penetrated you; it has not become part of your being. Something has prevented it, like a China Wall. Those thoughts are transparent, but they are thicker than any China Wall can be.

You are neither asleep nor awake, you are in between -- awake as far as your day to day mechanical activities are concerned, and asleep as far as a clear consciousness is concerned. A pure consciousness, a deep innocence like an unclouded sky, is absent.

The pope was sitting with his cardinals signing papers and proclamations. The phone rang and his secretary answered. "Your holiness," she said. "It is about the abortion bill.

A reporter wants to talk to you."

"Don't bother me," the pope interrupted.

"But he wants to know what you are going to do about the bill."

"Just pay it," the pope replied. "Pay it quick!"

In what position will you put the pope? Asleep or awake? He is in between; he has heard the word bill, but he has interpreted it in his own way. He has forgotten completely that the bill is about abortion, and certainly he has not been aborted, and he has not to pay any bill.

But this is the situation of us all. We hear what we want to hear; we hear only that which adjusts with our preconceived notions, prejudices.

You will be surprised to know... the scientific research is almost unbelievable: it says ninety-eight percent of what you hear is prevented from reaching to you -- ninety-eight percent! Only two percent reaches you. It has to pass through so many thoughts, conceptions, beliefs, conditionings, and they go on cutting it according to themselves. By the time it reaches you, it is something totally different than was said, than was heard. It is a long process of screening, and we are all screening. If something falls in tune with our mind -- that means with our past -- we hear it. But if it goes against it, we certainly hear the sound but we miss the meaning.

To listen is a great art.

People only hear; very few people are able to listen.

One man had reached Gautam Buddha. He was a well-known philosopher of the day and he had defeated many philosophers in discussions about the ultimate, the truth, God. He had come to defeat Gautam Buddha too -- that would be the crowning victory. He had brought with him five hundred chosen disciples to see Gautam Buddha defeated.

But Gautam Buddha asked a very strange question. He asked, "Do you understand the meaning and the difference between hearing and listening?"

The man was at a loss. He had come to discuss great things, and this was a small matter.

And there was no difference... as far as language is concerned, dictionaries are concerned, hearing is listening. The man said, "There is no difference at all, and I had hoped you would not ask such an ordinary question."

Gautam Buddha said, "There is a great difference. And unless you understand the difference, there is no possibility of any dialogue. I will say something; you will hear something else. So if you really want to have a dialogue with me, sit by my side for two years. Don't speak a single word, just listen. Whatever I'm telling others, be unconcerned; I'm not telling you. So you need not be worried about whether it is true or untrue, whether you have to accept it or not. You are just a witness; your opinion is not required.

"After two years, you can have the dialogue, the discussion you have come for. And I would love to be defeated, so this is not to postpone defeat; it is just to make the dialogue possible."

At that very moment, Mahakashyap -- a great disciple of Gautam Buddha; perhaps the greatest -- laughed. He was sitting under a tree far away, and the philosopher thought,

"That man seems to be mad. Why is he laughing?"

Buddha said, "Mahakashyap, this is not mannerly; even for an enlightened man this is not right."

Mahakashyap said, "I don't care about right and wrong; I'm just feeling sorry for the poor philosopher."

And he turned to the philosopher and said to him, "If you want to have a discussion, have it right now; after two years, there will be just silence and no dialogue. This man is not trustworthy. He deceived me; I also came with the same idea as you, to defeat him, and he cheated me. He said, `Sit down for two years by my side, and listen. Learn first the art of listening. And because you are not concerned at all, your mind need not function.'

"And two years is a long time; the mind starts forgetting how to think, how to function.

The very presence of Gautam Buddha is so peaceful, so silent, that one starts rejoicing in the silence. And to listen to his words... which are not addressed to you, so you are not worried whether they agree with your prejudices, your philosophy, your religion -- with you -- or not. You are indifferent. You listen to him as if you are listening to the birds singing in the morning when the sun rises.

"And two years... the mind disappears. And although those words are not addressed to you, they start reaching to your heart. Because the mind is silent, the passage is open --

the door is open, the heart welcomes them. So if you want to ask anything, if you want to challenge this man, challenge now. I don't want to see another man cheated again."

Gautam Buddha said, "It is up to you; if you want to defeat me now, I declare my defeat.

There is no need to talk. Why waste time? You are victorious. But if you really want to have a dialogue with me, then I'm not asking much, just two years to learn the art of listening."

The man remained for two years, and even forgot completely that after two years he had to challenge Gautam Buddha for a debate. He forgot the whole calendar. Days passed, months passed, seasons came and went away, and after two years he was enjoying the silence so much that he had no idea that two years had passed.

It has to be remembered that time is a very elastic thing. When you are in suffering, time becomes longer; suddenly all the watches and clocks of the world start moving slowly --

a great conspiracy against a poor man who is in suffering. Time moves so slowly that sometimes one feels as if it has stopped.

You are sitting by the side of someone you love who is dying, in the middle of the night; it seems time has stopped, that this night is not going to end, that your idea that all nights end was a fallacy... this night is not going to have a dawn, because time is not moving.

And when you are joyful -- when you meet a friend after many years, when you meet a beloved, a lover for whom you have waited long -- suddenly, again the conspiracy. All the clocks, all the watches, start moving faster; hours go like minutes, days go like hours, months go like weeks. Time is elastic: time is relative to your inner condition.

The man had enjoyed those two years of silence so deeply that he could not conceive that two years had passed. Suddenly, Buddha himself asked him, "Have you forgotten completely? Two years have passed; this is the day you had come two years ago. Now if you want to challenge me to a debate, I'm ready."

The man fell to the feet of Gautam Buddha.

And Mahakashyap laughed again, and said, "I had told you, but nobody listens to me. I have been sitting under this tree for almost twenty years, preventing people from falling into the trap of this man; but nobody listens to me. They fall into the trap, and each person gives me two occasions to laugh."

The man went, after touching Gautam Buddha's feet, to touch the feet of Mahakashyap too, saying, "I am grateful to you. I have learned the distinction between hearing and listening. Hearing had made me a great knowledgeable man, and listening has made me innocent, silent -- a peace that passeth understanding. I don't have any questions, and I don't have any answers; I am utterly silent. All questions have disappeared, all answers have disappeared. Can I also sit by your side under the tree?" he asked Mahakashyap.

Mahakashyap said, "No, I don't accept disciples; that is the business of Gautam Buddha --

you just go there. Don't crowd around my tree, because even here there is nothing to listen to, only once in a while a laughter when somebody comes and I see that he's falling into the trap. You have fallen into the trap; now be initiated, become a sannyasin."

Not only did the man become a sannyasin, his five hundred followers who were also sitting and listening for two years, had also become silent.

Mary Catherine, you are well-educated; perhaps too much -- well-read; perhaps too much. Your mind is so full of thoughts. Those thoughts are creating a state which is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness. Everything seems to be so full of noise in you that if I shout, perhaps my words may reach you -- but what about my whispers? And truth cannot be shouted, it can only be whispered. In fact, it can be said only in silence; even whispering is too much verbiage.

Put your educated mind aside. Here you have to be innocent, like small children playing on the beach making castles of sand, running after butterflies, collecting seashells, looking at everything with so much wonder that each and every thing in existence becomes a mystery.

Listening to me is only a beginning; then you have to listen to the trees, to the mountains, to the moon, to the faraway stars -- they all have messages for you. To the sunrises, to the sunsets... they all have been waiting for so long. Once you start listening, the whole existence starts speaking to you. Right now you only speak to yourself, and nobody listens.

Three Soviet citizens -- a Pole, a Czech, and a Jew -- were accused of spying and sentenced to death. Each was granted a last wish.

"I want my ashes scattered over the grave of Karl Marx," said the Pole.

"I want my ashes scattered over the grave of Lenin," said the Czech.

"And I," said the Jew, "want my ashes scattered over the grave of Comrade Gorbachev."

"But that is impossible!" he was told. "Gorbachev is not dead yet."

"Fine," said the Jew, "I can wait."

You should not wait.

Start from this moment to listen, to be silent, because the next moment is not certain.

Gorbachev may die, may not die. Tomorrow it may not be so easy as it is today, because in twenty-four hours you will have gathered more garbage in your head; so the sooner the better, because you cannot sit silently. If you don't start now, you will be doing something or other....

Don't postpone it. Every postponement is suicidal -- particularly of those experiences which belong to the beyond.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IN WESTERN SOCIETY, AT LEAST, YOUTH IS CONSIDERED TO BE

EVERYTHING, AND TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, IT SEEMS THIS IS AS IT SHOULD

BE IF WE ARE TO CONTINUE GROWING IN EVERY DIMENSION OF LIFE. BUT

THE NATURAL COROLLARY OF THAT IS THAT AS ONE MOVES AWAY FROM

YOUTH, BIRTHDAYS ARE NO LONGER A CAUSE FOR CONGRATULATIONS, BUT ARE AN EMBARRASSING AND UNAVOIDABLE FACT OF LIFE. IT

BECOMES IMPOLITE TO ASK SOMEONE THEIR AGE; GRAY HAIR IS DYED, TEETH CAPPED OR REPLACED ENTIRELY, DEMORALIZED BREASTS AND

FACES HAVE TO BE LIFTED, TUMMIES MADE TAUT, AND VARICOSE VEINS

SUPPORTED -- BUT UNDER COVER. YOU CERTAINLY DON'T TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT IF SOMEONE TELLS YOU THAT YOU LOOK YOUR AGE. BUT

MY EXPERIENCE IS THAT AS I BECOME OLDER, EACH YEAR IS ONLY

BETTER AND BETTER; YET NOBODY TOLD ME THIS WOULD BE SO, AND

YOU NEVER HEAR PEOPLE SINGING THE PRAISES OF GROWING OLDER.

WOULD YOU, FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOUR MIDDLE-AGED SANNYASINS, SPEAK ON THE JOYS OF GROWING OLDER?

Maneesha, the question you have asked implies many things. First, the Western mind is conditioned by the idea that you have only one life -- seventy years, and youth will never come again. In the West, the spring comes only once; naturally, there is a deep desire to cling as long as possible, to pretend in every possible way that you are still young.

In the East, the older person was always valued, respected. He was more experienced, he had seen many, many seasons coming and going; he had lived through all kinds of experiences, good and bad. He had become seasoned; he was no more immature. He had a certain integrity that comes only with age. He was not childish, carrying his teddy bears; he was not young, still fooling around thinking that this was love.

He had passed through all these experiences, had seen that beauty fades; he has seen that everything comes to an end, that everything is moving towards the grave. From the very moment he left the cradle, there was only one way -- and it is from cradle to the grave.

You cannot go anywhere else; you cannot go astray even if you try. You will reach to the grave whatever you do.

The old man was respected, loved; he had attained a certain purity of the heart because he had lived through desires, and seen that every desire leads to frustration. Those desires are past memories. He had lived in all kinds of relationships, and had seen that every kind of relationship turns into hell. He had passed through all the dark nights of the soul. He had attained a certain aloofness -- the purity of an observer. He was no longer interested in participating in any football game. Just living his life, he had come to a transcendence; hence, he was respected, his wisdom was respected.

But in the East, the idea has been that life is not just a small piece of seventy years in which youth comes only once. The idea has been that just as in existence everything moves eternally -- the summer comes, the rains come, the winter comes, and the summer again; everything moves like a wheel -- life is not an exception.

Death is the end of one wheel and the beginning of another. Again you will be a child, and again you will be young, and again you will be old. It has been so since the beginning, and it is going to be so to the very end -- until you become so enlightened that you can jump out of the vicious circle and can enter into a totally different law. From individuality, you can jump into the universal. So there was no hurry, and there was no clinging.

The West is based on the Judaic tradition which believes only in one life. Christianity is only a branch of the Jews. Jesus was a Jew, born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew; he never knew that he was a Christian. If you meet him somewhere and greet him with, `Hello, Jesus Christ', he will not recognize who you are addressing because he never knew that his name is Jesus and he never knew that he is Christ. His name was Joshua, a Hebrew name, and he was a messiah of God, not a Christ. Jesus Christ is a translation in Greek from Hebrew. Mohammedanism is also a by-product of the same tradition -- the Jews.

These three religions believe in one life. To believe in one life is very dangerous because it does not give you chances to make mistakes, it does not give you chances to have enough experience of anything; you are always in a hurry.

The whole Western mind has become the mind of a tourist who is carrying two, three cameras, and rushing to photograph everything because he only has a three-week visa.

And in three weeks, he has to cover the whole country -- all the great monuments. There is no time for him to see them directly; he will see them at home, at ease, in his album.

Whenever I remember the tourists, I see the old women rushing from one place to another

-- from Ajanta to Ellora, from Taj Mahal to Kashmir -- in a hurry, because life is short.

It is only the Western mind which has created the proverb that time is money. In the East, things go slowly; there is no hurry -- one has the whole of eternity. We have been here and we will be here again, so what is the hurry? Enjoy everything with intensity and totality.

So, one thing: because of the idea of one single life, the West has become too concerned about being young, and then everything is done to remain young as long as possible, to prolong the process. That creates hypocrisy, and that destroys an authentic growth. It does not allow you to become really wise in your old age, because you hate old age; old age reminds you only of death, nothing else. Old age means the full stop is not far away; you have come to the terminus -- just one whistle more, and the train will stop.

I had an agreement with my grandfather. He loved his feet to be massaged, and I had told him, "Remember, when I say `comma,' that means be alert; the semi-colon is coming close. When I say `semi-colon,' get ready because the full stop is coming close. And once I say `full stop,' I mean it." So he was so much afraid of "comma" that when I would say,

"Comma," he would say, "It is okay, but let the semi-colon be a little longer. Don't make it short and quick!"

Old age simply reminds you, in the West, that a full stop is coming close -- prolong the semi-colon. And who are you trying to deceive? If you have recognized that youth is no longer there, you can go on deceiving the whole world. But you are not young, you are simply being ridiculous.

I have heard... two so-called young people got married -- so-called because both were pretending to be young; youth had gone down the drain a long, long time ago. They went for a honeymoon with suitcases, with the tags, "Just married." But both were afraid.

There was no joy on their faces, only the fear of exposure.

Immediately they entered the hotel room, and closed the doors; the man immediately got into bed, under the blanket, and told the wife, "Put the light off while you are in the bathroom. I will wait in darkness; I like darkness."

The wife said, "Why do you like darkness? I cannot, because you are a stranger to me.

We just met on the beach; I don't know who you are, you don't know who I am. I want to keep the light on the whole night."

The man said, "I will not be able to sleep."

The woman said, "But at least until I come out of the bathroom, keep the light on."

And that struggle is always the beginning of every honeymoon, the fight.... Because the woman started insisting, "Why you are so stubborn that the light should be put out?"

The man said, "You are going to know anyway, so what is the point of fighting?"

He threw the blanket away and showed that one of his legs was false.

He said, "I did not want you to know it."

The woman said, "But it is good."

She threw off her wig, took out her teeth, and told the man, "My breasts are also false. So now there is no need to be afraid of the light."

He said, "Now there is no need to be afraid of anything. Now just come on, have a headache, and go to sleep; the honeymoon is over."

People are trying to remain young, but they don't know that the very fear of losing youth does not allow you to live it in its totality.

And secondly, the fear of losing youth does not allow you to accept old age with grace.

You miss both youth -- its joy, its intensity -- and you also miss the grace, and the wisdom, and the peace that old age brings. But the whole thing is based on a false conception of life.

Unless the West changes the idea that there is only one life, this hypocrisy, this clinging, and this fear cannot be changed.

In fact, one life is not all; you have lived many times, and you will live many times more.

Hence, live each moment as totally as possible; there is no hurry to jump to another moment. Time is not money, time is inexhaustible; it is available to the poor as much as to the rich. The rich are not richer as far as time is concerned, and the poor are not poorer.

Life is an eternal incarnation.

What appears on the surface is very deep-rooted in the religions of the West. They are very miserly in giving you only seventy years. If you try to work it out, almost one third of your life will be lost in sleep, one third of your life will have to be wasted in earning food, clothes, housing. Whatever little is left has to be given to education, football matches, movies, stupid quarrels, fights. If you can save, in seventy years' time, seven minutes for yourself, I will count you a wise man.

But it is difficult to save even seven minutes in your whole life; so how can you find yourself? How can you know the mystery of your being, of your life? How can you understand that death is not an end?

Because you have missed experiencing life itself, you are going to miss the great experience of death, too; otherwise, there is nothing to be afraid of in death. It is a beautiful sleep, a dreamless sleep, a sleep that is needed for you to move into another body, silently and peacefully. It is a surgical phenomenon; it is almost like anesthesia.

Death is a friend, not a foe.

Once you understand death as a friend, and start living life without any fear that it is only a very small time span of seventy years -- if your perspective opens to the eternity of your life -- then everything will slow down; then there is no need to be speedy.

In everything, people are simply rushing. I have seen people taking their office bag, pushing things into it, kissing their wife, not seeing whether she is their wife or somebody else; and saying goodbye to their children. This is not the way of living! And where are you reaching with this speed?

I have heard about a young couple who had purchased a new car, and they were going full speed.

The wife was telling the husband again and again, "Where are we going?" Because women are still old-minded, "Where are we going?"

And the man said, "Stop bothering me, just enjoy the speed we are going with. The real question is not where we are going; the real question is with what great speed we are going?"

Speed has become more important than the destination, and speed has become more important because life is so short. You have to do so many things that unless you do everything with speed, you cannot manage. You cannot sit silently even for a few minutes -- it seems a wastage. In those few minutes you could have earned a few bucks.

Just wasting time closing your eyes, and what is there inside you? If you really want to know, you can go to any hospital and see a skeleton. That is what is inside you. Why are you unnecessarily getting into trouble by looking in? Looking in, you will find a skeleton.

And once you have seen your skeleton, life will become more difficult; kissing your wife, you know perfectly well what is happening -- two skeletons. Somebody just needs to invent x-ray glasses, so people can put on x-ray glasses and see all around skeletons laughing. Most probably, he will not be alive to take his glasses off; so many skeletons laughing is enough to stop anybody's heartbeat.... "My God, this is the reality! And this is what all these mystics have been telling people, `Look inwards' -- avoid them!"

The West has no tradition of mysticism. It is extrovert: look outward, there is so much to see. But they are not aware that inside there is not only the skeleton; there is something more within the skeleton. That is your consciousness. By closing your eyes you will not come across the skeleton; you will come across your very life source.

The West needs a deep acquaintance with its own life source, then there will be no hurry.

One will enjoy when life brings youth, one will enjoy when life brings old age and one will enjoy when life brings death. You simply know one thing -- how to enjoy everything that you come across, how to transform it into a celebration.

I call the authentic religion the art of transforming everything into a celebration, into a song, into a dance.

An old man walked into a health clinic and told the doctor, "You have got to do something to lower my sex drive." The doctor took one look at the feeble old man and said, "Now, now sir, I have got the feeling that your sex drive is all in your head."

"That's what I mean sonny," the old man said. "I have got to lower it a little."

Even the old man is wanting to be a playboy. It shows one thing with certainty -- that he has not lived his youth with totality. He has missed his youth, and he is still thinking about it. Now he cannot do anything about it, but his whole mind is continuously thinking about the days he had in youth which have not been lived; at that time he was in a hurry.

If he had lived his youth, he would be free in his old age of all repressions, sexuality; there would be no need for him to drop his sexual instinct. It disappears, it evaporates in living. One just has to live uninhibited, without any interference from your religions, from your priests and it disappears; otherwise, when you are young you are in church, and when you are old, you are reading the playboy by hiding it in your HOLY BIBLE.

Every HOLY BIBLE is used only for one purpose, hiding magazines like playboy, so you are not caught by children -- it is embarrassing.

I have heard of three men, old men. One is seventy, the other is eighty and the third is ninety. They are all old friends, retired, who used to go for a walk and sit on a bench in the park, and have all kinds of gossips.

One day the youngest of the three, the seventy year old man, looked a little sad. The second one, the eighty year old, asked, "What is the matter? You are looking very sad."

He said, "I am feeling very guilty. It will help me to unburden myself if I tell you. It is an incident. A beautiful lady was taking a bath. She was a guest in our house, and I was looking through the keyhole and my mother caught hold of me."

Both the old friends laughed; they said, "You are an idiot. Everybody does such things in childhood."

He said, "It is not a question of childhood; it happened today."

The second man said, "Then it is really serious. But I will tell you something which has been happening to me for three days, and I am keeping it like a stone, a rock on my heart.

Continuously for three days my wife has refused to love me."

The first man said, "That is really very bad."

But the third, the oldest laughed and he said, "First you ask him what does he mean by love?"

So he asked, and the second old man said, "Nothing much. Don't make me feel more embarrassed. It is a simple process. I hold my wife's hand and press it three times, then she goes to sleep and I go to sleep. But for three days, whenever I try to hold her hand, she says, `Not today, not today! Feel ashamed; you are old enough -- not today!' so for three days I have not loved.

The third old man said, "This is nothing. What has been happening to me I must confess, because you are young and it will help you in your future. Last night, as the night was passing and the morning was coming closer, I started to make preparations to make love to my wife and she said to me, `What are you trying to do you idiot?' I said, `What am I trying to do? I am simply trying to make love to you,' and she said, `This is the third time in the night; neither you sleep nor you allow me to sleep. Love, love, love.' So I think it seems I am losing my memory. Your problems are nothing; I have lost my memory."

If you listen to old people, you will be surprised; they are talking only of things which they should have lived, but the time has passed when it was possible to live them. At that time they were reading the Holy Bible and listening to the priest.

Those priests and those holy scriptures have corrupted people, because they have given them ideas against nature and they cannot allow them to live naturally.

If we need a new humanity, we will have to erase the whole past and start everything anew. And the first basic principle will be: allow everybody, help everybody, teach everybody to live according to his nature, not according to any ideals, and live totally and intensely without any fear. Then children will enjoy their childhood, the young people will enjoy their youth and the old people will have the grace that comes naturally, out of a whole life lived naturally.

Unless your old age is graceful and wise and full of light and joy, contentment, fulfillment, a blissfulness... in your very presence, unless flowers blossom and there is a fragrance of eternity, then it is certain that you have lived. If it is not happening that way, that means somewhere you have gone astray, somewhere you have listened to the priests, who are the corrupters, the criminals, somewhere you have gone against nature; and nature takes revenge. And its revenge is to destroy your old age and make it ugly -- ugly to others and ugly in your own eyes. Otherwise old age has a beauty which even youth cannot have.

Youth has a maturity, but it is unwise. It has too much foolishness in it; it is amateurish.

Old age has given the last touches to the paintings of his own life. And when one has given the last touches, one is ready to die joyously, dancingly. One is ready to welcome death.

Okay, Maneesha

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #17

Chapter title: Gorbachev: a new beginning

20 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705200

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN17

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

88

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

AFTER SIX YEARS OF SANNYAS AND A LONG, HARD STRUGGLE WITH

AUTHORITIES AND LEGAL HINDRANCES, I RECENTLY SUCCEEDED IN

LEAVING MY HOME COUNTRY -- THE SOVIET UNION. SITTING IN DARSHAN

JUST A FEW METERS FROM YOU, AND SEEING YOU, AND HEARING YOU

TALK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I REMEMBERED ALL MY

SANNYASIN FRIENDS WHO ARE NOT ABLE TO TRAVEL TO YOU, AND MY

JOY WAS MIXED WITH DEEP SADNESS. DO YOU SEE THE SOVIET UNION

UNDER GORBACHEV BECOMING A MORE OPEN SOCIETY, SO THAT YOUR

MESSAGE OF LOVE AND MEDITATION WILL SPREAD MORE EASILY THERE?

Amrit Chinmayo, I can understand your sadness for those friends in the Soviet Union who cannot reach me. But the night in Soviet Union seems to be coming to an end. The man, Gorbachev, is, perhaps for the first time in the whole history of the Russian Revolution, a man who has an insight into human values and is trying his best to make the Soviet Union a really communist democracy, an open society.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a permanent part of Karl Marx' utopia. It is only for the interim period, while the society is becoming established in the new form and the old form is disappearing. Once the old form is gone, once the capitalist mind is no longer there, the necessity for dictatorship and a closed society automatically has to disappear. It is a long time since the revolution happened and enough time to allow the dictatorship.

Gorbachev is a new beginning. Perhaps he is not only bringing an open society in the Soviet Union; he will also be helping the outside world to become really open. It has only been a hypothesis up to now; it is not a reality.

If half the world is closed, the other half cannot remain open. It is as if half of you is dead, and the other half is expected to go on living. Life is an organic unity on many layers, in many dimensions. This beautiful planet of ours has a totality. The division between the Soviet and the American blocks is ugly. And more particularly, any division between human beings -- either in the name of religion or in the name of nationalities --

is primitive and barbarous.

Man is one. His problem is one, his misery is one -- his ecstasy is also going to be one.

In the whole field of politics, Gorbachev seems to be a category in himself. He cannot be categorized with other politicians. It is going to be very difficult for him to make the Soviet Union an open society. But the man seems to be courageous and intelligent, and it is a challenge to him to make his people live in freedom -- freedom of thought, freedom of movement, freedom of expression.

I have been watching his steps. He is going slowly, but going steadily. The change has to come very slowly, because the whole bureaucracy has enjoyed dictatorial powers for more than half a century; and the Communist party has enjoyed more power than any party in the whole history of man. To relax the lust for power is one of the most difficult things in the world.

But life is full of mysteries. In the first place, Karl Marx, the founder of communism, had not even dreamt that communism would happen in the Soviet Union. If he is awakened from his grave and told about the Russian Revolution he will be shocked because it is against all his calculations, against all his arguments. That's what I mean when I say life is full of mysteries. It never follows the logical, the mathematical way; it goes zig-zag, like a river moving in the mountains towards the ocean. Life does not run like railway trains on settled rails -- it is not predictable.

According to Karl Marx, communism was going to happen in America, and logically he was right. Where one part of humanity has become immensely rich and another part has become immensely poor, where the division between the poor and the rich is so big that it becomes, at a point, intolerable, it has to be changed, the society has to go through a revolution. America should have been the first to go through the revolution. But that is what logic predicts. Life has its own ways. It happened in a very backward country which was not even capitalist.

According to Karl Marx, communism can happen only when there is a very developed form of capitalism and a class struggle. Russia was still a pre-capitalist country, still living under feudalism, under the czars. There was no capitalist class, and there was no proletariat. Karl Marx could not have logically conceived that Russia would be the first communist country, the first to have the great revolution. But it happened like that: Russia was the first and China was the next -- and Marx could not have thought either of Russia or of China.

Perhaps it is going to be again a mysterious phenomenon. People think America is a democracy -- which is utterly false. And people think that in America there is freedom of expression, freedom of individuality, that what the constitution of America says is not only written in the constitution but is lived by the country, and that the government exists for the people, by the people, of the people. Nothing can be farther away from truth.

America is the most hypocritical society today in the world, and the most dangerous to the human future.

Gorbachev's coming into power is a great hope, because the man does not seem to be a politician. He is a man in politics, but he is not a politician. His vision is for a better humanity -- it is not confined to the Soviet Union alone. And he is slowly relaxing the dictatorial bureaucracy that has grown up like a monster in the past sixty years.

He is taking one of the most risky steps. If he succeeds... and I hope that he will succeed For sixty years half of humanity has lived under such tremendous slavery that it can be expected that a second revolution will come. And a second revolution will be bigger than the first, greater than the first. The first revolution in the Soviet Union destroyed feudalism; the second revolution will destroy the dictatorship and the slavery of millions of people.

Gorbachev to me is almost a reincarnation of Lenin. In the world of politics, he is the only man I have any respect for.

Amrit Chinmayo, it will not be a long time until the Soviet Union becomes an open society, and it will be possible for my sannyasins to come to me. It will be possible for them to be sannyasins openly.

I have dedicated my book on human rights to Gorbachev and Sakharov -- I have never dedicated any of my books to anybody before -- because I can see a ray of light in this man, and a courage to create a second revolution which will be bigger than the first. The sannyasins in the Soviet Union should help this second revolution to the utmost of their capacity. Gorbachev needs every support of all those who believe in freedom, who believe in individuality, and who respect differences in people; who are not of a fascist mind to impose themselves on others, but of a democratic spirit to help everybody to be himself.

Gorbachev has a task which not only can make the Soviet Union an open society, but will prove that all condemnation by the American politicians of the Soviet Union is utterly false and baseless. The Soviet Union becoming an open society will take away all the power that America has accumulated by creating fear in the world against it. If that fear disappears, the power of America will disappear with it. America does not want the Soviet Union to become an open society.

Now it has to be understood by every Soviet citizen, and every level of humanity, that it is absolutely urgent that the Soviet Union becomes open, available, so that all condemnations fall on their own, and America is proved to be cheating the whole humanity. This will be the real victory of the Soviet Union.

The question of a nuclear victory is simply not possible. And Gorbachev is the first man who has seen the fact that with the invention of nuclear weapons, the third world war has become an impossibility -- because nobody can win, nobody can be victorious. If a third world war happens, everybody will be destroyed. There will not be somebody left even to write the history of what happened in the third world war.

It is again those mysterious things I talk about.... Gautam Buddha could not prevent people from fighting; Jesus could not prevent people from fighting; Leo Tolstoy, Prince Kropotkin, and all the people who have been against war, have not been able to prevent people from going to wars. What has prevented them is the invention of nuclear powers.

Now war is simply impossible -- unless humanity decides to commit suicide. And humanity is not in a position to decide for suicide. There is a tremendous longing in every heart to live, and to live joyously. A third world war is out of the question.

Gorbachev's greatness is in his insight that now America has to be defeated in a different way.

The Soviet Union becoming really democratic -- a freedom-loving society -- will be the defeat of America. It just has to penetrate into all people who have power in the Soviet Union that history has brought them to a point where they can win over America without any war. Just by bringing freedom to their own people they will take the mask off America -- its so-called, pseudo, democracy. And Gorbachev is trying slowly to bring the people....

For this new kind of war, who is more free? Who is more independent? Who respects the individual? Who respects individuals' differences, their freedom of expression, their freedom of creativity? Now this is going to be the real war! And the Soviet Union can be victorious without fighting. Fighting is no longer possible.

For the first time a totally new kind of war has come into existence, and Gorbachev must be given the credit of seeing it. And he is not missing the opportunity -- every moment he is moving towards an open society.

Amrit Chinmayo, give the message to my sannyasins in the Soviet Union: "Your day has come." Just as the first revolution had come unexpectedly to the Soviet Union, even more unexpectedly the second revolution is coming -- it has already begun. They should rejoice and make every effort to help Gorbachev in making the Soviet Union the land of freedom, love, friendship, respect to human life. It is going to happen -- you can take it from me, almost as a prediction.

Just a few days ago, I was seeing one of the most significant books to be published in this century, MILLENNIUM. It is a deep research into Nostradamus and his predictions.

Eighty thousand copies were published -- which is very rare -- and they were sold within weeks. Now a second publication, a second edition, is happening in America, another is happening in England, and the book is being translated into many other languages --

Dutch, German....

Nostradamus was a great mystic with an insight into the future. And you will be surprised to know that in his predictions, I am included. Describing the teacher of the last days of the twentieth century, he gives eight indications. Krishnamurti fulfills five, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi fulfills three, Da Free John fulfills four -- and I was amazed that I fulfill all eight.

In this book MILLENNIUM, they have made a chart of the teacher about whom Nostradamus is predicting -- that his people will wear red clothes, that he will come from the East, that he will be arrested, that his commune will be destroyed, that flying birds will be his symbol, that his name will mean moon.... Three hundred years ago that man was seeing something that fits perfectly with me -- my name means "the moon." And in their chart they have declared me the teacher of the last part of the twentieth century.

I can see as clearly as Nostradamus:

I predict that Gorbachev is going to succeed in bringing the second and greater revolution to Russia, and his revolution in the Soviet Union is going to affect everything in the whole world.

I would like my sannyasins to meet him -- they have to meet him to present my book that I have dedicated to him. Invite him to come to my people here whenever he needs a little encouragement and hope, whenever he needs a spiritual support, a nourishment. And tell him that his meetings with Ronald Reagan are not going to fulfill anything, but if he dances with my sannyasins he will gather a new spirit, a new joy to accept the great challenge that is his destiny.

And it will not be long before sannyasins from the Soviet Union will be allowed to come here, and my sannyasins from other countries will be entering into the Soviet Union.

I have gone around the world -- except to the Soviet Union. It will be an immense help for Gorbachev to make the Soviet Union an open society if he invites me and my people.... Nobody else can destroy the people who are full of lust for power, and nobody else can revive the spirit of the people which has been repressed for sixty years.

If my people just go and sing and dance and move around in the Soviet Union, they will create an atmosphere in which Gorbachev can work more easily for the second great revolution. This is my message for my sannyasins, and for Gorbachev, and for Sakharov.

So when you go back, meet Sakharov and tell him from me that he should make arrangements for my sannyasins in the Soviet Union to meet with Gorbachev. He is the right person, in the right place, in the right moment.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I AM AMAZED. IT IS INDIA, IT IS A HUNDRED AND FIVE DEGREES IN THE

SHADE, AND YOU REMAIN SO COOL, SO CALM, SO QUIET. WHAT IS IT? DO

YOU HAVE SOMETHING UP YOUR SLEEVE, OR MAYBE UNDER YOUR HAT?

Satyadharma....

A new flood is foretold, and nothing can be done to prevent it. In three days the waters will wipe out the world. The leader of Buddhism appears on television and pleads with everybody to become a Buddhist. That way they will at least find salvation in paradise.

The pope goes on television with a similar message: "It is still not too late to accept Jesus," he says.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh takes a different approach: "Look guys, we have three days to learn how to live under water."

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

IN MY SIXTY-THREE YEARS OF LIFE YOU ARE THE FIRST LOVE

RELATIONSHIP WHICH HAS MADE ME INDEPENDENT. HOW HAS THIS

HAPPENED?

Paritosh Lore, love brings freedom. And a love that does not bring freedom is not love.

Love is not domination. How can you dominate someone you love? How can you make him dependent, and still be loving? But that's what goes on happening in the world in the name of love -- something else -- a lust to power, to dominate the other. Naturally independence cannot be allowed. Every effort is made that the other should be a carbon copy of you. You are afraid of the freedom of the other, because freedom is not controllable, and freedom is not predictable. So all so-called love tries in every way to destroy freedom -- and the moment freedom is destroyed, love dies.

Love is very fragile, just like a rose flower. You have to allow it to dance in the rain, in the wind, in the sun.

Love is like a bird on the wing, having the whole sky as its freedom. You can catch hold of the bird, you can put it in a beautiful golden cage, and it seems it is the same bird that was flying in freedom and had the whole sky to itself. It only appears to be the same bird.

It is not -- you have killed it. You have cut its wings, you have taken away its sky. And the birds don't bother about your gold. However precious may be your cage, it is imprisonment.

And that's what we are doing with our love: we create golden cages. We are afraid because the sky is vast. The fear is that the bird may not return. To keep it under your control it has to be imprisoned. That's how love becomes marriage.

Love is a bird on the wing: marriage is a bird in a golden cage. And certainly the bird can never forgive you. You have destroyed all its beauty, all its joy, all its freedom. You have destroyed its spirit -- it is just a dead replica. But you have made one thing certain, that it cannot escape you, that it will be always yours, that tomorrow also it will be yours, and the day after tomorrow....

Lovers are always afraid. The fear is because love comes like a breeze. You cannot produce it, it is not something to be manufactured -- it comes. But anything that comes on its own, can go also on its own, that is a natural corollary.

Love comes, and flowers blossom in you, songs arise in your heart, a desire to dance...

but with a hidden fear. What will happen if this breeze that has come to you, cool and fragrant, leaves you tomorrow?... because you are not the limit of existence. And the breeze is only a guest -- it will be with you as long as it feels to be, and it will go any moment.

This creates fear in people, and they become possessive. They start closing their doors and windows to keep the breeze in. But when your doors and windows are closed, it is not the same breeze. The coolness is lost, the fragrance is lost -- soon it is disgusting. It needs freedom, and you have taken away the freedom; it is only a corpse.

In the name of love people are carrying each others' corpses, which they call marriage.

And to carry corpses you have to go to a government registrar's office to make it a legal bond. Love cannot allow marriage. In an authentic world marriage will be impossible.

One should love, and love intensely and love totally, and not be worried about tomorrow.

If existence has been so blissful today, trust that existence will be more beautiful and more blissful tomorrow. As your trust grows, existence becomes more and more generous towards you. More love will shower on you. More flowers of joy and ecstasy will rain over you.

Paritosh Lore, in your sixty-three years` life whatever you have known in the name of love was not love. It may have been infatuation, it may have been biological attraction, it may have been a conspiracy of hormones against two individuals -- but not love. You have known love for the first time... because this is the only criterion: your freedom grows deeper, your independence becomes more solid and integrated and crystallized.

This is the only criterion that love has visited you, that love has been a guest in your heart.

And who cares about tomorrow? The people who care about tomorrow are the people who don't have today, who are miserable right now and try to hide it, try to ignore it in the hope, in the desire, in the dream for tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, this is one of the difficulties. It is always today that comes. And you become accustomed to being miserable today, and hoping, desiring, dreaming for tomorrow. You have missed life.

People have become so accustomed to tomorrows that they are not only thinking of tomorrows in this life, they are thinking of life after death.

People used to ask me, "What will happen after life? What will happen after death?" And I used to say to them, "Whatever is happening before death, the same will continue. Are you blissful today? -- because tomorrow will be born out of today. Today is pregnant with your whole future."

Love intensely, joyously, totally, and you will never think of creating a bondage, a contract. You will never think of making the person dependent. You will never be so cruel -- if you love -- as to destroy the freedom of the other. You will help, you will make his sky bigger.

There is only one criterion of love: It gives freedom, and it gives unconditionally.

You have experienced love for the first time, but it is not too late -- although you are sixty-three years old. Love transforms old age into youth. If you can go on loving to the very last breath, you will remain young. Love knows no old age. Love knows no death. If you can go on loving, your love will continue beyond death too. Love is the most precious experience in life.

People unnecessarily waste their time in empty words like "God." I was looking at the famous book, WAITING FOR GODOT. In fact he wants to say "God," but has not the courage -- it will offend many people -- so he has created a word, "Godot," which will remind you, you will understand. But I thought perhaps in some language "Godot"

means" God," and that language can only be the German.

One of my old sannyasins, Haridas, who is on the way -- soon he will be here -- I asked him, "What is the German word for God?"

He said, "For God? The German word is Gott!"

I said, "That is even more dangerous than Godot -- Gott!"

Nobody has got it. But people are wasting their time....

Be more realistic, be more pragmatic. Don't betray the earth... and then you will see there is nothing more important than love, and love grows only in the atmosphere of freedom.

That makes your complete religion.

Love, growing in freedom, is all that religion should mean. There is no other religion than love and freedom -- and they are one phenomenon.

Freedom is empty without love -- dry, desert-like.

Love is dead without freedom -- a corpse.

Together they are all. Together they are more than you can imagine life to be. You have Gott it!... I love the word. It seems to be the best -- "God" is far away, "Godot" is fictitious, but "Gott" is more earthly.

But it is possible only where love blossoms in the sky of freedom. And whenever it happens, at whatever age it happens, it brings youth to you, it brings spring to you.

Millions of people are unfortunate -- they live and die without knowing what love is, and without knowing the joy of giving freedom. And unless you are capable of giving freedom, you are not worthy of getting it either.

Paritosh Lore, what has happened to you is a great blessing. You should pray that it happens to all.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #18

Chapter title: Existence is taking care

20 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705205

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN18

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

72

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

PLEASE WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP

BETWEEN LET-GO AND WITNESSING?

Prem Vijen, let-go is the atmosphere in which witnessing flowers. They are almost two sides of the same experience -- they are not different. One cannot allow let-go without witnessing, neither can one be a witness without being in a let-go.

Let-go simply means total relaxation: no tension, no thought, no desire -- mind not moving, not going anywhere, just not functioning. Mind in silence allows the greatest experience of life, the arising of a new phenomenon -- witnessing.

We are all living and we are all a little bit conscious too; otherwise life would be impossible. But our consciousness is very superficial, just skin-deep -- or perhaps not even that deep.

Witnessing is as deep as you are, as existence is. It is the deepest point of life in existence where one simply watches what remains to watch: a tremendous silence, a great joy, a beautiful existence surrounding you, and a deep ecstasy -- a song without words and a dance without movement. Witnessing is the ultimate experience of religion. Only those who arrive at it have really lived; others have been only vegetating.

Nancy and Ronald Reagan went out to eat in a high class restaurant, and after seating them at the best table, the waiter gave them the menus. He returned to take their orders, and Nancy gave hers first. "For the aperitif I will have a dry martini, and for the appetizer I will take the Hawaiian lobster salad," she said. "Then for the fish course I will have rainbow trout, and for the entree I will take the steak."

"And what about the vegetable?" asked the waiter. And with only a few seconds hesitation, she replied, "Oh, he will have the same."

But it is true about most of the people in the world -- they are vegetables. They have not known anything that can make them claim to be more than vegetables. The whole effort of raising your consciousness is to make you transcend your vegetable existence. Let-go is to create the right soil, and witnessing, watching, being alert are the seeds. You have only to be the right soil for the right seed, and the lotuses are bound to grow in your being.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT DOES THE PHRASE "EXISTENCE TAKES CARE" MEAN?

Nirada, we are part of existence, we are not separate. Even if we want to be separate, we cannot be. Our life is part of being together with existence. And the more you are together with existence, the more alive you are. That's why I insist continually to live totally, to live intensely, because the deeper your living is, the more you are in contact with existence. You are born of it; every moment you are renewed, rejuvenated, resurrected by each of your breaths, by each of your heartbeats -- existence is taking care of you.

But we are not aware of our own being, we are not aware of our own breathing. Gautam the Buddha gave to the world a tremendously simple, but immensely valuable, meditation

-- vipassana. The word vipassana simply means watching your breath -- the coming of the breath in, and the going of the breath out.

People used to ask Buddha," What will happen by this?" He was not a theoretician. He would say to them, "Just do it and see. Experiment and report to me what happens. Don't ask me."

Just as you start watching your breathing, you start seeing a great phenomenon -- that through your breath, you are continuously connected with existence, uninterruptedly --

there is no holiday. Whether you are awake or asleep, existence goes on pouring life into you, and taking out all that is dead.

Carbon dioxide is dead, and if it accumulates in you, you will be dead. Oxygen is life, and you need continuously that the carbon dioxide be replaced by fresh oxygen. Who is taking care? Certainly you are not taking care! If you were taking care, you would have been dead long ago;you would not have been here to ask the question. You would have forgotten sometimes to breathe, or sometimes the heart would forget to beat, sometimes the blood would forget to circulate inside you -- anything could go wrong. There are a thousand and one things in you which could go wrong. But they are all functioning in deep harmony. Is this harmony dependent on you?

So when I say, "existence takes care," I am not talking philosophy. Philosophy is mostly nonsense. I am simply talking an actual fact. And if you become consciously aware of it, this creates a great trust in you. My saying to you,"existence takes care," is to trigger a consciousness that can bring the beauty of trusting in existence.

I don't ask you to believe in a hypothetical God, and I don't ask you to have faith in a messiah, in a savior; these are all childish desires to have some father figure who takes care of you. But they are all hypothetical.

There has not been any savior in the world.

Existence is enough unto itself.

I want you to inquire into your relationship with existence, and out of that inquiry, arises trust -- not belief, not faith. Trust has a beauty because it is your experience. Trust will help you to relax because the whole existence is taking care -- there is no need to be worried and to be concerned. There is no need to have any anxiety, no need of any anguish, no need of what the existentialists call angst.

Trust helps you to relax, it helps you to let go, and the let-go prepares the ground for witnessing to come in. They are related phenomena.

Three gray-haired mothers, Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Cornfield, and Mrs. Baum, were sitting in a Catskill hotel bragging about their children.

"My son is a doctor," said Mrs. Fletcher, "and he's an internist, a surgeon and a specialist.

He makes so much money, he owns an apartment building on Park Avenue in New York."

"That's nice," said Mrs. Cornfield. "My son is a lawyer. He handles divorces, accidents, tax cases, insurance. He is so successful, he owns two apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue."

"Ladies," announced Mrs. Baum, "you should both be proud to have such successful sons. My boy, I have to tell you the truth, is a homosexual."

"That's a shame," said Mrs. Cornfield. "And what does he do for a living?"

"Nothing," said Mrs. Baum. "He has two friends: one is a doctor who owns an apartment building on Park Avenue, and the other is a lawyer who owns two apartment buildings."

Existence takes care.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

HOW CAN A BLIND AND IGNORANT PERSON BE HELPED BY A BLIND AND

IGNORANT THERAPIST AND HIS BLIND ADVICE? IS IT ALL JUST TO MAKE

SOME FIRECRACKERS EXPLODE IN THE DARK TUNNEL, TO HAVE A PARTY

AND EXCITEMENT TOGETHER, TO MAKE THE JOURNEY A BIT "PIFF-PAFF-PUFF"? CAN REAL HELP AND GUIDANCE NOT JUST COME FROM A MASTER

LIKE YOU? IF YOU LIKE, PLEASE COMMENT.

Prem Ruchi, your question is," How can a blind and ignorant person be helped by a blind and ignorant therapist and his blind advice?" Do you mean to say that you cannot be helped by a doctor if you have a cancer and he has not? Are you going to look for a doctor who has a cancer? -- only he can help you?

In life, you are being helped by many people who don't have the experience but who have the expertise. The difference is great between experience and expertise -- but the expert can also help.

A man was purchasing eggs, and he said to the shopkeeper, "These eggs are rotten."

The shopkeeper was very much shocked and angry, and he said, "Are you a hen? Have you ever laid an egg? What do you know about eggs? Neither are you an egg, nor are you a hen."

The man remained silent for a moment; he had never thought of this. He said, "That means to know that an egg is rotten, I have to be a hen -- then life will become impossible. I will have to be so many things because life needs so many things."

So the first thing to remember is that a therapist is as blind and ignorant as you are -- and perhaps that is a qualification, because he knows what blindness is, what ignorance is. He is as miserable as you are, he knows the taste of misery. The only difference between you and him is that he is also an expert of a certain art: therapy.

His knowledge about therapy may not have made him able to help himself, but his knowledge about therapy may be of some help to you. At least he has some expertise that you don't have. At least he can analyze your problem. He may not be able to give a solution, but there are problems in life which need only analysis -- they don't need any other solution. Once you know why they are there, once you know their analytical basis, they disappear.

Do you think Sigmund Freud is psychologically different from you? But he has given the whole science of psychoanalysis which has helped many people, if not to become enlightened, at least to become aware that they are blind, that they are groping in darkness, that they need a master. This is not something small.

You are asking," Is it all just to make some firecrackers explode in the dark tunnel, to have a party and excitement together, to make the journey a bit `piff-paff-puff'?"

Even if this much can be done by the therapist, it is a great service to have a beautiful party -- in the Italian sense -- in the dark tunnel, to explode a few firecrackers, and to make the journey a little joyous. You will not be going far, and you will not be going out of the tunnel because you cannot have the right direction -- you may be going deeper into the tunnel. But the therapist at least puts you on the move. He greases your wheels.

Out of this movement, something is going to happen. He creates in you at least a longing.

He may not be able to deliver the goods, but he creates a desire, a dream. And that is not a small thing, because there are millions of people who don't have dreams, who are so utterly content with their miserable lives that they don't think anything else is possible --

this is all there is.

The therapist at least creates in you a new longing that there is something more; and you should be grateful to him. He may be searching himself -- he is searching -- and he has made you also infectious with the search.

You want real help and guidance, not just a longing, a desire. You want the flowers but you don't want the seeds. The therapist at least can sow the seeds, can prepare the ground.

I have been using therapists to move you from your stagnant, dormant state into a pilgrimage for the unknown. Once that desire is awake, then a master can be of help. The therapists can do the spade work.

It is true that the real help and guidance can come only from a master. But do you need real help? Do you need real guidance? Do you deserve it? Even if a great master knocks on your doors, are you going to welcome him? Are you prepared for that?

To receive a master, even to acknowledge a master, needs a long preparation. The therapist can do that preparation, so that when you come across a real master... the therapist has given you the thirst; now the real master can quench it. Without the thirst, even the greatest master is of no help.

I understand that the blind cannot lead the blind, the ignorant cannot help you to move towards light, towards knowing, towards realization; but they can do something else which can be used as a device. Therapy has never been used by any master in the world as a device, but I find it to be immensely helpful: it helps those who participate in therapies to become thirsty for the real. The therapist cannot deliver the real, but he has made you thirsty for the real. You should be grateful for that -- it is not a small service that he has done for you.

And the therapy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it helps the participant, and on the other hand it helps the therapist. The therapist is also in the same boat. He is also groping, he is also uncertain; he is also not in a state to say with a guarantee, "There is something like truth, or something like bliss, or something like ecstasy." But seeing so many people becoming thirsty, he also becomes more thirsty than he was ever before. If so many people can easily be made aware of a tremendous challenge for a pilgrimage towards the unknown... he himself also becomes a pilgrim. If he does not become a pilgrim, he has helped you but he has not been able to help himself.

He can become a false teacher -- that is the danger of being a therapist. You can start thinking that you are a great teacher because you are making so many people thirsty for truth. And perhaps you may start delivering false goods to them too, because they don't know what is false and what is real; they cannot make any distinction.

There are many false therapists; they become false the moment they start becoming masters. They are not masters. They are as much a seeker as others; perhaps more articulate, more knowledgeable. If they remain therapists -- knowing perfectly well that they know nothing much, only a certain expertise -- they can help you, and they can help themselves, too; otherwise.... Kabir has a statement: "The blind people lead the blind, and they all fall into a well." There is nowhere else to go -- they will find a well somewhere to fall in.

An Israeli visiting Paris goes to a brothel and insists on the services of a certain Michelle.

He is told that Michelle is unavailable, but when he offers a thousand dollars, she is brought to him and they spend the night together.

The next night, the Israeli returns and repeats his generous offer, and again the third night. Finally, on the third night, Michelle asks why she has been singled out for this flattering attention.

"Well," says the man, "You see, I am from Israel."

"Why, so am I," says Michelle.

"Yes, I know," the Israeli replies. "It turns out that your grandmother lives in the same building as my parents, and when she heard I was going to Paris, she asked me to give you the three thousand dollars you had asked for."

A Jew is a Jew! -- he cannot do anything else; a blind man is a blind man.

The therapist has to be very humble and very alert, and he has to make the people who come to him aware -- "I am as far away from truth as you are, but I have a certain expertise which I can deliver to you. Perhaps that may help you to find the way. I am not the way but perhaps I can give you a candle which may help you."

It is not much, just a candle, but in a dark night of the soul even a candle is much -- a treasure; it can help you to find the way.

The therapist has to become a bridge between the seeker and the master; he is not to become the master himself.

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

IN THE VIDEO THE OTHER NIGHT, FOR THE SECOND TIME I HEARD YOU

SAYING THAT NO MASTER HAS BEEN BETRAYED BY A WOMAN. I DON'T

UNDERSTAND THAT. WHAT ABOUT SHEELA AND HER GANG? DIDN'T THEY

BETRAY YOU? SO FAR AS I'M CONCERNED, IN THE MOMENT, I CAN'T

IMAGINE BETRAYING YOU, BUT I CAN'T SAY FOR SURE THAT I WOULD

NEVER DO IT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WAS IN THE POSITION

OF SHEELA. SAYING ALL THIS, MY HEART HURTS, BUT MY MIND KEEPS ON

GOING AND DOESN'T UNDERSTAND. PLEASE COMMENT.

Prem Samyo, a master can be betrayed if he requires your faith. You cannot betray me, because I don't require your faith. You can be with me; you can choose to go away. Being with me is your free choice. Going away is also your freedom.

Nobody can betray me.

I don't give you the chance to betray.

I have removed the very basis, the very possibility.

Thousands of people have been with me, and walked with me as long as they could manage. And when it was impossible for them -- and I am an impossible man, so it is not their fault -- then they took off on a road separate from me. But I don't have any complaint, because I was never expecting them to hang around me forever and forever. In fact, I have to work on so many people that I want a few old people to take their own way, to create space for new people. My caravan is big enough.

The old masters were betrayed, but the fault was theirs because they asked for your total surrender. I don't ask anything from you. It is your choice to walk with me as long as you wish, and it is your choice to say goodbye at any time you want.

I am a bit of a strange master -- a master who cannot be betrayed -- because I am a master who does not ask you for any surrender, any commitment; who does not ask anything from you, but who gives you as much as he can and is grateful that you receive his love, is grateful that you receive his silence.

And it is absolutely your individual decision to remain my fellow traveler or to move in some other direction. And who knows, perhaps you may come back to the caravan again, or you may meet me somewhere ahead on some other crossroad; you will be welcome there.

I accept you when you are with me, I accept you when you leave me; I accept you if you never come back to me, I accept you if you want to come back to me. From my side, there is no question of any commitment; hence, Prem Samyo, when I said, "No master has been betrayed by a woman," you have not to include me in it. I am talking about the old masters; they all wanted absolute faith, total surrender. They wanted you to be almost in a spiritual slavery, and I think this very situation created in a few people's minds a desire to be free of them.

You cannot desire to be free of me; you are free. You cannot contemplate betraying me because that will be absurd. I have never asked your faith, so you cannot take it away. I have not taken anything from you, so you cannot disappoint me.

My statement was about the past masters.

I don't belong in their category.

I am the beginning of a new line, of a new category, where a master is a friend, where a master gives you freedom, where a master wants you to be on your own -- the sooner the better. I would love that day, when all of you have betrayed me and I can sit silently, enjoying myself! I am enjoying myself right now too, but to enjoy in a crowd is one thing and to enjoy yourself in your bathroom is another.

So, if you are not sure... you don't want to betray me, but you are not sure. Who knows? -

- tomorrow, you may want to. So I want you to remember: even if you want to betray me, you cannot. I have made it impossible.

I am just a friend. We have met on the road; we are strangers. You liked me to walk with you, I liked you to walk with me, we enjoyed being together. But any moment you want to say, "Now it is time to depart," I will help you to depart without tears, joyously, because you are going to be independent -- yourself.

You are not capable of hurting me. All those old masters were hurt, but they created the situation themselves. I don't expect anything from you, so how can you disappoint me?

Whatever you do, I can bless it without knowing what it is.

"Mr. Baumgarten," said the doctor, "even though you are a very sick man, I think I will be able to pull you through."

"Doctor, if you do that, when I get well I will donate five thousand dollars for your new hospital."

Months later, the M.D. met his former patient. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Wonderful, doctor, fine, never been better."

"I have been meaning to speak to you," said the doctor. "What about the money for the new hospital?"

"What are you talking about?" said Baumgarten.

"You said that if you got well, you would contribute five thousand dollars to the new hospital."

"I said that?" asked the patient. "That just shows how sick I was."

To expect anything from you is just not right; you are in such misery. Out of your misery you may surrender, out of your misery you may have faith, out of your misery you may believe -- in any nonsense. I cannot exploit your misery which has been exploited all through the past.

I would like to help you to come out of your misery, and that will be my reward -- if I can see you smiling and singing and dancing, it is more than enough.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #19

Chapter title: The sunlit peaks of sacredness

21 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705210

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN19

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

93

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE JUST FINISHED READING THE BOOK ABOUT JESUS AND HIS

JOURNEY TO KASHMIR AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION, AND NOW I HAVE A PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURE IN MY MIND OF THE MAN AND HIS

UNQUENCHABLE THIRST FOR TRUTH. HEARING STORIES ABOUT YOU, OR

THE BUDDHA BEFORE ENLIGHTENMENT, THERE WAS THE SAME

UNQUENCHABLE THIRST. BUT HERE I AM WITH YOU FEELING LIKE A DRY

LEAF, BLOWING IN THE WIND -- SEARCHING FOR TRUTH, BUT BEING

DISTRACTED BY EVERY GUST OF WIND THAT TAKES ME WHEREVER IT

WISHES TO. WILL BEING IN YOUR PRESENCE MORE AND MORE HELP ME

TO INTENSIFY MY SEARCH, AND ENABLE ME TO USE THESE GUSTS OF

WIND TO TAKE ME FURTHER ON THE PATH TOWARDS TRUTH?

Vimal, there is a saying of Jesus: "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you." These are beautiful words, but only on a very superficial plane. They have poetry in them, and they have a certain truth also; but unfortunately I have to disagree with them.

If I were to write them again, I would say, "Ask not, and it shall be given to you,"

because asking is desiring, asking is demanding, asking is impatience. Asking is not trust, is not love. Love never asks, but it is given all. It never asks, but it is always understood.

"Seek not; otherwise you will miss it," because every search leads you away from yourself; every path leads you away from yourself. "Seek ye not; just be, and you have found it," because it is something within you. It is not something far away, it has not to be found; it is the finder himself. It has not to be sought, it is the seeker himself. The moment you are silent, neither asking nor seeking, you have it, you are it.

"Knock not, because every knock makes you a beggar," because all knocking is on the doors of others. And it is not a question of finding it in somebody else's house; it is there within you. There are no doors for you to knock on. You have just to be utterly centered, and the doors are always open. This is what Lao Tzu would say, and this is what Chuang Tzu would say. I know if Jesus had been born in the East, he would have said the same thing. It is the Western atmosphere, where all search is for the object and nobody cares about the seeker.

There are great scientists of tremendous intelligence who discover many things in their lives, but go on missing themselves. The reason is that they are always searching for something; but one's own being is already there -- you have just to be in a relaxed state of consciousness, in a let-go.

I am reminded of one of the most important women who has walked on the earth, Rabiya al-Adabiya. She is truly a rebel, and without being a rebel nobody can be religious.

Rebellion is the very foundation of being religious. The orthodox can never be religious, the traditional can never be religious.

She was going to the market, just to fetch some vegetables, and she saw a great Sufi, well known all over the country, Junnaid. He was sitting outside the mosque praying loudly and looking at the sky, crying, "When are you going to hear me? Why don't you open the doors? I have been waiting so long, do you hear me or not? I'm tired of knocking on your doors."

Rabiya stood behind him, heard all this and hit his head. He looked back -- because it is very sacrilegious to disturb someone who is in prayer -- and there stood that strange woman, Rabiya. And she said, "Junnaid, are you going to mature or not? Are you absolutely blind? -- because the doors are open. The doors are always open, twenty-four hours, day and night. What kind of nonsense is this, that you go on asking God Òpen the doors'? Even God cannot do anything -- how can he open doors which are always open?

Just look silently; the doors are not outside. Close your eyes and see. And remember, the next time I hear you say all this nonsense I'm going to hit you really hard! By your prayer you are avoiding yourself."

It was a sudden enlightening experience. Junnaid closed his eyes, looked within... the doors are open. What you are seeking is hidden within you, and if you go on seeking it you will go on missing it.

Vimal, don't make the search for truth a serious phenomenon. Take it easy, and remember

"easy is right." If strong winds take you hither and thither, don't resist; they appear strong because of your resistance. Relax, go with them. Go with them, with totality.

Lao Tzu became enlightened sitting under a tree, seeing an old dead leaf falling from the tree, slowly. Winds were taking it this way and that way, and it had no resistance. It was totally willing to go anywhere -- because the truth that you are seeking is everywhere. All that is needed is a relaxed consciousness to see it.

Those winds are not against you, they are not distracting you. Your resistance is the problem. You have made your search very serious. Be a little more playful. Dance with the wind; allow the wind to take you to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west, without any resistance.

In your resistance exists your ego. "What is ego?" people ask. It is your resistance to existence. "And what is egolessness?" It is your relaxed state of being, a let-go. Wherever the winds take you, go with totality -- willingly, joyously, dancing, singing.

It is not that you will find the truth where the winds are taking you. You will find the truth in your non-resistance; you will find the truth in your let-go, in your playfulness, in your non-seriousness, in your laughter.

Sick people have dominated humanity for too long -- psychologically sick, spiritually sick -- and they have made everybody serious. My whole approach is that of playfulness, non-seriousness, taking it easy.

Relaxation is prayer.

Non-resistance is egolessness.

And in egolessness all is found.

The serious are tense, the serious are worried. The serious are always concerned whether they are on the right path... and there are no milestones.

All paths are imaginary.

Existence is just like the sky, there are no paths. The birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints; the sky remains pathless. So is your consciousness a far more clean and far more clear space, where there are no footprints, no paths.

You cannot go astray. To go astray you need a path. And finding the truth is not the goal, finding the truth cannot be made an ambition. Finding the truth is finding yourself. And you can find yourself only in a relaxed state. Who can distract you from yourself? The wind may take you to the north, or to the south, but it cannot distract you from yourself; wherever you are you are.

If you start being playful in life you have learned the greatest prayer; you have learned the pathless path.

Most major cities have a dial-a-prayer number for anyone requiring religious reassurance in the form of a brief, pre-recorded sermon. Now there is talk of establishing a similar number for atheists: when you dial it, no one answers.

And I think that will be far closer to reality than a pre-recorded sermon. If you can listen to the silence -- no one is answering, you are left alone -- it can become a meditation.

There is no goal. You are not to go somewhere, and there is not some object to be found.

You have just to relax into such a deep state that you can settle within yourself. In that very settling you have come home.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY, OUT OF THE SILENCE OF YOUR NAMASTE CAME THE

UNEXPECTED GIFT OF YOUR DANCE. MY HEART BURST OPEN, AND

SUDDENLY I WAS LIKE A CHILD, INNOCENT AND UTTERLY IN AWE OF THE

MYSTERY OF YOUR PRESENCE. WOULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING

ABOUT HOW IT IS THAT THE SLIGHTEST GESTURE MADE BY YOU AFFECTS

US SO DEEPLY?

Puja Melissa, love is the greatest alchemy in the world. It transforms small things into great, into precious experiences. Just a bird singing, received in silence and love, is more valuable than God speaking to Moses, because that is a fiction -- and not a very nice one, either.

When Moses reached the mountain on Sinai to meet God, he saw a miracle; he saw a green bush, lush green, and yet surrounded by flames. As he came closer, a voice from the bush shouted at him, "Moses, take your shoes off! You are on holy ground" -- not a very nice beginning to a conversation. Moses must have been a very obedient person; otherwise he would have asked, "Can you tell me where is the land which is not holy?

Should I carry my shoes on my head?"

The whole existence is holy.

But the poor fellow was so amazed by a voice without any person around, and the bush on fire, and yet green, lush green....

God gave him ten commandments, ten pieces of stone, and on each piece one commandment was written: "Thou shall not commit adultery"... not a great meeting -- in a way insulting and humiliating. And poor Moses carried all those ten stones; they must have been heavy.

But, in the whole thing, the only significant part is the green bush in the flames of fire. As far as I am concerned, I take only that part to be important in the whole encounter. Jews have not bothered much about the bush and the fire; they are much more concerned with the ten commandments and God's declaration of the Holy Land.

If you enter into yourself you will find this very experience: flames of life and the green bush with flowers of ecstasy, of blissfulness, existing together. Those flames represent the revolution, and that green bush represents the coolness and the calmness....

You may have come across calm and cool people, but they are not revolutionaries; they are dull, unintelligent, almost idiots. You may have come across revolutionaries who are fiery, but they don't have the calmness and the quietness and the peace which can make their revolution meaningful. Otherwise, the same fire that cooks your food can burn your house too.

To me, the meeting of Moses with God is simply a myth. Real religion, authentic religion, is concerned with your love, with your trust, with your joy. And when you see through the eyes of love, a small flower becomes so mysterious, the faraway song of a cuckoo becomes far more holy than any scripture.

You love me; that's why my smallest gesture makes an immense impact on you. It is not the gesture, it is your love. There may be somebody else sitting by your side to whom the gesture means nothing, just a movement of the hand. If his heart is not full of love, then just the movement of the hand is meaningless; if his heart is full of love, the hand, its grace, can be indicative of greater mysteries and secrets of life.

This is one of the mysteries of life, that life is how you see it. It depends on your eyes. If you have the eyes of a poet the same trees are greener, livelier; they have a message, they whisper things into the ears of the poet. But if you are not a poet you pass by the same trees without even noticing them. All depends on you.

Your whole life experience goes on growing with your growing consciousness. As your consciousness becomes more and more juicy, life becomes more and more divine.

Because you love me, my words have a meaning to you which they will not have without your loving heart. Your love contributes ninety percent, at least, to the meaning of my words or my gestures.

The day you are capable of contributing one hundred percent, then my gesture becomes your gesture, then my word becomes your word, then my heartbeat becomes your heartbeat. That state I call the state of the devotee: a merger, a melting of two souls into one.

But, unfortunately, in the name of love such pseudo things exist in the world that they have contaminated the greatest word we have. People "love" their cars, people "love"

their houses. They don't understand that love is a sacred experience, it is not mundane.

The moment you pull it down to the world of mundane reality you are being terribly destructive. You have to raise the mundane reality to the level of love, the sunlit peaks of sacredness.

But people are doing just the opposite -- and suffering unnecessarily. Life is not meant to be a suffering; it is meant to be a blissfulness. But one has to learn the art.

Brickman and Horowitz were relaxing on the beach in Puerto Rico. "You know," said Brickman, "this Racquel Welch -- what does everyone see in her? Take away her hair, her lips, her eyes and her figure, and what have you got?"

Horowitz said, "My wife."

These are our love relationships. Rather than adding to things, beautifying existence, we are living in such negativity that we take away. Take away the lips of a beautiful woman, take away her hair, take away her eyes, and what is left? And of course, if this is your approach to looking at things, your life is going to be a hell -- worse than hell.

Love contributes tremendously, beautifies things. Where it was prose, love makes it a poetry; where it was just an ordinary flower, love makes it extraordinary. Love has the magic of transforming the whole world around you into a sacred existence.

I call the man materialistic who does not know the art of love; I don't call a man materialistic who does not believe in God. And I don't call a man religious who believes in God. I call a man religious who goes on growing in his love, in his trust, and goes on spreading his ecstasy all around existence.

People are so stupid that they are trying to demystify everything. The whole effort of science is to demystify existence, to know everything. So, of course, the way to know Racquel Welch is to dissect her on the table of the scientist. Take her hair apart, her eyes apart... and then see what is left. There is no beauty, there is no soul, there is no life; science has demystified a beautiful woman.

Religion mystifies existence. It makes the meaningless songs of birds as meaningful as great poetry, as great music. It makes ordinary trees as significant as great paintings.

It is up to you where you want to live, in hell or in heaven, because wherever you want to live you will have to create it. It is not something ready-made, so that you purchase a ticket and catch a train. It is something to be created.

Love can create paradise herenow.

My whole teaching is love more, to the point when you yourself become just a source of love, and nothing else.

"Hey man," one hippie said to another, "turn on the radio."

"Okay," the second hippie answered. And then leaning over very close to the radio he whispered, "I love you." He is turning on the radio.

We have destroyed beautiful words so ignorantly, and by destroying them we have destroyed ourselves -- because what are we except our attitudes?

Melissa, you could see in my movements a beauty, a grace, a significance because your heart is full of love. I want to remind you that the beauty is not in the gestures, the beauty is in the eyes that see it. I want you to be responsible for the hell or heaven in which you live. And once you understand the responsibility, I don't think anybody is going to live in hell.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

HOW CAN I TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE PART OF THE MIND

OBSERVING ANOTHER PART OF THE MIND, AND THE WATCHER? CAN THE

WATCHER WATCH ITSELF? ONE TIME I THOUGHT I HAD GOT IT AND THEN

THAT SAME DAY I HEARD YOU SAY IN A DISCOURSE, "IF YOU THINK

YOU'VE GOT THE WATCHER, YOU'VE MISSED." SINCE THEN I TRY

WATCHING FEELINGS IN THE BODY, THOUGHTS, AND EMOTIONS. MOSTLY, I'M JUST CAUGHT IN THEM. BUT, ONCE IN A WHILE, RARELY, I FEEL

TREMENDOUSLY RELAXED AND NOTHING STAYS -- IT JUST KEEPS

MOVING. IS THERE ANYTHING TO DO?

Deva Waduda, one has to start watching the body -- walking, sitting, going to bed, eating.

One should start from the most solid, because it is easier, and then one should move to subtler experiences. One should start watching thoughts, and when one becomes an expert in watching thoughts, then one should start watching feelings. After you feel that you can watch your feelings, then you should start watching your moods, which are even more subtle than your feelings, and more vague.

The miracle of watching is that as you are watching the body, your watcher is becoming stronger; as you are watching the thoughts, your watcher is becoming stronger; as you are watching the feelings, the watcher is becoming even more strong. When you are watching your moods the watcher is so strong that it can remain itself -- watching itself --

just as a candle in the dark night not only lights everything around it, it also lights itself.

To find the watcher in its purity is the greatest achievement in spirituality, because the watcher in you is your very soul; the watcher in you is your immortality. But never for a single moment think, "I have got it," because that is the moment when you miss.

Watching is an eternal process; you always go on becoming deeper and deeper, but you never come to the end where you can say "I have got it." In fact, the deeper you go, the more you become aware that you have entered into a process which is eternal-- without any beginning and without any end.

But people are watching only others; they never bother to watch themselves. Everybody is

watching -- that is the most superficial watching -- what the other person is doing, what the other person is wearing, how he looks.... Everybody is watching; watching is not something new to be introduced in your life. It has only to be deepened, taken away from others, and arrowed towards your own inner feelings, thoughts, moods -- and finally, the watcher itself.

A Jew is sitting in a train opposite a priest. "Tell me, your worship," the Jew asks, "why do you wear your collar back to front?"

"Because I am a father," answers the priest.

"I am also a father, and I don't wear my collar like that," says the Jew. "Oh," says the priest, "but I am a father to thousands."

"Then maybe," replies the Jew, "it is your trousers you should wear back to front."

People are very watchful about everybody else.

Two Polacks went out for a walk; suddenly it began to rain. "Quick," said one man,

"open your umbrella."

"It won't help," said his friend, "my umbrella is full of holes."

"Then why did you bring it in the first place?"

"I did not think it would rain."

You can laugh very easily about the ridiculous acts of other people, but have you ever laughed about yourself? Have you ever caught yourself doing something ridiculous? No, you keep yourself completely unwatched; your whole watching is about others, and that is not of any help.

Use this energy of watchfulness for a transformation of your being. It can bring you so much bliss and so much benediction that you cannot even dream about it. A simple process, but once you start using it on yourself it becomes a meditation.

One can make meditations out of anything.

Anything that leads you to yourself is meditation. And it is immensely significant to find your own meditation, because in the very finding you will find great joy. And because it is your own finding -- not some ritual imposed upon you -- you will love to go deeper into it. The deeper you go into it, the happier you will feel -- peaceful, more silent, more together, more dignified, more graceful.

You all know watching, so there is no question of learning it. It is just a question of changing the object of watching. Bring them closer.

Watch your body, and you will be surprised. I can move my hand without watching, and I can move my hand with watching. You will not see the difference, but I can feel the difference. When I move it with watchfulness, there is a grace and beauty in it, a peacefulness, and a silence. You can walk, watching each step; it will give you all the benefit that walking can give you as an exercise, plus it will give you the benefit of a great simple meditation.

The temple in Bodhgaya where Gautam Buddha became enlightened has been made in memory of two things... one is a Bodhi tree under which he used to sit. Just by the side of the tree there are small stones for a slow walk. He was meditating, sitting, and when he would feel that sitting had been too much -- a little exercise was needed for the body -- he would walk on those stones. That was his walking meditation.

When I was in Bodhgaya, having a meditation camp there, I went to the temple. I saw Buddhist lamas from Tibet, from Japan, from China. They were all paying their respect to the tree, and I saw not a single one paying his respect to those stones on which Buddha had walked miles and miles. I told them, "This is not right. You should not forget those stones. They have been touched by Gautam Buddha's feet millions of times. But I know why you are not paying any attention to them, because you have forgotten completely that Buddha was emphasizing that you should watch every act of your body: walking, sitting, lying down."

You should not let a single moment go by unconsciously. Watchfulness will sharpen your consciousness. This is the essential religion -- all else is simply talk. But Waduda, you ask me, "Is there something more?" No, if you can do only watchfulness, nothing else is needed.

My effort here is to make religion as simple as possible. All the religions have done just the opposite: they have made things very complex -- so complex that people have never tried them. For example, in the Buddhist scriptures there are thirty-three thousand principles to be followed by a Buddhist monk; even to remember them is impossible. Just the very number thirty-three thousand is enough to freak you out: "I am finished! My whole life will be disturbed and destroyed."

I teach you: just find a single principle that suits you, that feels in tune with you, and that is enough.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #20

Chapter title: The second russian revolution

21 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705215

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN20

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

82

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

A FEW MONTHS BEFORE HIS DEATH EDGAR CAYCE, IN ONE OF HIS TRANCE

"SLEEP TALKS" SAID, "THROUGH RUSSIA COMES THE HOPE OF THE

WORLD. NOT IN RESPECT TO WHAT IS SOMETIMES TERMED COMMUNISM

OR BOLSHEVISM, NO; BUT FREEDOM, FREEDOM! THAT EACH MAN WILL

LIVE FOR HIS FELLOW MAN. THE PRINCIPLE HAS BEEN BORN THERE. IT

WILL TAKE YEARS FOR IT TO BE CRYSTALLIZED. YET OUT OF RUSSIA COMES AGAIN THE HOPE OF THE WORLD." COULD YOU PLEASE

COMMENT?

Jivan Mada, Edgar Cayce was one of the strangest human beings, a category in himself....

There have been utterly conscious people having clear visions of the world -- like Nostradamus; but Cayce was not anything special when he was conscious. Only when he was in a sort of unconsciousness, a trance-like sleep, would he start saying things of tremendous importance, many of which have come true.

Many of these are bound to happen, sooner or later, for the simple reason that whatever he has seen in his trance state is absolutely transparent, clear, without ifs and buts -- it is absolute. And because it was not coming in his conscious state, his ego was not involved.

It was coming out of his innocence; and anything that comes out of innocence has a validity, has an authority of its own.

There are thousands and thousands of pages of notes collected by his disciples from when he was speaking in his trances; almost a whole library exists containing his predictions.

When he used to come to consciousness, out of the trance, he himself was not aware what he had said -- as if it was not said by him but by an unknown source, by an unknown energy, as if existence itself had spoken itself through him. He had been only a vehicle, and a very correct vehicle, because his ego was not in the way, his mind was not in the way. He was simply transmitting whatever was coming from the very roots of life. There have not been many people like him. There have been a few people, but none has the height and the depth, and immensity of Edgar Cayce.

In one of his trance-sleeps he said, "Through Russia comes the hope of the world." Once it had already come: the Russian Revolution in 1917 was the end of an old world and the beginning of a new. It proclaimed many truths about man -- that property should not be individual, that property is of the commune. The founders of the revolution, particularly Lenin, wanted marriage to be dissolved; because marriage came into existence with private property, it should go out of existence when private property is being dissolved.

It is a historical fact that because of private property, man became interested in marriage, in monogamy; otherwise, by nature, he is polygamous. But to protect his property, so that even after his death it should remain in the hands of his own sons, man decided in favor of monogamy -- which was not natural to him. Hence, on the one hand marriage came into existence, and on the other hand, prostitution. They both are by-products of private property.

Property should belong to all -- just as the air belongs to all, and the water belongs to all, and the sun belongs to all. Private property creates immense problems. On one hand, people go on becoming richer; on the other hand, people go on becoming poorer. And the poor man is the producer: he toils in the field, he works in the orchards -- and he remains hungry. He weaves the clothes -- and he remains naked. He makes the beautiful mansions and palaces -- and he has no house, not even a hut to hide his head in.

This exploitation was condemned by the Russian Revolution, and against this exploitation a new age of a classless society was declared, where everybody would have the equal opportunity to grow. A great hope had arisen with the Russian Revolution, but it died. The revolution fell into wrong hands. Instead of bringing a new age and a new humanity, it repeated the old game under new names. The only change was of labels: where in the past there were the rich and the poor, now there were the bureaucrats and the people. But the distinction was the same, and the exploitation was the same.

For sixty years Russia has lived in a new kind of slavery. Nobody else in the world has known that kind of slavery. The whole country has become a concentration camp.

Beautiful words sometimes prove very dangerous: instead of bringing equality to man it has taken away all freedom, even the freedom of expression. It has made the whole society a society of slaves.

For a moment in 1917 a great hope arose around the world, particularly in those who were intelligent enough to see the immense possibility that was opening up -- but the bud never became a flower. But you cannot keep millions of people in a concentration camp forever. There is a limit to tolerance -- and that limit has come. There is great restlessness for a new revolution in the Russian youth. And Gorbachev simply represents the tremendous longing for freedom, for equality, for the dignity of being human beings, for self-respect. He has given another chance to the intelligent people of the world, for a new hope again.

Where Lenin left off, Gorbachev has to begin.

The sixty years in between have been a long nightmare -- but that which is gone is gone, that which is past, is past. And the Soviet youth, with the courage and insight of Gorbachev, is looking, not backwards to the sixty ugly years of inhumane dictatorship, but to a new future of an open society, in the authentic sense.

Perhaps Edgar Cayce is going to be true again in his prediction: THROUGH RUSSIA COMES THE HOPE OF THE WORLD. NOT IN RESPECT TO WHAT IS

SOMETIMES TERMED COMMUNISM OR BOLSHEVISM, NO; BUT FREEDOM, FREEDOM! THAT EACH MAN WILL LIVE FOR HIS FELLOW MAN. THE

PRINCIPLE HAS BEEN BORN THERE, IT WILL TAKE YEARS FOR IT TO BE

CRYSTALLIZED. Those years have passed. The principle is now crystallized.

YET OUT OF RUSSIA COMES AGAIN THE HOPE OF THE WORLD -- the second great revolution. Russia seems to be a land of destiny -- not only for its own people, but for the whole world. It was the first to revolt against capitalism; it is going to be again the first to revolt against dictatorial communism. The future is of a democratic communism, a communism rooted in the freedom of man.

Equality is valuable, but it is not more valuable than freedom. Freedom cannot be sacrificed for it. Freedom cannot be sacrificed for anything else. It is the most precious treasure of your being. There are all signs that the Soviet Union is going to fulfill the great hope, the great dream. Millions of people have been hoping for it, dreaming for it --

it has been the utopia for centuries. Gorbachev is in a position to make it a reality. A tremendously great responsibility has fallen on his shoulders. And as I can see, he seems to be strong enough, intelligent enough to fulfill the expectations.

Only one thing I would like my Russian sannyasins to convey to Gorbachev from me: if the dimension of meditation also opens for him, he cannot allow the opportunity to be distorted.

Joseph Stalin destroyed the whole revolution for a single reason, and the reason was materialism. He believed that man is nothing but matter. According to Karl Marx, consciousness is only a by-product of matter, and as you die matter disperses; nothing is left as consciousness -- there is no soul. Because of this wrong idea he could manage to kill at least one million Russians in the name of revolution without any trouble; otherwise even to kill one man would destroy your whole life's sleep. It would haunt you -- you would never be able to forgive yourself. But to kill one million people without any concern was possible under the umbrella of materialism.

I would like Gorbachev not only to introduce freedom to the Soviet Union and its people, but also some spiritual dimension so that it is clear that they are not just matter. Matter cannot have any dignity -- matter can be used, but cannot be respected. Matter can be destroyed, but you need not feel that you have committed a crime, or a sin.

Unless the Soviet Union and its people not only desire freedom, but also desire a search for the soul... because what will you do with freedom? Freedom for what? There are two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom for. Freedom from is not much of a freedom. The real freedom is the second freedom -- freedom for spiritual growth, freedom for inner search, freedom for knowing the secrets and the mysteries of life.

If Gorbachev can introduce the Soviet Union to Gautam Buddha, to Mahavira, to Zarathustra, to Lao Tzu... why be so confined to Karl Marx? Why be so poor? Why not make the whole sky yours? -- all the stars and the whole beauty of the night, yours. Why remain confined? If he can open the doors for the spiritual search, then, certainly, he can fulfill the prophecy of Edgar Cayce that Russia is the hope for all of mankind.

And I think him a man intelligent enough to understand that materialism is as confining as Christianity, as confining as Hinduism. I am making my people available to all dimensions because the whole past is your heritage. Why remain so poor, clinging to one small tradition? Why not allow the whole sky to be yours? Why not open your wings?

Communism missed the first revolution because it was not revolutionary enough. It was a reaction against Christianity; and whenever you react to something, you start behaving in the same way. In America they are becoming more and more a closed society because of fundamentalist Christianity. You will be surprised to know that in America thousands of books have been removed from the libraries -- in this twentieth century, just now in this year -- because they do not conform with the fundamentalist Christian attitudes, with the fanatic and fascist Christian mind.

Even in American education Charles Darwin's theory of evolution cannot be taught; it has been prohibited, because it goes against Christianity. Christianity believes in creation.

Perhaps you have never thought that the idea of creation and the idea of evolution are diametrically opposite. God created the world; now there is no question of any evolution.

You cannot improve upon God.

Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution is against Christianity. In no other country is it banned. But some American states have banned it; now it is a crime to teach it. And all books -- and there are thousands of books written on the theory of evolution -- have been removed from the libraries of colleges, universities and national libraries.

A strange polarity. The Soviet Union has been up to now a closed society, and America at least pretended to be an open society. Now the Soviet Union is making every effort to become an open society, and America is becoming more and more closed.

I would like to add a few words to Edgar Cayce's prediction: If the Soviet Union is the hope for mankind, then the United States of America is the greatest danger for mankind.

It is preparing for human death. And if the Soviet Union becomes not only politically open but also philosophically open -- not confined to the out-of-date ideas of Karl Marx, but open to all kinds of theories, philosophies, religions; experiences of Zen, and Sufism, and Hassidism, of Tao and Yoga -- it can certainly prove the savior of humanity.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE OFTEN HEARD YOU SPEAK OF ALONENESS AND LONELINESS AS

BEING OPPOSED; OF ALONENESS BEING A STATE IN WHICH ONE IS SO FULL

-- FULFILLED; OF LONELINESS BEING A STATE IN WHICH ONE IS MISSING

THE OTHER, FEELING VERY EMPTY. READING RYOKAN'S POETRY, I FEEL

SOME LONELINESS, YET THE MAN IS KNOWN AS AN ENLIGHTENED ZEN

MONK.

"STANDING ALONE BENEATH THE SOLITARY PINE,

QUICKLY THE TIME PASSES.

OVERHEAD THE ENDLESS SKY.

WHO CAN I CALL TO JOIN ME ON THE PATH?"

IN THE HANKERING FOR A TRUE COMPANION, IN THE NEED TO SHARE

THAT RICHNESS, I WONDER IF IN THE HEART OF ALONENESS, THERE IS A KIND OF LONELINESS. PLEASE EXPLAIN IF ALONENESS AND LONELINESS

ARE INTERRELATED.

Kavisho, loneliness is loneliness, and aloneness is aloneness -- and the two never meet anywhere. They cannot by their very nature. Aloneness is so full, so abundantly full of yourself there is no space for anybody else. And loneliness is so empty, so dark, so miserable that it is nothing but a constant hunger for someone to fill it... if not to fill it, at least to help you to forget it.

You are quoting from Ryokan's poetry. I don't think Ryokan is yet enlightened. He was certainly a Zen monk, and a great poet, but he fell short of being a mystic. He reached very close, but even to reach very close is not to be enlightened.

I have also loved Ryokan's poetry. But beware of poets, because they appear so close to the mystics. Sometimes their words are more juicy than the words of the mystics, because the poet is the artist of words; the mystic is an expert of silence.

Ryokan was a Zen monk; hence something of the mystic echoes in his poetry. But that is because he lived in an atmosphere in communion with the mystics. But he himself was not a mystic.

These are his lines, and you can see immediately what I mean: STANDING ALONE BENEATH A SOLITARY PINE,

QUICKLY THE TIME PASSES.

OVERHEAD THE ENDLESS SKY.

WHO CAN I CALL TO JOIN ME ON THE PATH?

He is still in need of a companion, and he is still searching. He is still talking of "the path," and the enlightened man knows there is no path. All paths are wrong, without exception, because every path leads you away from yourself. And to come to yourself you don't need any path: you have to be just awake and you are there.

It is almost like you are asleep in your room and dreaming that you are far away in London, in New York, in San Francisco. Do you think that if suddenly you are awakened you will find yourself in San Francisco? You were there, but that was only a dream.

Awake, suddenly you find you are in your miserable room, and you have not even gone out of the door. You may be angry with the person who has awakened you, but he has brought you back to the reality. And there was no need of booking a ticket, because you had never gone out; you were only dreaming.

You are only dreaming what you are. If you wake up, suddenly you will find all that you used to think your personality, your body, your mind, your knowledge, your feelings, your love -- they were all dreams. You are only a witness. But you cannot dream about the witness; that is an impossibility.

The witness remains a witness, never becomes a dream. Your aloneness is your witness, is your being. And it is so full, there is no need of any companion. And what is the need of a path? Where are you going? You have arrived.

Ryokan was a beautiful poet, and perhaps a very disciplined monk, but he was not a mystic and certainly not an enlightened man.

Kavisho, let this be an opportunity to remind you again: beware of poets. They are like false coins, although they look exactly like authentic coins. But the false is false, and there is no way to make it real. Ryokan has still to wake up and see there is no solitary pine tree standing alone, there is no need of a companion, and there is no path.

One is, and has always been, at home.

To realize this at-homeness is aloneness.

Going around in your dreams you will always find yourself lonely. Loneliness is a misunderstanding. Aloneness is an awakening.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER NIGHT I HEARD YOU SPEAK OF BETRAYAL, AND HOW IT IS

IMPOSSIBLE TO DISAPPOINT YOU. MY EYES FILLED WITH TEARS. YOUR

EYES WERE SO LUMINOUS, SHINING WITH ENOUGH LOVE TO FILL THIS

UNIVERSE. I REALIZED THAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING NOT TO DISAPPOINT

THE PEOPLE I LOVE ALL MY LIFE, AND MY TEARS WERE OF GRATITUDE

FOR YOUR LOVE, A LOVE THAT CANNOT BE TOUCHED OR TARNISHED

WHATEVER HAPPENS. YOUR LOOK HAD A BURNING INTENSITY, YET A WHOLLY IMPERSONAL QUALITY TOO. WHAT KIND OF LOVE IS THIS?

Devageet....

Two little children were playing with their dog by the sea when the dog was carried out to sea by a big wave. A passing rabbi dived in, saved the dog and revived it by artificial respiration.

The children asked, "Hey, rabbi, are you a vet?"

"Am I wet?" replied the rabbi. "I am absolutely soaked!"

I am talking about a love in which you are not only wet, but absolutely soaked.

And there is no need to make any effort for it. Just being here, slowly, slowly, you will find your hardness melting. It cannot resist the temptation, because love is such a joy, such a bliss, that once you have seen a man of love you can never be the same again.

Seeing the man of love, you have seen your own future. And things will start happening.

The hardness which prevents you from being loving, melts; the heart which you have completely forgotten is suddenly remembered. The mind which has become your permanent residence is no more your residence, but only a workshop -- useful as far as work is concerned and utterly harmful as far as love is concerned. Your heart becomes your home, and your life starts radiating without any effort on your part.

Love is a contagious disease which has no cure. The world is loveless so much because very few people are there to spread the disease.

I have heard that the doctor of Mulla Nasruddin knocked on his door. He was very angry, and he said, "I have waited for one month, and you have not paid me and I cured your child of smallpox!"

Nasruddin said, "Listen. I have been patient enough; otherwise, the reality is that you owe much money to me."

The doctor said, "What? I owe money to you?"

Nasruddin said, "Yes. Who do you think spread the disease to the whole school? My child! And from all that you have earned during this whole month, I have a percentage. I was being a gentleman and not asking for it, but you are being such a nasty fellow, so miserly, and you have some nerve, too."

Love has disappeared from the world for the simple reason that there are not enough lovesick people to spread it, not enough love-soaked people to spread it. It is something which is not taught, which is caught.

Devageet, just don't be worried about it. Being here you are going to be soaked. My whole presence, my silence, my words are nothing but to push you into the ocean so that you can be soaked.

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

I LOVE TO WATCH YOU RETREAT SO GRACEFULLY BACKWARDS OUT OF

THE HALL UNTIL YOU ARE SAFELY INSIDE. I WONDER HOW YOU AVOID

THE DOOR AND THE WALL. BUT TELL ME, BELOVED ONE, ARE YOU

AFRAID TO TURN YOUR BACK ON US?

Prem Sucheta, I will have to tell you a story. Mulla Nasruddin was invited to a conference where many wise people were gathered. He had his own disciples. He collected all the disciples and rode on his donkey.

But the disciples said, "What are you doing?" -- because he was riding on the donkey in the wrong way, not facing where the donkey was going. He was facing the disciples who were following him.

They said, "Mulla, we know that to go with you anywhere is to get into trouble. Now the whole city will laugh and we will feel embarrassed because we are your disciples."

He said, "Don't be worried about the city. I will see to those idiots."

"But," they said, "at least to us you should explain the great principle."

He said, "The great principle is simple. If I ride on the donkey in the usual way, my back will be towards you. That is insulting you. I cannot do that. I respect you as much as you respect me. If I tell you to walk ahead of me, then your back will be towards me. That will be even worse -- the disciples insulting the master.

"I could not sleep the whole night until I discovered this great principle: I can ride on my donkey facing you; neither I am being disrespectful to you nor are you being disrespectful to me. And as far as the donkey is concerned, he is accustomed to me; he knows that I am a little crazy. He will giggle a little. As far as the city people are concerned, let them laugh. You need not feel embarrassed -- you are disciples of a great master."

They said, "The principle seems to be great, but still we are feeling very much afraid."

And it happened just the way the disciples were thinking. People came out of the shops, crowds gathered. People started asking, "What is the matter?"

The disciples said, "It is a very complicated thing. Its name is the Great Principle. If you want to understand you will have to come to the school where our great master teaches us."

They said, "It is a strange principle: sitting the wrong way on a poor donkey. But, if he says it is a great principle, it must be" -- because they have known him, and every time he has proven himself right. He has his own way. They said, "We are going to come tomorrow to the school to understand the Great Principle."

And when the Great Principle was explained to them, they all looked at each other. Of course, it was right, because Mulla Nasruddin said to them: Unless a master respects his disciples, he should not expect any respect from them.

Prem Sucheta, it is the Great Principle.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #21

Chapter title: Sunrise in the soviet union sunset in america 22 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705220

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN21

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

81

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

HOW CAN THE WORLD EVER BECOME A PARADISE WHEN ALL

ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE ALWAYS CHOOSE NOT TO BE BORN AGAIN?

Anand Anahad, one of the most fundamental things about the enlightened person is that he attains to enlightenment by dropping all choices; he attains it in a choiceless awareness. After enlightenment there is no way for him to choose anything.

It is not that he chooses not to be born; it is simply the law of existence that once you are enlightened you do not need the body and the mind and the whole imprisonment which we call life. It is not that the enlightened person goes into nonexistence; he becomes part of existence itself -- just like a fragrance, spread all over. In this way he helps the world to become a paradise. The more enlightened people disappear in the world as fragrance, the more light it will become... blissful, ecstatic.

And the question of making life a paradise is for you, not for the enlightened person. For him it is already a paradise. Even in this whole misery, and anguish, he remains above and beyond. He showers his love and compassion, but he is not touched by the anguish and anxiety, the misery and the hell that people are living in. His heart is full of compassion for them, and he does everything to help them to come out of their darkness.

Paradise is not a location; it is not part of geography. Paradise is a certain attitude towards existence; it is a way of life. The same energy that becomes misery becomes bliss; the same energy that creates jealousy and anger is transformed into love, into peace, into silence. It is not a question of only the enlightened person changing the world into a paradise; everybody has to change it by changing himself.

All those people who have been dreaming of a better world can be divided into two categories. The major part of the dreamers who want the world to become a paradise think in terms of changing the world -- its social structure, its economics, its politics.

These people have been working for thousands of years.

Their intentions are immensely beautiful, but they are ignorant about the basic fact that except for the individual, there is no world. You cannot change the world because the world is only a word, it is not a reality. If you go in search to meet the world you will always meet the individual. The individual is the reality. It is not just a word; it is existential.

The small part, the minor part of dreamers who want to bring a utopia into the world have a totally different approach. Their approach is to teach you how to be silent, how to be peaceful, how to beautify existence around you, how to take everything and change it... to create a harmony, an accord.

The same orchestra, the same instruments, can be played by monkeys too -- and they will really enjoy. But music will not be born; what will be born will be a maddening noise!

Even to people who do not know the art of music, who have not learnt, who have not gone into the discipline, all those instruments are useless. An orchestra in which thirty or more instruments are being played by those who know how to play them does not create noise; on the contrary it creates music -- which is closest to silence.The higher the music is, the closer it is to silence. Listening to great music, you will fall into silence.

In the East music has been always used as a support for meditation. It is difficult to fight with the mind, its constant rush of thoughts, but being absorbed in beautiful music all those thoughts disappear. Music is sound, but sound can be used in such a way that it creates silence; that is the whole art.

Life has many components. They can all live together like a crowd -- noisy, conflicting with each other, fighting to dominate -- that's how we create a hell. Hell is your inability to bring the crowd within you to a peaceful, loving existence. It is the inability to create an orchestra out of your being. The man who can create an orchestra out of his being --

whose mind, heart, being, are all in tune -- has created paradise for himself, and an energy field around himself, which will affect others also.

It is everybody's task; in fact it is the only task, the only challenge life gives to you --

whether you turn it into a hell or into a heaven. The man who turns his life into a heaven is the greatest artist in the world. Musicians and painters and dancers and poets -- all are left far behind. I call this man the mystic. He is the highest category.

It is up to you to see that your components are not at war, that you are at peace with yourself. One great Sufi mystic, Bayazid was dying. His old grandmother was always worried about the life of Bayazid, because he was not a traditional, orthodox, religious person; he never went to the mosque, he never prayed the way a Mohammedan should pray, five times a day -- he laughed at the very existence of God. As he was dying, his grandmother came close to him and whispered, "Bayazid, there is still time; make peace with God."

And Bayazid died with a great laughter, saying, "I don't need to, because I have made peace with myself."

Those who are not at peace with themselves are trying in every way to make peace with God, to make peace in the world, to make peace among the warring nations. But the man who has found peace within himself, radiates it. He becomes the source, triggering the same kind of music, the same harmony, and the same beauty in others who come close to him.

The enlightened man, while he is alive, works through his presence, through his love, through his silence. And when dead, he does not disappear; he simply becomes spread all over existence.

Ramakrishna was dying and his last instructions to his wife were.... In India, the moment the husband dies the wife goes through a trauma. She cannot wear colored clothes, she has to shave her head -- she cannot have hair; she cannot use any ornaments, not even the cheapest glass bangles -- she has to break them.

But before dying Ramakrishna, called Sharda, his wife, and told her, "Remember, you are never going to become a widow. I am dying, but I will be here. I will not be confined in the body, but you have not loved only my body; you have loved me, my consciousness.

So don't become a widow. Use beautiful clothes; just for my joy, use all the beautiful ornaments that I have given to you. And remember" -- he loved delicious food too much -

- he said, "Remember, don't forget to create beautiful dishes for me. I will not be able to eat them, but even the aroma of your beautiful food will be a nourishment to me. And don't forget to prepare my bed rightly, particularly the mosquito net."

His disciples were feeling very embarrassed, "What is he saying? Has he gone insane? A dying enlightened person is worried about the mosquito net...."

Sharda followed his instructions for almost thirty years that she lived after him. She would prepare his food the same way she used to prepare it while he was in the body. She would take it to his room -- and nobody was there -- and she would say, "Paramahansdev, your food is ready." She would sit like the way she used to sit, with her fan in her hand.

There was nobody. The disciples tried to convince her -- "This is absolutely mad; you go on fanning and there is nobody...."

She said, "There may not be for you; there is for me." She would prepare the bed the way he liked, with many covers. She would take care about the mosquito net, that not a single mosquito entered inside.

Very few people have understood Sharda, but she really loved Ramakrishna -- not the body in which he was, but him, his being. Now the body is no longer there, but the being is spread all over existence; he is more than he was before. Before he was imprisoned in the body; now he is unembodied. Now he is just freedom.

The enlightened man helps people while he is alive, and he goes on helping people while he is not in the body. But if you cannot understand an enlightened man while he is in the body, it is very difficult for you to understand when he is not in the body.

Once you have fallen in love with a master, slowly, slowly he is no more a body to you.

He becomes only a pure consciousness.

When Gautam Buddha died ten thousand sannyasins were present. Except twenty, almost everybody was crying. But what was the matter with those twenty? Were they not devoted to Gautam Buddha? One of them, Manjushree was asked, "What is the matter with you all? -- because you have been closest to him."

He said, "That is the matter. We have known him not as the body; we have known him as an immortal consciousness. We are rejoicing. Up to now he was confined in a small space; now the whole sky is his. We can touch him anywhere, we can talk to him anywhere. We know he will be available -- that's why we are not crying, not weeping.

You are crying and weeping because you have never gone beyond the body. The body was beautiful, but it is nothing compared to the beauty of consciousness."

Anand Anahad, the enlightened man naturally goes on creating a paradise wherever he is

-- in the body or not in the body. But he cannot create a paradise without your agreeing to it. Finally, you are the decisive factor. He can make all the arrangements, and you can refuse them; you can go on living in your hell. The first thing is that you are living in hell. So many times people have asked me, "Does hell exist?" And I have said to them,

"You amaze me. You live in it, and you ask me, `Does hell exist?' What is your life? It is not a joy, it is not a dance -- you are living a nightmare."

To live unconsciously is to be in hell, and to live consciously is to be in heaven. To be fully enlightened... it is not that you enter paradise; paradise opens its petals, just like a lotus, in you. It is your innermost potential.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

SEEING SUCH UNBELIEVABLE CHANGES IN RUSSIA THESE PAST TWO

YEARS, DUE TO GORBACHEV'S LEADERSHIP, DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL

MESSAGE FOR HIM? WOULD YOU AT ALL CONSIDER GOING TO RUSSIA IF

HE WOULD HAVE THE COURAGE TO WELCOME YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE?

DO YOU THINK THAT ONE DAY RUSSIA COULD BE THE COUNTRY OF THE

FUTURE OF HUMANITY?

Jivan Mada, yes, it appears as if unbelievable changes have been happening in Russia in the past two years. But as far as I am concerned, I was waiting for those changes; they are not unbelievable. Sixty years of oppression, exploitation and mass scale butchery were preparing the ground. No night is without a dawn. Sixty years was more than enough; it was absolutely certain that it would come to an end.

Gorbachev is the first ray heralding that the morning has come. Many more changes will be happening in the future. Their speed is going to accelerate, because for sixty years the people have not tasted freedom, have not tasted trust, love; they have known only a fascist regime, which was ready to kill anybody for any small excuse. They have lived under the shadow of death.

I welcome the dawn; the birds have started singing, and the flowers have not forgotten --

even in sixty years -- that when the sun rises they have to open and release their fragrance.

You are asking me, do I have a special message for this great man, Gorbachev, who is bringing a second revolution in the Soviet Union? Yes, I have a message for him. And my message is not special, but the same as it is for every human being, wherever he exists. But the situation is certainly special. You will have to go a little bit back in the history....

Communism is a reaction against Christianity. Christianity has done so much harm that the intelligentsia -- particularly people like Karl Marx, who were geniuses -- became so frustrated with Christianity that they created an alternative: a materialist philosophy with no God, with no soul, with no consciousness.

It is understandable -- but not forgivable -- because Karl Marx was not acquainted with Gautam Buddha, nor was he acquainted with the Eastern flowers of Zen, of Tao, of Yoga.

Without knowing anything about authentic religion -- he thought that Christianity was equivalent to religion -- he created a religionless society. This is moving from one extreme to another extreme.

It has been always my understanding that amongst all the crimes that Christianity has committed, communism is also one of them -- not directly, but indirectly. It is because of Christianity -- its stupid superstitions, its exploitation of the people, its protection of the richest and its consolations for the poor -- that Karl Marx had to say that religion is nothing but opium for the people. This is perfectly true for organized religions, but this is not true about men like Zarathustra, or Bodhidharma, or Basho. They are the pinnacles of consciousness.

Gorbachev's greatest contribution will be to introduce the people of the Soviet Union to the immense varieties of religious experiences, and not to remain confined to Christianity. Christianity has nothing of religion in it. The West has not produced any religions; its whole consciousness is extrovert.

My message to Gorbachev is: Introduce meditations in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities; open the doors for Zen, for Tao, for Hassidism, and let people see that the essential religion is not a bondage, but the ultimate freedom. All other freedoms are small

-- political, economical, social. The only freedom that cannot be destroyed by anybody, and cannot be taken away by anybody, is of the spirit. He is trying to introduce political freedom, freedom of expression. These are good, but they are not enough; they are all superficial.

The Soviet Union is in a very special state. For sixty years they have been denied....

There is a deep longing for truth, for freedom, for love -- it is almost like a land that has been lying unused for sixty years, waiting for its spring, waiting for someone to sow seeds. It has gathered so much potential and power that if you sow the seeds this land can produce the most beautiful flowers, the richest crops.

Gorbachev himself has to be introduced to the art of meditation, and he has to open the doors and the windows to all the dimensions that have been closed for sixty years, so people can choose the method to find themselves. A spiritual realization has to be made available to the people of the Soviet land. That will be the greatest contribution Gorbachev can make.

You are asking, "If he had enough courage to welcome you, and your people, would you consider going there?"

Absolutely, unconditionally! I would love to go there, to take my people.... And if he has courage enough I would like to create a commune in the Soviet Union to show America,

"The day you destroyed the commune there, you have yourself committed suicide."

And you can see, Ronald Reagan has not the same prestige as he had when the commune was there; he cannot hope to become the president again. Governor Atiyeh of Oregon was very powerful just because of the commune -- because he was opposing it, and people were supporting him. He could not gather courage even to run for the second time.

He is no longer the governor; if we had been there, he would have been the governor still.

The politicians who had become immensely important have lost all their power. Their power was because of us. If they had real intelligence, they would have continued to be against us superficially, and behind the curtain they would have been helping us to be as strong as possible -- because we were the source of their power. The more powerful we would have been, the more powerful they would have been. But Oregonians are simply the most stupid people in the world. They destroyed their very source of power; now nobody takes any note of them.

They were trying to collect signatures to change the rule that you can be a voter in Oregon if you have stayed there for twenty days before the voting but they needed the signatures of seventy-five percent of the population. Their campaign was going great when we were there; it was because of us they were afraid of those twenty days. I have been informed by my attorneys that, "The moment you left, your sannyasins left, their campaign completely failed." They had gathered almost forty percent of the signatures, but now nobody is interested in it -- for what?

It would be a good answer to America if Russia could help us to create a commune in their land. And in fact, the whole philosophy of a commune is highest and most significant in the philosophy of communism itself; the very word communism comes from the word commune.

And our commune can become a model for the whole Soviet Union. If Gorbachev has guts enough, I will do everything to create a commune on Soviet land that will be the sunrise in the Soviet Union, and the sunset in America.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

QUESTIONS ARISE AND SOLVE THEMSELVES AFTER I MEDITATE; THEN

ALMOST THE SAME QUESTIONS ARE ASKED IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS.

ONCE I HEARD YOU TALK ABOUT THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY AND ITS

DISCOVERY: IF EINSTEIN HADN'T MANAGED TO DO IT, IT WOULD HAVE

BEEN DISCOVERED BY ANOTHER SCIENTIST, BECAUSE THE TIME WAS

READY FOR IT. THOUGHT, AS FAR AS I CAN UNDERSTAND IT, SEEMS TO

BELONG TO THE SAME LAW OF EXISTENCE -- ESPECIALLY IN THIS STRONG

ENERGY CIRCLE AROUND YOU. WILL YOU TALK ABOUT THIS

PHENOMENON?

Prem Adina, no man is an island. We are all connected in a thousand-and-one ways.

That's what I was saying about Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Somebody had asked him, "If you had not discovered it, do you think somebody else would have been able to discover it, ever?" And he was surprised by the answer. Albert Einstein said, "It would have taken not more than three weeks for somebody else to discover it."

As it happens, in fact, it was discovered by another scientist before Albert Einstein; he was just a lazy man and did not publish his article, and once Albert Einstein had published his article, there was no point.

Our beings are connected. Of course, everybody cannot discover a theory like relativity; it needs a very refined intelligence. But there were at least a dozen people in the world who were of the same caliber, and who were looking in the same direction. It was only a question of time -- of who is fast enough to reach the conclusion.

Here you will feel it every day. A question arises in you. You can ask it, or just wait a little -- somebody is going to ask it! Here you are, all for the same purpose, the same search; you are all looking in the same direction, accepting the same challenge. It is very natural that the same questions will arise in you.

There are people who have never asked a single question because they know now so certainly, "What is the point? Somebody is going to ask it." And it is always better when somebody else asks it, and you are just listening relaxedly. The person who has asked is tense, because it is his question. I am not a very predictable man, and I answer the questioner more than the question; so he is very alert, very tense, a little bit afraid.

Everybody else can enjoy relaxedly -- that poor fellow has finally asked the question.

And I have seen that the people who are listening to the answers of other people's questions understand more clearly, because they are more relaxed. They are almost like observers. They are more open. I am not going to hit on their head, of that they must...

they are certain; so they can enjoy the answer. And it is their question too.

And particularly because we are concerned in a single-pointed purpose -- how to know yourself and how to be yourself -- questions will be coming, and they will be applicable almost to everybody. It just depends on your attitude. You should not forget to listen to the answer thinking that because it is somebody else's question it is none of your concern, and you can enjoy having your own yakkety-yak that goes on inside you. Then you will miss. And you will miss a great opportunity. It is unintelligent.

The intelligent person will listen very carefully to any question, because it may not be significant for him today -- but perhaps tomorrow.... Perhaps he has not come to that space, but he will come; it is better to be ready for it. All that is needed is a little intelligence.

Although he was approaching eighty, the old colonel refused to accept his loss of sexual desire and stamina, so he consulted a doctor. The doctor was amused, and asked, "Why should you be so concerned? It is only to be expected at your time of life."

"But a friend of mine who is eighty-five says he still makes love to his wife every night,"

replied the colonel.

The doctor smiled, "Why can't you say the same thing? It is only a question of saying."

Just a little intelligence....

A young boy came before the court, charged with stealing a girl's bicycle.

"I did not steal it, sir," he told the magistrate, "she gave it to me. She was riding me home on the handlebars, and she stopped in the woods; she took off her bluejeans and her panties and said I could have anything she had. Well sir, the panties were girls' things and the bluejeans would not fit me -- so I took the bicycle."

Just be a little intelligent. Don't take the bicycle!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #22

Chapter title: The time for families is over

22 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705225

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN22

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

87

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF A MODEL COMMUNE?

Maneesha, mankind is at a crossroads. It cannot live the way it has lived up to now. That has become simply impossible. It has been dreaming for a better future as far back as you can conceive, but life has been deteriorating rather than becoming better. It has come to a point where we are facing either suicide, a global suicide, or a total transformation of human consciousness and its style of life.

My idea of a model commune implies the whole life of man from all the possible aspects.

First, the family cannot remain the basic unit of the society. It is the root cause of millions of diseases; it is the basic brick of which nations are made, races are made, religious organizations are made. The family has destroyed the blissfulness of men and women of the whole of mankind. Its basic structure is of possessiveness -- the husband possesses the wife and they both possess the children -- and the moment you possess a human being, you have taken away his dignity, his freedom, his very humanity. You have taken away all that is beautiful and you have given him only handcuffs, perhaps made of gold... beautiful cages in place of his wings. Those golden cages cannot give him the sky and the freedom of the sky.

So the first thing is: a model commune will not have families. The implication is clear that it will not have marriages.

Love, for the first time, should be given the respect that is its due for centuries. Love should be the only law between two human beings if they decide to live together; only joy should be their binding force. The moment love disappears.... And remember, like everything real, love also changes. Only unreal things, plastic things, remain permanent.

Marriage is permanent, but it gains permanence by killing love.

It is on the grave of love that marriage makes its house. Naturally, it brings only agony, anguish, suffering, slavery -- and a total destruction of man's spirituality.

A model commune will be a communion, a gathering of free spirits. Children should belong to the commune, not to the parents. Parents have done enough harm. They cannot be allowed anymore to corrupt their children, although their intentions are all good. But what to do with their good intentions? The results are all ugly.

Parents teach their children to be competitive, and competition brings jealousy. They teach their children to become somebody in the world, to leave a name behind themselves. That makes life a struggle, not a rejoicing but a continuous fight -- so destructive that it takes away all your joy, all your juice, all your flowers. It leaves behind only skeletons fighting for power, for money , for position. Life becomes a warfield.

The whole blame goes to the parents. They have lived as ambitious beings; they have destroyed themselves. Now they go on giving their heritage to their children -- their unfulfilled desires, their incomplete ambitions. In this way diseases pass on from one generation to another.

A commune is a declaration of a non-ambitious life with equal opportunity for all. But remember my differences with Karl Marx. I am not in favor of imposing equality on people, because that is a psychologically impossible task, and whenever you do something against nature, it becomes destructive and poisonous.

No two men are equal. But I can be misunderstood very easily, so try to understand my standpoint very clearly: I am not in favor of equality, but I am not in favor of inequality either! I am in favor of creating equal opportunities for everybody to be himself. In other words, in my vision, each individual is unique. The question of equality or inequality does not arise, because two individuals are not the same. They cannot be compared.

A real commune, a real communism, will create

equal opportunities for growth, but accept the uniqueness of each individual.

There should be no private property. Everything should belong to the commune. There should be absolute freedom of expression in words or in creativity.

Each individual should be respected as he is, not according to any ideal. His basic needs should be fulfilled by the commune, and as the commune becomes richer, every individual should be provided with more comfort, with more luxury -- because I am not against luxury or comfort. I am not a sadist, and I don't want people to be tortured in any beautiful name. In the name of religion, or in the name of socialism, nobody should be sacrificed. No kind of self torture should be supported.

Man is here to rejoice, to live a life as beautifully, as peacefully, as comfortably as possible.

I am all for richness, but the richness will be of the commune. As the commune becomes richer, every individual will become richer. I am against poverty; I am not a worshiper of poverty. I don't see anything spiritual in being poor -- it is sheer stupidity. Neither poverty is spiritual, nor is sickness spiritual, nor is hunger spiritual. A commune should live in a way that it becomes more and more rich, that it does not produce too many children, that it does not overproduce people. Overproduction is bound to create beggars, is bound to create orphans, and once there are orphans there are Mother Teresas.

I don't want any Mother Teresa in the world. Neither do I believe in the virtue of serving the poor, because I don't want anybody to be poor in the world. And it is in our hands: we have all the scientific techniques to produce according to our needs -- or not to produce.

To produce the best possible children... there is no need to produce blind, crippled, retarded... that should be a thing of the past! Now science places it absolutely in our hands to choose how our children should be. We just have to drop our old conception.

Our old conception was: my child should be of my blood. It is sheer nonsense. What is the difference between my blood and your blood? The new intelligence should choose the right seed for the child -- from whom it comes, it does not matter.

In a commune there should be banks for semen in the hospitals, just as there are banks for blood. A couple can go and ask the doctor what kind of child is needed -- a mathematician? a Mohammed Ali the Great? a Jesus Christ? -- because now it is possible to read the whole history of every child even before he is conceived. Every living cell that is going to become the life of a new child has the whole program. How long he will live, whether he will be healthy or sick, intelligent or unintelligent, a musician, a dancer, a scientist... you can choose!

We just have to drop the old, stupid ideas. As far as lovemaking is concerned, you can make love to the woman you like. But as far as producing a child is concerned, your woman can provide the womb and you can find the best seed from the hospital. And it will be anonymous, so you need not be worried that someone in the street will say,

"Hello, you are the father of my child." Nobody can say that; nobody will ever know.

Finally, the children should belong to the commune as a whole. Father and mother should recede, in their place, should be "uncles" and "aunts". There should be so many uncles and so many aunts... perhaps the mother should be the chief aunt and the father should be the chief uncle, but not more than that.

Everybody should be allowed to be himself. Right now everybody is forced to be according to the ideas of others. That causes misery and great anguish, and takes all joy and gladness from life. Everybody should be himself and contribute to life according to his way -- by creating music, or by creating paintings, or by writing poetry, or by producing better fruits, better crops, making better roads.

Everyone should be allowed to have his own potential fulfilled. A model commune will give dignity to every individual. I was saying this morning that Gorbachev can invite us to have a model commune in the Soviet Union.

This is as far as human growth is concerned. One thing for the inner growth is that everybody, irrespective of whether he is a man or a woman, should be allowed to choose a method of meditation suitable to him, so that he can not only experience the joys of life, but he can also experience the joys of his spirit.

Communism is missing only one thing: a spirituality. A model commune should be a spiritual gathering of seekers, of lovers, of friends, of creative people in all dimensions of life. They can produce paradise here on the earth.

The time for families is over, and the time for cities is over, and the time for nations is over. The world should be one, consisting of small communes. Then there is no need for armies because there is nobody with whom you are to fight. There is no need of arms, particularly atomic and nuclear, because you are not interested in committing a global suicide.

The whole energy that is being poured into creating more and more destructive weapons can be changed into creativity, and the whole earth can live as richly, as luxuriously, as no emperor has ever lived! And if we do not choose this, then we don't have any intelligence at all. Even a little intelligence is enough to show that a total transformation of the society, of the old dead and rotten society, has become an absolute necessity for survival; otherwise, if we continue to be the way we are, we can count the years on our ten fingers.

The end is not very far away, but the end can become a great beginning if we understand.

We can avoid it!

It is in our own hands, because the end is not coming by any natural calamity, it is being caused by our stupidity!

A model commune will create as much intelligence as possible and will allow people to grow intelligently, search and seek their truth. That is how one becomes more intelligent, by searching and seeking. Intelligence is sharpened like a sword.

Man has lived in unintelligence because all the religions of the world have emphasized only one thing: belief -- and belief is poison to intelligence. They have emphasized only one thing: faith -- and faith is against all growth.

The new man I conceive, will not have any belief system and will not have any faith. He will be a seeker, a searcher, an enquirer. His life will be a life of tremendous discovery --

discoveries in the outside world and discoveries in the inside too.

I want every human being to be a discoverer: a Galileo, a Copernicus, a Columbus, in the outside world and a Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Chuang-Tzu in the inside world.

My whole effort is concentrated on one thing: to create the new man as Zorba the Buddha.

In a model commune everybody will have the qualities of the Zorba and the qualities of the Buddha; tremendously interested in the outside world, and in the same way, in love with the inner search. The day you are both together you have become the new man, and the new man is going to be the savior of humanity.

If the new man is not born there is no hope for humanity.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I FEEL LIKE A GUEST ON EARTH, AS IF I DON'T REALLY BELONG HERE AT

ALL. IN YOUR BEAUTIFUL GATHERING, I FEEL THAT I AM ALSO A GUEST, STAYING HERE ONLY BY YOUR GRACE OR BY GOOD FORTUNE. I HAVE

NOTHING REALLY TO GIVE, EXCEPT MYSELF. IS THIS ENOUGH?

Vimal, this is more than enough. The readiness to give oneself is the greatest adventure of life. And it is not only you who does not have anything else to give, we all come naked in the world. We don't bring anything into the world. All that we really have is our own self -- everything else belongs to the world, is not ours. To give money or to give anything else is really to avoid giving yourself.

The people who give money to the poor, make hospitals and schools and universities --

and brag about it -- are unaware of the fact that all their giving is just a facade. They are hiding their nudity. They are hiding the fact that they are not courageous enough to give themselves -- because that is the only thing worth giving; that is the only thing that belongs to you. All so-called givers are giving things that don't belong to them. It is almost like somebody giving you the full moon, somebody giving you the sunrise saying,

"You can have it, it is yours."

I have heard about two drunks. They were lying down under a tree on a full-moon night.

Gazing at the moon, very poetically, in a very romantic mood, one drunk said to the other, "I would like to purchase this moon."

The other said, "That is impossible. Forget it! Completely forget it!"

The first man said, "But why are you getting so angry?"

The second man said, "Why shouldn't I get angry? -- I don't want to sell it!"

Unless you give yourself, you don't give! You simply hide behind your so-called givings, your poverty and your impotence.

Vimal, there is nothing wrong. The very realization that you can give only yourself is a great realization, tremendously beautiful and intrinsically spiritual.

You are saying, "I feel like a guest on the earth." Do you think anybody else can feel to be a host on the earth? Everybody is a guest except Anando's ghosts. Only they are the hosts; otherwise everybody is a guest. But there is nothing to be worried about it. Be grateful to existence that it has invited you to be a guest.

You say, "As if I don't really belong here at all." Nobody belongs here. Everybody comes one day, and everybody one day goes away. This is a big caravanserai. Just one night's stay and in the morning the journey starts again. Who is going to stay here? Millions of people have been here before you -- not even their names can be remembered, they were all guests -- and millions of people will be here after we are gone.

Just don't use this planet like a waiting room in a railway station, particularly an Indian railway station. I have been traveling for years, staying in thousands of waiting rooms and seeing the strange scene. People are throwing their banana peels on the floor, spitting their "pan" leaves on the floor, even if I have asked them, "What are you doing!" They answer me saying, "This is only a waiting room. It is not anybody's home. And who cares? Just ten minutes more and my train is coming!" It is true your train is coming, but your train will be bringing a few passengers who will be staying in this waiting room with your banana peels!

You are a guest. Leave this earth a little more beautiful, a little more human, a little more lovable, a little more fragrant, for those unknown guests who will be following you.

An ancient Sufi story: The king of Bhagdad used to go around the city on his beautiful horse, just to see how things were going -- of course in disguise, not as the king -- so that he could see reality as it is. If he went as the king, then he could see everything that was beautiful and he would not be shown the real face -- he would have to see only the mask.

Everyday he saw a man, a very old man, must be past one hundred years, working in the garden, putting in small plants, but those small plants were not seasonal flowers. If they were seasonal flowers there would be no question at all. Those were the plants of the cedars of Lebanon, which grow one hundred feet, two hundred feet high, just almost touching the stars and they take hundreds of years to grow to that height. They live one thousand years, two thousand years, three thousand years and they are some of the most beautiful trees.

The king was puzzled because this old man, who is one hundred years, cannot even hope to see the next spring. His hands are shaking; he is so fragile, any moment death may take him away. And why is he planting these cedars? He will never be able to see them grow, to see them come of age, to see their beauty when they start touching the stars.

Finally it was impossible for the king to resist the temptation. He stopped his horse one day and went to the old man and said, "I should not interfere in your work, but I cannot resist the temptation."

The old man said, "There is nothing to worry about, my son. You can ask anything you want."

The king said, "My question is, you will never be able to see these trees come of age; you will be gone long before that...."

The old man said, "That's true."

The king said, "You know that's true and still you go on doing it?"

The old man said, "If my forefathers had not planted the seeds -- just see on the other side of my garden those tall Lebanon cedars -- I would have never seen them. If my forefathers were so generous about the children with whom they are not yet acquainted, who will be coming, who will be the visitor, who will be the guest.... Still they worked hard and they created those monumental trees. Looking at those trees I gather courage and work hard, because certainly I will not be able to see the beautiful growth but somebody will. My children's children, or perhaps even their children, will be able to see when they come to their full glory. It is enough that I am not betraying my forefathers. If they could trust in the future, in the unknown guest, I can also trust."

We are all guests, but don't use this beautiful planet as a railway-station guest house. It is not a waiting room. It is our home for the time being and it will still be the home for somebody else. Don't be so miserly as to say, "I will be gone -- after ten minutes my train is coming, so who cares if I leave the waiting room dirty?"

Nobody belongs here, Vimal. But for the moment we are here, and for the moment we have to be here totally, intensely, and we have to make this moment as beautiful as possible. We have to live our life like a dance, so when we leave, anybody who comes after us will find that the people who have been here were not ordinary people; they have left flowers and fragrance; they have left the echoes of their songs and their dances; they have left their footprints in pure, twenty-four carat gold.

It is not unfortunate that we are guests. It is a great opportunity: the planet, the existence, has been so generous, so kind, so loving, so accepting, that it has welcomed you to be here.

Leave your mark. You may be gone, but your laughter can remain. You may be gone, but your dance can remain behind. You may be gone, but the way you lived will go on creating its own vibrations; the people of the future will be reminded, with gratitude, that they are inheritors of a great planet and of a great race of human beings.

At the funeral of one of the richest men in town, a stranger was observed crying louder than any of the other mourners. One of the townspeople approached him: "Are you a relative of the deceased, the richest man of our town?"

"No."

"Then why are you crying, and crying so loudly?"

"That's why!"

Vimal, it is perfectly good just as you are. In this gathering nobody is a host -- all are guests pretending to be hosts to each other. It is a beautiful pretension. Nobody is a host; everybody is a guest, but how can there be a guest if there is no one to host him? This is the strange fact about this gathering; the whole gathering is the host, but as far as each individual is concerned, he is just a guest. So you are both -- a guest as an individual and a host as a part of the gathering.

An American makes a bet with a Britisher that whichever of them tells the most unbelievable story, wins.

"You start then," says the Britisher.

"Well," says the American, "one day an American gentleman...."

"Enough! You win!" says the Britisher.

An "American gentleman" -- you have told the strangest story.

You don't have anything to give except yourself. It is more than enough. Nothing else is asked. Even this is not asked of you. It is out of your own love. If you give yourself to the commune, the very giving will be a great reward.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WITH YOU, I AM OFTEN REMINDED OF THE FIRST GERMAN CHANCELLOR

AFTER THE WAR, ADENAUER. WHEN NAILED BY HIS OPPONENTS ON

DIFFERENT STATEMENTS HE HAD GIVEN ABOUT A SUBJECT, HE SMILED

AND SAID, "LISTEN, THERE IS MORE THAN ONE TRUTH. I MYSELF KNOW AT

LEAST FOUR: THE SIMPLE, THE PURE, THE PLAIN, AND THE WHOLE

TRUTH." I WONDER HOW MANY YOU KNOW?

Anand Sadhu, the German Chancellor Adenauer, was absolutely wrong. There is only one truth. What he has counted as four, are four aspects of it. He says there are four truths: the simple, the pure, the plain, and the whole truth. The first thing to remember is that the truth is always whole, just as the circle is always whole. You cannot have a half-circle. The moment it is half, it is only an arce, it is not a circle. The very word circle means the whole. If you say it is only a relative truth, then it is not truth because it is dependent, and truth is never dependent on anything.

The loving couple wanted to marry immediately, but the girl's strong-willed and domineering mother adamantly opposed the union.

"I can't help it," said the distraught girl to her boyfriend. "Mother thinks you are effeminate."

Reflecting for a moment, he replied, "You know, compared with her, maybe I am."

This is relative truth, but a relative truth is not the truth. Only the absolute and the whole is the truth -- and it is bound to be plain. Only lies are very complicated. They have to be; otherwise everybody will be able to find that you are lying.

You have to lie in such a complicated way, using legal jargon, logic, philosophy, law, science, and hiding the lies behind so many words. You cannot have a plain lie because it will be caught immediately.

Only truth is plain. And the truth is always pure. Can you conceive a truth which is impure? All lies are impure. There is no pure lie and there is no impure truth. And the truth is always simple, it is the very spirit of simplicity.

So I repeat that Adenauer was absolutely wrong. There is only one truth. There are millions of lies, but truth cannot be more than one. It is impossible even to conceive that there are two truths. Four is out of the question.

There was a man who had an extremely large penis and a very bad stutter. Every time he met a woman he stuttered so badly that he finally went to visit a physician. After an examination the doctor says, "Well, I can see what your problem is: the weight of your penis is so great that it is pulling on your vocal cords and causing you to stutter. I'm afraid I must remove ten inches to cure you."

The poor man was so desperate that he agreed to undergo the surgery immediately. The operation was a total success and he began to meet every woman, who all found him very charming. However, once in bed, they were very disappointed with his diminished apparatus.

Finally he goes back to the doctor and says, "Look Doc, you were absolutely right. You have cured my stuttering, but I need to have some of my penis back."

After a moment of silence the doctor says, "Er..., er..., sorry, but that is impossible, impossible!"

There are some things which are impossible. Now his vocal cords are being pulled down!

There is only one truth.

The German chancellor was a politician and he lied even about truth. I wonder... the people he lied to must have been Germans; otherwise somebody must have raised the question: "What nonsense are you talking?"

Pure truth, plain truth, simple truth, whole truth... there is only one truth. Lies are many.

That's why those who know the truth find it very difficult to express it, because it is so simple, so pure, so plain, so obvious; they have to create great devices just so that they can convey the simple truth.

If the simple truth is conveyed directly, nobody is going to listen; nobody is going to understand it, either. Just as two plus two are only four, neither five, nor six. So is the truth. Simple, pure, plain, whole -- these are all aspects. They don't make four truths; they simply describe the same truth from four different angles.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #23

Chapter title: The five dimensions of education

23 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705230

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN23

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

82

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT WOULD BE THE FORM OF EDUCATION IN THE NEW COMMUNE?

Maneesha, the education that has prevailed in the past is very insufficient, incomplete, superficial. It only creates people who can earn their livelihood but it does not give any insight into living itself. It is not only incomplete, it is harmful too -- because it is based on competition.

Any type of competition is violent deep down, and creates people who are unloving.

Their whole effort is to be the achievers -- of name, of fame, of all kinds of ambitions.

Obviously they have to struggle and be in conflict for them. That destroys their joys and that destroys their friendliness. It seems everybody is fighting against the whole world.

Education up to now has been goal-oriented: what you are learning is not important; what is important is the examination that will come a year or two years later. It makes the future important -- more important than the present. It sacrifices the present for the future.

And that becomes your very style of life; you are always sacrificing the moment for something which is not present. It creates a tremendous emptiness in life.

The commune of my vision will have a five-dimensional education. Before I enter into those five dimensions, a few things have to be noted. One: there should not be any kind of examination as part of education, but every day, every hour observation by the teachers; their remarks throughout the year will decide whether you move further or you remain a little longer in the same class. Nobody fails, nobody passes -- it is just that a few people are speedy and a few people are a little bit lazy -- because the idea of failure creates a deep wound of inferiority, and the idea of being successful also creates a different kind of disease, that of superiority.

Nobody is inferior, and nobody is superior.

One is just oneself, incomparable.

So, examinations will not have any place. That will change the whole perspective from the future to the present. What you are doing right this moment will be decisive, not five questions at the end of two years. Of thousands of things you will pass through during these two years, each will be decisive; so the education will not be goal-oriented.

The teacher has been of immense importance in the past, because he knew he had passed all the examinations, he had accumulated knowledge. But the situation has changed --

and this is one of the problems, that situations change but our responses remain the old ones. Now the knowledge explosion is so vast, so tremendous, so speedy, that you cannot write a big book on any scientific subject because by the time your book is complete, it will be out of date; new facts, new discoveries will have made it irrelevant. So now science has to depend on articles, on periodicals, not on books.

The teacher was educated thirty years earlier. In thirty years everything has changed, and he goes on repeating what he was taught. He is out of date, and he is making his students out of date. So in my vision the teacher has no place. Instead of teachers there will be guides, and the difference has to be understood: the guide will tell you where, in the library, to find the latest information on the subject.

And teaching should not be done in the old-fashioned way, because television can do it in a far better way, can bring the latest information without any problems. The teacher has to appeal to your ears; television appeals directly to your eyes; and the impact is far greater, because the eyes absorb eighty percent of your life situations -- they are the most alive part.

If you can see something there is no need to memorize it; but if you listen to something you have to memorize it. Almost ninety-eight percent of education can be delivered through television, and the questions that students will ask can be answered by computers. The teacher should be only a guide to show you the right channel, to show you how to use the computer, how to find the latest book. His function will be totally different. He is not imparting knowledge to you, he is making you aware of the contemporary knowledge, of the latest knowledge. He is only a guide.

With these considerations, I divide education into five dimensions. The first is informative, like history, geography, and many other subjects which can be dealt with by television and computer together. The second part should be sciences. They can be imparted by television and computer too, but they are more complicated, and the human guide will be more necessary.

In the first dimension also come languages. Every person in the world should know at least two languages; one is his mother tongue, and the other is English as an international vehicle for communication. They can also be taught more accurately by television -- the accent, the grammar, everything can be taught more correctly than by human beings.

We can create in the world an atmosphere of brotherhood: language connects people and language disconnects too. There is right now no international language. This is due to our prejudices. English is perfectly capable, because it is known by more people around the world on a wider scale -- although it is not the first language. The first is Spanish, as far as population is concerned. But its population is concentrated, it is not spread all over the world. The second is Chinese; that is even more concentrated, only in China. As far as numbers go, these languages are spoken by more people, but the question is not of numbers, the question is of spread.

English is the most widespread language, and people should drop their prejudices -- they should look at the reality. There have been many efforts to create languages to avoid the prejudices -- the Spanish people can say their language should be the international language because it is spoken by more people than almost any other language.... To avoid these prejudices, languages like Esperanto have been created. But no created language has been able to function. There are a few things which grow, which cannot be created; a language is a growth of thousands of years. Esperanto looks so artificial that all those efforts have failed.

But it is absolutely necessary to create two languages -- first, the mother tongue, because there are feelings and nuances which you can say only in the mother tongue. One of my professors, S. K. Saxena, a world traveler who has been a professor of philosophy in many countries, used to say that in a foreign language you can do everything, but when it comes to a fight or to love, you feel that you are not being true and sincere to your feelings. So for your feelings and for your sincerity, your mother tongue... which you imbibe with the milk of the mother, which becomes part of your blood and bones and marrow. But that is not enough -- that creates small groups of people and makes others strangers.

One international language is absolutely necessary as a basis for one world, for one humanity. So two languages should be absolutely necessary for everybody. That will come in the first dimension.

The second is the enquiry of scientific subjects, which is tremendously important because it is half of reality, the outside reality. And the third will be what is missing in present-day education, the art of living. People have taken it for granted that they know what love is. They don't know... and by the time they know, it is too late. Every child should be helped to transform his anger, hatred, jealousy, into love.

An important part of the third dimension should also be a sense of humor. Our so-called education makes people sad and serious. And if one third of your life is wasted in a university in being sad and serious, it becomes ingrained; you forget the language of laughter -- and the man who forgets the language of laughter has forgotten much of life.

So love, laughter, and an acquaintance with life and its wonders, its mysteries... these birds singing in the trees should not go unheard. The trees and the flowers and the stars should have a connection with your heart. The sunrise and the sunset will not be just outside things -- they should be something inner, too. A reverence for life should be the foundation of the third dimension.

People are so irreverent to life.

They still go on killing animals to eat -- they call it game; and if the animal eats them --

then they call it calamity. Strange... in a game both parties should be given equal opportunity. The animals are without weapons and you have machine guns or arrows....

You may not have thought about why arrows and machine guns were invented: so that you can kill the animal from a faraway distance; to come close is dangerous. What kind of game is this? And the poor animal, defenseless against your bullets....

It is not a question of killing the animals; it is a question of being irreverent to life, because all that you need can be provided either by synthetic foods, or by other scientific methods. All your needs can be fulfilled; no animal has to be killed. And a person who kills animals, deep down can kill human beings without any difficulty -- because what is the difference? And there are cannibals....

Just a few days ago in Palestine, the people demanded that the government allow them to eat human flesh, because there was not enough food -- so why waste a dead body?

Whether it has died naturally or has been destroyed by the terrorists or has been in an accident, it is good food! And the surprising thing is that the government of Palestine has agreed -- they had to. Food is short, and people cannot be left hungry. Today they will be eating the naturally dead or the accidentally dead, or those killed by terrorists; but this is not going on forever. Soon they will start finding ways to kill people -- to steal children, because their flesh is thought to be the most delicious.

A great reverence for life should be taught, because life is God and there is no other God than life itself, and joy, laughter, a sense of humor -- in short a dancing spirit.

The fourth dimension should be of art and creativity: painting, music, craftsmanship, pottery, masonry -- anything that is creative. All areas of creativity should be allowed; the students can choose. There should be only a few things compulsory -- for example an international language should be compulsory; a certain capacity to earn your livelihood should be compulsory; a certain creative art should be compulsory. You can choose through the whole rainbow of creative arts, because unless a man learns how to create, he never becomes a part of existence, which is constantly creative. By being creative one becomes divine; creativity is the only prayer.

And the fifth dimension should be the art of dying. In this fifth dimension will be all the meditations, so that you can know there is no death, so that you can become aware of an eternal life inside you. This should be absolutely essential, because everybody has to die; nobody can avoid it. And under the big umbrella of meditation, you can be introduced to Zen, to Tao, to Yoga, to Hassidism, to all kinds and all possibilities that have existed, but which education has not taken any care of. In this fifth dimension, you should also be made aware of the martial arts like aikido, jujitsu, judo -- the art of self-defense without weapons -- and not only self-defense, but simultaneously a meditation too.

The new commune will have a full education, a whole education. All that is essential should be compulsory, and all that is nonessential should be optional. One can choose from the options, which will be many. And once the basics are fulfilled, then you have to learn something you enjoy; music, dance, painting -- you have to know something to go inwards, to know yourself. And all this can be done very easily without any difficulty.

I have been a professor myself and I resigned from the university with a note saying: This is not education, this is sheer stupidity; you are not teaching anything significant.

But this insignificant education prevails all over the world -- it makes no difference, in the Soviet Union or in America. Nobody has looked for a more whole, a total education.

In this sense almost everybody is uneducated; even those who have great degrees are uneducated in the vaster areas of life. A few are more uneducated, a few are less -- but everybody is uneducated. But to find an educated man is impossible, because education as a whole does not exist anywhere.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

SO NOW THIS: I'M A FAIRLY GOOD-LOOKING GUY WITH A PRETTY GOOD

TAN, AND I'M WITH A BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND, AND I'M PRETTY

INTELLIGENT. I MEDITATE ONCE IN A WHILE AND I CAN PLAY SOME

CHORDS ON THE GUITAR; AND I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PRE-FRONTAL LOBOTOMY AND A FREE BOTTLE IN FRONT OF ME; SO WHILE

EVERYONE ELSE IS TRYING TO FIND OUT WHY THEY CAN'T BE

THEMSELVES, I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHY I CAN'T BE MILAREPA?

Satyadharma, you are perfectly good as you are. You need not be a Milarepa. These are the ideas which education and a competitive society have given to you. You want to be somebody else.

You say, "I am a fairly good-looking guy." Who told you that? It must have been your girlfriend -- but every girlfriend says that to every boyfriend. You should not get too impressed by such things.

You say "with a pretty good tan." Particularly here in India, a tan is not pretty good -- I hate it! -- it's just beautiful-looking people burning their skin under the sun. A tan is a stupid Western idea. If you want to rest, rest in the shade; don't have any inferiority complex about your whiteness. The blacks have created the idea that "black is beautiful."

What about white? Not a single white man says "white is beautiful."

And you say, "And I am with a beautiful girlfriend." And naturally you think these things mean you can be declared another Milarepa. But then everybody else...? Then we will have to name people "Milarepa number 1," "Milarepa number 2." And you say, "I meditate once in a while, and I can play some chords on the guitar, and I know the difference between a pre-frontal lobotomy, and a free bottle in front of me; so while everyone else is trying to find out why they can't be themselves, I would like to know why I can't be Milarepa." You can be, but you will be only number two, and that hurts.

You can be only a carbon copy, and you don't know the difficulties of poor Milarepa; you are not aware of his problems.

I have heard from reliable sources... Milarepa came home exhausted and terribly upset. "I was late for work today," he told his wife.

"I know," she replied.

"I quarreled with the boss."

"I know."

"He fired me," he said glumly.

"I know," she answered.

"How the hell do you know?"

"He told me."

"Ah, screw him!" Milarepa said angrily.

"I did," replied the wife.

Hearing this, Milarepa took his guitar and came here.

You are perfectly good as you are -- Milarepa has his own problems. You have a girlfriend, he has so many -- and gets hit from everywhere. When one girlfriend throws him out, he reaches another. Finally he has a permanent girlfriend, Shunyo. When all the girlfriends are angry at him, then he reaches Shunyo. Shunyo is his last resort.

I think you should drop this idea. You just be yourself. Milarepa is quite in a mess!

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

PAUL GAUGIN, THE FAMOUS FRENCH PAINTER, DROPPED OUT OF SOCIETY

AND LIVED THE REMAINDER OF HIS LIFE ON AN ISLAND IN THE SOUTH

PACIFIC. SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH, HE FINISHED HIS LAST

MASTERPIECE, ENTITLED "WHO ARE WE? WHERE DO WE COME FROM?

WHERE ARE WE GOING?" ABOUT THIS HE WRITES, "I HAVE PUT ALL MY

ENERGIES INTO THIS WORK BEFORE DYING -- A PASSION SO PAINFUL, A VISION SO CLEAR." THE OTHER MORNING YOU SPOKE TO US ABOUT BEING

CREATIVE, AND BEING JOYFUL WITH IT, NOT SAD. OSHO, IS THERE ANY

MORE YOU CAN SAY ABOUT THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY IN YOUR VISION?

Milarepa, Paul Gaugin had to suffer just the way every creator suffers. Creativity is almost like pregnancy. The mother goes for nine months into deep troubled waters, and even after the birth of the child she is not free of responsibility. All creativity is a deep suffering, unless your creativity does not come out of the mind, but out of meditation.

When it comes out of meditation, creativity is sharing the joy, sharing the blissfulness that you have.

Mind has no joy -- it is really a wound, very painful.

Paul Gaugin had no idea of any meditation, but he had a tremendous passion, almost a madness to create. And just to create, he dropped out of society, forgot all about his wife and children and responsibilities. He was possessed by the idea of creating. The possession was so total that he could not allow any distraction. But when you are possessed by something, you are working almost as a slave, and slavery cannot bring blissfulness.

All the creators in the West have passed through long years of suffering. Many of them have been forced to live in madhouses, and many of them have committed suicide. The suffering became too much, unbearable; they had to end their own life. But still the Western creator, either of meditation or of music, of painting or of dance, has not become aware of why he has to suffer.

In the East, the situation is totally different -- not a single creator has suffered. In fact only the creators have enjoyed life to its fullest. Not a single creator has been put into a madhouse, not a single creator has committed suicide; but creators have moved deeper into meditation, and many of them have become mystics. From painting, from music, from dance, they have moved deeper into their own being.

Western society lives under an affliction -- their ignorance about meditation; hence, whatever they do is out of the mind.

And mind is not the source of joy.

It can only create agony, but never ecstasy.

Mind is your hell.

So learn to be more meditative, and let your creativity be secondary to your meditativeness. Then you will have a totally different state of being -- that of ecstasy; and out of ecstasy, whatever is created has also some flavor of it.

In the West, perhaps Gurdjieff is the only man who has divided art into two sections: the objective art and the subjective art. Subjective art is from the mind, and is out of anguish.

Objective art -- the Taj Mahal, the caves of Ellora and Ajanta, the temples of Khajuraho -

- has come from meditative people. Out of their love, out of their silence, they wanted to share; it is their contribution to the world.

The Western artist has lived under a very heavy burden. It is time that he should be made aware that there is something more beyond mind. First reach to that beyond, and then you can create stars; and they will not only be a great joy to you, they will also be a great joy for those who see them.

Just on a full-moon night, sit by the side of the Taj Mahal -- don't do anything, just look at it -- and you will find suddenly a silence descending on you, a peace filling your heart.

The mind is stopping its constant chattering.

An objective piece of art like the Taj Mahal is not just to be seen, but to be lived -- and then you will be in a certain way connected with the creators of that beautiful architecture. It was created by Sufi masters. Its very shape somehow creates within you a new blissful space. But the Western tourist comes with the camera, takes a few shots from here and there and runs away to some other place. He does not know how to appreciate an objective art. One has to meditate on it -- it may be that thousands of years have passed between the creator of that piece and you. Suddenly that distance disappears; you become part of that creative joy, of that creative dance.

Milarepa, creativity is secondary, meditation is basic and fundamental; everything should come out of your meditation. Then it will give you a beatitude, your being a new song, and it will help others to experience something of it. It will depend on their meditativeness.

I would like to make one very strange statement: that a great meditator will find more joy, more peace, more blissfulness, than even the creator himself. If a Gautam Buddha sits by the side of the Taj Mahal, then what those Sufi Masters had experienced by creating it will be left far behind. Gautam Buddha will experience something far deeper, far more truthful, far more beautiful.

Whether you create, or you observe an objective piece of creativity, meditation should be the key. Without it, mind can only spread on the canvas its nightmares. Most of the paintings of the great painters like Paul Gaugin or Picasso are almost like vomit. They could not contain their agony and suffering -- it was so much they threw it on the canvas to get relief. The real objective art is not a relief; it is not a sickness that you want to get rid of. It is a blissfulness that you want to share. And by sharing, it grows; you have more of it, the more it is shared.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #24

Chapter title: Love will be his law

23 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705235

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN24

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

75

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT WILL BE THE LEGAL SYSTEM USED IN THE NEW COMMUNE UNTIL

ALL OF ITS MEMBERS ARE TOTALLY CONSCIOUS? WILL THERE NEED TO

BE A SYSTEM OF PUNISHMENT AND REWARD?

Maneesha, all legal systems are nothing but the revenge of society -- revenge against those who don't fit in with the system. According to me, law is not for protection of the just, it is for protection of the crowd mind; whether it is just or unjust does not matter.

Law is against the individual and for the crowd. It is an effort to reduce the individual and his freedom, and his possibility of being himself.

The latest scientific researches are very revealing. The people who are termed criminals are not responsible for their crimes; their crimes are genetic, they inherit them. Just as a blind man is not responsible for his blindness, a murderer is not responsible for his murderousness. Both inherit the tendency -- one of blindness, another of committing murder. Now it is almost an established scientific fact that punishing anybody for any crime is simply idiotic. It is almost like punishing somebody because he has tuberculosis

-- sending him to jail because he is suffering from cancer. All criminals are sick, psychologically and spiritually both.

In my vision of a commune, the courts will not consist of law experts, they will consist of people who understand genetics and how crimes are inherited from generation to generation. They have to decide not for any punishment, because every punishment is wrong -- not only wrong, every punishment is criminal. The man who has committed anything wrong has to be sent to the right institution; maybe a hospital, to be operated on, or a psychiatric institution, or a psychoanalytic school. He needs our sympathy, our love, our help. Instead of giving him our sympathy and love, for centuries we have been giving him punishment. Man has committed so much cruelty behind such beautiful names as order, law, justice.

The new man will not have any jails and will not have any judges and will not have any legal experts. These are absolutely unnecessary, cancerous growths on the body of society. There will certainly have to be sympathetic scientists; meditative, compassionate beings, to work out why it happened that a certain man committed rape: is he really responsible? According to me, on no account is he responsible. Either he has committed rape because of the priests and the religions teaching celibacy, repression for thousands of years -- this is the outcome of a repressive morality -- or biologically he has hormones which compel him to commit rape.

Although you are living in a modern society, most of you are not contemporaries because you are not aware of the reality that science goes on discovering. Your educational system prevents you from knowing it, your religions prevent you from knowing it, your governments prevent you from knowing it.

A man is attracted to a woman and thinks that he is in love. The woman also thinks she is in love. But the scientific truth is that they both have certain biological factors, certain hormones that attract each other. That's why it is possible to change the sex of one person from man to woman or from woman to man just by changing the hormonal system. A good injection of hormones and you are full of love.

The man who is committing rape perhaps has more hormones than those moral people who manage to live with one woman for their whole life, thinking that they are moral.

The real fact is that their hormones are very weak; it is enough for their hormones to be satisfied with one woman. A man with more hormones will need more women; so will be the case with a woman. It is not a question of morality, it is a question of biology. A man who commits rape needs all our sympathy, needs a certain operation in which his extra hormones are removed, and he will cool down, calm down -- he will become a Gautam Buddha.

To punish him is simply an exercise in stupidity. By punishing, you cannot change his hormones. Throwing him in jail, you will create a homosexual, some kind of pervert. In American jails they have done a survey: thirty percent of the inmates are homosexuals.

That is according to their confession; we don't know how many have not confessed.

Thirty percent is not a small number. In monasteries the number is bigger -- fifty percent, sixty percent. But the responsibility lies with our idiotic clinging to religions which are out of date, which are not supported and nourished by scientific research.

The new commune of man will be based on science, not on superstition. If somebody does something which is harmful to the commune as such, then his body has to be looked into; he needs some physiological change or biological change. His mind has to be looked into -- perhaps he needs some psychoanalysis. The deepest possibility is that neither the body nor the mind are of much help; that means he needs a deep spiritual regeneration, a deep meditative cleansing.

Instead of courts, we should have meditative centers of different kinds, so every unique individual can find his own way. And we will have -- instead of law experts, who are simply irrelevant: they are parasites sucking our blood.We need scientific people of different persuasions in the courts, because somebody may have a chemical defect, somebody may have a biological defect, somebody may have a physiological defect. We need all these kinds of experts, of all persuasions and schools of psychology, all types of meditators, and we can transform the poor people who have been victims of unknown forces... and have been punished by us. They have suffered in a double sense.

First, they are suffering from an unknown biological force. Secondly, they are suffering at the hands of your judges, who are nothing but butchers, henchmen; your advocates, all kinds of your law experts, your jailers -- it is simply so insane that future human beings will not be able to believe it. It is almost the same with the past.

Just the other day there was a report from South India that a woman was thought to be having intercourse with the devil. Now the devil has been almost dead for many centuries; suddenly he became alive in that small village. And the villagers took the woman to the priest who declared that she should be hung upside down from a tree and beaten: the devil is still inside her. Somebody informed the police of the nearby town.

The police arrived, but the villagers were reluctant.... Two hundred villagers were standing, stopping the police, saying, "You cannot interfere with our religious conceptions." And they were beating the woman -- they killed her! Until she was dead, they were not satisfied. They could not find the devil, but they killed the woman.

This used to be the common practice all over the world. Mad people were beaten to cure their madness; people who were schizophrenic, who were thought to be possessed by ghosts, were beaten almost to death -- this was thought to be the treatment. Millions of people have died because of your great treatments.

Now we can simply say that those people were barbarous, ignorant, primitive. The same will be said about us. I am already saying it: that your courts are barbarous, your laws are barbarous. The very idea of punishment is unscientific. There is nobody in the world who is a criminal; everybody is sick, and needs sympathy and a scientific cure, and half of your crimes will disappear. First, with the disappearance of private property.... Private property creates thieves, dacoits, pickpockets, politicians, priests.

You will be surprised to know that just a few days ago a cartoonist was put into jail in the contemporary, educated city of Madras, because he has printed a cartoon in a magazine with the caption that the man who looks like a pickpocket is a cabinet minister; and the man who looks like a dacoit, is the prime minister. There were two men in the cartoon.

Immediately, he was caught by the police -- and this is called democracy! One cannot even joke, one cannot even laugh. He has not named anybody -- but all your politicians are pickpockets, are dacoits. They also need psychiatric treatment, they also need sympathetic psychiatric nursing homes. They have to be cured of their politics.

Politics is a disease.

Man has suffered from many diseases and he has not even been aware that they are diseases. He has been punishing small criminals and he has been worshiping great criminals. Who is Alexander the Great? -- a great criminal; he murdered people on a mass scale. Adolf Hitler alone killed millions of people, but he will be remembered in history as a great leader of man.

I received a letter from the president of the Neo-Nazi party saying that I should stop speaking against Adolf Hitler because, "It hurts our religious feeling." I said, "My God!"

I had been receiving letters from Hindus, from Mohammedans, from Christians, from Buddhists, from Jainas. I have been facing hundreds of cases in courts on the same grounds, that I have hurt somebody's religious feeling -- but I had never even dreamt that to speak against Adolf Hitler was going to hurt someone's religious feelings.

And the president of Neo-Nazi party had said, "Adolf Hitler, to us, is not just a great political leader, he is also the reincarnation of the ancient, Old Testament prophet Elijah.

Now he will be remembered in history as the great incarnation of the prophet Elijah who killed forty-five million people. Certainly it must have been done according to the will of God. Who are the people you read about in history?

Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible, Nadir Shah, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane are all mass scale criminals. But their crimes are so big, perhaps, that you cannot conceive....

They have killed millions of people, burned millions of people alive, but they are not thought of as criminals.

And a small pickpocket, who takes away a two rupee note from your pocket will be punished by the court. And perhaps the two rupee note that you were carrying was not authentic at all. But his mother is dying, and he has no money for medicine, and I cannot say that he is a criminal; he is simply a kind-hearted man who loves his mother.

Once private property disappears.... And in a commune there is going to be no private property, everything belongs to all; naturally, stealing will disappear. You don't steal water and accumulate it, you don't steal air. A commune has to create everything in such abundance that even the retarded person cannot think of accumulating it. What is the point? It is always available, fresh. Money has to disappear from society. A commune does not need money. Your needs should be fulfilled by the commune. All have to produce, and all have to make the commune richer, affluent, accepting the fact that a few people will be lazy. But there is no harm in it.

In every family, you will find somebody lazy. Somebody is a poet, somebody is a painter, somebody simply goes on playing on his flute -- but you love the person. A certain percentage of lazy people will be respectfully allowed. In fact a commune that does not have lazy people will be a little less rich than other communes which have a few lazy people who do nothing but meditate, who do nothing but go on playing on their guitar while others are toiling in the fields. A little more human outlook is needed; these people are not useless. They may not seem to be productive of commodities, but they are producing a certain joyful, cheerful atmosphere. Their contribution is meaningful and significant.

With the disappearance of money as a means of exchange, many crimes will disappear.

As religions disappear, with their repressive superstitions and moralities, crimes like rape, perversions like homosexuality, diseases like AIDS will become unheard of. And when from the very beginning every child is brought up with a reverence for life -- reverence for the trees because they are alive, reverence for animals, reverence for birds -- do you think such a child one day can be a murderer? It will be almost inconceivable.

And if life is joyous, full of songs and dances, do you think somebody will desire to commit suicide? Ninety percent of crimes will disappear automatically; only ten percent of crimes may remain, which are genetic, which need hospitalization -- but not jails, prisons, not people to be sentenced to death. This is all so ugly, so inhuman, so insane.

The new commune, the new man, can live without any law, without any order. Love will be his law, understanding will be his order. Science will be, in every difficult situation, his last resort.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE NOT A POEM OF MY OWN TO WRITE TO YOU, SO I WRITE OTHERS. I HAVE NOT A SONG OF MY OWN TO SING TO YOU, SO I SING OTHERS. I HAVE NOTHING TO GIVE TO YOU BUT MY OLD DESIRES, FEARS, FAILURES, JEALOUSIES. MY HEART ACHES, FOR I WANT TO BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU

SOMETHING OF ME, BUT THAT I AM STILL TRYING TO FIND. THE HEART

ONLY KNOWS, MY BELOVED. PLEASE COMMENT.

Kendra, if you do not have a poem of your own, there is no need to write others. Send me blank sheets of paper. They will show much more of your heart than words which are borrowed.

The only book in the world that I can call holy is a book Sufis have been carrying for almost twelve centuries. The first man who had it used to read it by locking his doors, closing his windows; his disciples were always puzzled, intrigued. They tried in every possible way -- even sometimes they went up on the roof, removed a tile -- just to see what is written in that book, because that old master never used to open that book before anybody. He used to keep it covered in beautiful cloth, hiding it under his pillow, so even while he was asleep nobody could manage to get to the book.

It created more and more temptation. And the day he died, people were not so concerned with his death; they were more concerned to take out the book first and see what was there -- "As far as he is concerned, he is dead; he can wait a little for the last funeral rites, but let us see what is in that book." And they were shocked and surprised, the book was empty. Between those two covers there was not a single word, just empty pages.

They went through all the pages, there were almost three hundred pages. They thought there must be something -- that man was very clever and cunning, so he must be hiding it somewhere. But there was nothing in the book.

And the old man was really very clever, he had not died. He just opened his one eye, and said, "Are you satisfied? I am going to die, don't be worried. I was just waiting to see the reaction."

He laughed and he died. But he had told to his chief disciple just the day before, "You will be the possessor of the book, because it is the holiest of the holies. It is just the silence and wordless interiority of your being. For twelve centuries continuously, the book has passed from hand to hand, from master to disciple."

One of the Sufis who is very well-known in the West, Idries Shah, tried to publish the book, but no publisher was ready. Every publisher looked here and there and they said,

"But there is nothing to publish."

Just to satisfy them, he has written a few lines as an introduction to the book; the history of the book for twelve centuries... the beginning, how it has been transferred from hand to hand, how it has been worshiped, and how it has been read for twelve centuries by great masters. Finally it has been published by a daring publisher, thinking that people may at least use it as a notebook.

The Western mind cannot understand a few things, a few things which are absolutely Eastern. Those who understand have been angry at Idries Shah, that he compromised. I myself am angry at the man. There was no need to compromise, the book could have remained unpublished. But just to publish it, he wrote a few pages of introduction, and destroyed the beauty of it, the whole sanctity of it.

Kendra, if you cannot sing your own song, be silent. Your silence is far more valuable than the greatest song which you have borrowed from somebody else. It will not be alive, it will not have a heartbeat. It will not be breathing.

Your silence will be breathing.

Your silence will have a heartbeat to it.

Your silence will be alive.

And don't offer me dead things. You say, "I have nothing to give to you but my old desires, fears, failures." But you don't give them either. People just talk. They talk; they want to give their fears, their failures, their jealousies, their desires, but nothing reaches to me. I go on waiting and waiting, and they go on enjoying their jealousies, and their desires. If you don't want to give, don't say it. If you want to give, then give. And you are not giving any treasures. You are giving all kinds of poisons.

But just the idea that you want to give is in itself beautiful. And I don't care whether you give poisons or treasures, but give. Just don't go on talking about giving.

You say, "My heart aches, for I want to be able to give you something of me."

Kendra, you must be very miserly... something of you? not even the totality? What will you give to me? just a hand, which will become a burden to me?

There is only one giving, it is never partial. And you cannot give yourself in installments, something today and something tomorrow... slowly, slowly gathering courage, cutting yourself into slices. You are not a loaf of a bread; you are a living being. Either you give yourself in totality, or you don't give.

This is not the case only with you, Kendra, it is the case with many people. They go on talking beautifully, "My heart aches". I suspect.

If you have a headache, I can believe it. But the heartache is a very deep, a very profound feeling. People know heart failures, people don't know heartache. You can find so many medicines for headache, but have you heard of any medicine for heartache? It is just poetry, borrowed.

"My heart aches, for I want to be able to give you something."

First you want to be able.... Can't you give yourself as you are right now -- because I don't expect from you something very refined, cultured, a diamond cut with great art and polished. No, I love you as you are raw, wild, but simple and just yourself. Don't wait for becoming able; you will never become able.

But this too has been your conditioning by the society, that you can offer yourself only when you are qualified. But in this temple of love, no qualifications are needed. Just the longing to give is enough qualification. Just give yourself, and forget all about it. Don't remember that you have given yourself, and don't remind me again and again, "Listen, I have given myself to you."

Give yourself and forget the whole matter. Giving should be simple -- so simple that no record should be kept of it, because you are not a kind of income that a record has to be kept. Then income tax officers will come, and I will have to be income taxed, because so many people are coming to me and offering themselves to me -- their jealousies, their desires, their angers and their fears. And my income is so much, that I must be taxed....

You simply give! I have never paid any tax, and I am not going to pay any tax, ever.

When I was a professor in the university, and my income came to the point that beyond it, it would become taxable, I informed the university, "Now my salary has come to the full point."

They said, "What do you mean? Within the next month, you are going to have an increment."

I said, "Forget all about it, I will not take any increment because with that increment comes taxation. And I hate only one thing in life, that is income tax."

And I never allowed them. They were very much surprised; the vice-chancellor tried to persuade me, even the clerks, the cashiers, said, "Look, this is very crazy; what will people think if they hear about it? The income tax is going to be very little, and if you stop taking increments then your salary will remain stuck always at this point. And you are so young you can reach to the salary of the vice-chancellor without any trouble just by your seniority."

I said, "I am not going anywhere. Just keep it at this point, because above it comes income tax."

Since then, my income is of a totally different kind -- fears, anxieties, tensions, anguish; these are not taxable. Why should you be worried first to become able to give? Whatever you are, as you are... I don't put any conditions on anybody.

My love is unconditional, and my acceptance is without asking you to be anything other than you are. In this relaxed attitude, the meeting and merging between the master and the disciple happens; there is no other way.

The rabbi was distressed at the lack of generosity amongst his congregation, and he prayed that the rich should give more charity to the poor.

"And has your prayer been answered?" asked his wife.

"Half of it was," replied the rabbi. "The poor are willing to accept."

As far as I am concerned, I am willing to accept. Now it is a question of you -- are you willing to give, or are you first waiting to become able to give? If I am ready to accept right now, why waste time, and why wait for tomorrow?

Giving yourself will be such a relaxation, such a transformation, such a joy, that you cannot conceive it; you can only experience if you go through the gesture of giving.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #25

Chapter title: You need a divine discontent

24 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705240

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN25

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

87

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

TO ME, THE CONCEPT OF LOYALTY HAS OVERTONES OF DUTY AND

HONOR AND BELIEF -- ALL OF WHICH REPRESENT STATIC,

UNQUESTIONING ATTITUDES THAT ARE ROOTED IN OUTMODED

SENTIMENTALITY. I LOVE AND TRUST YOU AS MY MASTER, AND I

CANNOT IMAGINE THE REST OF MY LIFE HAVING ANY SIGNIFICANCE

EXCEPT THAT IT BE IN THE SERVICE OF THAT LOVE AND TRUST. BUT THAT

IS NOT MY BEING loyal: IT'S SOMETHING I CONSCIOUSLY AFFIRM IN MY

LIFE, MOMENT TO MOMENT. WOULD YOU PLEASE TALK ON LOYALTY?

Maneesha, one very fundamental thing has always to be remembered: man is very clever in creating pseudo-values. The real values demand your totality, demand your whole being; the pseudo-values are very cheap. They look like the real, but they don't demand you in your totality -- just a superficial formality.

For example, in place of love, trust, we have created a false value: loyalty -- the loyal person is only superficially concerned with love. He goes through all the gestures of love, but he means nothing by them; his heart stays out of his formal gestures.

A slave is loyal, but do you think anybody who is a slave, who has been reduced in his humanity, whose whole pride and dignity has been taken away, can love the person who has harmed him so deeply? He hates him, and if the chance arises, he can kill him. But on the surface, he will remain loyal -- he has to. It is not out of his joy, it is out of fear; it is not out of love, it is out of a conditioned mind which says that you have to be loyal to your master. It is the loyalty of the dog to his master.

Love needs a more total response; it comes not out of duty, but out of your own heartbeats, out of your own experience of joy, out of the desire to share it.

Loyalty is something ugly, but for thousands of years it has been a very respectable value because society has enslaved people in different ways. The wife is supposed to be loyal to the husband, to the point that, in this country, millions of women have died with their husband's death, jumping in the funeral pyre alive, and burning themselves to death. It was so respectable that any woman who could not do it had to live a very condemned life.

She became almost an outcast; she was treated only as a servant in her own family. It was concluded that because she could not die with her husband, she was not loyal to him.

In fact, just think of it the other way around: not a single man has jumped into the funeral pyre of his wife. Nobody has raised the question, "Does it mean that no husband has ever been loyal to his wife?" But it is a society of double standards: one standard is for the master, the owner, the possessor, and the other standard is for the slave.

Love is a dangerous experience, because you are possessed by something which is bigger than you, and it is not controllable -- you cannot produce it on order. Once it is gone, there is no way to bring it back; all that you can do is to pretend, be a hypocrite.

Loyalty is a totally different matter; it is manufactured by your own mind, it is not something beyond you. It is a training in a particular culture -- just like any other training.

You start acting; and by and by, you start believing your own acting. Loyalty demands that you should be always, in life or in death, devoted to the person -- whether your heart is willing for it or not. It is a psychological way of enslavement.

Love brings freedom.

Loyalty brings slavery.

On the surface, they both look alike; deep down, they are just the very opposite --

diametrically opposite. Loyalty is acting, you have been educated for it. Love is wild, its whole beauty is in its wildness. It comes like a breeze with great fragrance, fills your heart, and suddenly where there was a desert there is a garden full of flowers. But you don't know from where it comes, and you don't know that there is no way to bring it; it comes on its own and remains as long as existence wills it. And just as it had come one day as a stranger, as a guest, suddenly one day it is gone. There is no way to cling to it, no way to hold it.

Society cannot depend on such unpredictable, unreliable experiences. It wants guarantees, securities; hence, it has removed love from life completely -- it has placed marriage in its place. Marriage knows loyalty, loyalty to the husband, and because it is formal, it is within your hands... but it is nothing compared to love, it is not even a dew drop of the ocean that love is.

But society is very happy with it because it is reliable. The husband can trust you, can trust that tomorrow also you will be as loyal as you are today. Love cannot be trusted.

And the strangest phenomenon is that love is the greatest trust -- but it cannot be trusted.

In the moment, it is total; but the next moment remains open. It may grow within you, it may evaporate from you. The husband wants a wife who is a slave for her whole life. He cannot depend on love; he has to create something looking like love, but manufactured by man's mind.

It is not only in the relationship of love, but in other fields of life, also. Loyalty has been given great respect because it destroys intelligence: the soldier has to be loyal to the nation.... The man who dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- you cannot call him responsible for it, he was simply fulfilling his duty. He was ordered, and he was loyal to his superiors; that is the whole training of armies.

For years they train you, so that you become almost incapable of revolt. Even if you see that what is being asked from you is absolutely wrong, still your training has gone so deep to say, "Yes, sir," that you will do it. I cannot conceive that the man who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a machine. He also had a heart just like you, he also had his wife and children, his old mother and father... he was as much a human being as you are -- with a difference. He was trained to follow orders without questioning, and when the order was given, he simply followed it.

I have thought again and again about his mind. Is it conceivable that he did not think that this bomb is going to destroy almost two hundred thousand people? Can't he say, "No"?

Is it not better to be shot by the general for not following the order, than to kill two hundred thousand people? Perhaps the idea never occured to him.

The army works in such a way as to create loyalty -- it starts with small things. One wonders why every soldier for years has to go for parades and follow stupid orders -- left turn, right turn, go backwards, go forwards -- for hours, for no purpose at all. There is a hidden purpose in it. His intelligence is being destroyed. He is being turned into an automaton, into a robot. So when the order comes, "Left turn," the mind does not ask,

"Why?" If somebody else says to you, "Left turn," you are going to ask, "What nonsense is this? Why should I left turn? I'm going right!" But the soldier is not supposed to doubt, to enquire; he has simply to follow. This is his basic conditioning for loyalty.

It is good for the kings and for the generals that armies should be loyal to the point that they function like machines, not like men. It is comfortable for parents that their children are loyal, because a child who is a rebel is a problem. The parents may be wrong, and the child may be right, but he has to be obedient to the parents -- that is part of the training of the old man that has existed up to now.

I teach you the new man in whom loyalty has no place, but instead intelligence, enquiry, a capacity to say "No." To me, unless you are capable of saying "No" your "Yes;" is meaningless -- your "Yes" is just recorded on a gramophone record. You cannot do anything; you have to say, "Yes" the "No" simply does not arise in you.

Life and civilization would have been totally different if we had trained people to have more intelligence. So many wars would not have happened because people would have asked, "What is the reason? Why should we kill people -- people who are innocent?" But they are loyal to one country and you are loyal to another country, and both the countries'

politicians are fighting and sacrificing their people. If the politicians love to fight so much they can have a wrestling match, and people can enjoy it just like any football match.

But the kings and the politicians, the presidents and the prime ministers don't go to war.

The simple people, who have nothing to do with killing others, go to war to kill and to be killed. They are rewarded for their loyalty; they are given the Victoria Cross or other kinds of awards -- for being inhuman, for being unintelligent, for being mechanical.

Maneesha, you asked me, "To me, the concept of loyalty has overtones of duty, and honor, and belief."

It has not only overtones. It is nothing but the combination of all these diseases -- belief, duty, respectability. They all are nourishment for your ego. They are all against your spiritual growth, but they are in favor of the vested interests.

The priests don't want you to ask any question about their belief system because they know that they have no answers to give. All belief systems are so false that if questioned they will fall down. Unquestioned, they create great religions with millions of people in their folds.

Now the Catholic pope has fifty million people under him, and out of these fifty million people, not a single one enquires, "How can a virgin girl give birth to a child?" That would be sacrilegious! Out of fifty million people, not a single one asks, "What is the evidence that Jesus is the only begotten son of God?" -- anybody can claim it. "What is the evidence that Jesus has saved people from misery?" -- he could not save himself. But questions like this are embarrassing, and they are simply not raised. Even God is nothing but a hypothesis which religious people have been trying to prove for thousands of years, all kinds of proofs -- but all bogus, with no substance, no support from existence. But nobody asks the question.

From the very first day of life, people are being trained to be loyal to the belief system in which they were born. It is convenient for the priests to exploit you, it is convenient for the politicians to exploit you, it is convenient for husbands to exploit wives, for parents to exploit children, for teachers to exploit students. For every vested interest, loyalty is simply a necessity. But it reduces the whole of humanity into retardedness.

It does not allow questioning, it does not allow doubt, it does not allow people to be intelligent. And a man who is not capable of doubting, of questioning, of saying, "No,"

when he feels that the thing is wrong, has fallen below humanity -- he has become a subhuman animal.

"... all of which represent static, unquestioning attitudes that are rooted in outmoded sentimentality.

"I love and trust You as my Master, and I cannot imagine the rest of my life having any significance except that it be in the service of that love and trust."

If love is asked, then it becomes loyalty. If love is given without being asked, if it is your free gift. Then it raises your consciousness.

If trust is asked you are being enslaved but if a trust arises in you, something superhuman is growing within your heart.

The difference is very small, but of tremendous importance. Asked or ordered, love and trust both become false. When they arise on their own, they have immense intrinsic value. They do not make you a slave, they make you a master of yourself, because it is your love, it is your trust. You are following your own heart. You are not following somebody else, you are not being forced to follow. Out of your freedom is your love, out of your dignity is your trust, and they are both going to make you richer human beings.

That is my idea of the new man. He will love, but he will not allow love to be ordered.

He will trust, but he will trust according to himself -- not according to any scriptures, not according to any social structure, not according to any priest, not according to any politician.

To live your life according to your own heart, following its beat, going into the unknown just like an eagle flying across the sun in utter freedom, knowing no limits... it is not ordered. It is its own joy. It is the exercise of one's own spirituality.

"But that is not my being loyal."

Certainly. I would not like anybody to be loyal to me, because I cannot destroy you, and I cannot take away your dignity. I am here to crown you with dignity, to help you achieve your potential to its fullest, to make you a master of your own destiny. I cannot ask loyalty from you, I cannot ask anything -- neither love, nor trust, nor loyalty. But if love arises in you, trust grows in you, that is a totally different phenomenon. The whole credit goes to you; it has nothing.... As far as I am concerned you cannot disappoint me, for the simple reason that I am not asking any loyalty. If you fail in your love, if you fail in your trust, you are not disappointing me, you are disappointing yourself; you are not betraying me, you are betraying your own higher values.

This is a totally different approach, but this is the way of the new man. And the new man is the only hope for the future.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

LATELY I FEEL MY LIFE HAS COME TO A PEAK. LIVING IN YOUR PRESENCE

IS SUCH A PRECIOUS AND DELICIOUS GIFT. EVERY MOMENT IS BECOMING

SO JOYFUL AND CONTENTED, BUT THEN OFTEN THE FEAR OF DEATH

COMES UP INTENSE AND STRONG AND THE FEAR OF HAVING TO LEAVE

ALL THIS BEAUTY, THIS FRIENDSHIP, AND LOVE. YOU KEEP ON TELLING

US LATELY THAT WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT BEFORE THIS WORLD

FINISHES. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO RELAX IN THIS CERTAINTY OF DEATH?

Sadhan, first it is possible to relax only when death is a certainty. Relaxing is difficult when things are uncertain. If you know that you are going to die today, all fear of death will disappear. What is the point of wasting time? You have one day to live: live as intensely as possible, live as totally as possible.

It actually happened in a man's life.... His doctor told him, "You have only six months more to live, not a single day more, so if you want to finish anything, finish it. If you have wanted to do anything, do it."

The man was very rich, and he always had an idea to go around the world to visit all the beautiful places, but there were so many problems that he was continuously postponing it. Now there was no time to postpone. He ordered beautiful clothes to be made for him....

People had never known him so extravagant: he was eating the best food, he purchased the best house in the town, he closed all his businesses. What was the need to keep them?

For six months he had more than enough -- he could live like a king.

He went around the world, visiting all the beautiful places, all the beautiful people of the world. In fact, he simply forgot to die. By the time he was back home, six months had passed a long time before. He went to the doctor to thank him.

The doctor said, "Are you still alive? How did you manage -- because the disease was such that you were going to die within six months."

The man said, "Once it became certain that I was going to die, death was no longer a problem but a certainty. I had six months to live, so I wanted to live as multidimensionally as possible. And by living so totally and so intensely, perhaps I forgot to die at the right time."

The doctor checked him -- his disease had disappeared. These six months had been of such relaxed, deep, joyful enjoyment that the disease had to disappear!

So the first thing, Sadhan: The certainty of death is one of the most fortunate things. And death has never been so certain -- so certain for the whole humanity. In fact, people should stop creating war materials. Instead of fighting with their neighbors, they should start singing and dancing with them. The time is so short, you cannot afford to fight.

People should forget all their differences of religion, and Communism, Socialism and Fascism. All these differences are good when you have enough time -- but time is very short. You cannot afford all these differences of being Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan.

Just the shortage of time and the certainty of a global death can bring a transformation.

Perhaps you may find yourself in the same position as this man, that the world stops being divided into nations, being divided into religions, continuously fighting and we start, for the first time, enjoying this beautiful planet together.

Death may not come. death cannot come to people who live very intensely and very totally. And even if it comes, those people who have lived totally, welcome it because it is a great relief. They are tired of living, they lived so totally, so intensely, so death comes like a friend. Just as night comes after the whole day's hard work as a great relaxation, as a beautiful sleep, so does death. Death has nothing ugly about it; you cannot find anything cleaner.

You are asking, "Lately I feel my life has come to a peak."

Remember, there are peaks beyond peaks -- just look ahead. Don't get satisfied with what you have achieved. You need a divine discontentment. Every achievement should become a deep longing for something more, and greater. And there are peaks beyond peaks, unending, skies beyond skies. It is just that you need strong wings.

It is good that you are feeling you have come to the highest peak, but don't make it the end of your journey. Make it the beginning of a new journey. Every peak has to be made the beginning of a new journey -- a search for a higher peak.

"Living in Your presence is such a precious and delicious gift. Every moment is becoming so joyful and contented, but then often the fear of death comes up."

That means your joy, your blissfulness, your contentedness is not total -- it leaves spaces, loopholes, from which the fear of death comes in. The fear of death simply shows....

Dance a little faster, live a little faster.

I have never forgotten... in Ahmedabad I used to stay at Jayantibhai's house. We had to cross a bridge, and as the bridge came near he would start driving faster, because there was a big board by the side of the bridge advertising Gold Spot. It said, "Live a little hot, sip a Gold Spot."

I asked Jayantibhai, "What is the matter? Suddenly, on this bridge, you start going fast."

He said, "Looking at that board, `Live a little hot,' I start going fast!"

If the fear of death comes in, that means there are a few loopholes which are not filled with living. So those fears of death are very indicative and helpful -- show you that your dance has to go a little faster, that you have to burn the torch of your life from both ends together.

Dance so fast that the dancer disappears, and only the dance remains.

Then it is not possible for any fear of death to visit you.

"And the fear of having to leave all this beauty, this friendship, and love."

If you are totally herenow, who cares about tomorrow? Tomorrow will take care of itself.

Jesus is right when he prays to God, "Lord, give me my daily bread." He is not even asking for tomorrow, just today is enough unto itself. And you have to learn that each moment has a completion.

The fear of having to leave it all comes only because you are not completely living in the moment; otherwise there is no time, and there is no mind, and there is no space.

For more than three decades I have never thought about tomorrow. And you cannot find a more simple life than mine. For my whole life I have been sleeping in the afternoon, and it happens often that Nirvano has to remind me when she wakes me up in the afternoon, because if nobody wakes me I am not going to wake up by myself -- why bother? She has to remind me, "This is afternoon, not morning," because I often forget.

It happens once in a while that she forgets to remind me... I have gone into the bathroom and started taking my shower, getting ready for the morning talk and only when the cold water shook me a little I remembered, "My God! What am I doing?"

But anyway, I enjoyed the shower!

Sadhan, you are also saying, "You keep on telling us lately that we don't have much time left before this world finishes. How is it possible to relax in this certainty of death?"

In fact, my continuous emphasis that there is a possibility of this whole world being destroyed is to help you to live intensely right now because there may not be any tomorrow.

You are in a very special position in the history of mankind. People have always had time to postpone -- you don't have. Your situation is unique. Use it -- not for worrying, because that is not going to stop the world from ending. Use whatever time is left to live so deeply that ten years become almost equivalent to one hundred years.

Once a merchant was asked, "How old are you?"

And he said, "Three hundred and sixty years old."

The man could not believe it. He said, "Please, repeat it. Perhaps I have not heard rightly."

The merchant shouted and said, "Three hundred and sixty years old."

The man said, "Forgive me, but I cannot believe it. You don't look more than sixty!"

The merchant said, "You are also right. As far as the calendar is concerned, I am sixty.

But as far as my life is concerned I have lived six times more than anybody else. In sixty years I have managed to live three hundred and sixty years."

It depends on intensity.

There are two ways of living. One is the way of the buffalo -- it lives horizontally, in a single line. The other way is of a buddha. He lives vertically, in height and in depth. Then each moment can become an eternity. And unless you learn the art of transforming each moment into an eternity, you have not been with me -- you missed me.

The world may end, may not end, that is not my concern. But I will go on insisting that it is going to end for a simple reason: to wake you up. And don't waste your time in trivia, but live, sing, dance, love as totally and overflowingly as you are capable of; and no fears will interfere, and you will not be worried what will happen tomorrow. Today is enough unto itself. Lived, it is so full; it leaves no space to think about anything else. Unlived, worries come, fears come.

It is not only me who is emphasizing the fact that the world is coming to an end. It is just a coincidence that alongside my insistence on it, the world situation is very supportive of what I am saying. But Jesus Christ, two thousand years ago, was saying the same thing, Gautam Buddha, twenty-five centuries ago, was saying the same thing.

It is an old device to wake you up. Unless you know that your house is on fire, you are not going to run out of it. And Jesus and Gautam Buddha were using it as a device, without any corresponding reality.

I am also using it as a device, but it is not only a device. For the first time, the world is really in a position to commit a global suicide. If Gautam Buddha managed to make two dozen people enlightened, then it should be very easy for me to make at least two hundred people enlightened -- very easy, because his device was only fictitious.

My device is not fictitious, it is a reality. The reality is supporting my device with totality.

Sadhan you just live, love, and make each moment a deep ecstasy. All fears may disappear. And if the whole humanity listens to me, perhaps the world may not end, perhaps we may continue. The old man may die and a totally new man with fresh values may arise to replace him.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #26

Chapter title: Freedom is all I want

24 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705245

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN26

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

92

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER MORNING I CAME ACROSS THIS PASSAGE FROM

RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S GITANJALI WHICH TOUCHED SOMETHING

DEEP INSIDE ME. "OBSTINATE ARE THE TRAMMELS, BUT MY HEART ACHES

WHEN I TRY TO BREAK THEM. FREEDOM IS ALL I WANT, BUT TO HOPE FOR

IT I FEEL ASHAMED. I AM CERTAIN THAT PRICELESS WEALTH IS IN THEE, AND THAT THOU ART MY BEST FRIEND. BUT I HAVE NOT THE HEART TO

SWEEP AWAY THE TINSEL THAT FILLS MY ROOM. THE SHROUD THAT

COVERS ME IS A SHROUD OF DUST AND DEATH. I HATE IT, YET HUG IT IN

LOVE. MY DEBTS ARE LARGE, MY FAILURES GREAT, MY SHAME SECRET

AND HEAVY. YET WHEN I COME TO ASK FOR MY GOOD, I QUAKE IN FEAR

LEST MY PRAYER BE GRANTED." WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?

Prem Kendra, Rabindranath Tagore is the very heart of this country. He is the most contemporary man, and yet the most ancient too. His words are a bridge between the modern mind and the ancientmost sages of the world. In particular, GITANJALI is his greatest contribution to human evolution, to human consciousness. It is one of the rarest books that has appeared in this century. Its rarity is that it belongs to the days of the UPANISHADS -- nearabout five thousand years before GITANJALI came into existence.

It is a miracle in the sense that Rabindranath is not a religious person in the ordinary sense. He is one of the most progressive thinkers -- untraditional, unorthodox -- but his greatness consists in his childlike innocence. And because of that innocence, perhaps he was able to become the vehicle of the universal spirit, in the same way as the UPANISHADS of old are.

He is a poet of the highest category, and also a mystic. Such a combination has happened only once or twice before -- in Kahlil Gibran, in Friedrich Nietzsche, and in Rabindranath Tagore. With these three persons, the whole category is finished. In the long history of man, it is extraordinary.... There have been great poets and there have been great mystics.

There have been great poets with a little mysticism in them, and there have been great mystics who have expressed themselves in poetry -- but their poetry is not great.

Rabindranath is in a strange situation.

I have heard about a man who loved two beautiful women and was always in trouble, because even one woman is trouble enough. Both of the women wanted to know whom he loved the most. They took him for a ride on the lake in a motorboat, and just in the middle of the lake they stopped the boat and they told the man: "It has to be decided, because it is heavy on our hearts.... Once we know we will become slowly, slowly tolerant about it; we may accept it. But remaining in the dark and always thinking about it has become a wound."

The man said, "What is the matter? Ask directly."

Both the women said together: "Our question is, `Whom do you love the most?'"

The man fell into deep silence -- it was such a strange situation in the middle of the lake -

- but he must have been a man of great humor. He said, "I love each of you more than the other." And both women were satisfied. That's what they wanted.

It is difficult to say about Rabindranath whether he is a greater poet or a greater mystic.

He is both -- greater than each -- and to be in the twentieth century....

Rabindranath was not a man confined to this country. He was a world traveler, educated in the West, and he was continually moving around the world in different countries -- he loved to be a wanderer. He was a citizen of the universe, yet his roots were deep in this country. He may have flown far away like an eagle across the sun, but he kept on coming back to his small nest. And he never lost track of the spiritual heritage, no matter how covered with dust it may have become. He was capable of cleaning it and making it a mirror in which you can see yourself.

His poems in GITANJALI are offerings of songs to God. That is the meaning of GITANJALI: offerings of songs. He used to say, "I have nothing else to offer. I am just as poor as a bird, or as rich as a bird. I can sing a song every morning fresh and new, in gratefulness. That is my prayer."

He never went to any temple, he never prayed in the traditional ritual way. He was born a Hindu, but it would not be right to confine him to a certain section of humanity, he was so universal. He was told many times, "Your words are so fragrant with religion, so radiant with spirituality, so alive with the unknown that even those who do not believe in anything more than matter become affected, are touched. But you never go to the temple, you never read the scriptures."

His answer is immensely important for you. He said, "I never read the scriptures; in fact I avoid them, because I have my own experience of the divine, and I don't want others'

words to be mixed with my original, authentic, individual experience. I want to offer God exactly what is my heartbeat. Others may have known -- certainly, others have known --

but their knowledge cannot be my knowledge. Only my experience can satisfy me, can fulfill my search, can give me trust in existence. I don't want to be a believer."

These are the words to be remembered: "I don't want to be a believer; I want to be a knower. I don't want to be knowledgeable; I want to be innocent enough so that existence reveals its mysteries to me. I don't want to be worshiped as a saint." And the fact is, that in this whole century, there was nobody else more saintly than Rabindranath Tagore --

but he refused to be recognized as a saint.

He said, "I have only one desire -- to be remembered as a singer of songs, as a dancer, as a poet who has offered all his potential, all his flowers of being, to the unknown divineness of existence. I don't want to be worshiped; I consider it a humiliation... ugly, inhuman, and removed from the world completely. Every man contains God; every cloud, every tree, every ocean is full of godliness, so who is to worship whom?"

It reminds me of another great mystic, Nanak, on whose songs Sikhism is founded. He was not the founder of it -- it was not a deliberate act on his part. He simply went on singing his songs with his one disciple, Mardana, who was playing the sitar as he was singing.

Nanak is the only mystic of this country who went all over the country, and beyond the boundaries of the country, too. He reached Kaaba, the holy place of the Mohammedans.

It was evening and he was tired and his disciple, Mardana, made a bed for him. But the priests of Kaaba were very angry. They had heard about Nanak because he had been singing in the nearby villages, and thousands of people were influenced by his songs.

They were waiting for him to come one day. But they had never thought that he would do something so sacrilegious: he was sleeping, keeping his feet towards the holy stone of Kaaba. The priests came....

The story goes this way: They said to Nanak, "We have heard that you are a spiritual man, but what kind of spiritual man are you? You can't even recognize a small thing: that your feet should not be towards the holy Kaaba." Nanak laughed. The story is beautiful; whether it is true, whether it is historical or not, it does not matter -- it is significant, immensely meaningful. Nanak said, "You turn my feet towards any place which is not holy. I am in a difficulty, I have to put my feet somewhere. Kaaba is holy, but the remaining universe is not unholy. You turn my feet."

The priest turned his feet, and wherever they turned his feet, they found the Kaaba also moved in that direction. That may be fiction, but a fiction worth loving, significant; it may not be a fact, but it is a truth. The stone of Kaaba may not have moved, but the priests must have recognized that they were being stupid. The whole existence is holy...

what is the point? They moved in a circle and finally they gave an apology and kept Nanak's feet towards Kaaba.

Rabindranath never went to any temple, never worshiped any God, was never, in a traditional way, a saint, but to me he is one of the greatest saints the world has known.

His saintliness is expressed in each of his words.

Prem Kendra, the lines that you have quoted are very pregnant: OBSTINATE ARE THE

TRAMMELS, BUT MY HEART ACHES WHEN I TRY TO BREAK THEM.

FREEDOM IS ALL I WANT, BUT TO HOPE FOR IT I FEEL ASHAMED.

He is saying something not only about himself, but about all human consciousness. Such people don't speak about themselves; they speak about the very heart of all mankind.

OBSTINATE ARE THE TRAMMELS.... The hindrances are great, the chains that prevent my freedom -- I have become too attached to them. They are no more chains to me; they have become my ornaments. They are made of gold, they are very precious. But my heart aches, because on the one hand I want freedom, and on the other hand I cannot break the chains that prevent me from being free. Those chains, those attachments, those relationships have become my life. I cannot conceive of myself without my beloved, without my friends. I cannot conceive of myself absolutely alone, in deep silence. My songs have also become my fetters, so MY HEART ACHES WHEN I TRY TO BREAK

THEM. FREEDOM IS ALL I WANT.

This is the situation of every human being. It is difficult to find a man whose heart does not want to fly like a bird in the sky, who would not like to reach to the faraway stars, but who also knows his deep attachment with the earth. His roots are deep in the earth. His split is that he is attached to his imprisonment, and his deepest longing is for freedom. He is divided against himself.

This is the greatest anguish, anxiety. You cannot leave the world that chains you; you cannot leave those who have become your hindrances in life, because they are also your attachments, your joys. They are also in some way a nourishment for your pride. You can neither leave them, nor can you forget that you don't belong to this world, that your home must be somewhere else, because in your dreams you are always flying, flying to faraway places.

FREEDOM IS ALL I WANT, BUT TO HOPE FOR IT, I FEEL ASHAMED. Why should one feel ashamed to hope for freedom? -- because nobody is preventing you. You can be free this very moment. But those attachments... they have gone very deep in you; they have become almost your very existence. They may be bringing misery to you, but they also bring moments of happiness. They may be creating chains for your feet, but they also give you moments of dance.

It is a very strange situation every intelligent man has to face: he is rooted in the earth and he wants wings to fly in the sky. He cannot be uprooted because the earth is his nourishment, his food. And he cannot stop dreaming of wings, because that is his spirit, that is his very soul, that is what makes him a human being.

No animal feels the anguish; all animals are utterly satisfied as they are. Man is the only animal who is intrinsically discontented; hence, the feeling of shame -- because he knows, "I can be free."

I have always loved an ancient story: A man, a great man, a fighter for freedom was traveling into the mountains. He stayed in a caravanserai for the night. He was amazed that in the caravanserai there was a beautiful parrot in a golden cage, continually repeating, "Freedom! Freedom!" And the serai was in such a place that when the parrot repeats the word "Freedom!" it goes on echoing in the valley, in the mountains.

The man thought: I have seen many parrots, and I have thought they must be desiring to be free from those cages... but I have never seen such a parrot whose whole day, from the morning to the evening when he goes to sleep, is spent in asking for freedom. He had an idea. In the middle of the night he got up and opened the door of the cage. The owner was fast asleep and he said to the parrot, he whispered, "Now get out."

But he was very surprised that the parrot was clinging to the bars of the cage. He told him again and again: "Have you forgotten about freedom? Just get out! The door is open and the owner is fast asleep; nobody will ever know. You just fly into the sky; the whole sky is yours."

But the parrot was clinging so deeply, so hard, that the man said, "What is the matter?

Are you mad?" He tried to take the parrot out with his own hands, but the parrot started hitting him, and at the same time started shouting, "Freedom! Freedom!" The valleys in the night echoed and re-echoed... but the man was also stubborn, he was a freedom fighter. He pulled the parrot out, and threw him into the sky; and he was very satisfied, although his hand was hurt. The parrot had attacked him as forcefully as he could, but the man was immensely satisfied that he had made a soul free. He went to sleep.

In the morning, as the man was becoming awake, he heard the parrot shouting,

"Freedom! Freedom!" He thought perhaps the parrot must be sitting on a tree, or on a rock. But when he came out, the parrot was sitting in the cage. The door was open.

I have loved the story, because it is very true. You may like to be free, but the cage has certain securities, safeties. In the cage the parrot has no need to worry about food, has no need to worry about enemies, has no need to worry about a thing in the world. It is cozy, it is golden. No other parrot has such a valuable cage.

Your power, your riches, your prestige -- all are your cages. Your soul wants to be free, but freedom is dangerous.

Freedom has no insurance.

Freedom has no security, no safety.

Freedom means walking on the edge of a razor -- every moment in danger, fighting your way. Every moment is a challenge from the unknown. Sometimes it is too hot, and sometimes it is too cold -- and nobody is there to take care of you.

In the cage, the owner was responsible. He used to cover the cage, when it was cold, with a blanket; he used to put an electric fan close by when it was too hot.

Freedom means tremendous responsibility; you are on your own and alone. Rabindranath is right: FREEDOM IS ALL I WANT, BUT TO HOPE FOR IT, I FEEL ASHAMED, --

because it is not a question of hope; it is a question of taking a risk.

I AM CERTAIN THAT PRICELESS WEALTH IS IN THEE, AND THAT THOU ART

MY BEST FRIEND. BUT I HAVE NOT THE HEART TO SWEEP AWAY THE

TINSEL THAT FILLS MY ROOM.

I AM CERTAIN THAT PRICELESS WEALTH IS IN THEE.... In the world of freedom, in the experience of freedom, I am certain there is priceless wealth." But this certainty is also a projection of your desire, of your longing. How can you be certain? You would like to be certain. You know that longing for freedom is there. It cannot be for a futile freedom; it must be for something rich, something priceless. You are creating a certainty to gather courage so that you can take the jump into the unknown.

... AND THAT THOU ART MY BEST FRIEND. But these are all beautiful dreams, these are hopes; the certainty is your own cage, its security. BUT I HAVE NOT THE

HEART TO SWEEP AWAY THE TINSEL THAT FILLS MY ROOM. THE SHROUD

THAT COVERS ME IS A SHROUD OF DUST AND DEATH. These are beautiful ideas in the mind.

I HATE IT, YET HUG IT IN LOVE. You know your body is going to die. In fact, your body is made of dead material; it is already dead. It seems alive because something alive is inside it. It radiates warmth and aliveness, because of a guest inside you. The moment that guest has flown away, the reality of the body will be revealed to you.

Rabindranath says, THE SHROUD THAT COVERS ME IS A SHROUD OF DUST

AND DEATH. Our bodies are made of dust and death. I HATE IT, AND YET HUG IT

IN LOVE. But when you fall in love with a woman, then two skeletons hug each other; both know that the skin is only a covering of a skeleton. If you could see each other in real nudity -- not only without clothes, but without the skin, too, because that is the real clothing -- then you would be shocked, and you would escape as fast as possible from the beloved with whom you were promising to live forever and forever. You would not even look back; you would not even like to be reminded of the phenomenon.

It happened in the court of one Mohammedan emperor of India, Shahjehan. He was in love with a woman, but the woman was not willing to marry him.

He was a gentleman; otherwise he could have forced her. He tried to persuade her, but she was in love with a bodyguard of Shahjehan. And when he found out about it, he was really enraged. They were both immediately caught and brought to the court.

Shahjehan was going to cut off the heads of both, then and there. But his prime minister, who was a very old man -- he had been his father's prime minister and Sahjehan respected him just like his father -- said, "Don't do that. Be a little wiser; that is not enough punishment. I will give them the right punishment." He ordered that both should be tied together naked, in a hug, and then chained to a pillar in the court. The other members of the court could not believe it -- what kind of punishment is this? This seems to be a reward; that's what they always wanted, to hug each other. But they were wrong.

That old man really had a great psychological insight. Those two lovers also felt, what kind of punishment is this? -- this is a reward. They hugged each other with great love.

They were tied by a rope, so they could not escape from each other; then they were tied to a pillar. How long can you hug somebody? Five minutes, seven minutes, half an hour...? After twenty-four hours they hated each other... because they pissed on each other -- they had to, there was no other way. They were perspiring, their body smells filled the place, and there was no way to escape. After twenty-four hours the old man said, "Now give then their clothes and make them free."

And as they got their clothes, they rushed in opposite directions, never to meet each other again; they had met enough! Twenty-four hours... it is good for half a minute to hug somebody, or maybe one minute, but more than that and you will start feeling restless.

My grandfather used to love me very much. But in the evening I started to avoid him, because he would pull me to his bed, cover me with the blanket, hug me inside the blanket... and he was very old, so sleeping was not the question. I would wait until he started snoring so that I could slip out, but his sleep was very shallow -- in old age it becomes very shallow -- and he would say, "What? Are you going out?"

I would say, "I have to live my whole life; you have lived enough. In the day your love is good, but this night affair does not suit me at all."

He was a chain smoker, so his breath was so smelly of tobacco and he would cough the whole night, and he would go on pulling me closer to him.

I said, "This is not love -- you will kill me!"

But he made me learn one lesson: never allow anybody in your bed. I don't allow anybody even in my room. My room is locked from outside; even if I want to get out, I cannot get out. I remember him and just cover myself and go to sleep.

THE SHROUD THAT COVERS ME, IS A SHROUD OF DUST AND DEATH. I HATE IT, YET HUG IT IN LOVE.

Such is the schizophrenia of man, the split personality of man. His house is divided against itself; hence, he cannot find peace.

MY DEBTS ARE LARGE, MY FAILURES GREAT, MY SHAME SECRET AND

HEAVY. YET WHEN I COME TO ASK FOR MY GOOD, I QUAKE IN FEAR LEST

MY PRAYER BE GRANTED. These lines can be understood only if I remind you of another poem of Rabindranath in the same book, GITANJALI.

In that other poem, he says, "I have been seeking and searching God for as long as I can remember, for many many lives, from the very beginning of existence. Once in a while I have seen him by the side of a faraway star, and I have rejoiced and danced that the distance, although great, is not impossible to reach. And I have traveled and reached to the star; but by the time I reached the star, God has moved to another star. And it has been going on for centuries.

"The challenge is so great, that I go on hoping against hope... I have to find him, I am so absorbed in the search. The very search is so intriguing, so mysterious, so enchanting that God has become almost an excuse -- the search has become itself the goal.

"And to my surprise, one day I reached a house in a faraway star with a small board in front of it, saying `This is the house of God.' My joy knew no bounds -- so finally I have arrived! I rushed up the steps, many steps, that led to the door of the house. But as I was coming closer and closer to the door, a fear suddenly appeared in my heart. As I was going to knock, I became paralyzed with a fear that I had never known, never thought of, never dreamt of. The fear was: if this house is certainly the house of God, then what will I do after I have found him?

"Now searching for God has become my very life; to have found him will be equivalent to committing suicide. And what am I going to do with him? I had never thought of all these things before. I should have thought before I started the search: what am I going to do with God?

"I took my shoes in my hands, and silently and very slowly stepped back, afraid that God may hear the noise and may open the door and say, `Where are you going? I am here, come in!' And as I reached the steps, I ran away as I have never run before; and since then I have been again searching for God, looking for him in every direction -- and avoiding that house where he really lives.

"Now I know that that house has to be avoided. And I continue the search, enjoy the very journey, the pilgrimage."

The insight in the story is so tremendous. There are seekers of truth who have never thought, what will I do with truth? You cannot eat it, you cannot sell it; you cannot become a president because you have the truth. At the most, if you have the truth, people will crucify you.

He is right when he says, My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy. Yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted --

because these things are good to talk about: God, truth, good, beauty. It is good to write treatises on them, have universities confer Ph.D.'s, let the Nobel awarding committee give you a Nobel prize. These things are good for talking, for writing, but if you really get to experience them, you will be in trouble. That's what he is saying: I am afraid that my prayer may be granted.

It is good that God is deaf. He does not hear prayers; otherwise you all will be in trouble.

Your prayer will create your trouble, because in prayers you will be so romantic, asking great things which you cannot live by, which will become very heavy, and will interfere in your so-called life -- which is going on smoothly, although in misery.

Truth becomes a cross; life becomes heavy. Truth becomes poison to a Socrates. Truth becomes death to Al-Hillaj Mansoor. Truth becomes crucifixion to Jesus Christ. And you pray, "God, give me truth. Give me qualities which are divine, godly." But God is deaf on purpose -- so that your prayers cannot be heard and you can enjoy both, your miserable life and your beautiful prayers. The prayers will not be heard -- you can remain jealous, angry, full of hate, full of egoism, and go on praying to God, "Make me humble; and becausèblessed are the meek,' make me meek." -- but on purpose.

It is not written in any scripture, but I tell you on my personal authority that after creating the world in six days, the last thing God did was destroy his ears. Since then, we has never heard anything; and since then, neither have we heard anything about him.

So it is perfectly good: in the morning you go to the temple or the church or the mosque, have a beautiful prayer, ask great things -- knowing perfectly well that he is deaf -- and go on being your ugly, miserable self. Then tomorrow morning again have a good prayer.... This is such a good settlement, a good arrangement.

Rabindranath in his poem is indicating a tremendous truth: Do you really want God? Do you really want truth? Do you really want silence? If you ask, and you are honest, you will feel ashamed. You will have to accept that you don't really want.... You are only pretending to meditate -- because you know you have been meditating for many years, and nothing happens. There is no fear; you can meditate, nothing happens.

Once something starts happening, then there is trouble. once something starts growing in your life that is not growing in the hearts of the crowd that surrounds you, you will be a stranger, you will be an outsider. And the crowd never forgives strangers, the crowd never forgives outsiders; it destroys them. It has to destroy them just for its own peace of mind.

A man like Jesus Christ is a continual nuisance, because he reminds you that you can also be of the same beauty, of the same grace, of the same truth, and it hurts. He makes you feel inferior, and nobody wants to feel inferior.

And there are only two ways not to feel inferior: one is to become superior; that is a hard way, and a long way -- dangerous, because you will have to walk alone. The simple way is, destroy that superior man. Then the whole crowd is of equal people. Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior. All are cunning, all are cheats, all are criminals in their own way. All are jealous, all are ambitious. They are all in the same boat, and they understand each other's language. And nobody creates any fuss about truth, about God, about meditation.

People are happy without a Gautam Buddha, without a Socrates, without a Zarathustra, because these people are like high peaks of mountains and you look so tiny, so pygmy --

it hurts. They say that camels never go near the mountains. They have chosen to live in the desert, because in the desert they are the walking mountains, but near the mountains, they will look like ants -- and that hurts.

The easiest way is to forget all about mountains, to say, "These mountains are all mythological, fictitious; the reality is the desert." So you enjoy the desert, you enjoy your ego -- and you also enjoy the prayer, "God, please free me of the ego, make me humble,"

knowing perfectly well that he does not hear, that no prayer is answered. You can pray for anything without fear because you will remain the same and you will also have the satisfaction of praying for great things.

That's why people, without becoming religious, become Christians, become Hindus, become Mohammedans. They are not religious people at all; these are strategies to avoid being religious. A religious person is simply religious; he is neither Hindu, nor Mohammedan, nor Christian, nor Buddhist -- there is no need. He is truthful, he is sincere, he is compassionate, he is loving, he is human -- so human that he almost represents the divine in the world.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #27

Chapter title: I can see a shoe in your heart

25 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705250

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN27

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

83

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

MORE AND MORE EASILY DO I FEEL FILLED WITH YOU DURING

DISCOURSE, AND THOUGHTS TEND NOT TO INTRUDE AS MUCH AS THEY

USED TO. STILL, THE FACT REMAINS THAT I DON'T CARRY THE SERENITY

AND BLISS THAT I FEEL IN YOUR PRESENCE INTO MY DAILY ACTIVITIES.

AND UNTIL THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOW I FEEL NEAR YOU

AND AWAY, I HAVEN'T GOT IT, HAVE I? IT FEELS AS IF ALL OTHER

QUESTIONS ARE SIMPLY A DISTRACTION TO AVOID THIS HOMEWORK. IS

THIS SO?

Maneesha, the difference that you feel in my presence from when you are doing something alone is going to remain to the very last moment. The explosion will come, but there is no way to say when. The time will come certainly when there will be no difference: either you are in my presence or you are alone -- it will be the same. It becomes the same only when, in your aloneness also, you start feeling my presence.

When you are doing other things, they are not distractions; you are doing them for me.

Love is full of mysteries, but even this much is more than one can expect because it is a right becoming -- you have started feeling me. Now that feeling will continue to grow on its own; you have to be just nourishing it. Don't make it a problem. Rather accept it as a necessity of growth.

The first flowers of the spring have come. All the flowers will be coming soon. And one should not expect, one should rather learn to enjoy that which is happening. That allows more happenings, makes you available, and open and vulnerable for greater possibilities.

The real problem is when nothing is happening. You can feel no difference at two points: if in my presence, you don't feel anything different in your being -- it feels just the same as you are when you are alone, or with others, or doing something else -- this is the lowest point. There is no difference. On the highest point, also, there will be no difference. It is a question of how much deeper your melting and your merging becomes.

It does not depend on you. There is nothing like homework -- you cannot do anything...

you can only wait, you can only hope, you can only trust. And existence brings everything to your door.

Eighty-year-old Goldstein marries a very beautiful and attractive twenty-year-old girl. All his friends and business partners, lustlessly married since ages, declare him foolish. "How can you in your old age expect her to be faithful to you?" they ask.

Shrewd old Goldstein smiles and says, "Why shouldn't I expect it? I don't understand your concern since it has been my basic principle all my life, that it is better to have only a twenty-five percent share in an excellent business than a hundred percent share in a lousy one."

Even a twenty-five percent share in a good business is great. Don't ask for a hundred percent in a lousy one. That twenty-five percent is happening. The seventy-five percent will also follow, but it is a question of happening -- it is not part of doing. And it is good that there are things men cannot do, but can only be a recipient of. Only those things are valuable which you cannot do, but which happen. They don't have a price, but they have value. Things that you can do have a price, but they don't have any value.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IT'S HILARIOUS! I KEEP DRINKING AND DRINKING, AND YOU ARE THE ONE

WHO IS DRUNK. COULD YOU PLEASE PASS THE BOTTLE -- NO, THE WHOLE

OCEAN -- ONCE MORE?

Okay. Satyadharma... an American, an Englishman, and a Frenchman are on a boat. After a while, the boat begins to sink. The Englishman, being a gentleman, says, "Women and children first."

The American says, "Fuck them!"

The Frenchman says, "Do we have time?"

You are drunk; but no drunk accepts that he's drunk, he goes on asking for more bottles.

In a pub one night, a drunk was creating too much nuisance. He was utterly drunk, and still was asking: "More bottles."

The owner of the pub said, "Absolutely no!" and called his servants to throw the man out of the door. He said, "It is more than you can absorb. Come again tomorrow, but tonight just go home and rest."

The drunk was feeling very thirsty -- that is one of the problems in drinking: the more you drink, the more thirsty you feel. He went staggering a few steps and came back in from the back door and asked for a few bottles.

The owner said to the servants, "Throw him back out again."

He said, "It is strange... do you own all the pubs in the city?"

Satyadharma, you are saying, "It is hilarious...." It is! "I keep drinking and drinking, and... you are the one who is drunk." If I was not drunk, from where would you go on drinking and drinking?

Here you are sitting with all kinds of drunkards. Even if you come sober, just sitting with these people, soon you will start feeling something hilarious is happening. Even the air is very heavy; just breathing with all these people is enough for amateurs to get drunk. And don't ask for the bottle; the whole ocean will be delivered to you -- just become capable of absorbing it.

Our capacity in every dimension is very limited. And as far as drinking is concerned --

particularly drinking joy, ecstasy, blissfulness -- our capacity is very limited. We soon come to a point beyond which we cannot move. The fear of being lost... one has to learn to drop the fear, and to learn the art of being lost.

When Bodhidharma reached China, Emperor Wu had come to the border to receive him because his name and his fragrance had reached far ahead of him. Bodhidharma, in the tradition of Gautam Buddha, is one of the rarest flowers... even Gautam Buddha may sometimes feel jealous of him, although Bodhidharma is his disciple.

Bodhidharma came with one shoe on his foot and another shoe on his head. Emperor Wu could not trust his eyes, and could not trust... he has heard so much about the man, and he seems to be absolutely mad. But he was a man of very great culture, etiquette; he was an emperor. He tried to avoid seeing that shoe on the head. It was not right to enquire about it, but the temptation was becoming greater and greater... what is the matter? He talked about God, and he talked about truth, but all the time inside he was thinking about the shoe.

Finally Bodhidharma said, "Don't ask unnecessary questions; ask the necessary question.

I can see a shoe in your heart. You cannot hide from me. My eyes are almost capable of penetrating into the thickest skull: `Why are you keeping that shoe on your head'?"

The emperor was amazed: This is too much. This man seems to be either drunk or mad, but certainly he has a method in his madness. He is carrying the shoe on his head.... But he is not wrong -- I am suppressing the shoe in my heart, in my mind; my whole being wants to ask only one question: "Why are you carrying this shoe?" And when he is insisting, "Ask the real question," it is better to ask it; otherwise, I will not be able to sleep.

He said, "Forgive me, it is very embarrassing."

Bodhidharma said, "Nothing is embarrassing. You simply ask."

The emperor said, "I am trying to avoid that question, and just to avoid it I'm asking all other questions -- I don't mean anything. But you seem to be a strange fellow; you have caught me red-handed. I have not asked, but you have heard the question: "Why are you carrying the shoe on your head?"

Bodhidharma said, "Now we can talk. Now you are being simple, innocent -- now you are not repressing. I am carrying this shoe on my head so that you can ask a real question.

Now there is no need...." He removed the shoe, put it on his foot, and he said, "Now you have to understand: start from the very beginning; don't start asking questions about God.

You seem to be a born shoemaker."

The emperor was very angry and shocked. Obviously this man was making fun of him, but he still tried to hide his embarrassment. His whole court was present, and they were all trying to hide their laughter. He asked, "Who are you?" -- because that is one of the most significant and most ancient, spiritual questions.

Bodhidharma said, "As far as I am concerned, I don't know. Do you know who you are?"

The emperor said, "This is something I have come to enquire from you because I don't know."

Bodhidharma said, "You are ignorant; I also don't know, but I am innocent. Just now, go back. Sleep will not be possible because you will have to figure out why you are ignorant and I am innocent -- and for the same reason."

The emperor returned home very puzzled. The man had a charisma: he could not forget his eyes, he could not forget his presence. He could not sleep the whole night; he could not make the distinction how one person saying, "I don't know" is ignorant and another person saying, "I don't know" is innocent.

He came back again. Bodhidharma said, "You are knowledgeable; you have never recognized the fact that you don't know yourself -- you have always believed that you know. At least, you have pretended to the world that you know. It is out of ignorance.

"I have searched deeply into myself. I don't know because there is nobody to be known. I have found the house empty -- a pure nothingness, a sky without clouds. There is no knower, there is nothing to be known.

"You are saying it out of ignorance, because you still think you are, but you don't know who you are. I am saying it out of innocence, because I know there is no one to be known, to be a knower. It is just pure silence."

The bottle will be delivered to you -- just get ripe for it. Right now, you are asking out of ignorance. The day you will ask out of innocence, the bottle...? no, the whole ocean will be delivered to you -- it belongs to you. It is already within you. Your insight just has to grow more, your awareness has to be more clear, your silence has to be more deep, more profound. And all these qualities are almost ready to explode within you -- it is just that you don't allow them, you are preventing them.

Nobody wants to be just a nobody, nobody wants to be a pure nothingness. The moment you are ready to disappear, a new presence arises in you which has nothing to do with "I"

and "me," which is part of the whole existence. And then only the thirst is quenched.

My work is to make you more and more thirsty -- so thirsty that one day, you take a jump into your own nothingness, and disappear. Your disappearance is your enlightenment.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

UNABLE TO WRITE YOU A MEANINGFUL QUESTION, I AM OVERJOYED

SEEING PEOPLE LOVING YOU. BELOVED MASTER, PLEASE HELP ME TO

KEEP MOVING ON.

Nirupa, the feeling that you are unable to write a meaningful question gives you what I was calling innocence; otherwise, people think their questions are very meaningful. Out of ignorance, you cannot ask a meaningful question. It is one of the mysteries of life: the day you can ask a meaningful question, you will find the meaningful answer within yourself. A meaningful question carries as a shadow the meaningful answer.

But to be aware that you cannot ask a meaningful question is an achievement on the way of innocence. There is no need for any question, and there is no need for any answer.

Questions and answers are just the stuff your mind is made of. When you become disinterested in questions and answers, you start stepping out of the mind; and out of the mind is your glorious being, is your authentic self.

It is beautiful that you say, "I am overjoyed seeing people loving you." Ordinarily mind does not function that way. Only if you have slipped a little bit out of the mind is it possible to be overjoyed seeing people loving me. Mind is always jealous, it cannot be overjoyed. It will feel hurt that "others are loving, are ahead of me, and I am lagging behind." And it will create a thousand and one rationalizations that "their love is fake --

they are all pretending. My love is true and authentic -- these are all hypocrites."

The function of the mind is to make you competitive, to make you jealous, to make you believe yourself superior to others. Once you are just a little bit out of the mind, things start changing. If somebody is joyful, you don't feel jealous; you feel grateful that you saw a joyful man. Somebody is loving -- you don't feel jealous; you feel again grateful that you have been able to see somebody loving somebody else, and jealousy has not arisen in you.

You say, "I am overjoyed seeing people loving you." This is a good indication, Nirupa.

You have been long enough with me, and it is time for you to go out of the mind. All those who are with me, their only work is to go out of the mind, to transcend mind, to function as a no-mind, to function as a heart, and finally, to function as a being.

You are asking, "Please help me to keep moving on." My blessings are with you, my love is with you; you don't need anything more. That will go on helping you move onwards --

just don't become too greedy. Great things come very slowly. Don't ask for seasonal flowers; they come quickly, but they also disappear quickly.

Little Moishe goes skating on the lake while his mother stands by watching over him.

Suddenly, through a crack in the thin ice, little Moishe vanishes.

"Oy vey!" shrieks his mother. "My Moishe, in front of my very eyes!" Eventually a policeman comes, strips naked, and dives into the icy water. Again and again, blue from cold, he dives in and eventually finds Moishe. The policeman manages to revive him, wraps him in his own clothes, and rushes him to the hospital where little Moishe eventually recovers.

Moishe's mother goes up to the policeman afterwards and says, "So, where is his hat? He had a hat!"

This is particularly a Jewish mind, but all minds are Jews. She is worried about a hat. She is not even thankful to the policeman that he risked his own life and saved her boy. Her concern is, "Where is the hat?"

Never be greedy and never be concerned with trivia, and your movement towards greater silences of the heart will become easier every day. Be loving, be joyous, and be always thankful for whatever is happening to you. Don't ask for the hat.

Be thankful for what has been given to you -- and life is giving you so much that your thankfulness is always going to fall short. But the thankful heart grows easily; with gratitude, you are nourished. You become stronger in moving towards the unknown.

Except gratitude, there is no other prayer.

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

THIS QUESTION HAS COME UP MANY TIMES FOR ME, BUT YOU HAVE JUST

PROVOKED IT INTO THE OPEN. ISN'T ENLIGHTENMENT THE LAST RESORT?

Prem Shunyo, enlightenment is certainly the last resort, but not for Milarepa. For Milarepa, you are the last resort. In other words, for Milarepa, you are the enlightenment.

So don't be worried, let him fool around, but he cannot escape you. You are his last resort, his enlightenment.

They say that behind every great man there is a woman. They have forgotten to know that sometimes in front of every great man there is a woman. In your case, you are not behind Milarepa, you are in front of Milarepa. Searching you, he will grow, because you will be growing towards enlightenment. And he will stagger, somehow carrying his guitar, behind you -- it will be a unique enlightenment.

Two persons have never become enlightened together -- but in your case, it seems it is going to happen, an exception. And when you both are enlightened, he will play on the guitar.... No enlightened master up to now has carried the guitar to those heights. And his enlightenment is sure -- just you go on being ahead of him. Don't follow him; otherwise, you both will lose the path. You search enlightenment, and let Milarepa search you.

A story for you to tell Milarepa.... A proud father gave his son twenty bucks and sent him off to the local whorehouse. On his way, the boy passed by his grandmother's house, and she called him in. He explained where he was going, and she insisted that he keep the twenty dollars and do it with her.

The boy returned home with a big smile. "How was it?" asked the father.

"Great! and I saved the twenty bucks," responded the boy.

"How is that?" his father asked.

"I did it with grandma," the boy explained.

His father screamed, "You mean you made love to my mother?"

"Hey, why not?" said the boy. "You have been making love to mine!"

Question 5

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER NIGHT, AS YOUR LEG GAVE WAY AND YOU BEGAN TO FALL, SOMETHING LIKE LIGHTNING HAPPENED. IN A MOMENT, I KNEW MY

DEEPEST FEARS, MY DEEPEST TEARS, AND TOTAL TRUST. EVEN TO TALK

ABOUT THIS AS AN EXPERIENCE IS IMPOSSIBLE. IT WAS NOT AN

EXPERIENCE AS I HAVE KNOWN EXPERIENCE TO BE. I CAN ONLY STUMBLE

ABOUT WITH THE WORDS. IT WAS AS IF THERE ARE HEARTS WITHIN

HEART. MY HEART FELT AN INSTANT BEAT OF DEEP SADNESS, FAR

BEYOND ANY SADNESS I HAVE EVEN KNOWN. AND, AS IF HOLDING THIS

HEART WITHIN ITSELF, A BIGGER HEART EXISTED IN EXACTLY THE SAME

MOMENT, COMPLETELY STILL, KNOWING, WATCHING. THIS WAS TRUST.

THE WORDS FALL SO SHORT. OSHO, WILL YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING

ABOUT THIS MOMENT?

Satyadharma, the question you are asking may be in the heart of many other sannyasins.

You are asking, "The other night as your leg gave way and You began to fall, something like lightning happened. In a moment, I knew my deepest fears, my deepest tears, and total trust."

One may recognize or not... deep down those who have loved me are carrying a certain fear that one day I will not be in the body -- that is their deepest fear, and their deepest tears, because they cannot conceive themselves without me, I have become almost a part of their being. It is no longer a relationship, it is a merging and a melting. Without me, they will find a vast gap in their being which cannot be fulfilled. With my disappearing from the body, they will find a part of their life has also disappeared -- and perhaps, that was the part which was the most significant, the most meaningful.

The day my leg gave way and I began to fall, all these fears and tears suddenly came to the surface. It has been tremendously good of my leg to give you an opportunity to see deeper within yourself that I am not going to be here forever.

So you are not to postpone a single moment; you have to be ready before I leave the body. Only then will you not miss me; in your own realization, you will have found me again -- more close, more fresh.

It is true: even to talk about this as an experience is impossible, because it was exactly like lightning -- not like a slow experience -- so quick, so sudden, so unexpected.

After all, my leg is a master's leg. When it is going to do something, it is going to do something really deep. It provoked in you many feelings, and the greatest of them was of trust.

While I am alive, in the body, you can take me for granted, that tomorrow morning I will be coming back to talk to you. But in that moment, you knew it is possible that any moment you may have to lose me. And before that moment comes, unless you have attained yourself, you will be in utter misery and darkness.

Suddenly, you could not take me for granted. I have been insisting, "Don't take me for granted. Today I am here; tomorrow I may not be." It is easier to attain to the truth while I am holding your hand in my hand; it will be more difficult when you are left alone.

And one never knows how long it will take for you to find another man who can love you unconditionally, who can trust you as you are. It can take lives to find such a person again. You will meet many, but they will all require that you have to be a certain way to be acceptable to them. Gautam Buddha, or Zarathustra, or Jesus Christ, they all require you to be a certain way, then you deserve to be accepted.

I am breaking a new path: I accept you as you are.

The difference is they want you to change before they accept you; I trust my acceptance.

I know that my acceptance is going to change you. They expect you to be deserving, to be worthy; only then they can shower their love on you.

My attitude is totally different from them, from anybody who has ever lived on the earth.

I will shower my love on you because I trust in my love and its alchemical qualities. My love is going to transform you, to make you deserving. It may take lives and lives to find another man. And if you cannot become enlightened with me, it will be very, very difficult with that old type of disciplehood, and the old type of masters.

The world is not a paradise yet because nobody has accepted you. First they wanted you to change according to their ideals and only then you would be accepted. It used to take five years, seven years, or even ten years to become an initiate with Gautam Buddha. Ten years you would remain a novice... just preparing, and hoping that you will be accepted.

Thousands tried, and only very few of them were accepted.

You are not new on the earth; perhaps many of you have lived with other masters, but they made the whole thing so difficult. Even the initiation requires qualities to be developed in you -- you have to be acceptable and presentable. Millions have longed for a better consciousness, but nobody was there to help them -- they were not worthy to receive help.

Your deepest fear is not an experience that can be easily expressed. It has shaken your whole being. It has made you aware that you have to put your totality into transforming your consciousness while I am here in the body; otherwise, you had every opportunity to find the deathless, and you missed it. You will never be able to forgive yourself.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #28

Chapter title: We have to create a golden future

25 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705255

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN28

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

87

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

TOWARDS THE END OF THE FIRST MILLENNIUM, HUMANITY WAS AFRAID

THAT GOD WOULD PUT AN END TO THE WORLD, BECAUSE OF WHAT HE

SAID IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN. NOWADAYS, AS WE ARE COMING

CLOSE TO THE END OF THE SECOND MILLENNIA, MAN IS BECOMING MORE

AND MORE AFRAID THAT PERHAPS HE HIMSELF IS GOING TO PUT AN END

TO THE WORLD. HAS ANYTHING CHANGED AT ALL IN HUMAN

CONSCIOUSNESS DURING THE LAST ONE THOUSAND YEARS? WHAT DOES

MAN NEED TO UNDERSTAND NOW THAT HE KNOWS THAT HE AND ONLY

HE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE AND NOT SOME FICTITIOUS GOD?

Chidananda, there has been a great change in human consciousness during the past one thousand years. But the change is such that you can see it only when a real situation arises, and man responds in a totally different way than he has ever responded before. For example, there has never been so much awareness about peace, and there has never been so much antagonism towards war.

In fact, war was always respected in the past, and peace was never thought of as anything more than a gap between two wars -- nothing positive, just a preparation for a new war.

You need some time. A war destroys so much that you cannot immediately start another war; hence a time of peace is needed. This is not authentic peace, it is simply cold war.

The war and all its components continue underground, preparing for a more dangerous and a more destructive war in the future.

The whole past has been respectful of the warrior. It is only just now in these few past years that war has become a dirty four-letter word, and peace has become for the first time a desire and a longing of the very heart of humanity.

As far as I am concerned, war has become almost impossible.

The impossibility of war is based on two fundamentals. One is a human consciousness about the futility of war. Nobody can claim that it is something beautiful, something honorable, something which gives dignity to humanity. Slowly, slowly it has penetrated into human consciousness that war takes away all dignity. It makes man fall below animals, because even animals don't kill their own species; lions don't kill other lions, deer don't kill other deer. It is only man who kills other human beings. It is a disqualification, not a great quality to be honored.

So the first thing is that war has fallen into disrespect, into utter futility, stupidity; it has lost all its past glory and significance.

Secondly, the war materials -- atomic energy and nuclear weapons -- have reached to such a point that they have made war impossible. Unless the whole of humanity suddenly goes mad, war is impossible, because the only purpose of war was to defeat the enemy, the only purpose was to be victorious. Victory was the end. But now, with nuclear weapons, there is no defeat, no victory; no one is defeated, no one becomes victorious, all are dead. The whole life on the planet simply disappears.

What Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, Zarathustra and the great teachers of humanity have not been able to convince man about, has been done by nuclear weapons. Now war means only one thing: a global suicide. And no man is ready to commit suicide. In fact, the closer comes the possibility of a third world war, the deeper becomes the urge to live

-- and to live more consciously, and to live more lovingly, and to live more intensely. A longing for life itself has never been so intense and so profound as it is today.

I predict the impossibility of any war in the future. And this is going to change a thousand and one things in life, because if war becomes impossible, sooner or later the piling up of nuclear weapons will become an exercise in stupidity.

In the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Gorbachev, they have stopped creating nuclear weapons one-sidedly. They have tried hard to negotiate with America that they should both stop together. They said, "We go on creating out of the fear that you are creating; you go on creating out of the fear that we are creating -- we can stop together."

But Ronald Reagan is Adolf Hitler number one -- a very fascist mind.

Gorbachev has taken a step so revolutionary and so intelligent and so courageous and so risky that one cannot conceive of him just as a politician. He is a man of deep understanding. He stopped creating more nuclear weapons almost one year ago, and he has been cutting the budget every moment, because he can see the possibility of what I am saying: that there is not going to be any war, because you cannot convince five billion people to die for no purpose. Gorbachev has made history by taking the step single-handedly, but America is still piling up....

The American masses should rise up in a rebellious uproar against their own government, because now even Ronald Reagan cannot say, "We have to create because the Soviet Union is creating." The Soviet Union has opened its doors to world scientists to come and examine their plants and be satisfied, because Ronald Reagan was lying continuously saying "Gorbachev has not stopped creating nuclear weapons; he is simply deceiving us."

Now the whole world is convinced that the Soviet Union is no longer interested in destroying human life.

All the intelligent people of the world should protest against this American fascist attitude, and force America to stop bringing death to this beautiful planet. And I think, as the century comes to its end, there is bound to be a great protest from all over the world.

America has to be put right -- it is already late!

I am reminded of George Gurdjieff. He used to say laughingly that America has not been discovered for the first time, and that is true. It is a lie that is being taught in the schools and colleges and the universities that America was discovered by Columbus. In Turkey there is a seven hundred year old map in which America is completely drawn, both the Americas, North America and South America, an exact map of the whole world. When that map was discovered it was so shocking that not only was America known, it was so well known that maps of it existed. Then what had happened?

In Indian mythology, one of the great warriors of Mahabharat, the great Indian war of five thousand years before, had married a woman from Mexico. The word in Sanskrit literature for Mexico is Makshika. Mexico is a distortion of a Sanskrit word Makshika, because the description is exactly of Mexico; and in Mexico, Hindu temples have been found, and Hindu gods and their statues have been found. The Mexican temple is a replica of the Hindu temple.

George Gurdjieff used to say that America has been discovered many many times, but it becomes such a nuisance that we have to hush it up and forget all about it -- then somebody else discovers it again!

If Ronald Reagan and his fascist colleagues are not going to listen to the protest of the whole intelligent world, then the only way will be an absolute boycott; forgive the fools -

- and forget them, so they can be discovered again by some Columbus.

The steps that Gorbachev is taking are immensely valuable, and are very convincing to the whole world that his intentions are for a beautiful co-existence.

There is no need of any war. You can have your democracy, you can have your communism, you can have your own ideology -- what is the problem? There is no need to impose your ideology on somebody else. At least man's spirit should be left in freedom to choose its own ideology -- religious, political, social. No government has the right over the rights of the individual; all governments are only servants. But strangely, because of the power in their hands, servants become masters; they start behaving as if the masters are servants. But this cannot go forever.

Yes, all the predictions of the ancient seers, like Nostradamus, that the world is going to end by the end of this century, are true in a very different sense than has been understood.

The old world is going to end, and a new world is going to begin. That is my interpretation of Nostradamus.

The old man has to disappear to give place to a new man with fresh values, with one earth undivided into nations, with one humanity undivided by religions, because religions don't need to be organized. Religion is a love affair, a love affair with existence. There is no question of any organization like Christianity, or Hinduism, or Mohammedanism.

Religion is as much purely individual as love, because religion is nothing but the purest and the highest quality of love. You don't organize love! You don't say that this is Christian love, this is Hindu love, this is Mohammedan love. Love is simply love, meditation is simply meditation, peace is simply peace, enlightenment is simply enlightenment. It cannot have any adjective with it.

Changes have been happening. They will come to a peak by the end of this century when the moment of ultimate decision will have to be faced by humanity, either to transform yourself totally; drop all that is old.... Don't look backwards; start creating new values, look forward -- because the past is the past and to visit the graveyard too much is dangerous. The graveyard is a place one should visit only once, and that too is a one-way affair... you simply go there and never come back.

It is the future that should be your concern. It is the future and the faraway stars that will become your challenges. You have heard always about the golden past. We have to forget all about it; we have to create a golden future.

The decisive moment is coming close-by; either we have to decide to commit suicide.... If we cling with the past, then that is the only possibility. If we drop the past and the dead and start afresh from ABC, from the very scratch, writing the destiny of man, the days of the last part of this century will be of a tremendous revolution. The revolution is going to be so great that Nostradamus can be said to be right, that the world will end -- the world as we have known it -- and a world that we have never even dreamt of has to begin.

Chidananda, you are right that we cannot throw away the responsibility on some fictitious God, that he will end the world. We are perfectly aware that if a third world war happens, we will be the only responsible people to have destroyed ourselves. I think changes happen only in such dangerous and critical moments. If life goes on smoothly and comfortably great changes don't happen, but if life comes to a place where you have to choose between death or a new style of life, I am absolutely certain you will choose the new style of life rather than the old well-acquainted death.

Yes Chidananda, there is no god, and man is going to be responsible for whatever he chooses. And I trust in the deepest longing of everybody: it is for life, it is for love, it is for joy, it is for song, it is for flowers, it is for dances. It is for love.

Man cannot choose a global death.

It is an impossibility.

Yes, the old world will come to an end; Nostradamus is not going to be wrong. But his interpreters are all wrong. My interpretation is: The death of the old is the birth of the new.

A man down on his luck goes home to his wife and tells her, "Look dear, we are running out of money and we are gonna have to cut down on all the luxuries." He then adds scornfully, "If you would just learn to cook we could fire the chef." "In that case," replies the woman,"if you would learn to make love we could fire the chauffeur."

In critical moments one has to be truthful, and if things are going to change, then you have to change also. Your ways of love have to change. You have to drop old kinds of jealousies, competitions; you have to drop old values of honor, respectability, royal blood... all nonsense. You have to learn that the whole humanity is one brotherhood. The black and the white and the in-between, all are the same.

I am reminded... Rabindranath was in Geneva. He had just been awarded the Nobel prize, and he was being received by the government of Switzerland in a vast welcome party.

Everybody was white. Somebody asked, Rabindranath, "What is your explanation? Why has God created such discriminations -- because you insist on one brotherhood of the whole humanity."

Rabindranath said, "God first created a man out of mud and baked him, but being inexperienced, baked him too much. He's the negro. He created a second man. Being afraid that he may again make another negro, he pulled him out quite early, unbaked...

he's the white man."

That's why in the white man the desire for having a tan continues... a little more baking.

And baking powders are available, baking lotions are available; put on those lotions and powders and lie down naked under the hot burning sun. This desire is because they were pulled out of the bakery a little too soon. God said, "My God, I have committed another mistake."

That's why the Indian is in-between. That is the third person he baked, just right, neither a little more, nor a little less. But more than that, there is not any difference... just a little more sun, a little less sun.

There is no need for any color discrimination. There is no need to have boundaries of nations, because the earth has no boundaries. There is no need to have flocks of people gathered separately -- the Catholics, the Protestants, the Hindus, the Mohammedans; each one should be free to have his own immediate and personal contact with existence, his own prayer.

The new man is on the horizon.

All the preparations to destroy the world will only destroy the old man and the old world.

They will create the basic necessity for the birth of a new man. I can see him on the horizon already. He has arrived; it will just take some time for people to recognize him.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY SOMEONE ASKED ME WHERE I CAME FROM BEFORE

COMING TO POONA AND I COULDN'T REMEMBER. HE STARTED

MENTIONING MAJOR EUROPEAN CITIES WHILE I GOT MORE

EMBARRASSED. I SAID, "JUST WAIT, IT WILL COME," AND SUDDENLY

REMEMBERED SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. OSHO, SINCE I'VE BEEN WITH YOU

THIS TIME I'M LOSING MY MEMORY. WHAT'S HAPPENING? I ASK THIS

QUESTION IN THE HOPE THAT THIS SHOWS SOMETHING TO DO WITH

MEDITATION.

Michael, you are really becoming intelligent. It is not expected from people who come from Sydney, Australia. This has never happened before! Losing your memory is of great significance. It means the energy is shifting from memory to intelligence.

Memory is mechanical; intelligence is non-mechanical. That's why computers can have memory; they don't have intelligence. If you ask them a question about which they have not been told before, you have to feed the information first, then you can ask the question, and without fail the answer will come. Intelligence is a totally different matter.

Your meditation is certainly going deeper. Leaving aside Sydney, Australia, and all the memories concerned with Sydney, Australia, leaving aside the past -- you are entering into a new space.

Only once in a while a computer has been intelligent -- only in jokes, not in reality.

A man was asking a computer, "Tell me about my father. What do you know about my father? I want all the information." The information came -- "Your father has gone fishing just three hours ago in the ocean." The man laughed and he said, "You're stupid!

My father is dead and he has been dead for three years; he cannot go fishing." The computer laughed and said, "That was not your father, that was only the husband of your mother. Your father has gone fishing; you just go to the beach and you will find him there."

I used to think that only in jokes computers can be intelligent, but just today Anando brought me the news that in Japan there are one hundred thousand robots -- just men, mechanical men -- working in factories, and not a small number, but working in thousands.... And the government has just released information that a strange thing is happening which is creating tremendous fear. These robots have suddenly started killing men. The robot is just working, he sees some man passing by, jumps, catches hold of him, and with his steel hands gives him a good hug and finishes him.

Ten people have been killed just in a few days. And if the government says ten, you can multiply by ten; at least one hundred must have died. Then governments accept, reluctantly, a small percentage. But the fear has become great, because one hundred thousand robots -- if they simply come out of the factories into the streets and start making hugging gestures to men and women.... These ten deaths happened in a strange situation, because those robots work through computers, they receive orders from the computer. They are machines, but somehow it seems something strange and mysterious is starting to happen.

The government has assured people, "Don't be worried about ghosts etcetera" -- because that is the first thing that comes to mind, that Anando's ghosts, finding a perfect body....

They have perfect human bodies, just they are made of steel; they can be good abodes for ghosts! Poor ghosts have to live on trees, in rain, in cold; this is a great opportunity! But once a ghost enters in, then there is danger. It may start doing things which the computer is not ordering, which it is not supposed to do.

You are not a robot. When you become silent, you start seeing your memories far away, as distant echoes. It is a very common experience that intelligent people have not very good memories, and vice versa; the people who have very good memories have never been found to be very intelligent. Sometimes idiots have great memories; because their whole energy is involved in their memory, they don't have any intelligence.

Intelligence is the power to face a new situation about which you know nothing. Memory is a reaction. You know the answer, the question is asked, you repeat the answer. But if any new question is asked the memory is impotent. A new question, a new situation, does not need your memory; it needs intelligence, because a new answer is needed, a new response is needed.

Linelli said to his daughter, "I no like-a that Irish boy taking-a you out. He's a-rough and common and besides he's-a big-a dumbbell."

"No papa," replied the girl. "Tim is the most clever fella I know. Why you say-a that? We have only been dating for nine weeks," the daughter replied, "and already he has cured me of that little illness I used to get every month."

Michael, don't try to cling to memory. Here nobody is bothered about where you come from; in fact nobody knows. Everybody comes from nowhere and goes on disappearing into nowhere again. Sydney or Calcutta or Bombay or San Francisco or Rome or London are all stations between two nowheres. And the trains are becoming faster; they don't stop on every station! There is no need to be worried. If you forget everything that you know, you will not be a loser -- because what do you know? It is not valuable at all. In fact it will be a great richness if you can forget all that you know, and suddenly enter into a state of not-knowing, fresh and young and innocent -- childlike. That's what meditation is, and that's what brings tremendous intelligence to you: to face every moment with a totally new response not borrowed from the past.

The most important thing... if you want to remember, if you are addicted to remembering and if you find it difficult, then don't be bothered about where you come from; then be bothered about where you are going to. That is better. At least that will keep you open, searching, hoping. Why cling to graves, and why be a digger of graves? Your memory-system is nothing but a graveyard. Try to live without memory, and see how life becomes suddenly fresh. Every face looks so new... you can even fall in love with your own wife.

Be happy! And next time when somebody asks you from where you are coming, just ask him: "From where does everybody else come?" -- nobody knows. And nobody knows where we are going.

Still, the going is good, we are enjoying. Who cares about the beginning and the end?

The real thing is in-between -- the pilgrimage.

I want to make your pilgrimage a bliss, a benediction, without any goal and without any source.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

THESE LAST FEW DAYS I OFTEN FIND MYSELF BEING IN VERY DRAMATIC

AND MISERABLE MOODS. I SEE MYSELF WALKING AROUND WITH A LONG, LONG FACE AND WITH THOUGHTS LIKE, "I AM A FAILURE." THEN

SUDDENLY SOMETHING -- ANYTHING -- HAPPENS, AND I JUST STAND

THERE, WATCHING AND FEELING AN OVERWHELMING GIGGLING INSIDE

ME, WHICH INCREASES TO A BIG SMILE AND SOMETIMES EVEN TO AN

EXPLOSION OF LAUGHTER AND THE FEELING OF BEING ABSOLUTELY

HAPPY. IT IS ALWAYS SO STRONG THAT I CAN'T EVEN HOLD ON TO MY

DRAMATIC MOOD ANYMORE! YESTERDAY, IN ONE OF THESE SITUATIONS, WITH THE GIGGLING FROM SOMEWHERE DEEP INSIDE ME CAME THE

WORDS: "LAUGH YOUR WAY TO GOD." IT FELT LIKE A RECIPE FOR

GROWTH. OSHO, DOES THIS GIGGLING HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE

WATCHER INSIDE ME? WOULD YOU PLEASE SPEAK ON THE RELATIONSHIP

BETWEEN EASY-GOING LAUGHTER AND THE WATCHER?

Lokita, there is certainly a relationship between the watcher and the laughter arising in you, because the watcher can see not only the stupidities of other people, but the stupidities of your own.

The watcher could see your dramatic mood. Before the watcher came in, you were identified with the dramatic mood; you had forgotten that it is just a dramatic mood.

Just watch people. Everybody is carrying a face which is a role, repeating some dialogue inside, preparing himself -- what he is going to say to the wife, because he is late.... And he knows perfectly well that not even once in his whole life has he been able to deceive her, but still he goes on doing the same stupidity.

If the watcher comes in, if suddenly you remember to witness, you will start giggling at yourself that you are such a fool. You go on falling in the same ditch every day, deciding every day never to fall again in the same ditch. But when the ditch comes close by, the attraction, the fascination, of falling in the ditch is so much that you forget all your decisions. You console yourself, "Just once more. From tomorrow, I'm going to keep my word, given to myself." But this has happened so many times. And you will do it your whole life, unless you allow the watcher to see the ridiculous acts that you are doing.

And there is certainly a deep relationship. As you watch you will start giggling about why you unnecessarily have a serious face. In fact, nobody is even looking at you; you can relax. And even if they are looking at you, a serious face is not a beauty. A joyous face, a face full of smile, radiant with some deep blissfulness, may be worth having. If you are being an actor, then choose at least some good act, some good part!

Everybody has chosen such ugly parts; their faces are dull and sad, their vibe that of a corpse. Still they want everybody to love them, respect them. And even dogs don't bark, even they tolerate; they just don't look, just "Let him go." Dogs also get tired, barking unnecessarily the whole day. They have their own fundamental ideology; they bark at people who wear uniforms -- policemen, postmen, sannyasins. They are absolutely against uniforms. They are certainly very rebellious people. They don't want any organizations in the world; everybody should be an individual. "What is this nonsense!"

The whole army, the whole brigade is going, and all the people are in the same dress --

dogs cannot resist the temptation to protest.

You pass by; even the dog does not protest. But if you watch, you will giggle! You will giggle at yourself, "Why you are carrying such a face?" and you will giggle at the dog,

"Why are you ignoring me? You are also trying to be very serious." And you will be surprised, if you are really watching, that the dog is also giggling at you.

Lokita, if you don't believe me, you can try with Niskriya; he's such a serious man. Just look at him with a giggling face, and he is bound to giggle. Although it is against his German background -- he's a serious photographer, totally dedicated to his art; he does not look here and there -- but even he will laugh. And you will help him in being watchful too, because while you are laughing, watchfulness is easiest.

Perhaps you have not noted that fact. Next time you have a full-hearted laugh, try to see a very fundamental fact: watching is easiest while you are laughing, because laughing is not a serious act, and laughing is natural. Laughing creates in you an atmosphere of silence. If your laughter is really total, mind stops -- "Let this fool first laugh." Those are the moments when you can bring in the watcher very easily.

You heard these words "Laugh your way to God." Just remember that you don't laugh your way to a serious God, that's all. Laugh your way to a laughing God -- which is a very rare phenomenon. You will find on the way many gods who are absolutely serious, who have forgotten laughter.

Just for your giggling... and remember to watch while you are giggling: The first grade class gathered around the teacher for a game of "Guess the Animal." The first picture the teacher held up was a cat. "Okay, boys and girls," she said brightly, "can anyone tell me what this is?"

"I know! I know! It is a cat." Yelled a little boy.

"Very good, Eddy. Now who knows what this animal is called?"

"That's a dog," piped up the same little boy.

"Right again. And what about this animal?" she asked holding up a picture of a deer.

Silence fell over the class. After a minute or two the teacher said, "I will give you a hint, children, listen. It is something that your mother calls your father around the house."

"I know! I know!" screamed Eddy, "It is a horny bastard!"

A sailor from the Greek navy was stranded on a desert island and managed to survive by making friends with the local natives -- such good friends, in fact, that one day the chief offered him his daughter for an evening entertainment. Late that night, while they made love, the chief's daughter kept shouting, "Oga, boga! Oga, boga!" The arrogant sailor assumed this must be how the natives express their appreciation when something is fantastic.

A few days later the chief invites the sailor for a game of golf. On his first stroke, the chief hit a hole in one. Eager to try out his new vocabulary, the Greek enthusiastically shouted "Oga boga! Oga boga!"

The chief turned around with a puzzled look on his face and asked, "What you mean,

`Wrong hole?'"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #29

Chapter title: When the archer is perfect

26 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705260

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN29

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

80

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU LEAVE THE HALL EVERY DAY, LOOKING AT ALL OF US, I FEEL

SO BATHED AND SOAKED IN YOUR LOVE AND RADIANCE. WHEN YOU

WERE DANCING WITH US, I EXPERIENCED THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, JOYFUL, AND ECSTATIC MOMENTS WITH YOU. I COULD NOT IMAGINE THERE

COULD EVER BE MORE. BUT NOW, WHEN YOU GENTLY WALK OUT,

FACING US, THE FEELING INSIDE OF ME IS SO VAST, SO MUCH MORE THAN

ANYTHING BEFORE, THAT I FEEL TOTALLY OVERWHELMED BY PRECIOUS

LOVINGNESS. COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Prem Turiya, there is a music which has no sounds, and there is a dance which has no movement. They are the highest expressions of grace.

While dancing, singing, rejoicing, you were feeling ecstatic, and you could not have believed that anything more is possible. Now, you are experiencing still the same dance, just the movements have been taken out, the same music, only the sounds have been dropped. It is a purification of the ecstasy. That's why you feel something higher is being experienced.

I have always loved a Chinese story about an archer who was the greatest archer in the whole land. He went to the emperor saying that the whole country should be made aware that if anybody wants to contest with him, he's available. "If nobody turns up, then you have to declare me the champion of archery." The emperor knew the man, and he knew his art, his archery, and he knew there was nobody else who could even come close to him. His art was perfect; he never missed a target. So the emperor was willing to declare him the champion of archery in the whole land of China.

Just at that moment, his old prime minister prevented him saying, "Wait a minute, because I know a man who lives far away in the mountains. Unless this archer goes to that old man, and that old man certifies that he should be declared the champion, you should wait. You should not be in a hurry, because that old man is not only the champion of this land, he is the champion of the whole world, although he's a non-competitive man, non-ambitious, and people don't know about him. Send this archer first to get a certificate from that old man." And he gave the directions where the old man would be found.

The archer could not believe that anyone could be better; he was one hundred percent successful in hitting the bulls eye exactly in the middle, he never missed the target. It was inconceivable for him that anybody could be a better archer! But there was no way.... The emperor told him to go to the mountains, and bring a certificate.

It was a difficult journey. The old man lived on a very high peak of the mountain, alone.

He was really very old, almost ancient, and he had no bow, no arrows. He was just sitting under a tree. The archer asked, "Are you the man who is the greatest archer in the world?"

The old man said, "Perhaps, because on this mountain nobody else lives. But I can't be certain because I have never been competitive. As far as archery is concerned, for twenty years I have not touched the bow, have not seen the arrows. In fact, I have lost track where they are. But what is the problem? Why have you traveled so far?"

The young man said, "I knew it before that this would be an unnecessary journey! A man who has not touched the bow for twenty years, and who has even forgotten where his bow and his arrows are...."

Still, because of the emperor's requirement, he said to the old man, "I want to be declared the champion of the art in the whole country, and the emperor has sent me to get your certificate."

The old man said, "That is not difficult. But seeing a bow with you, and the arrows, makes me suspicious that you are an amateur because the old saying is: `When the musician becomes perfect, he throws away his musical instruments; when the archer becomes really an archer, perfect in his art, he breaks down his bow, and throws the arrows.' They are good to begin with, but one has to transcend technique at a certain moment. You will have to pass two tests: one is, do you see that protruding rock over the valley?"

There was a long rock, very low, protruding over a very deep valley, thousands of feet deep. The old man said, "Go to that rock, to the very end. The test is to stand at the very end, with half your feet hanging over the rock, with just the front part, your toes, on the rock. If you can stand there without any trembling, you have passed the first test."

The man said, "My God! But what kind of archery is this? This is sure death!"

But the old man said, "I will go first to show you the way it has to be done."

He could not believe his eyes. The old man went to the very end of the protruding rock; and he stood there with half the feet on the rock, over the valley thousands of feet deep.

And there was not even a small wavering or trembling. He called the young man, "Now, come on, and stand by my side."

The young man tried just one step on the rock. As he looked downward, such fear overwhelmed him... he fell on the ground, trembling, perspiring. He could not reach the end -- he was only at the beginning of the rock.

The old man said, "What is the matter? Come on, have courage. If you are so fearful and trembling inside, your archery cannot be of great value, because it is your hands which will take the bow and it is your hands which will take the arrows; it is your heart which has to be used in it. This fear... try, make an effort."

He started crawling on all fours. Standing and moving on that rock, he found impossible.

Those thousands of feet were so dangerous; just a single wrong step and you will never be found. You will be broken into bits and pieces and thrown over the whole valley.

But he could reach by crawling only to the middle. He said, "More than that, I cannot do."

The old man laughed. He came back, supported the man to stand up, and took him back to the tree. He said, "I had said you are just an amateur; otherwise there is no need of this bow and these arrows. Now, look at me: when the archer becomes perfect his eyes become arrows, his very being becomes the bow."

He looked at a flying flock of twelve cranes, and they all fell down on the earth. He said,

"If you can make even a single bird fall down on the earth, just with your eyes, I will certify you."

The young man said, "That is impossible. How can one do it?"

The old man said, "I have just done it, and not one, twelve cranes are just dead, lying before you."

The young man said, "You are right; I am simply an amateur. I would like to be accepted as a disciple; I would like to learn archery."

The old man said, "That sounds right. Be here."

After ten years, the old man said, "Now you can go back, but don't go to the emperor; go home. The day you suddenly realize, seeing your bow hanging on the wall, that you cannot recognize it, that is the day you can go to the emperor."

The emperor was becoming very old, and he enquired again and again from his prime minister, "What happened to that young man?"

The prime minister said, "He has reached the old man; I have been watching. He's learning, he has reached his home, and now he's waiting for the sign to come."

The emperor said, "I am becoming very old."

One day, a few years after coming home, the man looked at the bow hanging on the wall, and enquired of his son, "What is that object?"

The son said, "Have you gone mad? It is your bow, those are your arrows."

He said, "Bow? Arrows? Am I an archer?"

The son said, "Are you laughing at me, or kidding me? or just going senile?"

He said, "No, the time has come. I have to go to the emperor."

The son asked, "For what?"

He said, "To be declared the champion of archery in the land."

He went to the emperor. The prime minister said, "Have you brought the certificate?"

He said, "I am the certificate."

They were sitting in the garden. He looked at a bird flying faraway in the sky, almost invisible. But as he looked at the bird, the bird came falling to the feet of the emperor.

The emperor said, "Is this archery or some kind of magic?"

The man said, "I don't know, but this is what that old man has taught me: that if you are a perfect archer, you don't need the bow, you don't need the arrows; your eyes are enough.

If you are a perfect musician, you don't need instruments; your silence is music enough."

It is a beautiful story, very ancient, almost three thousand years old. Lao Tzu used to tell the story to his disciples, and that was twenty-five centuries ago. The story must have been far older.

As you become more and more in tune with me, just being here with me, there is music, there is dance. Your ears will not hear it, and your eyes will not see it, but you will feel it; your being will be soaked with it.

Every art has to reach to a point where technologies are dropped. Every meditation has to reach to the point where methods are dropped. They are good for the beginners, for learning the ABC's, but when you have reached to the point of XYZ, they are of no use.

Silently, you are filled with music.

Without moving, you are dancing.

Without any thought, any feeling in you, there is just pure grace, gratitude arising out of you, just like fragrance arising out of a lotus flower.

One has to reach to this point. Only then one is fulfilled. Only then, one has attained his destiny.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THOSE OLD MASTERS MADE DISCIPLESHIP LIKE SITTING IN A DENTIST'S

WAITING ROOM, FULL OF ANCIENT MAGAZINES AND WITH A BORED, OLD

GOLDFISH SWIMMING ROUND AND ROUND IN A BOWL. YOU HAVE

KNOCKED OUT THE WALLS, REMOVED THE ROOF, AND DO YOUR SURGERY

OUT IN THE SUNLIGHT WHILE WE ALL WATCH, LAUGHING AND DANCING, BARELY ABLE TO WAIT FOR OUR TURN TO BE ON THE TABLE. THE

MASTERS WHO FOLLOW YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE ONE HELL-OF-A JOB

BECAUSE YOU HAVE SET A WHOLE NEW STANDARD OF BEHAVIOR; NOT

ONLY THAT, YOU KEEP ON RAISING IT. IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE, BUT IT GOES

ON GETTING MORE AND MORE. I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT

ENLIGHTENMENT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE, BUT YOU SEEM TO BE

GETTING MORE JUICE OUT OF IT THAN ANYBODY I HAVE EVER HEARD

ABOUT. WILL YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE MASTERS WHO WILL FOLLOW YOU?

Devageet, it is true I am getting more juice out of enlightenment then anybody else who has ever become enlightened on the earth, for the simple reason that to them, enlightenment was a serious search for God, or for self.

To me, seriousness is sickness. To me, enlightenment is not a serious search, but a playful, joyful wandering into the unknown.

In the past, all the enlightened people were goal oriented. I am not. To me, the pilgrimage itself is the goal -- every moment enjoying the sun, the moon, the trees, the mountains, the rivers, the surprising turns in life; but enjoying them with intensity and totality, squeezing all the juice out of them.

The day you become capable of squeezing all the juice out of any moment of life, so that not even a single drop of juice is left behind, you are enlightened.

Enlightenment is not a goal somewhere far away.

It is something that you have to live every moment.

Unenlightenment is a way of living -- unconscious, groping in the dark. Enlightenment is also a way of living... enjoying, if it is day, what the day brings the flowers, the trees, the sun rays or if it is night, the silence and its music, the depth of darkness, the beauty and vastness of darkness. There is no question of groping. When it is night, you enjoy the night; you are not even thinking of the dawn. When it is day, you enjoy the day, not bothering even about the full-moon night.

Living each moment as if this is the first and the last moment is the way of enlightenment.

In the past, the masters were very serious. They made the life of the seeker very arduous, torturous, unnecessarily -- perhaps those ages should be called the dark ages of the soul.

We have reached the dawn. A delightful, relaxed laughter is possible for my people, which has never been allowed in the past. We have grown up; we have come to a certain maturity.

I am the end of an old tradition, and the beginning of a new line, a new category.

You are asking me to speak about the masters who will follow me. Who bothers? I am utterly concerned with the present. Whether any master follows or not is not my concern.

That's why I am absolutely without any worry, without any tension, without any thought, and without any dream.

I am being condemned all over the world. Everyday, Neelam and Anando bring news clippings from all over the world; people who don't know anything about me are unnecessarily freaking out. But as far as I am concerned, nothing makes even a dent in my consciousness.

Utter lies are being written about me. Just the other day there was news from Madras, in a Tamil magazine, that because of my teachings hundreds of women are running naked in California -- because I teach that man is born naked and it is his birthright to be naked.

And many of these women who are running naked in California are pregnant. I really enjoyed it! My teaching is bringing fruit.

Some other day, in a Hebrew magazine, there was a very serious article alerting the Israelis that my next target is Israel, that I am going to come to Israel. First I will become converted into a Jew, and then I will declare myself as the reincarnation of Moses; everything is planned, I am just waiting for the right time. I used to think there is a limit to lies, but I was wrong. There is no limit.

I am not at all concerned about the future. This moment is enough unto itself. I am enjoying it, you are enjoying it, and through us, the whole existence is feeling the ecstasy.

We have been showering the existence with more flowers than any communion that has ever existed on the earth.

One night, Hymie brought home a dozen roses for his wife. "How lovely, dear," she said.

"What is the occasion?" "I want to make love to you," he said simply enough. "Not tonight, dear. I have a headache," she whined.

The next night, Hymie came home with a big box of chocolates, and repeated his desire to make love. "Not tonight, lovely, I am awfully tired," said the wife.

Every night of the week, Hymie brought something, but each time his wife's answer was categorically, "No!" Finally, one night, he came home with six black kittens with little red balls around their necks, and handed them to his wife. "How adorable, Hymie," she exclaimed. "But what are they for?" "They, my dear, are the six pallbearers for your dead pussy."

Who cares about masters and disciples in the future? Right now, a joke is so enlightening!

You all are going to become enlightened -- if you don't become serious. You all are going to become great masters if you start collecting holy jokes -- because you will need them!

A Chinaman complains to his doctor of his being constipated. The doctor prescribes a strong laxative. However, a few days later, the Chinaman returns. "Have you had a movement yet?" asks the doctor.

"No, sir, me no move-ee, me no move-ee."

So the doctor doubled the dose of laxative.

Two days later, the Chinaman returns and reports no progress with his movement, so the doctor triples the prescription.

"Come back in three days," says the confounded doctor.

Three days later, the doctor greets the Chinaman. "Well, have you had a movement yet?"

"No, sir, me no move-ee yet. We move-ee tomorrow, though. House full of shit!"

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER MORNING IN DISCOURSE, YOU SHOWERED YOUR LOVE AND

GRACE ON US SO BEAUTIFULLY THAT I COULDN'T CONTAIN MYSELF. MY

TEARS WERE FLOWING, AND I FELT AS IF BEING LIFTED UP. IT WAS AS IF

THERE WAS NO ME, BUT SOME FEELING OF THE BEYOND. AFTER YOUR

TALK, I WAS IMMENSELY SAD WHEN I SAW THAT I WAS COMING BACK TO

THE PERSON CALLED ME. I EVEN BECAME VERY BITCHY TOWARDS MY

LOVER, ALTHOUGH I FELT VERY RELAXED. I WONDERED THEN WHETHER

IT IS MY CHOICE TO COME BACK TO MY FORMER STATE. OSHO, IS IT MY

DECISION TO RETURN FROM THAT SOMETHING I CALL BEYOND? IS IT

POSSIBLE THAT IF I CHANGED MY WHOLE ATTITUDE TOWARDS NORMAL

DAY-TO-DAY LIFE, I COULD REMAIN IN THAT BEAUTIFUL, OPEN, AND

RELAXED SPACE? COULD YOU PLEASE TALK ABOUT OUR RESPONSIBILITY

TOWARDS OURSELVES?

Lokita, every mountain has its own valleys, and every great experience of the beyond will be followed by a valley experience. You have to learn to enjoy the valley experience too.

Nobody can remain permanently in a certain stage of experience, and it is good and fortunate because if you are experiencing the beyond continuously, it will create only boredom and nothing else. Even to be with God twenty-four hours... how long can you tolerate it? You will need a few holidays to be with the devil!

Life is a dialectical phenomenon.

Life is always moving from one extreme to another extreme. Most of us don't want to be troubled by all these changes. We want a certain beautiful state, and to remain in it permanently forever. But then you will be dead, and that beautiful space will not stay beautiful long enough; you have to lose it again and again to keep it fresh, to keep it beautiful.

It is perfectly normal and natural that one moment you feel ecstatic, and another moment you fall into darkness. But nothing is wrong in darkness. The sunlit peaks have their own beauty, but the dark valleys have their own peace, and their own silence, their own depth, their own coolness.

Don't ask of life to be permanent at a single experience. Allow life to take you into all its dimensions. Just remember one thing: Whatever life offers to you, enjoy it. That is the golden key to transform every experience into a spiritual beatitude... not permanency but a flux, a river-like flow. Sometimes it is mountainous, and sometimes it is the plains; sometimes it is the ocean, sometimes it is moving into the clouds, and sometimes it is again raining. Accept the whole circle of life. In this acceptability is your authentic religiousness.

But I am not saying that after experiencing something beyond yourself, the next thing is to become bitchy to your poor lover, Niskriya. He's such a nice fellow, so silent, so centered in himself. I can understand that such fellows can create bitchiness in women --

just their very centeredness, their very silence, irritates women; they want to pull them down. But remember Niskriya is not the one to be pulled down. You can be bitchy, but he will just look at you through his glasses and go back to his work, just feeling amazed --

what kind of woman is this? But, Niskriya, all women of this kind, their greatest problem is to tolerate a man who is centered and silent and doing his own thing. They will poke their nose... Unless they interfere with you, unless they make you irritated, they will not find peace of heart.

Lokita, you are in a difficult position. Your bitchiness will not bring any joy to you; it will only bring frustration. But feeling something beyond yourself, there is no need to take revenge on poor Niskriya. He's the only marble Gautam Buddha here. Even I cannot laugh because of him. One just has to be respectful when you are sitting before a Gautam Buddha....

Perhaps your problem, Lokita, is that you are the girlfriend of a Gautam Buddha. Nobody suffers more in the world than the girlfriend of a Gautam Buddha, because you can be bitchy but he will simply be a witness.

The Jewish mothers meet in the marketplace. They are all proud of their sons, and want to brag about them.

The first one says, "Ah, my son is always so very gentle and polite with my husband and me."

The second one says, "Ah, my dear, my son is so very, very sweet with me. He does the shopping for me, he cleans my house, and each day he brings me flowers."

The third one says, "Ah, my son is much sweeter than that. Each time he goes to see his psychoanalyst, he only speaks of me."

When you are coming down from an experience beyond yourself, you would like poor Niskriya to talk about you. He cannot do that. He is simply not that kind of man. You have gone beyond the "me", and you would like somebody to remind you of it. Don't expect it from Niskriya. Even your bitchiness will not help.

After coming back from the beyond, be silent. Enjoy this coming back; there is nothing wrong in it. Don't feel guilty, and don't ask for any support. The spiritual path is absolutely alone. Boyfriends and girlfriends are not allowed together; they have to go separately.

So whenever you touch a height, enjoy the height; whenever you touch the bottom, enjoy the bottom. One thing should remain continuously flowing in you -- the enjoyment.

Giggle within yourself when you are beyond yourself, and giggle within yourself when you are within yourself -- but giggling should continue. Make life a laughter when great things are happening, and when nothing is happening, laughter should continue.

Laughter should be the running thread of the garland of flowers of all your ecstasies and experiences of the beyond. They will change, but one thread of laughter can continue within you.

Laughter is almost the shrine of the witness.

Within the laughter, you will always find the watcher. And to become a watcher without discontinuity, without gaps, is all that is meant by enlightenment.

But don't interfere with enlightened people like Niskriya. When I first saw him in Kathmandu I immediately picked him up. He is such a silent man, never interfering with anybody -- except with my air conditioners, because they make noise, and he is a perfect photographer; that noise disturbs his photography.

I have kept watchers so he does not interfere with my air conditioners, but sometimes, when there is nobody else here, he puts them down half. Last night, he succeeded. He is not concerned that I will be suffering with hot air, his concern is his photography. But I don't blame him; everybody just has to watch him, that he never comes near my air conditioners!

Lokita, particularly for you, the instruction is that when you want to be bitchy with him, put my air conditioners on full!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #30

Chapter title: Life is a deep interdependence

26 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705265

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN30

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

82

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THE SILENCE I EXPERIENCE LATELY IN YOUR PRESENCE IS BECOMING

VASTER AND DEEPER; AND WHEN YOU LEAVE CHUANG TZU AUDITORIUM, TEARS ROLL GENTLY DOWN MY FACE AND I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN

TO STAY THERE. SO IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE ACTIVE AFTERWARDS BECAUSE

I KNOW SLOWLY THE EXPERIENCE WILL CHANGE, AND I WOULD LIKE TO

REMAIN THERE. BELOVED MASTER, IS LOVE SO FRAGILE THAT WE

CANNOT HOLD IT EVEN WITH TWO FINGERS?

Prem Azima, everything that is of value is fragile. Beauty is fragile, silence is fragile, love is fragile. Look at a roseflower dancing in the wind, and in the rain, and in the sun. It seems it is strong enough for the wild wind, strong enough for the sun, strong enough for the rain. It is very fragile; by the evening, its petals will be thrown in all directions. But while it was, it was tremendous; while it was, it was more than any rock. The rock will remain, the rock is permanent; the flower will come and go. The higher the value, the more fragile it is.

One has to deeply understand it; otherwise you start clinging to great experiences, and you destroy those experiences by your very clinging. They are so fragile that your clinging can destroy them, your attachment can destroy them; even your desire to continue them can be poison, destructive, murderous to them.

As you become acquainted more and more with silence, peace, blissfulness, ecstasy, you will have also to learn the lesson: enjoy them while they are at their fullest, and when they go, let them go with a joyful and grateful heart.

Yes, tears are allowed, but not tears of pain -- tears of prayer, tears of gratitude. The more easily you let them go, the more those experiences come to you. And once you have understood the science that your let-go is the way to desire them, to long for them -- not the desire, but a desireless love -- one should feel blissful enough, even if a fragile experience visits you only once. If you are grateful, it is bound to come again and again.

Slowly, slowly, it may not go at all; it may become your very heartbeat. It can your very breathing, but one has to learn the whole science.

Ordinarily, what our mind is going to do is to close the doors, close the windows, and keep the fresh breeze in, so that it cannot escape. But just by closing all the doors and the windows you have destroyed the freshness of the breeze; soon it will be stale. It will have lost its dance, it will have lost its aliveness; you will be sitting by the side of a corpse.

And people are sitting by the side of corpses -- corpses of love, which they call marriages, corpses of prayer, which they call their temples, their churches, their mosques, and corpses of authentic and sincere experiences, which they call holy scriptures. People are surrounded by corpses. And if you keep company with corpses, you cannot remain alive very long yourself; you will become a corpse amongst other corpses. It is a very dangerous friendship.

Beware of it! Learn the simple fact that truth, love, beauty, bliss -- all are very fragile, very momentary. You cannot grasp them in your fist; they are like fragrances. You cannot run after them. You have to wait and trust: the same existence that has brought an experience to you will bring many more. It is abundant, it wants to share, but it can share only with people who are not hoarders. It can share only with people who know the momentariness, the fragileness -- and the beauty of fragileness, and the joy of momentariness.

Only dead things are permanent.

All that is alive is changing, moment to moment.

All that is alive is living under the risk of death at any moment. If you want to be secure, absolutely secure, then you will have to enter into your grave; only graveyards are absolutely secure places. In a grave, nothing else happens; everything stops, time stops, nothing changes anymore. Even death cannot do any harm to you.

But if you want to be alive, then more aliveness... the more you have to be alert and aware of the fragileness of all the qualities that are not created and manufactured by man, which descend from the beyond -- unpredictable, out of nowhere, suddenly overwhelming you. Don't think about whether they will remain or go, because if you get into thinking about your future, and the possibility of the experience remaining permanently with you, you may miss everything. Enjoy it, dance with it, let time cease.

Put the mind aside. Then even a single moment is equal to eternity.

You are asking, Azima, "The silence I experience lately in your presence is becoming vaster and deeper; and when you leave Chuang Tzu auditorium, tears roll gently down my face and I want nothing more than to stay there. So it is difficult to be active afterwards because I know slowly the experience will change."

It will change. Even if you don't do anything, even if you stay here it will change. It does not change because you have to go to work, it changes because change is the nature of life. And it is good that it changes. Otherwise, tomorrow you will not have again the tremendous experience of silence. You will be carrying the stale, old experience of yesterday; you won't have space enough for the new to enter in.

Change is favorable to life. That's why even death, I say, is favorable to life -- because it is the greatest change. It brings you into new spaces, into new forms, into new existences; it keeps your pilgrimage continuously new, it keeps your excitement alive. Every moment remains always a challenge and a deep awaiting, because anything is possible. Silence can come to you, blissfulness can come to you, ecstasy can descend into your heart, truth can open its doors; life is full of mysteries, uncountable. So when it happens, be thankful

-- and move on.

And slowly, slowly, as you become more acquainted with the depth of silence, while you are working, doing something, the unknown guest may come suddenly and stand by your side.

A time comes when these experiences start following you like a shadow; just close by, you can feel their coolness, you can smell their fragrance. Just remember not to grab, not to possess, not to make the effort of changing them into your property. They come in freedom, and they remain in freedom. You cannot enslave them.

The desire, Azima, is not only yours; it is as ancient as man. Man has tried to capture truth in words and failed, utterly failed; he has tried to capture beauty in sculpture and failed; he has even tried to capture God into temples -- and has utterly failed. But such is the blindness, that nobody sees all these failures! Your temples, your churches, your synagogues are landmarks of your failures. Your scriptures are the failures of your forefathers, of trying to catch hold of truth in words.

Words have remained, but the truth has evaporated. Now they go on worshiping these scriptures, these statues.

All the religions are nothing but failures. That's why they are against a man like Jesus or Socrates or Mansoor -- because these people's crime is that they have tried to make you aware that you are blind, that what you are worshiping is not truth, but a corpse. Perhaps once there was truth... but people behave like drunkards.

An old English lady was looking through her curtains. Spying on her neighbors, she saw a man coming out of the house opposite. He rushed to the side of the road, jumped three feet into the air, and fell flat on his face. The old lady ran to his side and asked, "Excuse me, what happened?"

"I was late for work, and I came rushing out, and jumped on my bike. But I forgot -- I have not got one!"

In a hurry, it is possible to forget.

I have heard about a drunkard who was watching a man doing pushups on the beach. For a long time the drunkard went around him, looked from every side, and finally said,

"Listen, man, I should not interfere in whatever you are doing, but I cannot resist the temptation any more. Your girl is no longer there; you are unnecessarily doing exercises.

She must have gone long ago, because I have been watching you for almost one hour; you are perspiring, huffing and puffing, and the girl is no longer there, I have looked from every nook and corner. Strange that this man is so deep in love!"

But in life, that's exactly what we are doing with all our fragile experiences. Somehow we have an unconscious desire for things to be permanent. Why this desire is in the unconscious, is something to be explored. Perhaps it is the fear of death. Most probably it is, because we are ourselves fragile. This moment you are alive, next moment you may be gone. Because of our own fragileness, we desire to have permanency in everything around us as a security, as a safety. But if we are fragile, how can our experiences be anything else?

An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Polack have been stranded on a desert island for almost a year, when they discover a lamp lying in the sand. They rub it, and sure enough, a genie appears.

"Well, gentleman," says the genie, "traditionally, I give the finder one of three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant you one wish each."

The Englishman speaks right up: "I know what I want. I wish to be back on Hampstead High Street, having a pint in my favorite club."

Poof! He disappears.

The Frenchman speaks up: "I wish to be back in Paris, in a nice little restaurant, with a bottle of good wine, and a gorgeous woman by my side."

Poof! He disappears.

The Polack is thinking and thinking, when finally the genie asks him, "And what is your wish, my friend?"

"Gee, I only want to be the pope at the Vatican."

Poof! And he disappears.

Many have wondered why a Polack has become the pope. Now I open up the secret.

Poof! And the Polack becomes the pope.

But that is how things disappear. Enjoy them while they are, and don't ask for any permanence, because permanence is non-existential; it is only in our desires, out of fear of death. But in existence, everything is change. Existence believes in the law of change.

Every moment, everything is changing. Our language gives us a very fallacious idea, because our language consists of nouns and pronouns, and existence knows only verbs.

When you see the river, the actual fact is that there is not a river; the actual fact is that there is a rivering, because the water is continuously flowing. A tree does not exist, there is only treeing, because the tree is continuously growing. And the same is the case with you. You won't go back from this place the same as you have entered -- so much water will have gone down the Ganges.

Gautam Buddha was the first man in history who reminded his disciples that existence consists only of verbs, not of nouns, not of pronouns. To make a language only of verbs, will be very difficult, almost impossible -- conversation will become so ridiculous -- so we have to continue to use nouns and pronouns. But remember, deep down, that there is nothing static.

Don't be befooled by the language you use. Look around, everything is changing -- every moment, every split second. And once you understand change as the God of existence, your whole life pattern -- your attitudes, your approaches, your style -- will change accordingly. You will become more of a flow than a dirty pond.

You will become more like a river, a pilgrimage into the unknown towards the ocean, where even you are going to disappear.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IN YOUR VISION OF A MODEL SOCIETY, WOULD THERE BE ONE LARGE

COMMUNE, OR A SERIES OF COMMUNES? IF THERE IS MORE THAN ONE, WHAT WOULD BE THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO ONE ANOTHER? DO YOU

ENVISAGE PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT COMMUNES BEING ABLE TO BE

INTERDEPENDENT, SHARING IDEAS AND SKILLS, AND WITHOUT ANY OF

THE ATTITUDES THAT GROW OUT OF POSSESSIVENESS, LIKE

NATIONALISM AND FANATICISM?

Maneesha, the question raises a very important thing: the concept of interdependence.

Man has lived in dependence, and man has desired and fought for independence, but nobody looks into the reality -- that dependence and independence both are extremes.

Reality is exactly in the middle; it is interdependence. Everything is interdependent. The smallest blade of grass and the biggest star both are interdependent. This is the whole foundation of ecology. Because man has behaved without understanding the reality of interdependence. He has destroyed so much of the organic unity of life. He has been cutting his own hands, his own legs, without knowing.

Forests have disappeared, millions of trees are being cut every day. Just now scientists are giving warnings -- but nobody is ready to listen -- that if all trees disappear from the earth, man cannot live. We are in a deep inter-exchange. Man goes on breathing in oxygen, and throwing out carbon dioxide; trees go on inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen. Neither you can exist without the trees, nor can the trees exist without you.

This is a simple example; otherwise life is interwoven in a thousand and one ways....

Because many trees have disappeared, so much carbon dioxide has gathered in the atmosphere, that it has raised the temperature on the whole earth by four degrees. To you it may seem insignificant -- four degrees -- but it is not insignificant. By the end of this century, this temperature will be enough to melt so much ice that every ocean will rise four feet higher. One degree of temperature more means the ocean rises one foot higher.

So the cities which are on the coast of the oceans -- and all the great cities are there -- will be flooded with water.

If the temperature goes on increasing, as is the possibility, because nobody is listening....

Trees are being cut, without any understanding, for useless things; for third rate newspapers you need newsprint, and you are destroying life. There is a possibility that if the eternal ice of the Himalayas starts melting, which has never happened in the whole past, then all the oceans will rise twenty feet higher, and will drown almost the whole earth. They will destroy all your cities -- Bombay and Calcutta, New York,London, and San Francisco. Perhaps a few primitive people who live high in the mountains may survive.

Such is the interdependence that when your first astronauts reached to the moon, we became aware for the first time that the whole earth is surrounded by a thick sheet of ozone, which is a form of oxygen. That layer of ozone surrounds the whole earth, like a blanket. It has been because of this ozone blanket that life has become possible on this planet, because ozone does not allow in the death rays that come from the sun. It allows in only the life rays and prevents the death rays; it returns them.

But in our stupidity to reach to the moon, we have made holes in the blanket. And the efforts continue. Now we are trying to reach Mars! Each time a rocket goes beyond the atmosphere of the earth, that is two hundred miles beyond, it creates great holes. Through those holes, death rays have started entering in. Now scientists are saying that these death rays will increase the rate of cancer by almost thirty percent; and other diseases are not counted, small diseases are not counted.

The stupid politicians are not listening. And if you call them stupid, then you are jailed, you are punished; false allegations are made against you. But I don't see what else to call them. Stupid seems to be the most gentle and the most cultured word for them. They don't deserve it; they deserve something worse.

Life is a deep interdependence.

My vision of commune, Maneesha, is that nations disappear, big cities disappear, because they don't allow enough space for every human being -- and every human being has a certain psychological need for a territorial imperative, just like other animals. In big cities, man is continuously moving in a crowd. That creates great anxiety, tension, agony, and does not allow him any time to relax, any time, any place, to be himself -- to be alone, to be with the trees, which are life-giving sources, to be with the ocean, which is a life-giving source.

My vision of a new world, the world of communes, means no nations, no big cities, no families, but millions of small communes spread all over the earth in thick forests, lush green forests, in mountains, on islands. The smallest commune manageable, which we have already tried, can be of five thousand people, and the biggest commune can be of fifty thousand people. From five thousand to fifty thousand -- more than that will become unmanageable; then again comes the question of order and law, and the police, and the court, and all old criminals have to be brought back.

Small communes... five thousand seems to be the perfect number, because we have tried that. Everybody knows everybody else, all are friends. There is no marriage -- children belong to the commune. The commune has hospitals, schools, colleges. The commune takes care of the children; parents can visit them. It is simply insignificant whether the parents are living together or they have separated. For the child, they both are available; he can visit them, they can visit him.

All the communes should be interdependent, but they will not exchange money. Money should be dissolved. It has done tremendous harm to humanity. Now it is time to say goodbye to it!

These communes should exchange things. You have more milk products; you can give them to another commune, because you need more clothes, and that commune can provide you with more clothes -- a simple barter system, so no commune becomes rich.

Money is a very strange thing. You can accumulate it; that is the strangest secret of money. You cannot accumulate milk products, you cannot accumulate vegetables. If you have more vegetables you have to share with some commune which has not enough vegetables.

But money can be accumulated. And if one commune becomes richer than the other commune, then comes from the back door, the poverty and the richness and the whole nightmare of capitalism, and the classes of the poor and the rich, and the desire to dominate, because you are rich. You can enslave other communes. Money is one of the enemies of man.

Communes will be exchanging. They will be broadcasting on their radio stations, that such and such a product is available from them. Anybody who has certain other products that they need can contact them, and things can be exchanged in a friendly way; there is no haggling, there is no exploitation. But the commune should not become too big, because bigness is also dangerous.

A commune's criterion of bigness should be that everybody knows everybody else; that should be the limit. Once that limit is crossed, the commune should divide itself into two.

Just as two brothers separate, when a commune becomes big enough it divides itself into two communes, two sister communes. And there will be a deep interdependence, sharing ideas and skills, without any of the attitudes that grow out of possessiveness -- like nationalism and fanaticism. There will be nothing to be fanatic about. There will be no reason for a nation.

A small group of people can enjoy life more easily, because to have so many friends, so many acquaintances, is a joy unto itself. Today in the big cities, you live in the same house and you don't know your neighbor. In one house one hundred thousand people may be living. A one hundred story building can contain that many people -- almost a whole city. And they are absolute strangers to each other, living in a crowd, and yet being alone.

My idea of a commune is, living in small groups, which gives you enough space, and yet living in a close, loving, relationship. Your children are taken care of by the commune, your needs are taken care of by the commune, your medical care is taken care of by the commune. The commune becomes an authentic family without any diseases that families have created in the past. It is a loose family and a constant movement.

There is no question of any marriage, and no question of any divorce. If two persons want to be together, they can be together, and if one day they don't want to be together, that is perfectly good. It was their decision to be together; now they can choose other friends. In fact, in one life why not live many lives? Why not make it richer? Why should a man cling to a woman, or a woman cling to a man unless they enjoy each other so much that they want to be together for their whole life. But looking at the world, the situation is clear. People would like to be independent from their families; children want to be independent from their families.

Just the other day, one small boy in California did something unique and special. He wanted to go out and play. This was nothing special; all children should be allowed to go out and play. But the mother and father insisted, "No, don't go out; just play inside the house." And the boy shot both the mother and the father. He played inside the house.

There is a limit... always listening to "no, no, no!"

In America the time rate of husbands and wives changing is three years. It is the same rate that people change their jobs; it is the same time-rate people change cities. There seems to be something special about three years. It seems it is the limit one can tolerate.

Beyond that, it becomes intolerable. So people change wives and husbands, people change cities, people change jobs.

But in a commune, there is no need to make any fuss. You can say goodbye any moment, and you can still remain friends, because who knows? After two years, you may fall in love again with the same man, with the same woman. In two years time you may have forgotten all the troubles, and you want to have a taste again; or perhaps you had fallen into the hands of a worse man and a worse woman, and you repent, and you want to go back! But it will be a richer life; you will have known many men and many women. Each man has his own uniqueness, and each woman has her own uniqueness.

Communes can also exchange people, if somebody wants to move into another commune, and the other commune is willing to accept. The other commune may say, "If somebody else wants to go into your commune, exchange is possible -- because we don't want to raise our population." People can decide. You can go and advertise yourself; some woman may like you, some people may turn friends. Somebody may have been bored in that commune, and would like to change their commune....

The whole world should be one humanity, only divided by small communes on a practical basis: No fanaticism, no racism, no nationalism. Then, for the first time, we can drop the idea of wars. We can make life with honesty, worth living, worth enjoying; playful, meditative, creative, and give every man and every woman equal opportunity to grow and bring their potential to flowering.

The scene is the crucifixion. Three huge crosses are outlined against the sky, as the sun sets. A crowd of jeering soldiers and citizens surround the dying man, Jesus. Raising his eyes, he looks to the back of the mob and sees Peter trying to hide himself.

"Peter, Peter," Jesus cries in a hoarse voice. "Come closer, come closer!"

Peter wraps his cloak around his head and pretends not to hear. Jesus with his last strength calls out, "Peter, please... come closer."

Peter, realizing that he cannot ignore his dying master, creeps to the foot of the cross,

"Yes, Lord, what do you want of me?"

"Peter, I can see my house from up here!"

His house must have been deep down in the city of Jerusalem; he is dying on the cross, hanging high up, and he wants to share his experience. I have always loved the story that even at the time of death, he says, "From here, from this height... I can see my house from up here."

Jesus was crucified only once. I have been on the cross almost my whole life. Jesus was crucified in a small unknown part of the world, Judea. I have been crucified in almost every country of the world. And my crime is that I can see the new house where man will live in the future: the new man, his new house, his new commune, his new future.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #31

Chapter title: Watchfulness -- the essential religion

27 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705270

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN31

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

70

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER NIGHT A GIRLFRIEND OF MINE WOLF-WHISTLED AT YOU IN

DARSHAN. SHE SAID YOU SMILED, WHEREAS NOBODY ELSE AROUND HER

LOOKED LIKE THEY APPRECIATED IT. I FELT SURE THAT YOU WOULD

ENJOY IT BECAUSE YOU'RE SUCH A CRAZY MASTER. WOULD YOU PLEASE

SPEAK ABOUT THIS CRAZINESS. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. WHAT IS THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORDINARY MADNESS AND DIVINE MADNESS?

Anand Gaya, there is a great difference between ordinary madness and divine madness.

Although it is great, it is very subtle. There is something similar and something absolutely different. The ordinary madness means you have fallen below the mind -- but you have fallen out of it. The divine madness means you have gone beyond the mind --

but you have gone out of it.

Falling below the mind and going beyond the mind have one similarity: both are leaving the mind behind; hence, the madman and the sage in some way look similar, but their difference is great. To be beyond the mind means to be in silence, utter silence. To be beyond the mind means you become the master of the mind. To fall below the mind means you become a slave of the mind. All the whimsical ideas of the mind you have to obey; you don't have any control over your mind.

The man who has transcended his mind is in absolute control of his mind. He uses it when needed, and he stops using it when it is not needed; mind becomes an instrument in his hands. But for the ordinary man the situation is very sad. He becomes an instrument in the hands of the mind.

You are asking, "The other night a girlfriend of mine wolf-whistled at you in darshan."

You seem to be very poor. You have only A girlfriend? But whosoever is here, whether girl or boy, is my friend. I have not heard the wolf-whistle and I would like your girlfriend to do it again. I love it, because nobody does it to me. She must be mad.

As far as my smiling is concerned, she says that I smiled. Even if she had tears in her eyes, I would have smiled the same. Even if she were dead, I would have smiled the same. I don't smile at you, I simply smile; it is not addressed to anyone in particular. But if she feels good about it, there is no harm! This time I will be careful, but she has to do it a little louder that I can hear it in the whole crowd. And whether it is a wolf-whistle or ANYthing, if it is done out of love, it is respectful.

".... whereas nobody else around her looked like they appreciated it." Perhaps she does not know how to do it; otherwise, my people are always appreciating. Only when you do something wrong, utterly wrong.... She has to do some homework. She should start doing it to everyone in the ashram, whomsoever she sees, so she will become famous as the wolf-whistle girlfriend -- girlfriend of all. Why possess her? Such a girlfriend is wild and needs to have total freedom.

If this time she does it well I will specially smile at her, and wave too, because if a person is doing so much.... Everybody cannot wolf-whistle. Particularly girls don't do that; --

boys do that! She is daring, courageous -- and I love daring and courageous people. And if I wave at her, then everybody will appreciate her. But that does not mean that every girl should start wolf-whistling at me. Don't disturb the peace and the music and the silence of the place.

There were two pregnant cats standing next to the garbage pile looking for mice. One turned to the other and said, "Do you know the big ginger tomcat with the bushy tail?

Well, he's the one who put me in the family way. Who is the father of yours?"

The other pregnant cat replied, "I don't know. I had my head in an empty sardine can at the time."

There are people and people. And you have to learn... love all!

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

YESTERDAY I WAS WONDERING WHY I STILL GET SO CAUGHT UP

SOMETIMES IN MY GERMAN SERIOUSNESS AND WANTING THINGS TO RUN

PERFECTLY. TODAY IT IS ALL GONE. YOU SHOWERED US WITH SO MUCH

LOVE THIS MORNING THAT ALL WORRIES ARE SWEPT AWAY. SOMETHING

OPENED IN ME THAT MAKES ME WANT TO DANCE AND SING AND

EMBRACE THE WHOLE WORLD. IT FEELS SO GOOD TO FEEL SO DRUNK

WITH LOVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, RATHER THAN PULLING MYSELF

TOGETHER AFTER DISCOURSE AND GETTING CARRIED AWAY WITH

ORGANIZING AND GETTING THINGS DONE MORE EFFICIENTLY. BUT THIS

NEW STATE HAS A STRONG SIDE EFFECT; IT BRINGS UP MY LAZY SIDE

AND, TOTALLY UNUSUAL FOR ME LATELY, I FEEL SENSUOUS AND SEXUAL

FROM TOP TO TOE. BELOVED OSHO, ANY ADVICE AS TO HOW TO COMBINE

THESE TWO SIDES? OR SHOULD I JUST LET GO AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS?

Nandan, first your feeling sensuous and sexual from top to toe: a simple device is to start wolf-whistling as much... I will really love it! And all your sexuality and sensuousness will disappear in it.

You say, "Yesterday I was wondering why I still get so caught up sometimes in my German seriousness and wanting things to run perfectly."

I need a few Germans; otherwise who will take care of all my lazy people? So don't be serious about it; it is absolutely needed by the commune. And particularly for a German it is so natural that not to be serious will be an unnecessary torture.

You say, "Today it is all gone. You showered us with so much love this morning that all worries are swept away. Something opened in me that makes me want to dance and sing and embrace the whole world."

All worries may have gone, but the idea of embracing the whole world is the idea of Adolf Hitler; he was also trying to embrace the whole world. People just did not like it --

that's their problem. But he made immense effort, and he had almost succeeded.

And my showering of love... these are just to nourish your roots, not to destroy them. If you have a German heart, my love will make it more German, and if you have an Italian lousiness, my love will make it really lousy. You look at my photographer Niskriya; the more I shower my love on him the more perfect he becomes.

You have to become yourself.

Whatever is your natural tendency, your potential, my love has to nourish it, not to wash it away. Of course these pre-monsoon showers are a little hard and soak the roots, but don't be worried. I take care that nobody goes astray from himself or herself. It is perfectly beautiful that something opened in you Nandan, that makes you want to dance and sing. But dance perfectly and sing perfectly!

"It feels so good to feel so drunk with love in the middle of the day, rather than pulling myself together after discourse and getting carried away with organizing and getting things done more efficiently."

Somehow you have got the wrong idea that I would like you not to have your German quality. It has its own beauty -- to work efficiently, to organize anything perfectly. My love should make you capable of doing things efficiently with a song in your heart, of organizing things perfectly with a dance in your being. They should not be antagonistic to one another but complimentaries, helping each other. And this is for everyone. You can only be your authentic self. Once in a while you can be on a holiday -- that is not a distraction, just the weekend. Monday, you come back to your original self.

You are asking, "Any advice as to how to combine these two sides? Or should I just let go and see what happens?"

You just let go. There is no need of combining them. They are complimentaries; they will help each other and become an organic unity.

If you can watch silently, then all opposites can be supportive of each other and all contradictions can dissolve into a beautiful orchestra.

Mistress Goldblum brought her husband's remains to the undertaker to have them cremated. When asked what kind of container she wanted his ashes stored in, she said,

"None. I want them poured right into my hands."

The undertaker thought this rather odd, but did as the widow requested. Mrs. Goldblum returned home and went straight to the bedroom. She dimmed the lights, put romantic music on the stereo and whispered, "Hymie, here is that blow-job you always wanted."

And she blew his ashes all over the floor.

Now if Jews disappear from the world, something tremendously beautiful will be gone!

The world exactly needs the people there are. There are lazy people -- they are needed.

They are part of a relaxed, utterly contented flowering that is of its own kind. And there are perfectionists. They are needed, otherwise everything will be topsy turvy. There are so many kinds of people. They create a variety, and variety in itself is tremendously needed.

You should not ask that everyone becomes like everybody else. In fact, everybody should be left to be himself or herself and respected the way the person is. Variety means many, many kinds of flowers in the garden. Just roses and roses will be boring. Amongst millions of other people, everybody has an uniqueness and is not boring, but helps the world in its variety, makes the garden richer.

Particularly, my emphasis is that you should always remember that whatever is natural to you is your destiny. What others are doing is good for them. You need not impose yourself on them, and you need not allow them to impose themselves on you.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

PLEASE HELP ME! NOW MY BOYFRIEND HAS BEEN IN GOA FOR FIVE

WEEKS AND I'VE HAD SUCH A GOOD TIME ENJOYING THE FREEDOM AND

INDEPENDENCE, NO NEED TO FACE MY JEALOUSY AND POSSESSIVENESS, JUST FLOATING THROUGH THE DAY. NOW IT LOOKS AS IF HE IS COMING

BACK SOON AND I'M GETTING NERVOUS ALREADY, WONDERING WHAT HE

IS DOING, HOW IT IS GOING TO BE, IF HE FOUND SOMEBODY ELSE

ETCETERA. WHAT IS THIS ATTACHMENT TO A PARTICULAR PERSON

WHICH CREATES ALL THESE COMFORTABLE AND VERY UNCOMFORTABLE

FEELINGS? I'M NOT REALLY A MEDITATIVE TYPE, BUT IS THERE ANY

POSSIBILITY TO GO BEYOND THIS ATTACHMENT OF THE HEART AND FEEL

FREE, OR IS THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE IT, GO THROUGH IT, AND SUFFER AND

ENJOY THE WHOLE THING?

Latifa, I know your boyfriend. He will make anybody happy if he goes to Goa and remains there for ever. But again, you are a German; you cannot be satisfied with anything less difficult. He is a challenge. So if you are becoming nervous, it is natural.

And don't be worried about his getting involved with any girl, because no girl will get involved with him.

I have thought about him and I think that only Latifa can manage him. He's a crackpot --

but you love him. You cannot love a simple human being. You are born for each other: neither can you find another boyfriend nor can he find another girlfriend. So don't be worried about possessiveness or anything. You can be absolutely non-possessive -- still he will be your boyfriend. Where else can he go? You are in a good, secured, guaranteed, insured condition.

In the first place, it is a miracle that you have found him. When I heard about it for the first time I said, "My God! Now something mysterious is going to happen. These two people together are going to create so much trouble." But still, he's attached to you, you are attached to him.

Mostly your love is fighting, and when you are tired of fighting you love also -- but that is only when you are both tired. He will also be feeling nervous, because he has to come back. I have sent him only for six weeks. He left immediately the very moment he received my message: "Go to Goa." He did not wait even a single day. He must have enjoyed those five weeks the way you have enjoyed them. Now you are feeling nervous, and he will be feeling nervous because six weeks will finally come to an end.

But deep down you are also feeling happy that he is coming, and the same will be his situation. Let him come. He's just your old boyfriend: you know him every bit, he knows you every bit. All the fights are well known, all the problems are well known. There is no need to feel nervous because there is not going to be anything new. It is just the old chap, so let him come and start life again in the same old way.

It is something to be understood: the girlfriend you get or the boyfriend you get, you deserve. You don't get any boyfriend who you don't deserve and you don't get any girlfriend who you don't deserve -- those kinds of relationships last for one day or two days. But your relationship has a history and it is going to last to the very end, so relax and take it easily!

You deserve him, he deserves you. And once you see the point that you deserve each other there is no question of any grudge, any complaining, any grumbling. You are strong enough, because that crackpot has not been able to make even a dent in you. He has been doing all kinds of neurotic things. But he does not know that Latifa is a psychotic, and neurotics and psychotics make good marriages. They fit perfectly.

One psychoanalyst was asked -- because those two words look so similar, and the difference is known only to the experts -- the psychoanalyst was asked, "What is the difference between neurosis and psychotics?"

"He said, "The neurotic thinks two plus two are five and, whatever you do, he never changes his mind. He's determined and committed to his viewpoint. The psychotic knows that two plus two are four but feels very nervous -- why are they four?"

Perfect marriages happen only in heaven, but once in a while on the earth too. Latifa and her boyfriend are a perfect combination. So let the poor fellow come, start hammering the old way.... You are accustomed and well trained, he is accustomed and well trained. One feels worried about a new girlfriend; one never knows what she is going to do -- freak out in the middle of the night? One is nervous about the new boyfriend, because one cannot predict what kind of man he's going to prove to be.

You are certain. In this certainty you should relax and let him come. He will bring his own question. I have been throwing out his questions, but because I have answered yours, now I will have to answer his question about you.

But I don't see that there is any problem. You are both perfectly happy in your misery; all people are perfectly happy in their miserable relationships! That's why after a five weeks'

separation you feel good. But a longer separation and you will start missing him.

I have given him an exact time so that you can enjoy freedom and he can enjoy freedom; and in the right time, when you start missing each other, he's back. Just wait! And he's not a dangerous person; he cannot harm you. He's very good at heart -- just a little loose in his head. But to have a boyfriend who is a little loose in the head is better than to have a boyfriend who is a little tight in the head. I know it is no ordinary relationship: you both are extraordinary.

What did the tornado say to the coconut palm?

"Hang on to your nuts, this is no ordinary blow job."

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

LOVE AND MEDITATION SEEM TO BE OPPOSITE POLARITIES. CAN YOU

PLEASE TALK TO US ON HOW TO GROW IN MEDITATION AND IN INTIMACY

WITH THE BELOVED.

Prem Azima, you neither know what love is, nor do you know what meditation is. Still, you are disturbed by the question. To you, love and meditation seem to be opposite polarities -- I wonder where you got that idea? If love and meditation are opposite polarities, then nothing in this world can be close to any other thing. But I know all the old religions have also been under the same fallacy.

The meditators have been escaping to the mountains to avoid love, and the lovers never bothered about meditation because they knew that if they meditated their love life would be finished. It has been one of the longest fallacies humanity has lived with. Love is a silence, a joy, a peace, a blissfulness between two persons. But because there are two persons, sometimes they don't match.

Meditation is the same experience of silence and peace and bliss -- but alone. But if two meditators are in love, then things come to the highest peak. If one meditator can reach to a certain peak in his blissfulness, in his silence, two meditators who love each other can become an immense support to each other's flight into the unknown. Their love can become a nourishment to their meditation, and vice-versa, their meditation can become a nourishment to their love.

This is the point where I differ from all the religions of the past. They have made love and meditation polarities, parallel lines which meet nowhere.

To me a man of meditation is bound to be immensely loving. All his anger is gone, all his hate is gone, all his possessiveness is gone. If he cannot love then who else can love?

And a man of love can go deepest in meditation because love is our highest quality, our purest self, our perfect song. If two singing hearts cannot meet in deep meditation then no other meeting is possible.

In fact, the people who have escaped to the mountains to meditate, think only of women in their meditation. They hallucinate. Their hallucinations can become so real that they start talking to those women. And in the whole world, people without meditation are loving each other, but their love does not bring a paradise to their life; on the contrary, it creates hell. They are known as intimate enemies -- enemies who have decided to live together.

My own understanding is that unless love and meditation are almost two sides of the same coin, we cannot create the new man, the new humanity, the new world.

Last night I told you the story of Jesus on the cross telling Peter, "Peter, from my height I can see, far away, my house." From my height of consciousness I can also see the faraway house where love and meditation will dwell together. We have to create that house.

Azima, don't say love and meditation are opposite polarities. That is a lie propagated by the priests down the ages. It has destroyed lovers into miserable lives and meditators into juiceless deserts. I want your life to be a garden full of flowers -- full of fruits, full of juice.

There is no question of how to create a loving, meditative relationship. Here, the people who have gathered around me are already living -- at least making an effort for the first time in the whole history of man -- to bring love and meditation as two sides of the same experience. Why should love disturb your meditation?

In fact, love should give you the right atmosphere, the right soil to meditate. And meditation should give you the right fragrance for love to become a treasure, a glory, a benediction.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #32

Chapter title: The new man: the very salt of the earth

27 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705275

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN32

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

125

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IT TOUCHES SO MUCH WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT THE NEW MAN. WHEN

YOU FIRST MENTIONED THIS CONCEPT TO US MANY YEARS AGO, THE NEW

MAN WAS SIMPLY THAT TO ME: A CONCEPT THAT WAS INTRIGUING, A FASCINATING POSSIBILITY. BUT LATELY, I FEEL AS IF I KNOW THIS NEW

MAN -- THIS NEW RACE OF PEOPLE -- AND REALLY CARE ABOUT HIM. IT

SOUNDS AUDACIOUS TO REPEAT THE WORDS I HAVE HEARD YOU USE: "I AM PREGNANT WITH THE NEW MAN." BUT ACTUALLY, THAT'S HOW I FEEL; NOT ONLY ABOUT MYSELF, BUT ABOUT ALL OF YOUR PEOPLE. WHAT IS

OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE NEW MAN?

Maneesha, the new man contains my whole philosophy about life and how it should be --

lived in totality, in intensity, in wholeness, so that we are not only dragging ourselves from the cradle to the grave, but we can make each moment a tremendous rejoicing -- a song, a dance, a celebration.

The old man that has existed up to now is on his death bed. He has suffered much; he needs all our compassion. He has been conditioned to live in misery, in suffering, in self-torture. He was given promises: promissory notes for great rewards after death -- the more he suffers, the more he tortures himself, the more he is masochistic, the more he is destructive of his own dignity, the more he will be rewarded.

That was a very convenient concept for all the vested interests because the man who is ready to suffer can easily be enslaved. The man who is ready to sacrifice today for an unknown tomorrow has already declared his inclination to be enslaved. The future becomes his bondage. And for thousands of years, man has lived only in hope, in imagination, in dreams, in utopias, but not in reality. And there is no other life than the life of reality, than the life that exists in this moment.

The new man is a rebellion, a revolt, a revolution against all the conditionings which can enslave him, oppress him, exploit him, just by giving him hopes of a fictitious heaven, frightening him, blackmailing him about another fictitious phenomenon: hell. All the old ways of life were strangely in agreement on one point: that man is a sacrificial animal at the feet of a fictitious God.

There were times when men were actually sacrificed alive, butchered before stone statues. Although nobody dares to do such a thing now, psychologically the situation has not changed. Man is still sacrificed either in the name of communism, or in the name of capitalism, or in the name of an Aryan race, in the name of Islam, in the name of Christianity, in the name of Hinduism. Instead of stone gods, now there are only phony words, meaningless. But man has accepted to live like this for the simple reason that every child finds himself born in a crowd which is already conditioned. The teachers are conditioned, the parents are conditioned, the neighbors are conditioned; and the small child is almost helpless -- he cannot envisage any other alternative than to be part of the crowd.

The old man was a crowd, a cog in the wheel; the old man had no individuality. The vested interests had taken all care to destroy self-respect, dignity, a joy and a gratefulness that you are a human being, that you are the highest creation in the long, long path of evolution... that you are the crowning glory.

These ideas were dangerous. If a man has some respect for himself, some dignity of being human, you cannot reduce him to a slave; you cannot destroy his soul and make him a robot. Up to now, man has only pretended to live -- his life has been only hypothetical.

The new man is a revolt against the whole past.

He is a declaration that we are going to create a new way of life, new values of life; that we are destined for new goals -- faraway stars are our targets. And we are not going to allow anybody to sacrifice us for any beautiful name. We are going to live our lives, not according to ideals, but according to our own longings, our own passionate intuitions.

And we are going to live moment to moment; we are no longer to be befooled by the tomorrow, and the promises for tomorrow.

The new man contains the whole future of humanity. The old man is bound to die. He has prepared his own grave -- he is digging it every moment, deeper and deeper. What do you think Ronald Reagan is doing? -- digging a grave for humanity as deep as possible. These people seem to be afraid even of dead people -- that if the grave is not deep enough, they may come back; they may come back alive.

Nuclear weapons and all destructive measures are a preparation for a global suicide. The old man has decided to die. It is up to the intelligent people in the world to disconnect from the old man before he destroys you too... to disconnect yourself from old traditions, old religions, old nations, old ideologies.

For the first time, the old is no longer gold. The old is the rotten corpse of an ugly past. It is a great responsibility for the new generation, for the young people to renounce the past.

In the past, religions used to renounce the world. I teach you to love the world so that it can be saved, and to renounce the past totally and irrevocably, to be discontinuous.

The new man is not an improvement upon the old; he is not a continuous phenomenon, not a refinement. The new man is the declaration of the death of the old, and the birth of an absolutely fresh man -- unconditioned, without any nation, without any religion, without any discriminations of men and women, of black and white, of East and West, or North and South.

The new man is a manifesto of one humanity. It is the greatest revolution the world has ever seen.

You have heard about the miracle that Moses parted the sea in two parts. That miracle is nothing. I want to part humanity, the whole ocean of humanity divided in two parts: the old and the new.

The new will love this life, this world. The new will learn the art of living and loving and dying.

The new will not be concerned about heaven and hell, sin and virtue. The new man will be concerned about how to increase the joys of life, the pleasures of life -- more flowers, more beauty, more humanity, more compassion. And we have the capacity and the potential to make this planet a paradise, and to make this moment the greatest ecstasy of your life.

Let the old die. Let the old be led by people like Ronald Reagan. Let the blind people follow the blind.

But those who have a younger spirit -- and when I say "a younger spirit," it includes even those old people who are not old in spirit; and it does not include even the young people who are old in spirit. The spiritually young are going to be the new man.

The new man is not a hope: You are already pregnant with it.

My work is just to make you aware that the new man has already arrived. My work is to help you to recognize him and to respect him.

You are asking, Maneesha: "What is our relationship to the new man?" There is no relationship between you and the new man because you are the new man. You just have to drop all the dust that has gathered down the ages on the mirror of your consciousness.

The new man is not someone coming from another planet. The new man is you in your freshness, in your silences of the heart, in your depth of meditation, in your beautiful spaces of love, in your songs of joy, in your dances of ecstasy, in your love of this earth.

No religion teaches you to love this earth -- and this earth is your mother, and these trees are your brothers, and these stars are your friends.

You are not going to have a relationship with the new man because that would be a separation; all relationships separate. You are going to be the new man. In my vision you are already on the path of the new man. You have started the journey, although you are not fully awake; but as you will see the old man moving more and more towards the graveyard, it will become easier for you to renounce him and his ways of life, his churches, his synagogues, his temples, his gods, his holy scriptures.

Your holy scripture is your whole life,

and nobody else can write it -- you have to write it. You come with an empty book, and it depends on you what you make of it. Birth is not life; it is only an opportunity given to you to create life... to create a life as beautiful, as glorious, as loving as you can imagine, as you can dream.

The new man's dreams and his reality will be one because his dreams will be rooted here in this earth. They will bring flowers and fruits. They will not be just dreams -- they will make the world a dreamland.

Realize the responsibility... man has never faced a greater responsibility before: a responsibility to renounce the whole past, to erase it from your being.

Be Adam and Eve again, and let this earth be the Garden of Eden; and this time we will see who the God is who has the guts to drive man out of the Garden of Eden! It is going to be our garden, and if God wants to be in our garden, He will have to knock on our doors.

This earth can be a splendor, a magic, a miracle. Our hands have that touch -- it is just that we have never tried it. Man has never given a chance to his own potential to grow, to blossom, to bring fulfillment, contentment, to shower the whole earth with flowers, to fill the whole earth with fragrance. To me, that fragrance is godliness.

The new man will not worship a God as a creator of the world; the new man will create God as a fragrance, as beauty, as love, as truth. Up to now God has been the creator: for the new man, man will be the creator, and God is going to be the created. We can create godliness -- it is within our hands.

That's why I say the new man is the greatest revolution that has ever happened in the world. And there is no way to avoid it because the old man is determined to die, determined, committed to commit suicide. Let him die peacefully. Those who have a rebellious spirit should just disconnect themselves, and they will be the saviors, they will create a Noah's ark, they will be the beginning of a new world. And because we have known the old world and its miseries; we can avoid all those miseries; we can avoid all those jealousies, all those angers, all those wars, all those destructive tendencies....

We can go through a total transformation: we can create innocent people, loving people, people who breathe in freedom, people who help each other to be free. We can create nourishment for everybody to be dignified, to be respected -- not according to some ideals and values, but just as he is.

The new man is going to be the very salt of the earth.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

LAST NIGHT, AFTER YOU HAD LEFT DISCOURSE, AND I WAS BOWING

DOWN, A FEELING CAME OVER ME SO STRONGLY THAT I COULDN'T

IMAGINE LIVING AFTER YOU DIE. I FELT THAT WITHOUT YOUR CONSTANT

SHOWERING, I WOULD BE LOST IN DARKNESS FOREVER. LATER, SITTING

IN MY ROOM, I FELT A TREMENDOUS FEAR COMING UP IN ME -- THE SORT

THAT USUALLY CATAPULTS ME INTO SOME NEUROTIC AND COMPULSIVE

ACTIVITY. THIS TIME THOUGH, I SAT, FELT YOU, AND LET THE FEELING

COME UNTIL IT WAS SO STRONG THAT I FELT ABSOLUTELY PARALYZED.

SUDDENLY, IT POPPED; AND I WAS SITTING THERE IN A KIND OF SILENCE I HAVE NEVER KNOWN BEFORE. TODAY, I FEEL QUIET AND

UNCOMPLICATED -- MY USUAL OBSESSIONS FAR AWAY, NOT ECSTATIC, NOT DOWN; JUST VERY SIMPLE AND SOBER. BELOVED MASTER, WAS THIS

AN ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH?

Rafia, there is no way to encounter death, just because death is a fiction. You can think about it, you can be afraid about it; but you cannot encounter it. Nobody ever dies --

people are simply changing houses.

What you have experienced was first the fear that: after I die, how are you going to live without me? Don't be worried about it. First, if I see that you cannot live without me, I can postpone dying -- unless you come with folded hands, and you say, "Now, it is too much -- I cannot tolerate You any more."

Secondly, before meeting me you have lived without me. If I die, it will be a shock -- for a few days, you will feel in a dramatic mood of sadness, and then life will take you over again. Millions of people have died -- every day people go on dying -- and life continues with all its songs, with all its discos, with all its music. People go on dying, but if you think before... it is the thinking that makes it difficult. Death itself is a wound that time heals very quickly. But I will not even leave that wound in you. Before I die, I will make you able to see that there is no death.

What is the purpose of all your meditations? It is a deep search to know that life is eternal, and death as such is only an observation of the outsiders. You have always seen other people die: have you ever seen yourself die? But what do you know when other people die? Only one thing -- that they don't breathe, they don't talk; that their blood circulation stops, that their hearts have no more beats.

I was telling you just a few days ago.... One man in the part of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan, has played a joke on people for the third time. He is one hundred and twenty-five years old: he has died three times. This was the third time, and because he has done the act two times before, people were very, very cautious. Doctors were called, every examination was done, and when everybody agreed that this time the poor guy had really died -- it was no longer a joke -- that man opened one eye, and said, "Who is saying I am dead? At least, this time I'm not!"

The relatives had gathered from faraway villages, and they all went away in sadness: "It seems he will have a few years more, and he will again torture us into coming!" But the old man said, "Listen, this is my last act; next time I'm really going to die."

He has been asked by doctors what his secret is, and he says his secret is very simple: going deep into meditation, he realized that as you go deeper, your breathing becomes slower. When you are deepest in meditation, your breathing stops. And it is simply a knack.... Once he learned that stopping the breathing is not death, he allowed even the heart to stop -- he just relaxed. And from deep down, he was watching the whole show that was going all around: the doctors, and physicians, and the relatives.

There was one man, Bhrahma Yogi, from South India -- he did the same experiment in almost every university of the world, particularly the medical colleges. For ten minutes, it was possible for him to pretend to die. And he had certificates from the greatest authorities -- from Oxford, from Cambridge -- that he is dead; the doctors signed certificates for his death. And after ten minutes he would start breathing again, smiling, and he would open his eyes. It was very frightening.

He had collected so many certificates -- death certificates from so many authorities -- that he had challenged the whole medical science: "Your idea of death is incorrect. You simply think that these symptoms of life are life; they are only symptoms -- very outward symptoms. They show only one thing: that life is connected with the body. When the connection is no longer there, the symptoms disappear. It does not mean that life disappears."

It is almost like electricity: you can see the electricity, you can put it off, and all symptoms will disappear; but that does not mean that electricity has died. Life is nothing but bio-electricity -- living electricity -- a higher form, a refined form of the same energy as electricity.

I will not leave, Rafia, unless you have experienced that there is no death. I will ask your permission before I leave. You will have to sign your signature that you give me leave, then I can go on a holiday. And once you know that your inner life, your real life, is eternal, you will be able to have some contact with me -- although I will not be in the body.

To be in the body is not equivalent to life. It is a kind of imprisonment. You are imprisoned in the body; you can be free of the body, you can become part of the whole.

And this time I am going to become part of the whole. I am not going to enter another womb, into another imprisonment. I have done my jail terms -- complete!

But one thing important happened that you have not been very conscious about: the moment you allowed the fear -- the darkness surrounding you -- and you relaxed into it, with no resistance, with no fight, with no desire to escape into some activity, slowly, slowly, the fear and the darkness and the death disappeared. You became profoundly silent... a silence that you have never known before.

"Today, I feel," you are saying, "quiet and uncomplicated -- my usual obsessions far away, not ecstatic, not down; just very simple and sober." This is beautiful -- this is a great experience. You have touched something deep in existence itself. Feel blissful, and remember the experience. Next time, anything that happens, allow it to happen and just sit silently in the middle of it -- a center of the cyclone. Slowly, slowly, the cyclone will disappear, and only the center will be left behind. You will feel immensely centered, silent, sober, innocent, simple -- experiences which are tremendously valuable.

We miss these experiences because we always escape. When you feel afraid, you get involved in some activity; you go to meet a friend, you start fighting or loving your girl friend, you go to the restaurant. If nothing else, you start smoking -- but you have to do something to escape from the experience. This way, people go on missing great opportunities of spiritual growth.

Whatever has happened this time should be remembered, and if another opportunity arises -- and it is bound to arise -- use it even more deeply, more joyously, with a welcome, and it will open doors of great riches and great treasures.

But you have not understood the great opportunity because in the end you still ask:

"Beloved Master, was this an encounter with death?"

You have encountered silence, you have encountered a new quality within you of soberness, quietude -- which is unusual to you. You were not ecstatic, and not down, very centered: neither at this extreme nor that extreme, but exactly in the middle. But you have not understood. It is natural -- when for the first time it happens, it is expected that you will not understand it. But I want you to remember, it was not an encounter with death; it was an encounter with your fear of death, with your fear of being left behind, with your fear of being without a master.

Ten years after his arrival in America from Italy, Roselli had saved enough money from his vegetable business to build a huge house.

"I want-a three bedroom-as upstairs," he explained to the builder. "Nice big-a staircase leading up to bedroom-as, and right over here next to a staircase, I want-a hollow statue."

Months later, he returned and found everything to his satisfaction. Then he noticed a statue next to the staircase.

"Hey, what's-a matter with you?" shouted Roselli. "You no understand-a what I tell-a you?"

"Isn't that what you ordered?" asked the builder. "A hollow statue?"

"Are you stupid, or something?" cried the Italian. "I want-a one of those things-a that goes-a ring-a ring. You pick it up and say-àhallo, 's tat you?'"

Just a little misunderstanding... otherwise, Rafia, you had a beautiful experience.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WHENEVER, I AM IN LOVE WITH A MAN, FOR THOSE YEARS NO OTHER

MAN ATTRACTS ME. BUT FOR THE MAN, IT'S NOT THE SAME. THOUGH HE

IS HAPPY AND SATISFIED WITH ME, AND WANTS TO KEEP THE

RELATIONSHIP WITH ME, HE HAS HIS SHORT LOVE AFFAIRS EVERY FEW

MONTHS. I UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENT NATURE OF MAN AND WOMAN. I ALSO UNDERSTAND EVERY LOVE RELATIONSHIP HAS ITS PEAKS AND

VALLEYS. STILL, SADNESS IN ME KEEPS ON COMING FOR A SHORT WHILE, AND LEAVING. I GIVE A LONG ROPE TO THE MAN. MY FRIENDS SAY I MAKE MYSELF SO AVAILABLE THAT I LET THE MAN TAKE ME FOR

GRANTED AND I LOSE MY SELF-RESPECT. OSHO, IS IT SO? I'M NOT CLEAR. I DON'T EXPECT ANYTHING FROM HIM. YOU KNOW ME BETTER. WOULD

YOU PLEASE LIKE TO COMMENT?

Neelam, there are many things in your question. First, you have a misunderstanding about man's nature. You think, as many people in the world think, that man is polygamous, and the woman is monogamous... that the woman wants to live with one man, to love one man, to devote and dedicate herself totally to one man, but man is different in nature -- he wants to love other women too, at least, once in a while.

The reality is: both are polygamous. The woman has been conditioned by man for thousands of years into thinking that she is monogamous. And man is very cunning; he has exploited the woman in many ways. One of the ways is: he has been telling her that man is, by nature, polygamous. All the psychologists, all the sociologists are agreed upon the fact that man is polygamous; and none of them says the same thing about woman.

My own understanding is that both are polygamous. If a woman does not behave in a polygamous way, it is nurture, not nature. She has been utterly conditioned so long that the conditioning has gone into her very blood, into her bones, into her very marrow. Why do I say so? -- because in the whole of existence, all the animals are polygamous.

It would be really surprising that if the whole existence is polygamous, only woman has an exceptional nature. In existence there are no exceptions. But because a woman had to depend financially on man, man has cut the woman in so many ways: he has cut her wings, he has cut her freedom, he has cut her dependence upon herself. He has taken her responsibilities on his shoulders, showing great love, saying: you need not be worried about yourself, I will take care. But in the name of love, he has taken the freedom of the woman. For centuries he has not allowed a woman to be educated, to be qualified in any way, in any craft, in any skill -- she has to be financially dependent on the man. He has taken away even her freedom of movement -- she cannot move freely the way man moves; she is confined to the house. The house is almost her imprisonment.

And in the past particularly, she was continuously pregnant because out of ten children, nine children used to die. To have two, three children, a woman had to be continually pregnant the whole time she was capable of reproducing. A pregnant woman becomes even more dependent financially -- the man becomes her caretaker. The man is knowledgeable, the woman knows nothing. She has been kept ignorant because knowledge is power -- that's why woman has been deprived of knowledge.

And because it is a man's world, they all agree as far as keeping the woman enslaved is concerned.

But everything has been done with very articulate intelligence. She has been told that it is her nature to be monogamous. Now there is not a single psychoanalyst, not a single woman sociologist to refute this: if man is polygamous, then why should woman be monogamous? Man has made the way for his polygamy: he has created prostitutes. It was an accepted fact in the past that no wife would have objected if her husband, once in a while, visited a prostitute. It was thought that it is just natural for man.

I say unto you that both are polygamous. The whole existence is polygamous. It has to be

-- monogamy is boredom. However beautiful a woman may be, however beautiful a man may be, you become tired -- the same geography, the same topography. How long do you have to see the same face? So it happens that years pass, and the husband has not looked attentively at his wife for a single moment.

My own approach is natural and simple. I want no marriages in the world of the new man. Marriage is such an ugly and rotten phenomenon -- so destructive, so inhuman. On the one hand it makes one woman a slave, and on the other hand, it creates the ugliest institution of prostitutes. The prostitutes are needed to save the marriage; otherwise, the man will start fooling around with other people's wives. It is a social device so that he doesn't get entangled with another's wife -- there are beautiful women available.

In India, in the days of Gautam Buddha, it was the tradition that the most beautiful woman in the town was not allowed to be married; she had to become a prostitute. She was called nagabadu: the wife of the whole city -- because she was so beautiful that to be married to one man was going to create jealousies, conflicts, problems. It was better to avoid all those conflicts amongst men, to make her a prostitute -- available for all.

In India, every temple had devadasis. Still in South India, there are devadasis. Every family was required, in the past, to donate their most beautiful girl to the temple, to God.

In the name of God, those beautiful girls in the temples became prostitutes. First, they were used by the priests; second, they were used by the rich customers -- I mean the rich worshipers. And they were so many that they were available in every price range; even the poorest could afford one. Of course, it would not be so beautiful a woman, but any woman is better than no woman.

Even today, just a few days ago, a survey was made in Bombay of all the prostitutes --

thirty percent of them have come from South India, from temples where their parents have dedicated them to God. For the parents, there was an incentive: dedicating her to God was easier than to get a girl married. It is so difficult in India... you have to give so much money, that not all parents can afford it -- just one daughter, and they will have to sell their land, their house, they will become beggars. So it was very easy, and comfortable, convenient, and virtuous, too -- respectable, honorable -- the society honored it.

They offered those girls; they still offer those girls to the temples, and the temples are selling those girls to all great cities because now rich worshipers don't come to the temples. It is better to have those girls sold to agents in Bombay, in Calcutta, in New Delhi because politicians will need them, priests will need them, rich people will need them. People who are living far away from their homes, working in cities -- their families are in the villages -- will need them.

Thirty percent of the prostitutes in Bombay have come from temples where they were dedicated to God. Every temple in the past was nothing but a sacred facade to hide prostitutes under the name of devadasis. The word means: servants of God.

Man has arranged for himself, but he has prohibited the woman.... First, his ego is hurt if his woman falls in love with somebody else. That means he is rejected, that means he is not man enough, that means something is missing in him.

And more than that, there is another problem: private property. He has to keep a perfect guard on his woman because he wants his own blood to inherit his property. And if the women are free to have love affairs, then it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to be certain that your son is really your son. It may be somebody else's son, and he will inherit your property. To protect private property, the woman has to be conditioned that she is monogamous. But it is not true, it is not natural.

Whether one is man or woman, everybody needs a change, at least once in a while -- for the weekend. Five days you can both be monogamous; for two days, on the weekend, you can both be polygamous. And what is the worry about the property -- who owns it when you are dead -- whether it is your blood or somebody else's blood? It seems to be an unnecessary worry -- somebody will inherit it.

And if you become interested in other women, you should understand that your woman is also human, has the same heart, the same consciousness -- she also likes sometimes to meet a new man. She also gets tired and bored.

In the new world, to which I have dedicated my whole life, there should be no marriage --

only lovers. And as long as they are pleased to be together, they can be together; and the moment they feel that they have been together too long, a little change will be good.

There is no question of sadness, no question of anger -- just a deep acceptance of nature.

And if you have loved a man or a woman, you will love to give the other person as much freedom as possible.

If love cannot give freedom, then it is not love.

Neelam, you say that, "Sadness in me keeps on coming for a short while and leaving. I give a long rope to the man." Now, the very idea is wrong. Is your man a dog that you give him a long rope?

You cannot give freedom -- freedom is everybody's birthright. The very idea, "I'm giving a long rope"... still the rope is in your hand. You are the giver of freedom. You cannot give freedom; you can only accept the freedom of the other person. You cannot keep one end of the rope in your hand, watching the dog pissing on this tree, pissing on that tree....

You think that is freedom? No, the very idea is wrong.

The other person has his freedom; you have your freedom. Neither he needs to have one end of the rope in his hand, nor do you have to have it; otherwise, both are chained. His rope is going to be your chains, your rope is going to be his chains. And you think you give enough rope -- you think you are being very generous.

Freedom is not something that has to be given to another person. Freedom is something that has to be recognized as the property of the other person.

And the freedom of the person you love will not hurt you. It hurts because you don't use your own freedom. It is not his freedom that hurts; what hurts is that you have been incapacitated by centuries of wrong conditioning -- you cannot use your own freedom.

Man has taken your whole freedom. That is the real problem. Your freedom has to be returned to you, and it will not hurt; in fact you will enjoy it.

Freedom is such a joyful experience. Your lover is enjoying freedom, you are enjoying freedom. In freedom, you meet; in freedom, you depart. And perhaps life may bring you together again. And most probably.... All the researches about love relationships indicate a certain phenomenon which has not been accepted by any society up to now. And even today, when I say these things, I'm condemned all over the world. When your man becomes interested in another woman, it does not mean that he no longer loves you; it simply means just a change of taste.

Once in a while, you like to go to Sarjano's pizza place. That does not mean that you have renounced your old food, but once in a while, it is perfectly good. In fact, after visiting Sarjano's place, you go to the canteen more joyously. It takes a few days for you to forget the experience -- then again, one day, the spaghetti. These affairs don't mean much. One cannot live on spaghetti alone.

The psychologists are agreed on one point: couples who love each other should have a few love affairs once in a while. Those love affairs will renew their relationship, will refresh it. You will start seeing beauty again in your wife. You may start fantasies, dreams of having your wife again -- that you misunderstood her before; this time you are not going to misunderstand. And the same is true about your husband.

In my idea of a commune, people will be absolutely free to say to their partner: "I would like two days holiday. And you are also free; you need not sit in the house and boil." If you want to meditate, that is another thing; otherwise you have been interested in the neighbor's wife too long.... The green grass on the other side of the fence -- you wanted to chew it for so long; now your wife is giving you a chance!

You should say, "You are great! Just go for a holiday, and enjoy it. And I'm going to the neighbor's house -- the grass is greener there." But in two days, you will find that the grass is grass, and your own lawn was far better.

But an authentic experience is needed, and when after two days, you meet again, it will be the beginning of a new honeymoon. Why not have honeymoons every month? Why be satisfied with one honeymoon in one life? That is strange, and absolutely unnatural. And love is not something bad or evil so that you have to prevent your wife loving somebody else. It is just fun; there is not much to be bothered about. If she wants to play tennis with somebody, let her play! I don't think that making love has more significance than playing tennis. In fact, tennis is far cleaner.

Neelam, you say, "I don't expect anything from him. You know me better." I do know you better! I know everybody better. Even in your no-expectations, there are hidden expectations -- unspoken... and they are more subtle, and more binding. Simply, one has to accept a simple fact: your partner is a stranger -- it is just an accident that you are together -- and you never expect anything from outsiders, from strangers.

One of the wisest women I have met in my life told me that she makes love only to strangers.

I said, "Why? It will be really a difficult thing to find a stranger to make love to."

She said, "No -- in trains, in airplanes... I don't even ask their name, and I don't say anything about myself -- we remain strangers, I have made love to them, and we meet the next day in the marketplace: neither I recognize him, nor he.... There is no need -- we enjoyed the moment just out of sheer freedom, no bondage, no commitment."

She is a married woman, married to a very rich man in the Philippines, but she rarely goes to the Philippines. She goes on moving around the world, finding strangers. She says, "Once in a while, I go to the Philippines. My husband himself becomes by that time a stranger, and I love him. But the moment I feel that I am falling into the trap of relationship, I rush out -- again, on the road."

I can see something tremendously deep in her insight. Love as much as you can. Never think of the next moment; and if your lover goes somewhere else, you are also free. And don't deceive yourself: can any woman say that while she is in love with one person, she does not get attracted to other people? Maybe it is a very repressed desire, maybe she never allows it to surface; but it is impossible not to, because there are so many beautiful people around. You have chosen only one stranger amongst many strangers.

Keep freedom as a higher value than love itself. And if it is possible -- and it is possible because it is natural -- your life will not be a misery, it will be a continuous excitement, a continuous exploration of new human beings. We are all strangers: nobody is a husband, nobody is a wife. Some idiot registrar cannot -- just by putting his seal -- make you a husband and wife. And once that idiot has put the seal, if you want to separate, you have to go to another idiot -- bigger idiots -- and wait for months or years to be separated.

Strange! -- it is your private affair; no business of any registrar, no business of any judge.

Why do you go on giving your freedom into the hands of others?

Neelam, you say, "My friends say I make myself so available that I let the man take me for granted, and I lose my self-respect." Your friends don't understand a thing -- and they are not your friends either because their advice is that of enemies.

One should make oneself absolutely available. Your friends are telling you that when your man wants to make love to you, one day say you are having a headache; another day, you are too tired; the third day, you are not in the mood... so keep the man hanging around. Don't give that much rope -- just a little rope, and a beautiful bell around his neck with your name written on it, saying, "Beware, personal property." What do you mean by

"availability?" You should be available to the person you love, and if once in a while he feels to change -- enjoy. And let him go joyously. That will bring self-respect to you, and dignity.

A divorced woman, frustrated with married life, ran an ad in the local newspaper that read, "Looking for a man who won't beat me, who won't run around on me, and who is a fantastic lover."

After one week, her doorbell rings. She goes to the door, opens it, and sees no one there.

She closes the door, and is about to walk away when the bell rings again.

Opening the door once again, she sees no one there, but happens to look down and notices a man with no arms and no legs sitting on the doorstep.

"I'm here to answer your ad," he says.

The woman does not know quite what to do, what to say.

So the man continues, "As you can see, I can't beat you, and it will be impossible for me to run around on you."

"Yes, I can see that," said the woman, "but the ad also said I wanted àfantastic lover'."

The man smiles and says, "I rang the doorbell, didn't I?"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #33

Chapter title: The natural man needs no morality

28 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705280

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN33

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

83

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

ALTHOUGH I AM DEEPLY SATISFIED AND NOURISHED BY MY EKDAM

PUNJABI FOOD, STILL FROM TIME TO TIME I FEEL A STRONG PULL

TOWARDS OTHER DISHES, AND ENJOY ITALIAN PIZZAS, FRENCH WINE, OR

JAPANESE SUSHI. IT'S NOT THAT I DON'T WANT TO EAT OUT

OCCASIONALLY, BUT I'D LIKE TO FEEL IT IS IN MY HANDS WHETHER I DO

OR NOT, AND NOT BE A VICTIM OF THIS HORMONAL CONSPIRACY.

BELOVED MASTER, CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE ME A CLUE HOW TO GO

BEYOND THESE BIOLOGICAL PULLS?

Kamal, if one allows nature without any inhibitions to take its own course, one transcends biology, body, mind, without any effort. But we are full of inhibitions. Even the so-called young people, who think that they have disowned repressions, are in a very subtle way repressive. If you are repressive, then you cannot transcend biological pulls naturally, without any effort. So, the first thing to be remembered is that nature is right.

All old traditions have been telling you that nature is not right. You have to divide nature into right and wrong. But nature is indivisible. So while you are dividing it, you are simply making an impossible effort. The whole of nature has to be accepted with great joy and gratitude. Biology is not your bondage, but a certain stage of growth.

Life taken with insight and understanding helps you to go beyond itself without asking you for any discipline, any effort, any arduous conflict. We are children of nature. But all the religions have created one thing certainly: a divided mind, a schizophrenic man who is pulled in two directions. They have all given you moralities.

The natural man needs no morality. Easy is right. To be natural, to be spontaneous is right... and transcendence comes on its own. The people who are split against themselves

-- that biology is something to be transcended, that body is something to be fought, that mind is something to be dropped -- anybody who is entangled in all these conflicts will never transcend.

One should go more easy. It is not a war field. Your life is an autonomous growth. The first need is of a total acceptance with no reluctance, no unwillingness, no subtle condemnation anywhere in your mind.

You are saying, "Although I am deeply satisfied and nourished by my EKDAM Punjabi food...." His Punjabi food is Neelam. You say you are deeply satisfied; you don't understand the nuances of being deeply satisfied. It becomes a kind of death. To be alive one needs a little discontent, a little restlessness. If you are deeply satisfied, from that deep satisfaction arises your desire to change your food once in a while.

Man is a creature of evolution and growth. Being deeply satisfied brings a full stop to your life...ekdam. Ekdam means: once for all, once for ever. Neelam has an individuality, a grace, a loving heart, and it is very easy to be satisfied with her -- she is not a quarreling type, a fighting type. She herself is at ease, and anybody who loves her will find himself soon at ease. A harmony arises -- but harmony on the one hand is beautiful, and on the other hand is boring.

Perhaps you have never thought that satisfaction is a kind of death. It means you are ready to repeat the same every day, that you have forgotten to change, to evolve.

"... still from time to time I feel a strong pull towards other dishes, and enjoy Italian pizzas, French wine, or Japanese sushi." It is absolutely natural. The problem is arising because of your conditionings that when you are absolutely satisfied with a woman, why should you ask? Why should the desire for somebody else even arise in you? It arises because of your deep satisfaction. Deep satisfaction starts deadening you... nothing new, no excitement, no possibility of "No," always "Yes." On the one hand it is very sweet; on the other, it is too sweet.

Hence, the desire arises once in a while to have some affair with another woman. It is absolutely natural. If Neelam were a fighting type, nagging type, bitchy, this desire would not have arisen so much, because she would never have allowed you to be satisfied. She would have kept you always unsatisfied; she would have remained a stranger to you, still to be explored. I know her... she has been open to you, available to you, she has not been holding secrets from you. That is not her fault, that is her beauty. But even the most beautiful roseflowers have their thorns, even the most satisfying situations have their problems.

Because you are too satisfied, you start asking for a change of taste: Italian pizzas, French wine, or Japanese sushi. Nothing is wrong in it. At least my people, who are the herald of the new man, have to understand it, that there is nothing wrong in it. The whole old conditioning goes against what I am saying to you, but if you are intelligent, you will see the point.

Accept it, but don't keep it a secret from Neelam. Don't let her down. Don't make her feel that she is not enough for you. Say to her, "You are too satisfying, and my mind wants a little change of atmosphere, some excitement so that I can feel that I am still alive." And remember, whatever you take for yourself, you have to give her too. It has not to be one-sided, not that you go to Sarjano's place, or find a Chinese restaurant; you allow her also.

Not only allow... the woman has been repressed by man so much that you will have to pull her out from her conditionings. You will have to help her to move, once in a while, into new pastures. If you can do that, you will not only be accepting your nature; you will also be helping her to find out her nature.

As a man, you are also guilty, because it is the man who has forced the woman, made her monogamous. In fact, she needs to move with other people more than you. The most astounding research about men and women and their sexualities is just amazing: Man can have only one orgasm, the woman can have multiple orgasms. The reason is simple because in orgasm, a man loses energy; he will need to recover for sometime, according to his age, to have another orgasm.

But the woman does not lose any energy. On the contrary, her first orgasm gives her a deep incentive to have more orgasms, and she is capable of at least half a dozen orgasms in a single night. Because of this fact, man became so afraid that he prevented the woman from knowing the fact that anything like orgasm exists. So he is very quick in making love. The woman will take a little longer time because man's sexuality is local, genital; woman's sexuality is spread all over her body. If a man wants her to have an orgasm, he has to play with her whole body, the foreplay, so her whole body starts throbbing with energy.

But once she has had one orgasm, she is utterly dissatisfied because now she knows the taste, and she is capable, and she knows that now she can have deeper orgasms. And man is simply impotent after the first orgasm, at least for twenty-four hours. He cannot do anything else -- he just turns over and goes to sleep. The poor boy is finished. And every woman weeps, cries because she has not even come, and her lover is finished.

To avoid the woman from having the knowledge of orgasm -- for centuries the woman was not allowed even to know the beauty and the pleasure of orgasm -- man also has had to prevent himself from having orgasm. All that he knows is ejaculation; ejaculation is not orgasm. Ejaculation is simply throwing out energy: one feels more relaxed, the tensions of the energy are gone, and one snores better.

The woman has become aware of orgasm only in this century and the whole credit goes to the movement of psychoanalysis. In the East, ninety-eight percent of women are still unaware that there is anything in making love, because she gets no juice, no experience.

She in fact hates the whole affair. Ejaculation is not her need, it is man's need; but both have remained deprived of sex and its ultimate orgasmic experiences.

But the trouble is, how to manage it? Anything looks very immoral. Either you have to invite all your friends, so that five, six friends make love, one by one, to the woman.

Then she will be satisfied, but that looks very hurting to the ego. Or you have to provide her with an electric vibrator. But once she knows the electric vibrator, you are useless because the electric vibrator gives her such tremendous orgasmic experiences that you cannot give.

It seems there has been some mistake by nature itself: men and women are not equal in their orgasmic capacity. You are fully satisfied, but have you ever bothered whether your beloved has found even a single orgasm? Because she has not found a single orgasm, she can remain devoted to you: monogamous. But if she knows what orgasmic experience is, she will also want, once in a while, to be with another man.

If you really love your woman, you will help her to come out of her old conditionings which are far deeper, because man himself is responsible. Man himself does not have those conditionings; his morality is very superficial and a hypocrisy. But the woman's morality has gone very deep. Man has been enforcing it from the very childhood. If you feel to change it, it is your responsibility; and particularly Kamal, a man of your understanding should be able to understand what I am saying.

It is your responsibility to bring Neelam also out into the sun, into the rain, into the wind, so that she can drop all her conditionings. You have to help her; you have to teach her how to enjoy Sarjano's place, and not go on eating the Punjabi food her whole life... how to enjoy Japanese food or Chinese food. If men and women really love each other, they will help each other to be unconditioned from the past.

Man does not have many conditionings, and they are superficial. He can drop them very easily, the way you drop your clothes. The woman has been conditioned so much that it is not like dropping her clothes, it is like peeling her skin. It is hard and unless you really love a woman.... It will be impossible, on her own, to get rid of all those conditionings, help her. Give her also the taste that in the world there are so many other foods; in the world, other than you, there are many more beautiful men. Your woman must know all of them. It is part of your love that your woman becomes more and more rich in her experiences. And the richer she is, she will not only give you satisfaction; she will start giving you excitement and ecstasy.

You say, "It's not that I don't want to eat out occasionally, but I'd like to feel it is in my hands whether I do or not...." It is in your hands, but it can be in your hands only if it is in the hands of Neelam too. As far as I am concerned and my concept of the new man and new woman is concerned, there should be equal opportunity for both. Not that you are the master and your woman is your slave; that she can remain satisfied with you, and you can go, once in a while, fooling around the neighborhood. She has every right to fool around in the same neighborhood! And there is no need to feel guilty; you have to help her not to feel guilty.

It is a very strange phenomenon that woman's liberation will be man's liberation, too; their slavery is together. Because you don't allow your woman to be free, how can she allow you to be free?

Freedom has to be, from both sides, a precious value -- loved, recognized, respected.

You say "... and not be a victim of this hormonal conspiracy." If you want to get beyond the hormones and the biology; live it totally, exhaust it. My own understanding is that by the age of fourteen your hormones start working, and if you allow them total freedom if you go with them joyously by the age forty-two, they will like to go to rest. And this transcendence will be natural; it will not be a celibacy imposed. It will be a sacred celibacy that is coming to you from the beyond, because you have lived your life totally and now nothing in the ordinary life interests you. Your interest is in higher values, for a deeper search about life, about truth, about creativity. You have passed a childish age. By the age of forty-two, according to me, a man really becomes adult, but only if he lives naturally. If he lives half-heartedly then it will take a longer time -- maybe forty-nine years, maybe seventy-five. Maybe even when he is dying he is thinking only of sex and nothing else; he never transcends it.

You both are understanding people and you both love me, and you both can see things without screens on your eyes, clearly. Love each other totally, and occasionally allow each other freedom. But it has to be on both sides. And it is not going to destroy your love; it is going to make it richer, deeper, more fulfilling, more orgasmic. And those few occasions when you are on holiday from each other will not take you away from each other; they will go on bringing you closer to each other. Don't have any secret -- be absolutely open, and allow the other person also to be absolutely open, and respect openness. Never, even by your gestures, make the other person feel guilty. That is the greatest crime humanity has been committing: making people guilty. If the other feels guilty because of very deep rooted conceptions, help her to be free of the guilt.

Love lived in an atmosphere of freedom will transcend you from sex naturally, easily, effortlessly. Love will remain, sex will be gone and then love has a purity and a beauty and a sacredness of its own.

Sitting on a bus in New York, a prim old lady was shocked to overhear an Italian say to another, "Emma come-a first. I come-a next. Two ass-a come-a together. I come-a again.

Two ass-a come-a together again. I come-a once more. Peepee twice. Then I come-a for the last time."

When the Italian was finished, the red faced old maid turned to a policeman sitting nearby, and said, "Are you not going to arrest that terrible old man?"

"What for?" asked the policeman. "For spelling Mississippi?"

Take life more joyously and more jokingly. Let your whole life become a beautiful joke.

There is nothing wrong in nature, and to be natural is to be religious.

But there are disparities between man and woman; neither biologists, nor psychologists have been able to figure out why these disparities exist. The woman is far stronger as far as orgasmic experience is concerned. She needs to have more lovers than man, and man must have become aware of the fact in the very beginning of life. To prevent her, he has completely closed even the possibility of having one orgasm. That's why all women hate sex. I was puzzled -- why do women hate sex? All the women go to celibate monks and worship them; as far as their own husband is concerned, they know he is a dirty old man.

The reason is, to them sex is an experience -- just dirtiness. The man is throwing his dirt onto the woman. The woman feels used, and nobody likes being used.

The new man will make love not a one way affair, from man to woman; it will be a two-way affair. Both will be enjoying it. And science has to find some way either to make man capable of having multiple orgasms so he can go a long, long time with the woman, giving her as many orgasms as she requires, and make the whole journey beautiful; or science has to cut woman's multiple orgasmic capacity to a single orgasm. Something has to be done, and it is one of the most important things because it creates problems in everybody's life.

You both are intelligent, and I hope that you will prove my hypothesis that you can love each other, and yet once in a while have different affairs -- joyously, not reluctantly. Not because I am saying it, but out of your own understanding.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY WHEN YOUR BODY FELL A LITTLE, SOME OF YOUR

SANNYASINS RUSHED TOWARDS YOU IN A SPLIT SECOND TO HELP. THERE

WAS NO HUSTLE AND NO CONFUSION AMONGST THEM, AND THEIR

MOVEMENTS WERE IN PERFECT HARMONY. AFTER THE NECESSARY

ASSISTANCE WAS FINISHED, THEY SAT BACK IN THEIR SEATS AS IF

NOTHING HAD HAPPENED. THIS ALL HAPPENED WITHIN A COUPLE OF

SECONDS. OSHO, IS THIS THE REFLECTION OF THE AWARENESS THAT YOU

ARE CONSTANTLY TALKING ABOUT?

Satyam Niranjan, yes. It is something of alertness, something of silence and peace -- a discipline that arises out of awareness, not a discipline that is being forced through training. Only Sarjano missed out because he did not have the camera ready.

After you had gone back to your seats and I moved, I remembered Sarjano, and I remembered a small story....

An American couple are touring darkest Africa on safari. They are walking cautiously through the jungle, when suddenly a huge lion springs out in front of them. It seizes the wife with its giant jaws and proceeds to drag her into the bush.

"Shoot!" she screams. "Shoot for Christ's sake!"

"I can't," answers the husband. "I have run out of film."

Everything was right, only Sarjano was not ready with his camera. I have heard he is angry with his camera, wants to sell it. Don't do any such stupid thing! Even if you have run out of film we can get more!

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

NOT LONG AGO, IN A DISCOURSE, I HEARD YOU SAY THAT YOU HATED

SPAGHETTI. THEN RECENTLY, YOU SAID YOU HATED SUNTANS. AND NOW, JUST THE OTHER DAY, I HEARD YOU SAY THAT THE ONLY THING YOU

HATED WAS INCOME TAX. DOES THIS MEAN THAT YOU DON'T HATE

SPAGHETTI, AND SUNTANS ANYMORE? OR IS THERE SOME MYSTERIOUS

CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE THREE SEEMINGLY UNRELATED

PHENOMENA?

I don't hate anything. But just when I am talking to you, there are points which have to be emphasized. And when I say I hate spaghetti, I am simply emphasizing something.

Hatred is not part of my being at all. In fact, I have never tasted spaghetti, and perhaps I will never taste it because of an accident.

One Italian woman, a professor with a doctorate from the University of Rome, used to be my sannyasin. But she had strange habits: one was that I don't think she had ever taken a single shower in her life. She used to stink. And she went putting on powder, layers of powder... she was a beautiful woman. And it was she who made me so much afraid of spaghetti, because she prepared spaghetti one day and brought it for me to eat. The spaghetti was smelling of her.

I told her, "Out, you just go out of the room. Leave the spaghetti, I will eat... but I always eat alone. You just go out." And as she went out, the first thing was: I threw her spaghetti down the toilet. And the smell was so dangerous that even today -- it must be twenty-six, twenty-seven years ago -- but suddenly, if I remember spaghetti, I remember the woman and the smell. And then it is no more a memory; I have to live it again. That's why I say,

"I hate"; otherwise, I have never tasted spaghetti. It just came in a wrong way to me, through a wrong vehicle.

A suntan also I don't hate, but certainly I don't like, because to me it seems a modern way of self-torture. It is something masochistic, lying down in the hot sun. All over the world millions of women are suffering, and nobody protests that -- "Stop this nonsense!" And that suntan does not remain long. You are simply sunburned. In a few days, you are healed and you are back to your normal color.

If one really wants to be a little less white, a suntan is not the way. You need a certain pigment to be injected into your body, and then you will remain, for your whole life, the color you wanted. A suntan to me always looks something like religious self-torture; the beaches are full... there is no space on the beaches on a sunny day.

I don't hate -- why should I hate? It has nothing to do with me. I simply don't like... I myself don't like to go into the sun. I love to see the sun from my air-conditioned room.

A wealthy English tourist visiting America was curious about the native American Indians. After touring one reservation, she asked her guide why some men had more feathers than others in their headdresses.

"We only have one feather because we only have one squaw," said the guide. Thinking the guide must be joking, she asked another man who said, "Uh! we have four feathers because we have four squaw."

Disturbed that any culture could possibly have such a crude custom, she decided to ask the tribal chief for further explanation. "Why are there so many feathers in you headdress, chief?" she asked.

"Me chief, so me fuck them all. Big, small, short, tall, make no difference."

The English lady was mortified. "You ought to be hung," she snorted.

"You damned right," said the chief. "Me hung like buffalo."

"Well," she cried. "You don't have to be so damned hostile!"

"Hoss-style! Dog-style! Any style! Me fuck them all!"

Tears in her eyes, and red with embarrassment, the woman cried, "Oh dear, Oh dear." To which the chief replied, "No deer! Me no fuck deer! Asshole too high. Fuckers run too fast!"

I have just been joking. I don't hate anybody... neither the spaghetti, nor the suntan, nor the tax collectors. But when I am speaking, I never say anything that I have prepared beforehand and whatever I say, I want to say with my totality, with my spontaneity. My word "hate" is simply a total expression of my dislike.

My God! I'm still smelling that spaghetti!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #34

Chapter title: Out of the mind -- below or beyond

28 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705285

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN34

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

102

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOUR OUTSTRETCHED HANDS EVER-PATIENTLY WAIT BESIDE MY OPEN

CAGE DOOR, BECKONING. BUT TIME AND TIME AGAIN, I RETURN TO MY

CAGE SHOUTING, "FREEDOM, FREEDOM!" HAVING A TASTE HERE AND

THERE OF THE VASTNESS OF THE UNKNOWN, WHY DO I RETURN TO MY

LESSER HOME? YOUR BECKONING EYES, YOUR INVITING HANDS PULL SO

STRONGLY AT MY HEART, AND YET I RESIST. BELOVED OSHO, WHICH IS IT

I AM MORE AFRAID OF -- LIFE OR DEATH?

Prem Leela, the old man, the way he has existed for centuries, is afraid of life, not afraid of death. Death he worships, life he renounces.

All the religions that have prevailed in the world have been life-negative; they have continuously hammered the thought into your mind that to love life is something wrong; to love life is for sinners, to hate life is for saints. All their disciplines are managed and planned in such a way that they destroy your life; they destroy your joy of life, they destroy your longing for more and more life.

Rather than helping you to live more aesthetically, more artistically, more beautifully, more blissfully, they condemn life so much in so many ways that your whole longing for life is poisoned. And in a very indirect way, they all teach you to worship death. What is renunciation of life if not the worshiping of death? They are afraid of life because life seems to be against their religions. A man who loves life will not bother at all about temples, and mosques, and churches; life is enough unto itself.

One who has known life in its depths and in its heights will not bother at all whether God exists or not because he has already known something more real, something more certain than any God has ever been.

All gods are hypothetical.

Only life is the real God.

Naturally, the priests are worried that you should not get too much involved with the mysteries of life, because if you are too much involved with the mysteries of life... who is going to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a Buddhist? Who is going to worship dead gods, dead saints? Who is going to listen to the priests?

One who has heard the song of life itself, one who has lived intensely and totally the music of life itself, who has danced it, is not going to be concerned about belief systems -

- he has no need. And there are only two ugliest professions in the world... one is that of the prostitutes and the other is that of the priests.

Of course, the profession of the priests is far worse because the prostitutes only sell their bodies, they don't sell their souls. And they don't interfere with anybody else's freedom, they don't destroy your joy; on the contrary, they in some way enhance it, intensify it, make it more aflame. It is the priest who sells gods, and who enslaves man, and who interferes in everybody's life -- his freedom, his individuality.

He can not tolerate seeing anybody happy, because the person who is happy is not going to be his customer; his business is dependent on your misery. The more miserable you are, the more you will seek the advice of the priest, the more you will worship statues, the more you will look beyond life for some consolation. This life is full of suffering. You have to believe in a life other than this life just to bear it, just to tolerate it; otherwise, it will become impossible even for a single moment for any intelligent man.

The priests have left only one thing, and that is suicide. They have destroyed everything that life is capable of, and they have poisoned your minds so deeply that even if you try to enjoy something... you want to dance, but you find that some invisible chains are preventing your feet; you want to sing, but you find some invisible hands are choking your voice; you want to love, but you suddenly hear some voice coming from within your own mind that you are going to commit a sin, it is against God and against all the holy scriptures.

Prem Leela, your question is of tremendous importance. You are asking, "Which is it I'm more afraid of: life or death?"

Nobody is afraid of death.

It may seem unbelievable, but I repeat that nobody is afraid of death, because you cannot be afraid of something you don't know. You cannot be afraid of something with which you are not acquainted -- what do you know about death? How can you be afraid of the unknown?

It is the known that creates fear. It is the miserable life that you have lived today, that you are afraid you may have to live tomorrow again. You know it; you have been living it year after year, hoping that some miracle will happen, and tomorrow with the rising sun everything will change. But the sun rises every day; it has risen thousands of times, and nothing changes. On the contrary, life goes on becoming more complicated, more miserable, more full of suffering, more full of fear.

Yes, you are afraid of old age, you are afraid of disease, but not of death. You know nothing about death. Death, you worship.

One of my friends was meeting with the home minister. He asked, "Ramakrishna Mission is given tax-exempt status, Vivekananda Mission is given tax-exempt status; why are you all against a man who has not done any harm to you?"

And the home minister said to him -- "they are friends, old colleagues -- because Bhagwan is still alive, he cannot be given tax-exempt status." My friend could not believe that to get tax-exempt status, you have to be dead! He said, "What kind of logic is this?"

And the home minister explained, "A living man cannot be given a tax-exempt status because he may change tomorrow, he may change his whole ideology; he may become a communist, he may become an anarchist. And particularly the man you have come to recommend to me is already dangerous!

"Once a man dies, everybody is satisfied; at least one thing is certain -- that man cannot change. He cannot give another interpretation to life, he cannot declare that there is no God. We can be certain about his philosophy, and if it fits into our categories, we can give the tax-exempt status, but not to a living man -- and especially to a living man like Bhagwan!"

My friend was going to see the prime minister, but the home minister said, "It is better you don't mention Bhagwan's name to anybody. Just the name makes them afraid for the simple reason that he does not belong to any religion; nobody knows what exactly is his teaching. He does not give any discipline to his people; on the contrary, he takes away people's disciplines and beliefs. Rather than conditioning them to be obedient to the society and the society's morality, he corrupts them. He takes away their conditionings and leaves them open, vulnerable, rebellious."

Have you ever seen anybody who is alive being worshiped as a saint? Even when Ramakrishna was alive, people thought, "He is an idiot, he is a madman." When Ramateertha was alive, the great Hindu scholars of Varanasi declared that he could not be a saint because he did not know Sanskrit. His whole upbringing was in Persian, Arabic and Urdu, because he was born in Lahore which is now in Pakistan. But once dead, nobody asks whether Ramateertha knew Sanskrit or not; dead, everything is right. Now he is worshiped as a great saint. Ramakrishna is no longer described as a madman; he is worshiped as an incarnation of God -- by the same people.

To worship the dead has been one of the basic attitudes of the old man, because the dead man cannot create rebellion, cannot provoke people to revolt. A dead man is very comfortable, convenient. But one who is alive, and not only alive, but who believes life to be the only God, looks certainly dangerous.

Just a few days ago here in Poona, one of the shankaracharyas, Swami Svarupanand, told a conference, "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is the most dangerous man mankind has ever known." I don't carry nuclear weapons with me, I don't have even a knife to cut vegetables, but I am the most dangerous man of the whole history of mankind because I teach life and not death, love, rejoicing and not renunciation.

The old man has lived so wrongly, so stupidly, so insanely that the harm that has been done to us is incalculable.

A man is shipwrecked, and finds himself in an uninhabited region. After wandering long in the jungle, he comes at last to a village where he sees a noose from which a corpse is hanging.

"The Lord be praised," he cries. "Civilization at last!"

But this is the civilization we all have inherited.

Two guys at a bar were comparing the sexual behavior of their wives. "Hey," one said,

"Does your wife close her eyes when you are making love to her?"

"Sure, she does," the other replied. "She can't stand to see me having a good time."

The priests are just like these wives who can't stand to see anybody having a good time.

All your religions are nothing but condemnations of everything that can give you pleasure, joy. They are very supportive of everything that is nothing but self-torture.

Your question is: "Bhagwan, your outstretched hands ever-patiently wait beside my open cage door, beckoning, but time and time again, I return to my cage shouting, "Freedom, freedom!" Having a taste here and there of the vastness of the unknown, why do I return to my lesser home? Your beckoning eyes, your inviting hands pull so strongly at my heart; and yet I resist."

Naturally, a great question mark arises in your heart -- why? Why do you choose slavery when freedom is available? Why do you choose the cage when the doors are open, and the whole sky is yours?

The answer is not very far to find. The cage has security. It protects you from rain, from sun, from strong wind, from your enemies. It protects you from the vastness in which one can be lost. It gives you a shelter, it is your cozy home, and you don't have any responsibility of worrying about your food, of worrying about the rainy season, of worrying about whether tomorrow you will be able to find nourishment or not.

Freedom brings tremendous responsibilities.

Slavery is a bargain: you give your freedom and somebody else starts being responsible for your life, for your protection, for your food, for your shelter, for everything that you need. All that you lose is your freedom, all that you lose are your wings, all that you lose is the starry sky. But that was your soul.

In a cage safe and secure, you are dead; you have chosen a life of no risk, no danger.

That's why you go on returning to your cage, although your deepest soul is restless in slavery; it would like to risk all and to have the freedom to go to the very end of the sky.

It longs to fly across the sun to faraway stars. That's why my hands become significant to you, my words become a beckoning. But you decide, finally, to be a hypocrite; that's what almost everybody in the whole world has decided.

You start singing songs of freedom in the cage. Although the doors are open and the sky is available, you settle for a life of hypocrisy -- to have all the coziness and the insurance and the security of the cage, and have all the joys of freedom in your song, in your poetry, in your painting, in your music. That's why you go on shouting, "Freedom, freedom!" You are simply deceiving yourself.

The new man will not be a hypocrite.

The old man was basically taught to be a hypocrite. The greater the hypocrite he was, the more honored, the more rewarded, the more respectable. He had settled with society:

"You respect me and I will be a slave, I will be at your disposal. You just go on giving Nobel prizes to me."

But you are not to be part of that old hypocrite world. I want you to come out of all security, all coziness, all shelter. Make the whole sky your home, be a wanderer, a pilgrim, know all the mysteries and all the secrets of life. And let not your life be a serious and miserable phenomenon. Let it be a joyous laughter, a playfulness.

To me, authentic religiousness means a childlike innocence, playfulness, and a wholehearted capacity for laughter.

Then each moment becomes so precious that you will not sing the song of freedom, you will live it. You will not talk about truth, you will know it. You will not worship God, you will find him wherever life is -- all over existence.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THE CLOSER I GET TO YOU, THE MADDER I BECOME, AND I HAVE NOTICED

THIS PHENOMENON IN OTHER DISCIPLES. PLEASE COMMENT.

Prem Ramarshi, the question shows you are not yet mad enough because those who are mad never accept that they are mad. That is one of the absolutes: the madman never accepts that he is mad.

You can look in madhouses, you can ask as many madmen as possible, and you will be surprised that they are all shocked that people think that they are mad. No argument convinces them; on the contrary, they are ready to give every argument to prove that they are not mad.

It happened in the second world war, Winston Churchill had gone for a walk in the evening, tired of the whole day's work, and the tremendous responsibility and tension --

because Adolf Hitler was bombing exactly over London. He forgot in his thoughts that after six o'clock he had to go inside the house; an absolute curfew ordered that after six o'clock, nobody should come out of the house. As Churchill remembered it, he saw that it was six-fifteen. And it was not in India where, if you are the prime minister, no law applies to you; it was Britain where it makes no difference whether you are the prime minister or a nobody.

He rushed to the closest house because his own house was far away, it would take fifteen minutes... the streets were deserted, he could be caught, and that would become a scandal

-- that even the prime minister does not follow the rules that he decides for everybody to follow.

He knocked on the door. A man opened the door, and he introduced himself saying, "I am Winston Churchill, prime minister of the country, and by chance I forgot to return home in time. Please give me shelter."

Before he could end his sentence, the man, a very strong man, pulled him in. Churchill said, "What are you doing?" The man said, "Shut up! We already have three more Winston Churchills in here."

It was a madhouse!

Winston Churchill said, "But I really AM Winston Churchill." The man said, "Forget all about it. They all say the same thing. Everybody is really Winston Churchill."

He said, "Let me phone my wife, or to the palace." The man said, "Forget all these things.

Just get into your cell so I can lock it. And don't make any nuisance in the night, because we are tired of these Winston Churchills. Those three are also continually saying, "We want to talk to Buckingham Palace; we want to inform parliament what kind of misbehavior is being done to the prime ministers."

He thought for a moment, and realized the situation -- that there is no way; he will have to wait till the morning, unless some officer or doctor, somebody more intelligent then this idiot, comes in.

But it was the same story. The jailer came, and he was an educated man. Winston Churchill very politely said to him, "Listen, I'm really Winston Churchill. I'm not joking.

And I have too much responsibility, the country is at war, I cannot remain here! I'm needed in my office; every moment is decisive.

The jailer laughed. He said, "Just rest. Three others are also continually harassing us that they are responsible for the whole country, that they are to save the whole world."

Winston Churchill thought that now even the last hope.... The doctor came. He looked at Winston Churchill, and Winston Churchill said, "Do you recognize me? Have you seen my picture?"

The doctor said, "I have seen your picture, and that's why I'm wondering... that you look exactly like Winston Churchill."

Churchill said, "I don't look. I am."

The doctor said, "Forget all about that! Don't say that, because there are three more. They also look... and if you tell them that they look like Winston Churchill, they become very angry. They say, `We are! Don't insult your own prime minister.'"

His family was in search all over the street where he used to go for a walk, and somebody said that they had seen him knock at the madhouse on the corner -- that's how he was found and released. But before getting released he said, "I would like to ask a favor. I would like to see the other three. I have become so interested in them. Once in the night, it came to me, "Perhaps I'm just mad, and they are right." But then I dropped that idea,"

No, I'm certainly Winston Churchill; I'm the prime minister." But I would love to see them."

So he was taken to see them. They all looked like him -- fat, with the cigar. And they all looked at him also, and they all said the same thing. They said, "Boy, you look almost like Winston Churchill -- an exact copy of me! How did you manage?"

Because he was not a madman, for a moment the idea came to him, "Perhaps I am mad."

But for those three people even that idea was impossible.

You say, Ramarshi, "The closer I get to you, the madder I become, and I have noticed this phenomenon in other disciples." You have to come a little bit closer. Just becoming madder is not enough; you have to be really mad! And the moment when you are really mad, you will not say you are mad; your will say, "I am enlightened." That too happens here; when somebody really gets mad he becomes enlightened. Unless you become enlightened, I don't take it seriously. Then it is okay, it is normal. Here in this commune of crazy people it is a normal phenomenon, and you have observed rightly.

But to be mad by coming closer to me is to attain to sanity in a world which is really insane. Because the world is insane, the sane people will appear as if they have gone mad. The sane people are so few, and they happen once in thousands of years -- a Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu, a Socrates, a Jesus. Centuries pass, and humanity goes on living in a lukewarm madness. But because everybody is in the same boat, nobody recognizes that anybody is doing something insane.

Coming closer to me means becoming more sane. It will appear like becoming madder...

and even more mad. All these words are very irrelevant. As far as I see, there is a certain similarity and a certain dissimilarity between the sane and the really sane, between the ordinary mad and the madness that comes as a divine gift.

The sameness is that both go out of the mind. In fact, we say -- in many languages the phrase exists -- that somebody has gone out of his mind that means he has gone mad. But Gautam Buddha also goes out of his mind. Just the difference is that: you can go out of mind and fall below mind or you can go out of mind and transcend mind and go beyond.

In both the cases you will be out of the mind -- that will be the similarity between the ordinary madman and the enlightened man. But everything else will be totally different.

The man who has gone beyond the mind has become for the first time sane, intelligent, wise. But to the ordinary humanity, to the normally insane people, both have gone beyond their fold, both will appear as if they are mad, and many of their actions can be interpreted as if they are similar.

One great Zen master, Lin Chi, was staying in a temple on a cold winter night. In the middle of the night, the priest suddenly woke up because he saw, in the middle of the temple, a great fire. He rushed there; Lin Chi was sitting by the side of the fire.

Lin Chi had come that very evening and he wanted to stay overnight. Knowing him as a great Zen master, the priest had allowed him; but now he was repenting that he had allowed this madman inside the temple because he had burned a big wooden statue of Gautam Buddha, and he was enjoying in the cold night the heat, the warmth.

The priest said, "Are you mad or something?" Lin Chi said, "What's the matter? Why are you looking so angry?"

He said, "You have burnt Gautam Buddha! It was our most precious statue; it took years to make it."

He said, "I have burnt Gautam Buddha?" So he took his staff and started searching in the ashes of Gautam Buddha for his bones, which in the East are called flowers.

The priest said, "Now what are you doing?" Lin Chi said, "I am looking for the flowers!

Gautam Buddha is gone, but at least we can save the bones."

Even the priest had to forget his seriousness and laugh, and he said, "You are really mad.

This is just a wooden Gautam Buddha. There are no bones in it."

Lin Chi said, "If that is the case then you have still got two more statues, and the night is long and very cold. Bring one and you can also participate and enjoy. And as far as worship is concerned, one statue is enough; three are not needed."

But the priest, seeing the intentions of Lin Chi, could not allow him to remain in the temple. In the middle of the night, a cold night, he forced him to leave the temple. He said, "I'm afraid if I go to sleep you will destroy another statue. I have heard much about you and I have always thought that you are a little mad, but today I know you are completely gone."

So he threw Lin Chi out of the temple. In the morning he opened the doors to see what had happened to Lin Chi. Just in front of the temple there was a milestone. Lin Chi had collected a few wild flowers, had put those flowers on the milestone and he was doing his morning worship: "Buddham Sharanam Gachchhami."

The priest said, "My God, this is too much! First he has destroyed a precious statue of Gautam Buddha and now he is worshiping before a milestone." He went and he asked Lin Chi, "What are you doing?"

He said, "The real thing is prayer. Whether the stone is carved in a certain form and proportion or not, it does not matter. It is only an excuse. You have your excuses -- I have destroyed one, two are still there. Sometime I will see... but for this morning this milestone is as perfect to meditate, to pray with, as any Gautam Buddha."

To any ordinary normal human being, this behavior will look insane. But do you think it is insane or is it super-sanity, super-sensitivity? He is a superman, because he is saving the essential and destroying the non-essential.

Don't be worried about becoming madder by coming closer to me -- rejoice! The madder you become, the more blissful you are. And you are seeing the same phenomenon happening in other people. My very being here is to drive as many people mad as possible, because these mad people are the potential for the future.

The so-called sane have ruled the world too long, and destroyed everything that was valuable. Now let this new race of the new man, who may look mad to the old, rule over the world. Let these people spread more madness, more joy, more song, more ecstasy and more dance around the earth. That's the only way to save it from destruction.

But old habits die hard. So you are becoming madder, Ramarshi, in installments --

slowly, slowly. Take a little longer steps. Don't take me for granted. I am here today, tomorrow...? Only one thing is needed -- permission from Rafia! And I can persuade him....

Sandra and Simon are arguing furiously over the breakfast table. "Oh, you are stupid!"

shouted Simon at his sister. "Simon!" says the father, "that's quite enough of that. Now say you are sorry."

"Alright," says Simon, "Sandra, I am sorry you are stupid."

Just small steps won't do; you need quantum leaps!

Ramarshi, the mind can try to be sane. But it will be very superficial sanity, just skin-deep, or perhaps not even that much; a little scratch and the insane will come out. Real sanity consists only in going beyond the mind and entering into a state of meditation.

Thoughts can never become sane. Only a thoughtless silence brings you to the world of sanity.

And when silence deepens inside you and goes on opening doors upon doors of your heart till you have reached your very being, don't stop, because the mind is very old and your meditation will be a very new experience. The old has weight, the old can pull you back again and again. The new experience of meditation and intelligence has to be given time to grow roots, has to be given time to start influencing your actions and your behavior. You should not leave the effort to create your meditation, your silence, your peace and its depth till you are absolutely certain that your mind is under your control and you are not under the control of the mind. That is the criterion of a sane man: the mind is his servant. For the insane man, the mind is his master.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER MORNING YOU SAID THAT WE ARE ALL GOING TO BE

ENLIGHTENED AND ALL MASTERS, AND I FELT SIMULTANEOUSLY A

GREAT LAUGHTER AND A TREMENDOUS RESPONSIBILITY AWAKENING IN

ME. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? AM I LISTENING CORRECTLY? AGAIN I FEEL THAT I AM NOT RECEPTIVE ENOUGH. PLEASE HELP ME.

Sarjano, I said certainly that you are all going to become enlightened, and masters, and you heard me right. Just one thing more I have to add to it. I could say it because enlightenment is your very nature. It is because of language that many problems arise; otherwise I would have said you are enlightened and you are masters -- you are just unaware of it.

It is as if you have a treasure in your house, but you don't know where it is. The house is big -- many mansions, many rooms; you know certainly the treasure is there, but you are poor, you are a beggar, and who is going to believe you? Even you yourself suspect a thousand-and-one times that perhaps it is all a myth, a dream; there is no treasure. But you have not looked into the house, you have not searched in all nooks and corners; you have not made enough efforts to find it.

I have found my treasure! That's why I am absolutely certain that if my consciousness can give me so much peace and so much silence, so much joy, so much blissfulness, there is no reason why your consciousness cannot do the same. Perhaps you have not looked into the possibility, you have not searched in your own being, you have never gone in; otherwise you are enlightened this very moment.

And I could say that not only you all will be enlightened; you all will be masters. All enlightened people have not been masters, but I can say with tremendous guarantee that my people, once they become enlightened, are going to be masters, for the simple reason that I have been preparing you to convey the message. I am giving you all the devices: how to create bridges between you and those who are blind; how to find words which can contain at least a hint of your experience. Talking to you twice every day for almost thirty-five years....

The danger is that many of you may become masters before they become enlightened, because they have listened to so much; just a little articulateness and they can pretend to be great masters. A few are doing that already around the world; they have become mini-gurus.

But what you heard, you heard rightly. It seems difficult, it seems almost impossible; hence you laughed. The very idea of Sarjano as enlightened will create laughter in everybody. Sarjano, the enlightened master, the piesta seller, the pornography photographer. It certainly.... I can understand why you laughed. You know yourself!

But simultaneously you also felt a tremendous responsibility awakening in you, because it does not matter; neither piesta, nor anything else can prevent your enlightenment. In fact, my people are going to be not just like the stone statues of Gautam Buddha, sitting in a lotus posture doing nothing. How many Buddhas like that can we afford in the world? We will need a shoemaker who is enlightened, a piesta maker enlightened -- all kinds of people. Your actions don't define you; your being remains undefined by your actions. Certainly your being defines your actions. When you are enlightened your piesta will have a different taste.

In desperation the young bride finally took pen in hand and wrote to the problem page of a newspaper: "I am married to a sex maniac. My husband never leaves me alone. He makes love to me all night long, while I am in the shower, while cooking breakfast, even while I'm trying to clean the house. Can you tell me what to do?" signed, worn out.

"P.S. Please excuse the jerky handwriting."

But even these people have to become enlightened!

My deepest longing is to make all kinds of people enlightened and to make enlightenment a very ordinary, simple and innocent experience -- nothing special, nothing holier-than-thou-humble, non-pretending, not claiming spirituality... just being joyous and full of light, radiant with joy, overflowing with love, ready to share their experience in whatever way they can.

Sarjano, there is no need to laugh. You are as capable as any Gautam Buddha. And there is no need to be worried about responsibility, because when you become enlightened you also become capable of fulfilling tremendous responsibilities of which you could have never dreamt before.

[SUDDENLY THE SOUND OF FIRE CRACKERS IS HEARD IN THE DISTANCE.]

Is this Sarjano making all these firecrackers from his piesta shop? -- because I think he is there!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #35

Chapter title: Buffaloes are never bored

29 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705290

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN35

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

115

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

PRINCE CHARLES, THE HEIR TO THE ENGLISH THRONE, RECENTLY SPENT

THREE DAYS ON A SMALL SCOTTISH ISLAND WITH A LOCAL FAMILY, HELPING ON A CROFT. EARLIER THIS YEAR, HE SPENT SOME TIME IN THE

KALAHARI DESERT WITH LAWRENCE VAN DER POST. HE SAID ON

TELEVISION THAT HE TALKS TO HIS PLANTS TO HELP THEM GROW. THE

FUTURE KING OF ENGLAND SEEMS TO BE INTERESTED IN SPIRITUAL

MATTERS. HAVE YOU ANY COMMENT TO MAKE ON THIS?

Prem Yatro, Prince Charles is deeply interested in meditation. He is also interested in exploring the inner world. But in the West, unfortunately, such people are thought to be a little crazy -- a little loony.

His statements -- that he talks to his plants to help them grow -- have created almost a scandal all over England. They don't think that their future king should talk such nonsense -- although it is not nonsense. But from a man from the royal family, and particularly the man who is going to be the king, England must be feeling very insecure.

His going alone in the desert or to small villages to find peace of mind is very disturbing to the British traditional, orthodox Christian; it is disturbing to his family, to the queen and to his father, Prince Philip.

When he was in India, he had specially called Vimalkirti and his wife, Turiya -- they both were my sannyasins. Vimalkirti was one of his cousins. Vimalkirti was the great-grandson of the German emperor, and he was directly connected to Prince Philip; Prince Philip was his mother's brother.

He talked for hours about me, about meditation, about what is happening here. Vimalkirti and Turiya both invited him to come; he was very interested, but very afraid of the royal family. He was specially told by Queen Elizabeth not to go to Poona. He went to see the shankaracharya, he went to see Mother Teresa, but Queen Elizabeth was more afraid of Poona than anything.

In the East, kings were sent -- particularly future kings -- to the great seers and mystics to learn the ways of inner life, because a king is not of any worth if he has no contact with himself. If he is just an extrovert, he cannot be a blessing to his people. For years in the East the princes used to sit at the feet of the masters to learn silence, to learn compassion, to learn meditation, to become aware of the mysteries of existence. The king should not only be aware of the mundane world, he should also have his roots in the sacred -- only then is he a complete man. And only then can he look after his people in all aspects of life. But in the West, it is totally a different thing.

Prince Charles is being thought of as if he is a little crazy, and England is worried because he is going to be the king. He has already started throwing his weight; he insists on his way of life.

It is a well-known scientific fact that you can talk to the trees, and you can help them to grow faster, you can help them to bring bigger flowers, juicier fruits; you just have to be in a friendly, loving relationship with them. They are very sensitive people, more sensitive than man himself.

The latest research about trees and their sensitivity scientifically proves strange phenomena. Scientists have developed some instruments, something like cardiograms, which can graphically depict the exact emotions of a tree.

On a silent and beautiful morning, with the sun rising and the birds singing the graph is very harmonious. Then suddenly, the scientists bring a woodcutter with the intention to cut a tree. And immediately -- the man has not started cutting it, he has not expressed his thought even that he is going to cut it -- the graph starts wavering, loses harmony, shows fear, anxiety, tension; the tree has lost its joyous ecstatic interiority.

It seems that the tree is capable of reading the mind of the man, because he has not said anything. And if the same woodcutter is brought to the side of the tree without any intention to cut it, the graph goes on harmoniously, there is no change. The tree is not worried; the man is not dangerous, he is not going to harm it.

Not only that, but when a woodcutter comes with the intention of cutting a tree, a certain tree, other trees surrounding it all start showing anxiety, fear, anguish; their graphs start losing the harmonious beauty. They are not going to be cut, but one of their friends, one of their neighbors, a colleague for years, is going to be unnecessarily killed.

It was in the East with Mahavira, that the first insight came into the world that trees are living beings, and they should be treated in the same way. Vegetarianism is just a by-product of that intuition. But it remained a philosophical hypothesis.

Then another Indian man, Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, scientifically proved that trees are living beings. He was given a Nobel prize for his great exploration and opened a new door for future explorers. But since then fifty years, or more than fifty years have passed; nobody has gone beyond Jagdish Chandra Bose.

But recently, many scientists around the world -- in the Soviet Union, outside the Soviet Union -- have gone far beyond Jagdish Chandra Bose and his discoveries. The trees are not only alive; they are also conscious in their own way.

Man should not think that he is the only conscious and intelligent animal in the world, and he should not think that his is the only type of consciousness that exists. The researchers show that animals have a different kind of consciousness and a different kind of sensitivity.

A few birds... particularly bees have been found to have a certain language, and trees have been found immensely sensitive. When the gardener comes to water and to nourish them, the graph on the cardiogram attached to them starts dancing in joy, shows some ecstatic welcome. Perhaps soon we may be able to discover that they have their own kind of language that we don't understand.

But Prince Charles talking to the trees in England will not be acceptable. He is being condemned as a little crazy. Actually, according to me, and according to all the scientific research too, what he is doing is absolutely sane -- more sane than your ordinary people are.

I had an old gardener who won every year a competition in the city because he used to bring roses so big that people could not believe it. He was a poor man and his secret was that he treated trees not as trees, but as his own children. He would talk to them, he would inform them before-hand, "I am going for a competition; don't let me down. You have to produce the biggest flower possible."

For almost the twenty years that he was with me, he was winning every year. But his secret was not better gardening; his secret was a deep respect for the plants, bestowing on them a dignity, communing with them as if they also were human beings. He was offered many other jobs by richer people because they wanted to win the prizes.

I told him, "You can accept if somebody is giving you more money -- don't be worried."

He said, "That is not the question. The question is that everywhere I will be thought mad.

It is only you who has never said to me that what I am doing is nonsense. You have supported me, and in my whole life you are the only person who has."

When I came to Poona, the gardener had become very old, but he was sending messages through sannyasins that he would like to come and take care of my garden. He was worried that nobody else could take care of my garden the way it should be taken care of.

What Prince Charles is doing is perfectly right. He should be supported, but he is being condemned all over England. We are so blind towards existence that it is not surprising.

Have you ever said, "Hello," to a tree? You yourself would think that you are going out of your mind. Have you ever touched a tree with love, the same way you would touch your beloved? Have you ever hugged a tree? You are missing a whole world of sensitivity that surrounds you, that is available.

Slowly, slowly, you will start feeling that when you say hello to a tree... of course, it cannot respond in language, but it will respond in some way. It may start swaying even though there may be no wind. When you touch it lovingly, just a little acquaintance is needed, and you can feel that on the other side there is not something insensitive, but something which is far more sensitive than people are. The tree will be sending its energy, its warmth to your hand.

If you hug a tree, the world is going to think you mad. But all the trees will know that there is still hope for man; there are still sensitive people. And hugging a tree, you will find more sensitiveness, more lovingness, than you can find even hugging your friend or your beloved, because your friend, or your beloved are full of tensions, anxieties, agonies. Trees are absolutely innocent; their consciousness is as pure as the purest sky, unclouded. We are not living in a dead world.

Although it has not been discovered yet by science, it is predictable that even in rocks you will find a consciousness deep asleep. Nothing is dead anywhere; it is whole, alive, sensitive. We are unnecessarily confining ourselves to human beings. We should spread our hands in all directions -- to the animals, the trees, the birds, the rocks, the oceans....

By this expansion of your experiences, your own consciousness will be evolving more and more. This universe is not a graveyard, it is full of rejoicings; you are just deaf. It is full of beauties, but you are blind. All the birds are living in a different dimension of consciousness; you can have a communication with them.

Man's future evolution is to expand his own consciousness in all dimensions, so that he can find the oceanic life and sensitivity that constitutes the universe. To me, this sensitivity and consciousness that makes up the whole existence is the only God, not to be worshiped, but to be loved.

Create more friends, and as your friendship goes deeper into different dimensions, you will find yourself becoming richer and richer; your own heights will start reaching Everest, your own depths will start reaching the Pacific.

The new man, of which I consistently dream, is going to deny God and to accept the world. But his world will be full of godliness. The old man has been a worshiper of dead gods in the temples and mosques and synagogues. The new man will find his living god in the trees, in the birds, in the rivers, in the ocean, in the mountains, in the stars. He will transform the whole universe into his temple.

Prince Charles is moving on absolutely the right lines. He needs encouragement from every nook and corner because England will not support him; it is one of the most dull countries in the world, the most serious, long-faced, dead in the soul. But he should continue his meditations in deserts, in deep forests, in mountains. Let the whole world call him mad, but the new man will accept him as a pioneer.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I AM WITH SARJANO FOR A WHILE. CAN I SURVIVE THAT?

Prem Sandha, it is a difficult job you have taken in your hands. It is almost impossible to survive with Sarjano. But it is not a curse, it is a blessing.

You should not make any effort to survive either -- merge with him. He is mad, but with a method; he is full of energy and love. Just don't fight with him -- become one with him.

The way to survive with Sarjano is to become one with him. But that is the way for everyone who wants to love. Love is basically committing suicide. Two egos have to commit suicide to place them in a position for merging and melting, to create the space in which love can grow.

Sarjano is full of energy -- sometimes too much! But an understanding woman can help him to be more centered if she can love unconditionally and without asking anything. If she can enjoy his abundance of energy, then there is no problem. But if you want to dominate him, you cannot survive; if you want in some way to be bitchy, you cannot survive.

He is not a man who will accept any handcuffs, any curtailment of his freedom. Neither do you have to curtail your freedom; enjoy your freedom and let him enjoy his freedom.

Two freedoms can exist together beautifully, but two slave-makers cannot exist together; they are after each other's necks. Unfortunately, that is the situation in the whole world: people are killing each other in the name of love, destroying each other in the name of love.

Love is a creative act. It enhances both. It gives freedom, it gives joy, it gives courage, and nourishment, but that seems to be only theoretical. In actuality, millions of people are suffering because of love. It is very rare to find someone who is growing because of love, who is becoming spiritually strong and integrated because of love.

But at least my people should understand it, because I don't want you to be just like the unconscious crowds that fill the whole earth. I want you to experiment with new ways of living, new styles of living. And one of the most important things for new styles of living is that love should never be used as politics, as an effort to dominate the other.

Love should make you humble and simple, innocent, available and open -- childlike, with no expectations. Then you can survive even Sarjano, or even nuclear weapons. He is a nuclear person!

I love people like Sarjano; they are so full of energy, they don't know what to do with it.

They are running hither and thither for no purpose, just to exhaust their abundance of energy. A right woman can help him to be centered, can help him to transform his abundance of energy into something creative.

A man walks into a bar looking for his friend. After finding him, he proceeds to tell the friend how much he hates his own wife.

"Why don't you have her murdered?" asked the friend. "I know a guy called Artie who will do it for you really cheap." This sounds great to the man. So he goes off to meet Artie who agrees to do the job for a dollar.

He asks the man where his wife goes shopping -- he plans to do the murder there. So Artie waits outside the supermarket until he sees the woman go in. Then he creeps up behind her and, in a deserted corner, strangles her.

When he has finished, he notices two old ladies staring at him, so he has to strangle them too. On his way out of the market, he is caught by the store detective and handed over to the police.

The headlines in the newspapers read, "Artie Chokes Three For A Dollar In Supermarket."

But it is not a rare case that husbands hate their wives and wives hate their husbands, although they go on saying, "Darling, I love you." The more they hate, the more they repeat, "I love you." They have to repeat it to create a facade to hide their hate.

I have heard about a very great surgeon. His friends had arranged a beautiful party and celebration as a golden jubilee of the surgeon's married life. They all were drinking and dancing and enjoying. Suddenly, somebody looked around; the surgeon was not there, so his most intimate friend and advocate went out in the garden to see where he could have gone. He was sitting under a tree very sad.

The advocate said, "What is the matter? Everybody is enjoying, and it is a moment of celebration, and you are sitting here sad." The surgeon said, "Don't come near me! I may strangle you. You are the person who destroyed my whole life."

The advocate could not believe this outburst. He said, "What do you mean?" The surgeon said, "You may have forgotten, but remember: twenty-five years ago, I had come to you to ask that if I murder my wife, what will happen? And you said, `Never do it because you will get at least twenty-five years in jail.' I am feeling sad that if I had not listened to your advice, today I would have been a free man."

In the name of love, people have been torturing each other for centuries... men in their own way, women in their own way.

Love has not yet entered into the world. It is still in the poems of the poet, in the songs of the musicians, but it has not become part of humanity. I hope that when we get rid of the old man and his whole so-called barbarous attitudes and approaches to life, love will become the very foundation of a new humanity. This love will not be a bondage, an imprisonment, but a tremendous freedom.

Unless love becomes freedom, you don't know what it is. Freedom without love is dry, is a desert. Love without freedom is fake, just a hypocrisy; it does not exist.

Love and freedom are two sides of the same coin.

It is one flower, and it can blossom only when both are allowed dignity and respect.

You can survive Sarjano. He is not a dangerous man. He has a very loving heart. If you can love him, you will find hidden in him one of the most beautiful hearts. There is no question of "surviving" him. You can dancingly live together, helping each other in creativity, in meditation, transforming each other into higher peaks of consciousness --

which are our birthright.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

AT THE RISK OF PUTTING MY HEAD INSIDE THE LION'S MOUTH, I HAVE A QUESTION. YOU SEEM TO BE HAVING AT LEAST FOUR EGOS ON TOAST FOR

YOUR BREAKFAST LATELY -- AND HERE COMES MINE. WHEN I HEAR YOU

SPEAK OF BOREDOM I LOOK INSIDE, BUT I CAN'T FIND IT ANYMORE. I REMEMBER HAVING IT BEFORE I MET YOU, BUT IT HAS LONG GONE. EVEN

IN MY LIFE WITH NITYAMO, "BOREDOM" IS THE LAST WORD THAT I WOULD USE. WE FIGHT, WE LOVE, WE JOKE AND GIGGLE, WE CRY, WE

DECIDE TO PART AT LEAST TWICE EVERY MONTH -- ONCE DURING MY

PERIOD, AND ONCE DURING HERS. SOMETIMES WE HAVE LONG FACES, SOMETIMES WE BEAM WITH BLISS, BUT BOREDOM? NEVER! I WONDER IF I AM HIDING SOMETHING? IN FACT, I AM FEELING GUILTY THAT NO

BOREDOM IS HAPPENING. PERHAPS I AM SO BORING THAT I DON'T

REALIZE HOW BORING I AM. MY LIFE IS RICH AND JUICY, MY HEART IS

OVERFLOWING. I LOVE HER TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY. MY GOD!

WHY CAN'T I HAVE A BORING LIFE LIKE OTHER PEOPLE? I MUST BE A FREAK.

Devageet, first I have to remind you: I don't take any breakfast. Breakfast is a very religious word. It means breaking the fast. I hate all religious words, I hate fasting. That's why I had to stop taking breakfast too; so you need not be worried about that.

You say, "I hear you speak of boredom, I look inside but I can't find it anymore. I remember having it before I met you, but it has long gone."

That's how it should be; otherwise, what is the purpose of being with me? Boredom is a virtue for saints, and this is a communion of sinners of all kinds and varieties.

If you want to see boredom, you will have to visit heaven. There you will see ancient saints covered with dust, skeletons playing on their harps, "Alleluia"... although you cannot hear anything because when you for centuries go on repeating "Alleluia," you become bored with "Alleluia," you become bored with your harp. Heaven is the greatest accumulation of all kinds of antique, bored people. Unless you practice boredom here you cannot enter heaven.

Jesus has forgotten the real beautitude: Blessed are the bored for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God. All the nice people you will find in hell -- juicy people, poets, singers, dancers, actors, sculptors, mystics. Hell is colorful; heaven is almost like a white-washed graveyard.

Here there is no question of being bored. I am making every effort to destroy the very roots of boredom in you. But there is something very complex to be understood: boredom can be destroyed by making you blissful; boredom can also be destroyed by making you utterly retarded. Retarded people don't feel boredom. Certainly, no retarded people ever approach me. I am not a magnet for them; my charisma is only for the very intelligent, for the very few.

Harry and Abe had been friends almost all their lives. Now as their time on earth drew to a close, Abe asked Harry, "Do you believe in life after death?"

"I don't know," Harry said, "but we should make a pact: whoever goes first will give the other a sign." Not too long after, Abe died, and Harry waited for a sign. One day the telephone rang.

"Hello, Harry," came the voice.

"Abe," Harry said. "Where are you?"

"Well, where I am the grass is green, the air is sweet and pure, there are beautiful mountains. I get up in the morning, have a little grass, make a little love, take a little nap.

In the evening, I have a little grass, make a little love, and go to sleep."

"You mean you are in heaven?"

"Heaven? What heaven? I am a buffalo in Montana."

Buffaloes are never bored! So there are two kinds of people who are never bored -- one is the meditator, and the other is the buffalo type. You will not find more contented, more satisfied saints than buffaloes. They go on eating the same grass; they don't even change the variety of grass their whole life. And you will never see even a sign of boredom. For boredom, a certain intelligence is needed, and to go beyond boredom, tremendous intelligence is needed.

Devageet, you are not a freak, but the reason why you are not feeling bored even in your life with Nityamo is very simple. You say, "We fight, we love, we joke and giggle, we cry, we decide to part at least twice every month -- once during my period, and once during hers. Sometimes we have long faces, sometimes we beam with bliss, but boredom? Never!" You don't have any time for boredom. You are so engaged in tremendous revolutionary activities.

That reminds me of the case with Neelam. Her boyfriend says he is utterly satisfied with her. That is the beginning of boredom. She is a silent, peaceful, non-fighting, loving woman. If she also starts throwing things, every night a pillow fight... if she follows your lifestyle then her boyfriend will not be utterly satisfied, and he will not have any time to feel bored or any time to look for another woman. In fact, he will come to the conclusion that one is enough; two will be too much. It is a question of survival.

You are not hiding anything, and you need not feel guilty that no boredom is happening.

You have got the right woman for you; she will not leave you alone to feel boredom. And it is not true that you are so boring that you don't realize how boring you are. If you were boring, Nityamo would have escaped. But she's also not feeling bored -- that shows certainly that you both are engaged in a great adventure.

I have heard about a neighborhood where every couple was fighting and shouting at each other, but they were very much intrigued by the fact that one sardarji lived in their apartment building. From the sardarji's flat, they never heard any shouting, any fight; on the contrary, every night they heard laughter. They could not believe it -- what secret has this sardar got? He's enjoying life so much, laughter every night.

Finally, the temptation was so much that one day they gathered when the sardarji was coming out from his office. They surrounded him and said, "Now you have to tell us the secret. You know we all fight, you know we throw things and our women break the pottery, but from your flat always comes a soothing laughter"

The sardarji said, "It would have been better if you had not asked, because the reality is very heavy. The reality is we have decided that she can throw things at me. If she hits, she can laugh, and if I can save myself and she misses the target, then I laugh. So fifty-fifty it goes. Sometimes she hits me, then she laughs; sometimes she misses the target, then I laugh. But as far as you are concerned, you hear laughter every day."

But the same sardarji was found after ten years standing in the court asking for a divorce.

The magistrate said, "How long have you been married?" He said, "Almost fifty years."

The magistrate said, "If you have been married for fifty years, what emergency has arisen so suddenly that you want the divorce?"

He said, "The fact is, we used to laugh fifty-fifty," and he explained their arrangement.

"But now she laughs one hundred percent, because during the fifty years, she has become such an expert in hitting me that there is no way to escape. For years I have not laughed.

So now it is too much... I want the divorce."

Devageet, life is a very strange thing. Because you are continuously fighting, then making friends, then making love, then deciding to separate, then coming together again... this whole panorama, this whole drama, keeps you so engaged that you don't feel bored. But if you were totally satisfied, if she was a woman like Neelam -- silent, available, not fighting, not creating any trouble for you, not nagging you -- you would have become bored.

Boredom is a flat life, but when there are so many ups and downs, there is no boredom.

Moreover, being with me, I am taking away all your inhibitions, all your conditionings, all your saintliness; I am making you raw and wild. When you are raw and wild, and you don't live a life of a polished hypocrisy, boredom does not enter in.

Primitive people don't know anything about boredom. It is only the latest trends in philosophy, particularly existentialism, which has made boredom the central theme of thinking. Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber -

- all these people are engaged in a great intellectual exploration of what boredom is.

Once I came home from the university in the holidays, and I had a book on existentialism. My grandfather looked at the contents, and he said, "My God! What kind of philosophy are you learning in the university? There is not even a mention of God, soul, heaven, hell, reincarnation; the contents are anguish, boredom, meaninglessness, futility, suicide. What kind of philosophy are you reading about in the university?"

I said, "This is the latest philosophy because man has come to a point where everything has become flat. Nothing is wild anymore, nothing is raw anymore. Everything has become cultured; everybody is a gentleman, every woman has become a lady. It is very difficult to find an authentic woman; they are all ladies. It is difficult to find an authentic man; they are all gentlemen. These gentlemen and these ladies are creating an atmosphere of meaninglessness, of anguish, of boredom."

I am taking away from you all that can create boredom in you. My whole effort is to give you again a natural life -- wild, adventurous, dangerous; then boredom cannot exist.

The new man will live dangerously.

He will live like wild animals, not like tamed animals in a zoo. He will live like trees in a forest, not as trees in a British garden. Even the garden in Britain is boring.

My people have to learn to live like a Zen garden, where nothing is symmetrical, where trees are allowed to grow the way they like. The gardeners are not continually after them, pruning them, giving them a shape.

One beautiful Zen story is that a king sent his prince, who was going to be the next king, to learn gardening with a Zen master. It took three years, and whatever the prince learned... in the garden of the palace, he had one thousand gardeners; he told them how to do all that he had learned to create a garden. After three years the master would come, and if he was satisfied the prince would pass the examination; otherwise, again another three years.

The master came. It was a beautiful garden -- one thousand gardeners were working in it.

But the prince was becoming afraid because there was no smile on the master's face, and finally the master said, "Everything is right, but you will have to come back for three more years."

The prince said, "What is wrong? You say, Èverything is right,' then why have I to come back?"

The master went out of the garden, brought thousands of dead leaves which the gardeners had thrown out... the whole night they had been cleaning the garden of all the old dead leaves, so when the master came there would be nothing to object to. And the master brought the leaves and threw them on the garden path. The wind started playing with those dead leaves, and there was a certain music of the wind playing with the dead leaves, and the dead leaves moving all over the path.

The master said, "Now everything is okay. Without the leaves the garden was looking too man-made; now it looks natural. But as far as you are concerned, you will need three more years, because you have not learned the basic lesson that the garden should not be man-made. Man should help the trees to grow in their own way, in their own individuality."

A Zen garden is a beauty which no other garden in the world can be compared with...

suddenly a pond, suddenly old rocks, trees growing in their own way; it is more a forest than a garden. The forest has something of godliness, the garden is too sophisticated. You cannot be bored in a Zen garden; you can be bored in the garden which Europe has invented, that is man-manufactured.

A man also should be a little raw, a little wild, ready to live in insecurity, ready to risk, ready to go on the untrodden paths, always ready to take the challenge of the dangerous.

Then life is every moment an ecstasy, and boredom disappears.

Devageet, you are not a freak. You have relaxed and become wild, unsophisticated, not a hypocrite, authentic, sincere. And to be with me is to live in constant danger.

Jayesh is asleep; he came late in the night. He had been thinking for years to come to me, to sit silently, to relax, and to meditate. And the day he reached the commune I was arrested -- and he was arrested with me. Since then, for eighteen months he has not been able to sit silently for a single moment. We have been moving around the world, being thrown out from one country to another country, and he says, "My God! Before I came to you, I had time at least to sit silently, and I had come to meditate." He had to live with me in the jail... but he's not bored; he's enjoying the whole trip.

A Pole was working at a construction site where the boss left each day at eleven a.m. and was gone for two hours. This became such a regular occurrence that the rest of the workers decided to spend those two hours in the bar across the street, but the Polack decided to head home for some extra nookie with his wife. When he arrived home, he found his boss busy banging his wife in the bedroom. Well he walked right out and headed back to the job. The following day, the Polack was working his ass off when everyone headed across to the bar.

"Hey, Ski, aren't you coming?" asked one of them.

"Hell, no!" said the Polack. "I almost got caught yesterday."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #36

Chapter title: Science has to become religious

29 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705295

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN36

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

94

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

FROM MY EARLY BOYHOOD I WAS STRONGLY ATTRACTED TO

ASTRONOMY AND NUCLEAR SCIENCES; IT WAS A SEARCH FOR TRUTH. AS

A RESULT, I VERY SOON REJECTED THE IDEA OF CHRISTIANITY. TODAY I UNDERSTAND THAT THE DEEPER SCIENTISTS GO INTO THE MATTER, THE

MORE THEY REALIZE THAT THEY ARE THROWN BACK ON THEMSELVES, ACKNOWLEDGING THAT IT IS MAN WHO DETERMINES THE COSMOS TO

APPEAR ACCORDING TO HIS OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. THAT REMINDS ME OF

WHAT I UNDERSTAND YOU TO BE CONSTANTLY SAYING. ALTHOUGH

THESE SCIENTISTS REALIZE THAT THE EARTH CLOCK SHOWS TWO

MINUTES TO TWELVE, AND ALTHOUGH, AS SCIENTISTS, THEY SHOULD

NOT HAVE PREJUDICES, YOUR VISION OF THE NEW MAN DOES NOT SEEM

TO APPEAL TO THEM. DO THEY BELONG TO THE SAME CATEGORY AS

POLITICIANS? SCIENCE IS SO EXCITINGLY INTERESTING, BUT ON THE

OTHER HAND I FOUND THAT IT DOES NOT TRANSFORM AT ALL. WHAT IS IT

GOOD FOR? BELOVED MASTER, AM I WASTING MY TIME WITH IT? WHEN I SEE YOU LAUGHING I MELT WITH JOY.

Satyam Bhairava, the question you have asked implies many questions. First, are the scientists also of the same category as politicians? In a way, yes. The politician is one whose whole desire is to have power; hence anybody whose desire is to have power, particularly over others -- they may be human beings or material objects, it makes no difference.... The politician is struggling to have power over people, the scientist is struggling to have power over matter; but the desire is the same, and the mind is the same. So, in one way, they both are in the same boat. But there are many other aspects in which science is totally different from politics.

Politics enslaves living people; hence it is more violent. Science tries to conquer matter; hence it is not a violent search. But science has grown to such complexity that now it is not possible for individual scientists to work on their own; they need immense support from politicians. Their research projects are so expensive that only governments of very rich nations can afford them. So the scientist unknowingly has fallen a victim to the hands of the politicians.

Now the scientist works as a servant to nationalism, to communism, to fascism, to capitalism. He is no more an independent seeker; he is part of a certain political ideology.

He works and discovers but he has no control over his own discoveries; the control is in the hands of the politicians. They decide in which direction he should work; otherwise they will not financially support any other kind of project -- and their only project is war.

So thousands of scientists of immense intelligence, talent and genius have become just slaves of a political mechanism which exploits their intelligence in the service of war and death.

Science can be of great importance if two things are added to it: one is that it should not only be an objective search, it should also open the subjective doors of consciousness.

The scientist should not go on working only on objects. He has to work upon the scientist himself.

Up to now the scientist has been denying his own consciousness. It is such an absurd attitude, so illogical and so unscientific, that it brings scientists closer to the so-called, superstitious religions: they believe blindly in a God they know nothing about, and the scientist goes on disbelieving in himself.

The superstition is enormous, unbelievable. If there is nobody inside you, if there is no consciousness in you, then who is going to discover the mysteries and secrets of matter, nature, and life? At this point, science has been behaving in an old superstitious way; it has been imitating religions.

I have been in contact with many professors of science and not a single one of them was able to give any argument in support of this superstition. They simply go on repeating that consciousness is only a by-product of matter. And whenever I have asked them, "On what grounds are you saying it? Who is the scientist who has proved it? Which are the discoveries which have been made which support the idea?..." It is just because a man who was not a scientist at all, who was an economist, Karl Marx, created this idea that consciousness is only a by-product of matter. He wanted to deny God and he wanted to deny soul; his approach was philosophical.

Communism goes on believing in Karl Marx. It can be understood if in the Soviet Union the scientist has been repeating the same as Karl Marx, because to say anything against Karl Marx there is to go against the holy scripture of communism. It is the same as in a fanatic Christian society, you cannot say anything against THE BIBLE. You may be right, that does not matter; it is not a question of being right or wrong. THE HOLY

BIBLE cannot be contradicted; that is unforgivable sin. But the same is the situation in the Soviet Union as far as Karl Marx and his book DAS KAPITAL is concerned.

But in the free world, where people are pretending to have the right of freedom of expression, there too the scientists go on repeating this superstition that consciousness is only a by-product of matter, without any understanding that Karl Marx was not a scientist and his statement is not based on any experiments.

Karl Marx was an atheist. Just as there are people who believe in God without knowing anything about God, there are people who do not believe in God without knowing anything about God. They don't differ basically; their quality is the same.

So in one aspect the scientist behaves like a fanatic fundamentalist Christian.... He goes on denying consciousness. And unless science opens up the dimension of one's own interiority, it will not become a total subject, a whole subject. It will remain partial; its viewpoint will remain only half of the truth.

And you should remember that a whole lie is better than half a truth. The whole lie will be detected soon; the half-truth is very dangerous because it has something of truth in it.

It can keep people in darkness for centuries.

And three centuries have already passed for scientists. They have been working but they have not dared to enquire into the innermost being of man -- that is one thing that has to be added to science; then it can become of tremendous importance.

To add subjectivity to objective science means adding the methods of meditation to the methods of concentration. The methods of concentration take you out, they are extrovert.

Science requires a mind which has the capacity to concentrate. Meditation requires the capacity to go beyond mind, to go into silence, to be absolutely a pure nothingness.

Unless science accepts meditation as a valid method of enquiry it will remain a halfhearted search -- and because of its halfheartedness, it is dangerous. It can easily serve the purposes of death because it does not believe in consciousness, it believes in dead matter -- so it does not matter whether Nagasaki happens or Hiroshima happens, or even if the whole globe commits suicide. It doesn't matter, because all is matter. There is no consciousness; nothing is lost.

The scientist will revolt against the politicians only when the dimension of meditation is added in his research, in his work. Secondly, the scientist has to remember now that he is providing the politicians with self-destructive nuclear weapons. He is behaving against humanity, he is behaving against the new man, the new humanity; he is behaving against his own children. He is sowing seeds of death for all.

It is time that scientists should learn to discriminate: what helps life and what destroys life? Just because of their salaries and comforts... they should not go on like slaves and robots working for war and a destruction which is unprecedented.

The scientist has to be a revolutionary too. He has to be a spiritual seeker first, and second he has to be a revolutionary. And he has to remember not to serve death, whatsoever the cost. He has not to follow the directions of politicians. He has to decide himself what is helpful to the whole cosmos, what is helpful to the ecology, what is helpful to a better life, to a more beautiful existence. And he has to condemn the politicians if they force him to work in the service of death. He has to refuse totally, everywhere -- in the Soviet Union, in America, in China, in every country all over the world.

Scientists need a global association of their own which can decide what research should be taken in hand and what research should be dropped.

Up to now science has been accidental. People have been just groping in the dark, finding something, becoming great discoverers. Now that time is over. Groping in the dark they have found atom bombs, nuclear weapons; they have done great service!

Now it is their responsibility to destroy all the nuclear weapons, all atomic weapons, even though it goes against your so-called nationalism, your so-called communism, your so-called democracy. Nothing matters, because now even the very existence of man is at stake. Just as one day scientists revolted against religion and its dictates, now they have to revolt again against the politicians and their dictates.

The scientist has to stand on his own and be absolutely clear that he is not being exploited. He is being exploited everywhere. Just because he is being paid great salaries, given Nobel prizes, great honor, he is ready to sacrifice the whole of humanity -- for his Nobel prizes, for all those stupid awards. Scientists should no longer behave like children. These awards and these prizes and these respectable posts are all toys to befool, and even your great scientists are behaving like fools.

I would like my people to create an uproar all over the world against scientists who are serving governments and politicians in creating war mechanisms. The masses have to be awakened against these scientists; they have become now the greatest danger, and their association with politicians has to be broken.

Science in itself can become both: accepting meditation it can become religion; being rebellious it can create a better life, more affluent, more abundant. It can be the greatest blessing to mankind -- outwardly and inwardly. But right now it is one of the greatest dangers.

Satyam Bhairava, you are worried and concerned that the scientists are not at all aware of the new man. They cannot be; they are in the service of the old man and the old humanity, the old politicians, the old ideologies. In fact they are preparing a funeral for the new man. They should prepare a funeral for the old man which is already dead! And we are carrying its corpse -- it stinks, but we have become immune, because we have been born in a society which has been carrying corpses. We have grown up in a society, in educational institutions... everywhere corpses are worshiped.

If there is life anywhere on another planet -- and scientists suspect that there is life on at least fifty thousand planets in the whole universe, and there may be planets where science has grown to far higher reaches -- they may be able to observe our behavior. And they will be simply surprised: what are our geniuses doing? It would have been better if there were more idiots and fewer geniuses -- at least life would have continued. These geniuses are going to destroy the whole of life.

The new man can be accepted only if scientists understand that the world does not consist only of dead objects, it also consists of living beings -- and not only of living beings but beings who are conscious too. And there is a possibility of growing this consciousness to great peaks.

A Gautam Buddha and a Zarathustra are like Everest, Himalayan peaks. They show, they indicate the potential of every human being; just a little effort and you can also reach their heights. You can also reach the sunlit peaks; you need not live always in the dark caves, in the valleys of misery.

The dark night need not remain forever.

There is a possibility to come out of the dark night into a beautiful morning with birds singing and flowers blossoming.

The scientists need a great incentive for meditation. Only then will they be able to see that what they have been doing is against the future of mankind. They are destroying the very hope... while with the same intelligence they could have created a paradise on earth for the new man, for their children and their children's children to live in a better world, with more health, with more love, with more consciousness.

Satyam Bhairava, you are right that science is "so excitingly interesting," but it can be even more interesting. It has to become religious, it has to become spiritual. It has not to exhaust all its energies on the outer world but has to penetrate into the treasures of our inner being. And you are also right that, "I found that it does not transform anything at all. What is it good for?"

It has great potential, but that potential is not yet used. Just as it has been successful in penetrating into the very secret of matter, it has the capacity to penetrate into the very secret of consciousness too. Then it will be a great blessing, a great benediction.

As far as I am concerned and my vision for a new humanity is concerned, I see science as having two dimensions: one, the lower dimension, working on objects; and two, the higher dimension, working on consciousness. And the lower dimension has to work as a servant for the higher dimension. Then there is no need of any other religion; then science fulfills totally all the needs of man.

But right now you are right that science transforms nothing. It cannot. Unless it approaches consciousness and works out how to develop more consciousness in man --

how to make his unconscious conscious, how to transform his darkness into a noontide --

it will not be of any great use. On the contrary, it is proving to be one of the greatest dangers.

It was Albert Einstein who wrote a letter before the second world war to President Roosevelt of America saying, "I can create atomic energy and atom bombs, and if you don't have atom bombs I can predict that it is impossible to win against Germany in the war."

Albert Einstein was a German Jew. He was working in Germany, researching under the German government, which was under Adolf Hitler, to create an atom bomb. Just the very idea... if he was not a Jew, the whole history of the world would have been totally different. If Germany could have produced atom bombs, then there would have been no power -- neither of America nor of the Soviet Union nor of England -- to stand in front of Adolf Hitler; he would have conquered the whole world.

But because Albert Einstein was a Jew... he was so important that he was not harassed by Adolf Hitler and his people, but he was seeing that millions of Jews were disappearing, actually evaporating as smoke in the gas chambers of the Nazi government. He would not have been killed because he was so much needed and there was nobody else to replace him, but he became afraid that if Adolf Hitler wins, then all over the world there will not be a single Jew left alive. He was not afraid about his own life; it was safe, because Adolf Hitler needed him.

Albert Einstein escaped from Germany, leaving the experiment incomplete. The German scientists did everything, but there was no other Albert Einstein to complete the experiment. And Einstein wrote a letter to the enemy of Germany, to America, saying "I have escaped from Germany and I am ready to make atom bombs for America. Without atom bombs you cannot defeat Germany. And there is also a fear that somebody may be able to complete the experiment that I have left incomplete, because there were many scientists working with me, under me." Roosevelt immediately invited him and gave him all the facilities possible.

Truman was president at the time when the atom bombs were produced by Albert Einstein, and Einstein told Truman, "Now there is no need to use them, because Germany has committed a historical mistake."

This historical mistake has been committed many times. Anybody who wants to fight with Russia and has committed this historical mistake is doomed, because for nine months the whole country is covered with snow. Russia is so vast -- it covers two continents, from one corner of Europe to the other corner of Asia. And there are only three months when the weather is clear enough to fight. And Russia has a great enough army to prevent the enemy for three months and wait for the winter.

Winter lasts for nine months. Then Russia need not fight; that winter finishes the enemies without any trouble. Nobody can survive the Russian winter, except Russians -- it needs a lifelong training. Napoleon got lost, in the first world war Germany got lost, and Adolf Hitler again committed the same mistake.

But this time Truman did not even answer the letter of Albert Einstein. The first letter was received with such great joy and he was invited with great welcome, was given all the facilities that he needed, but now the bombs were already in the hands of the politicians. Who cares about Albert Einstein? And he was saying simply, "Now there is no need. Germany is finished, and within two weeks at the most, Japan will be finished, because Japan cannot stand on its own. It was the German support.... There is no need to use these bombs."

But Truman was in a hurry to use the atom bomb, because Germany has surrendered and if Japan also surrenders then there is no opportunity to see what great power America has and no opportunity to show the whole world.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed unnecessarily. Japan was ready to surrender.

Preparations were being done on how the surrender should happen; negotiations were going on between the generals. And Truman ordered, "Before the surrender at least we should try out how much power we have. Once the war ends we won't have any opportunity."

Two hundred thousand people in two great cities died within ten minutes -- and not only people but trees, animals, birds, everything alive suddenly became dead.

Albert Einstein was so much shocked that before his death when somebody asked him,

"If you are born again, wouldn't you like to be a physicist in your new life?" he said,

"Never! If I am born again, I would rather be a plumber than a physicist. Enough is enough. I have seen how I worked day in, day out to create the atomic weapons. They were for an emergency, but once they were created I had no power over them. I had created them, but once they were created, the politicians had the keys in their hands. And my letter was not even answered! I am dying one of the most frustrated men on the earth."

He was one of the most successful men, perhaps the greatest scientist that we have ever known, but his own feeling was far more true. He was a man of conscience; he died almost like a wounded lion, utterly frustrated with politicians and their ugliness, their murderous and criminal minds.

Up to now, science certainly has not brought much of a transformation as far as human consciousness is concerned, but it has the potential -- just a great awakening is needed.

The scientist has to realize his responsibility. He has almost become a god; either he can create or he can destroy. He has to be reminded that he is no longer the old scientist of the times of Galileo, just working in his own house, with a few tubes and a few bottles, just mixing chemicals and experimenting. Those days are gone. Now he has the power to destroy the whole life of this planet or to create a life so beautiful and so blissful that man has imagined it only in heaven; it can be possible here. A few small groups of scientists have started working on those lines. Nobody believes them.

In Manali, in one of the press interviews, I was talking about the possibilities, the creative and absolutely new possibilities of doors that science can open. Neelam was there, and she reported to Nirvano in Kathmandu that I was talking "off the wall." And I can understand that anybody will think what I was saying was "off the wall." It will appear like that.

But just the other day Japan created an artificial island, because in Japan there is so much a shortage of land that it is becoming impossible to expand industries. Japan has become the richest country in the world. It needs more and more land. The old way is to conquer some other country; that is not possible anymore. The fear of a third world war hangs over everybody.

Japan has created an artificial island which will be used for industrial development. It will be floating in the ocean. Once it becomes a success, many more artificial islands...

and Japan will be creating more earth than God created in those six days.

There are tremendous possibilities for science. Once it no longer serves death, it can float cities in the ocean. Japan has also successfully tried to make underground cities, because why go on with the old conception that you have to live overground? You can live underground; it is more peaceful there, and you can get the right kind of light, the right kind of oxygen, because everything will be in the hands of the scientist.

I was talking about such things in that press interview, and poor Neelam thought that I am talking "off the wall." Just as underground cities are possible, floating cities in the ocean are possible, under the ocean cities are possible, flying cities are possible....

Once science changes its attitude and stops being supportive to politicians for war, so much energy will be released that scientists can do all these things which may appear off the wall to you, but they don't appear off the wall to me.

To me, all that seems to be almost predictable. It is going to happen, because the earth is going to be overburdened with population. It has already reached five billion, and by the year two thousand and ten it will have almost doubled. Ten billion population? -- this poor earth, which has been exploited for centuries, will not be able to support it. You will have to create artificial food, perhaps new vegetables, new food.

In the Soviet Union they already have new fruits which God had not created in those six days. Just as animals can be created by crossbreeding, they are crossbreeding trees and creating new fruits, giving them the right taste, right juice -- fruits which man has never eaten, for which there is no name in the dictionaries. They are being given new names.

And man may have to live more and more on chemical food. Perhaps it may be more healthy, because right now ninety-five percent of whatever you eat is roughage; it has to be thrown out of the body. Hardly five percent is used. This is sheer nonsense! This is burdening your digestive system unnecessarily. Why not only give exactly that five percent that your body needs? If your digestive system is not tired, your life's length will become longer.

It is the digestive system that kills you. All the experiments about the digestive system show.... It has been tried on many animals. Animals which were given enough food, as much as they wanted, had only half the life span of animals who were given half the food they asked for. The first group lived ten years, the second group lived twenty years, because the digestive system remained more fresh, younger, untired.

And if man's food becomes more and more chemical, more and more scientific, it will not be digested, it can be directly injected. There is no need to tire your digestive system, and if your digestive system remains stronger, younger, your life will become longer.

Scientists say man can very easily live three hundred years, without becoming old.

Science has great possibilities, Satyam Bhairava, just we have not yet been able to use those possibilities. And all the scientists are in the service of politicians, of governments -

- that means in the service of death and war. A great revolution is needed.

Just as scientists revolted once against religion, fought against religion, now they have to fight against politics, against nationalism. Their responsibility is great. The new man will need them and their revolution. They are the most important people for the survival of humanity.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I NEVER HAVE SEX AND I DON'T FEEL LIKE HAVING SEX. I DON'T THINK

THAT I AM BEYOND SEX, BUT I LOVE MEDITATION AND DANCING MUCH

MORE, ALTHOUGH IT IS DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT THIS. SEX IS NOT

HAPPENING, AND I LIKE THAT IT IS NOT HAPPENING. OSHO, DOES IT MEAN

THAT IN ORDER TO BE A SANNYASIN, I MUST HAVE SEX? I DON'T LIKE IT IF

IT IS NOT A NATURAL HAPPENING, IF IT IS ONLY A SEX AND MIND

MEETING, AND NOT MEDITATION. I ENJOY BEING ALONE. I SEE MYSELF IN

CONFLICT A LOT WITH THIS, BUT I CAN ALSO ACCEPT THE WAY I AM.

THEN IT ALL DISAPPEARS FROM THE MIND, AND MY HEART OPENS AGAIN.

OSHO, IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?

Anand Dolano, nothing is wrong with you. Repression of sex is evil, but if sex is not a natural desire in you, to force it will be a repression.

There are people who are forcing their natural desire for sex in trying to be celibate; they are going against their nature. And if you don't have any inclination towards sex, forcing it will be going against your nature; it will be the same kind of crime.

A sannyasin needs to be natural.

You have to listen to your own body, your own instincts, your own intuition, and follow it. You are not to do anything against your nature. If you like to be alone, and enjoy meditating... that's what everybody else is trying, but first they are trying to get finished with sex so that they can enjoy being alone. You are in a better position, you don't have to pass through the hell. You have already passed through it somehow; perhaps in your past life. You are out of the hell; now don't try to get into the dark tunnel again.

Even the people to whom I say, "Don't repress sex," are not being told to remain always sexual. In fact repression of sex keeps you always sexual. Once you have lived it totally, you are finished with it. And the sooner you are finished the better, because then you can sit silently without being bothered by the need of anybody else as a companion. You are enough unto yourself, and that is the most important thing for a meditator -- the enoughness of aloneness.

But I can understand your problem. Here you must be seeing everybody bringing problems about sex, about their fights. Somebody is completely satisfied; that is his boredom. Somebody is not satisfied, he wants more satisfaction; that is his problem.

Somebody is not feeling boredom; that is his problem. Listening to all these problems, naturally anybody will get worried: what is my problem? If you don't have any problem, it certainly means something is wrong with you!

Nothing is wrong with you. Just enjoy being yourself, your meditation, your silence, and let these people pass through their darkness. One day they will all come out of the tunnel; then you can greet them. But just seeing that everybody is in the tunnel, fighting, shouting.... Sitting outside the tunnel in the light, in silence, don't be worried that

"Something seems to be wrong with me. Everybody is in the tunnel; what am I doing here? All the meditators are in the tunnel. Nobody is meditating... but they have all come here to meditate; only I am meditating."

"My wife is a typical Jew," complained the man to his companion. "She only makes love doggy-style."

"Doggy-style?" said his companion, "I don't believe it!"

"It is true. I sit up and beg, and she rolls over and plays dead."

Let them play whatever style they want; you simply don't get distracted from your meditation. You are perfectly right. And all these people are trying to reach to your position. You don't have to descend into their troubles, into their problems.

You are blessed. It rarely happens, what is happening to you. It happens only because of your past life; there is no other explanation. In your past life you must have been meditating; you must have been with a master; you must have come to a point where sex became meaningless, where the need of the other dropped, when you became enough unto yourself and your loneliness changed into aloneness; hence in this life you are carrying all that you have achieved in your past life.

It is because of such experiences that all three Eastern religions accepted the idea of reincarnation. The three other religions, which were born outside of India, have no explanation for such an experience. Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism -- all three religions cannot explain your situation. But Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, have a very logical scientific explanation: that you are carrying a quality that you achieved in your past life.

Nothing is lost. Once you have achieved it, it goes on with your consciousness into new lives, into new bodies.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #37

Chapter title: Behind the drama a witness

30 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705300

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN37

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

94

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER MORNING YOU WERE TALKING SO BEAUTIFULLY ABOUT TWO

MEDITATORS BEING TOGETHER IN LOVE. FOR ME, SITTING WITH YOU

EVERY DAY IS SO FULFILLING THAT MY DESIRE TO BE WITH SOMEONE

HAS ALMOST DISAPPEARED. THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME EVERY TIME I AM

AROUND YOU. TODAY THOUGH, THE FEAR AROSE THAT I AM TOO

MISERLY WITH MY LOVE AND THEREFORE AVOIDING A RELATIONSHIP.

BELOVED OSHO, IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Prem Nishavda, one has to be very much aware of the mind creating problems which do not exist in reality. Mind is almost a problem-creating factory; whatever you do, whatever happens to you, mind is going to raise problems about it. That's its old strategy to disturb you.

If you are feeling perfectly okay, then listen to the heart, not to the mind. One has to learn the knack of not paying too much attention to the mind, trying in every possible way to listen to the heart.

Your question is that for you, sitting with me every day is so fulfilling that your desire to be with someone else has almost disappeared.

It is how it should be. The desire for the other is not something great. It is poverty of the soul. You cannot be alone; hence, the desire for the other arises. Because you cannot feel peaceful, silent, centered, fulfilled, contented, just by being yourself, the desire arises to be with someone; perhaps someone can give you what you are missing.

Nobody can give you what you are missing. Most probably you will meet another beggar, just like you, who has been in search of someone who can give him fulfillment, contentment, blissfulness. And when two beggars start begging from each other it is really a pitiable scene, but it is being repeated by millions of people around the earth every day. Because you are brought up by these beggars, amongst these beggars, when for the first time you start getting out of this begging, the mind wants to pull you back. It raises questions, doubts; it persuades you with beautiful names.

For example, now your mind is saying, "Today though, the fear arose that I am too miserly with my love and therefore avoiding a relationship." If you have love enough it will start showering on others by itself. You cannot contain it; it becomes an overflowing, so there is no need to worry about it.

Nobody can be miserly with love.

Let me repeat it: nobody can be miserly with their love. Either one has love -- then it starts overflowing in its own time; you don't have to push it, you don't have to force it --

or one has not. When one has not, one can only pretend. Millions of people are doing that. Everybody is pretending to love and they have not known what love is.

Love can be known only as a fragrance of meditation, not before it. You have not known even the flower. You are not acquainted with the fragrance. Once the flower opens up, it is beyond the capacity of the flower to be miserly about fragrance -- what can it do? The fragrance will go with the winds, it will spread all over.

The flower cannot be miserly, neither can love be, because love also is a flower that grows in your meditation.... So you just enjoy being alone; this is your meditation. And the spring will come, it always comes. Trust existence. The flower will blossom, and love will flow from you.

Nobody can be miserly about love; that is an impossibility, for the simple reason that love follows a totally different economics. In the ordinary economics, if you go on giving you go on becoming poorer; one has to be a hoarder to remain rich. Love is not part of these mundane economics. The more you give, the more you have; if you don't give it you will not have it. In giving it grows, in sharing it becomes more and more purified, more and more beautiful, more and more a blessing.

But mind will go on creating a thousand and one questions. Don't listen to your own mind! That is part of the disciplehood. When I am here, listen to me. If you are going to listen to your own mind, then there is no need for you to be here. You already have a master within you who will guide you to hell....

While on vacation, Ronald Reagan asks for a girl for the night. Three gorgeous girls are sent up to his room -- a blonde, a brunette and a redhead.

He says to the blonde, "I'm the president of the United States. How much to spend a night with you?"

"Four hundred dollars," she replies.

"Too much," says Reagan.

He asks the brunette the same question, but just then the redhead runs in and says, "Mr.

President, if you can raise my skirt as high as your taxes and screw me the way you are screwing the people of America, you can have me for nothing."

Prem Nishavda, you are in a very harmonious state. The mind will try to disturb it, and your harmony is so new and the mind so old and so strong that if you don't stop it from disturbing your harmony, it is going to be disturbed. All that mind wants is to disturb your meditation because they are enemies. Mind knows perfectly well that if meditation grows, mind has no place in your life; it will be reduced from being a master to a servant.

Just try to feel... if you are feeling good, if you are feeling at ease, at home, then tell the mind to shut up! Take the reins into your own hands.

Becoming a meditator means an effort to get out of the slavery of the mind and to become the master, which you would naturally have been if the society had not turned things upside down. You were born with your meditativeness as the master, and the mind just as a servant, but that is not convenient for an insane society. To make you also insane, the easiest way is to make the master the servant and the servant the master; then everything in you is messed up.

The new man I have been talking about will be a master of his own self. And the strangest phenomenon is that when you are the master, the mind functions far more efficiently than it functions when it is a master, because naturally it is destined to be a servant. As a servant it is perfect, but when it pretends to be the master, it cripples you. It does not know how to be the master -- that's one thing -- and it does not allow the master hidden deep inside you to have any say in your life. This is one of the psychological sicknesses of mankind.

The new man will be healthy, and his health will consist of everything being in its own place. Then only can we create an orchestra, not a crowd of noises.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU SPOKE ABOUT SHARDA, THE WIFE OF RAMAKRISHNA AND HER

IMMENSE LOVE TOWARDS HIM, I NOTICED THAT I FELT GUILTY AND SAD.

IT SEEMS THAT I CANNOT LOVE A MAN AT ALL. OUT IN THE WORLD THE

RELATIONSHIP WITH MY BOYFRIEND WAS SO JUICY, AND SEEMED TO BE

THE ONLY WAY TO STAY ALIVE, WHEREAS HERE THERE IS A NEVERENDING CONFLICT. THE CONFLICT I FEEL IS OF LONGING TO BE ALONE, FEELING TOTALLY CONTENTED WITHIN MYSELF -- YET I DO NOT WANT TO

LOSE MY BOYFRIEND, OUT OF THE FEAR OF BEING LONELY AND

VULNERABLE. I AM SO PUZZLED. PLEASE, WOULD YOU COMMENT?

Shantidevi, man is asleep. It has to be repeated again and again, to remind you that you are still in the middle -- neither asleep nor awake. You can go either way: you can take a turn and pull the blanket over yourself and go to sleep, or you can jump out of the bed and take a cold shower and be alert and awake. But you have to understand what is meant by spiritual sleep.

You say, "When you spoke about Sharda, the wife of Ramakrishna and her immense love towards him, I noticed that I felt guilty and sad." Why should you feel guilty and sad?

You can have immense love, just like Sharda, but you have to know much more about Sharda.

She was a meditator, and after Ramakrishna died she became, without any declaration, without any announcement, naturally the head of the order that Ramakrishna had created.

The disciples of Ramakrishna became disciples of Sharda. She was no ordinary woman in love with a man. Ramakrishna was not a man for her; Ramakrishna to her represented life, consciousness, and its highest flight.

Rather than feeling guilty and sad and wasting your time and energy, use the same energy for being a meditator, so love can grow out of your meditation. I teach you the real love, not the phony love that you find all over the world.

Everybody is saying to everybody else, "I love you," but on the whole there seems to be no love in the world. People are simply like parrots, repeating the words "I love you."

They don't know even the meaning of what they are saying.

Do you have the quality of love? Do you have that richness? Do you have that fulfillment out of which love arises?

Love does not arise in a desert.

It is a flower, it needs a garden.

Have you planted a garden in your being?

We are gathered here to become gardens. You come here as deserts, but the most unbelievable phenomenon is that even a desert can hallucinate that it is a garden, that it is an oasis.

You say, "It seems that I cannot love a man at all." Who is asking you to love a man?

You can love trees and they are far better people. They don't feel jealous, they will not create trouble for you, they will not become an anxiety. You can love the clouds, you can love the stars....

Man is such a tiny part in this whole universe. Why are you after this tiny part? Leave it alone, let the poor fellow live! You can love the whole universe; just exclude man -- for the time being, at least. When you become so capable of loving that you can love even man, then it will happen on its own accord.

And Ramakrishna was no ordinary man. Through his eyes the whole universe looked into you; through his hands the whole existence made gestures significant and meaningful to you; through his words the whole spoke. He was so simple, so egoless, just a hollow bamboo -- which can be made into a flute without any difficulty. And you can sing a song; the song will be yours, he will be only the vehicle.... And he allowed the whole universe to sing as many songs as possible through him.

You can also find a man... but for that you will need a sensitive heart, open and available, and you will have to drop all this garbage of being guilty and sad.

People think that they already know how to love. They have taken it for granted that they know how to live. This is one of the greatest fallacies. Neither do you know how to love, nor do you know how to live. All that you know is how to go on towards the graveyard.

From the cradle to the graveyard you are a perfect pilgrim; otherwise you know nothing.

You will have to learn. You have the possibility to learn, but the possibility becomes dormant because of your idea that you already know.

You say, "Out in the world the relationship with my boyfriend was so juicy." You cannot deceive me. I have known thousands of boyfriends and thousands of girlfriends, and how juicy their relationship is... unless you decide to call poison, juice -- then it is a different matter. And if it was juicy outside in the world, what is the trouble? Here are juicier people!

Outside in the world there are Christians and there are Hindus and there are Mohammedans, there are Jews and there are Buddhists, and they are all against what you call "being juicy." They want you to be dry bones.

But illusions can be created very easily. One strategy of the mind is that it always looks at the past and chooses a few beautiful moments out of thousands of ugly situations, and then magnifies them and starts believing in them; that's why everybody thinks his childhood was great. Ask any child, and he is in a hurry to grow up, because he can see the grown-up people are living juicy lives.

I used to live by the side of a post office and every morning very early, when it was almost dark, I used to go for a walk. One day I saw a small boy with a mustache -- I could not believe it.

I said, "This is something impossible!" The boy started hiding behind trees, but I followed him and got hold of him. He said, "Don't tell anybody."

I asked, "But why are you having this false mustache.?"

He said, "I would love to grow up. I have got a cigarette also. When I see people with a mustache and a beard and having cigarettes, I feel so sad. How long is it going to take, this miserable boyhood? Nobody takes any notice of me, but if I start doing anything, everybody stops me saying, `you are still a child; don't do that!' I cannot even ask questions because I am a child -- `When you will grow up you will know.'"

Then I realized that he was the postmaster's son. He said, "Don't tell my father; otherwise I am going to be given a good lesson. He beats me."

I have known thousands of children and I have enquired of them, "Are you feeling great that you are a child?" They were all feeling miserable about being still a child; yet these same children in their old age will remember their childhood as really golden. They will make it golden.

You are saying that outside your boyfriend was so juicy. If he was so juicy, why have you come here? People start thinking of meditation if their life is not juicy. If their life is already juicy, who bothers about meditation and God and truth?

I don't think that you have ever known anything juicy; it is an ego fulfillment to exaggerate your past. And if you know how to make a relationship juicy.... Here there are many people from the same outside world. They have not come from other planets; they have also lived very juicy lives outside. But it seems strange: the moment they come here all their juiciness disappears; because here my insistence is to be sincere with yourself --

don't deceive. Outside they were deceiving.

You are saying "... and seemed to be the only way to stay alive." Then have you come here to commit suicide? If that was the only way to be alive and you think it was so juicy, what accident happened? Did your ship get wrecked, and you landed in this desert? Just stop exaggerating -- that is a childish approach towards life.

Look at things straight, as they are. Nobody leaves juicy places. One gets so caught because juicy places are sticky too; there is not much juice but there is much glue. So whenever you have a juicy relationship, in fact it is nothing but a very glued relationship.

You can call glue "juice," that is another thing. Only the words differ, but the reality will be the same.

Meditation and the search for truth, or the search for oneself, starts only because you find life is not juicy. It is a vast desert. Only once in a while do you see an oasis somewhere, but by the time you reach there, there is no oasis. All oases prove mirages. Frustrated, you start searching for something deeper than life makes available to you.

You are saying, Shantidevi, "... whereas here there is a never-ending conflict."

Conflict with whom? Have you forgotten to create juice? Or have you become aware it is not juice, it is glue? The first thing is to be clearly aware about your situation, howsoever bad it may be. Don't exaggerate and don't hide it; if you hide yourself then it is impossible to transform you. You will have to put away all your masks, because masks cannot grow. Only your original face can grow.

"The conflict I feel is one of longing to be alone, feeling totally contented within myself -

- yet I do not want to lose my boyfriend out of the fear of being lonely and vulnerable. I am so puzzled."

I can see you are puzzled, but your puzzle is your own creation. First, you want to be alone -- why? Life is so juicy with the boyfriend, so live it! Why do you have a longing to be alone? Life with the boyfriend cannot be juicy, that's why.

"... feeling totally contented within myself" -- so you don't like juice. You want to feel totally contented within yourself -- what about the juice of the boyfriend? Just be real, authentic; say that you have been living in a hell. But even people who live in hell pretend that they are living in heaven.

I have heard that the people who live in hell have changed the board on which it was written, "This is hell." They have written, "This is heaven." At least that much gives great consolation. And the people who are living in heaven, I have heard, are continually asking for a holiday from this continuous repetition of hallelujiah, playing on their harps before a dodo God. He must be a dodo, always listening to hallelujiah, for eternity.

Perhaps this hallelujiah has killed him and he is just a corpse sitting there.

Your so-called saints want holidays; where will they go for holidays? There is only one place where they can go, and that is to hell -- and that's where they go, because there they find restaurants and discos and juicy people! Hell is full of juice -- people are almost swimming in it. You just have to be clear why you want to be contented. What was wrong in your love relationship? Was there not contentment?

And then comes the fear, "Yet I do not want to lose my boyfriend." You want your boyfriend also in your pocket while you are meditating, so that he cannot escape. While you are totally contented, the boyfriend has to remain in your pocket. What kind of boyfriend do you have? Is it a teddy bear?

Your whole puzzle is very simple to solve. The first thing: you have to forget and drop the idea that you know what love is, that you know what a juicy relationship is. Be alone, be meditative, be contented, and out of this contentment will flow the juice. Then there is a possibility of having a love which will be a joy, a constant joy.

Non-meditators cannot love, they can only pretend. But because man is so asleep, he goes on believing in his own pretensions, he goes on believing in his own dreams.

A racing car driver picked up a girl after the race and took her home. Later that night, after a passionate bout of lovemaking, the man drifted off into sleep. He awoke suddenly, with a very angry woman astride him, smacking his face.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"You were talking in your sleep," she shouted. "You were feeling my tits and saying,

`What perfect headlights,' and you felt my legs and said, `What a smooth finish.'

"Well what's wrong with that?" the driver asked.

"Nothing," cried the woman, "but when you felt my pussy and yelled, `Who left the garage door open...?'"

People are asleep, talking in their sleep -- "I love you". Meditation is an effort to be awake, to be alert, to be conscious. Anything else should follow, but cannot precede it: love can follow it, friendship can follow it, worship can follow it, prayer can follow it, gratitude can follow it. But everything has to follow only when you have attained an integrated consciousness; otherwise you are having only dreams, nightmares, and you are believing in them as if they are real.

Shantidevi, as you are already here, have a taste of meditation and aloneness. Don't be afraid that you will lose the boyfriend. There are so many boys; if you lose one you get one dozen -- they are queuing! And if you are meditative, contented, silent, you are bound to find a man of the same qualities, because we can relate only with people with the same qualities, who speak the same language. And a love affair after meditation can become a tremendous help to both, for their spiritual growth.

Drop the fear about losing the boyfriend. These boyfriends are so stupid that even if you want to lose them it is very difficult. You can ask my people here. It is so difficult to lose a boyfriend or a girlfriend; they cling. I have told you the reason: what they think is juice is not juice, it is glue. And here in this place, everything is German; if it is Indian glue you can escape, but the German glue... you are finished!

There is an ancient story... man asked God, "God, why did you make women so pretty?"

"So you will like them," God answered.

And man asked God, "Why did you make women so soft? "So you will like them," God answered again.

"And why," asked man again, "did you make them so stupid?"

And God answered, "So they will like you."

There is no worry at all!

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER NIGHT WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT YOUR VISION OF A MODERN COMMUNE, AND YOUR OFFER TO GORBACHEV TO ESTABLISH A MODEL COMMUNE IN RUSSIA, I WAS DEEPLY TOUCHED. AFTER YOUR

COMMUNE DISSOLVED ONE AND A HALF YEARS AGO, I WENT BACK INTO

THE WORLD AND GOT QUITE A BITTER TASTE OF LIFE IN WESTERN

SOCIETY: POWER, MONEY, FRUSTRATION, COMPENSATION. YOUR VISION

OF A COMMUNE SEEMS TO BE THE ANSWER FOR MANKIND -- TO FIND A FULFILLING WAY TO LIVE; YOUR VIEW IS SO VAST, SO CLEAR. BUT

LOOKING AT MY OWN REALITY, I STILL DISCOVER POSSESSIVENESS, NARROW-MINDEDNESS, UNLOVINGNESS, GREED, LACK OF HUMBLENESS, DESIRES, JEALOUSY. I FELT ASHAMED LISTENING TO YOUR WORDS

BECAUSE THE GAP BETWEEN YOUR VISION AND MY REALITY IS SO HUGE.

BELOVED MASTER, SOMETIMES I THINK THAT YOU HAVE TOO POSITIVE A PICTURE OF US. OR ARE YOU SIMPLY SUPPORTING THE GOOD SEED? DO

YOU REALLY SEE A CHANCE THAT, ONE DAY, WE WILL LIVE ACCORDING

TO YOUR VISION?

Deva Nutan, your question is significant because you say, "Looking at my own reality, I still discover possessiveness, narrow-mindedness, unlovingness, greed, lack of humbleness, desires, jealousy." Just one thing you have forgotten -- that none of these things is you.

You are the awareness of all these things: possessiveness, jealousy, greed. Who is being alert? Certainly jealousy cannot be alert about itself, neither can possessiveness be alert about itself.

There is, behind this whole drama, a witness. That is my hope and that is your hope --

and it is the hope for the new man and for the new humanity. If you can be aware of these realities it is not a difficult thing to drop them, because you are not them; they are separate from you. You have learned them in a society which is greedy, in which if you are not greedy you cannot survive.

In a commune where there will be no possibility for greed -- because with no money to accumulate, nobody poor, nobody rich, you will easily forget all about greed. Why are you possessive? -- because you are in a society where everybody else is possessive. You cannot protect yourself if you are not possessive; you will be destroyed by the other possessive people.

All these things: possessiveness, unlovingness, greed, lack of humbleness, desires, jealousy are a by-product of living in a world which is full of these things, which requires everybody to have all these poisonous attitudes.

In a commune you cannot be greedy, because there will be no support for greed. There will be no question of imitating anybody. There will be no question of ambition because people will be respected as they are. There will be no requirement that they should be presidents and vice presidents, prime ministers, and then they should be respected; they will be respected as they are. Whatever they are doing, if it is creative and is needed by the society, they will be honored. Narrow-mindedness is created by your religions, by your political ideologies. These are all learned things nurtured in you. They are not part of your consciousness, they are not part of your being.

So I am not being too optimistic and I am not taking a too positive view of you. I am simply realistic. I know why you are what you are -- because you are living in a wrong world, and to exist you have to be wrong.

If you are allowed to live in a sane commune where people are naturally humble because humbleness is respected, where the egoist will be sent to a psychiatric hospital, where people are non-possessive because all their needs are fulfilled, and all the opportunities they need are given to them... why should they worry about hoarding for tomorrow?

They know that they need not be worried; they are not alone. Five thousand people are taking care of them, and if they can create today a beautiful life, they will be able to create an even a better life tomorrow. The fear of the future will disappear.

Possessiveness is out of fear for the future, because if you don't possess, what are you going to do tomorrow? What are you going to do in your old age?

In a commune the older people will be loved and respected for their experiences. The older people will become the teachers, the guides. Old age will not be thought of as something ugly, but as something immensely graceful. One has gone beyond all childish and all youthful foolishnesses; one has come to be very centered and silent, and a lifelong meditation....

Every commune will have its own old people who will be almost Gautam Buddhas, sources of wisdom who can teach you life, who can teach you love, who can teach you how to grow old beautifully and gracefully, and who can teach you how to die -- because when they die they will die with such a grace and such joy. That will be their last gift to the commune.

I am not taking a positive side only. You are corrupted by the society because the society is corrupt, and it is simply a survival measure to be corrupted in such a society. All that you need is a better atmosphere -- more loving, more healthy, more sane, more in tune with nature. All these things, which religious founders have been trying to get people to drop, people cannot drop, because if they drop them, the whole corrupted mass around them will destroy them. So they listen to Gautam Buddhas, to Jesus Christs, and they know what happens to a Jesus Christ: if you follow his teachings, soon you will be on the cross. You can understand that his teachings are beautiful, but the society is so ugly, you cannot live those beautiful teachings.

All religions have failed, because they have not been able to create a culture which is supportive of the great teachings. It is not only not supportive, it is against.

The commune is a totally new concept. It is an effort to change the whole atmosphere in which these poisonous mushrooms grow. And once your whole atmosphere is different, you will find different people arising, totally different people arising -- because then love will be needed to survive, meditation will be needed to survive, compassion will be needed to survive.

A commune is a transformation, a total transformation. The old society was very schizophrenic. On the one hand it worshiped people who were teaching things which were not possible for ordinary human beings to follow -- because the whole society was against them. So man was living in a schizophrenia: he knew what was right and he was doing what was wrong, so he was feeling continuously guilty, ashamed of himself.

I want a totally new order in which man's dignity is not hurt, and all these things that have been taught by great teachers need not be taught at all.

We should create real values. Rather than telling people not to be possessive, we should create a commune where possessiveness is useless. Anybody who possesses will be thought stupid, idiotic; he will lose his respect and his dignity. And what would he possess? Once money is removed, you cannot possess. You cannot possess milk, you cannot possess fruits. If you have too much milk you will have to share; if your trees are giving too many fruits, you will have to share. You will really enjoy children coming to your garden and stealing fruits. You will give them chocolates also, as a reward -- "come again, because the trees are too heavy with fruits." And what are you going to do with so many fruits? You cannot sell them.

What has been taught by the founders of religion was illogical. What I am trying to do is a double process -- changing the individual through meditation, and changing the society through the commune.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #38

Chapter title: Don't dig valleys -- climb mountains

30 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705305

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN38

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

98

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THERE ARISES GREAT DARKNESS IN ME AND I WISH TO TRADE IN THIS

INTOLERABLE AGAMA AND START AFRESH SO THAT SOMEHOW I

WOULDN'T GROW WITH MY PERSONALITY SO INSEPARABLY GLUED TO

MYSELF. I REMEMBER THERE WAS ONCE INNOCENCE AND I HAD A SENSE

OF MYSELF. TRY AS I MIGHT, I CAN'T RECOVER IT, CAN'T SEPARATE OFF

THE WITNESS, CAN'T TRUST IN MY SEEING. SO LONG AGO I TOOK A SHORTCUT AND NOW I CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE I LEFT THE HONESTY

AND THE INNOCENCE AND THE LOVE, FOR THE FALSE, THE TRYING, THE

STUPID. HOW CAN I FIND MY WAY BACK?

Prem Agama, your story is everyone's story. Everyone has gone astray. Everyone has lost himself. Perhaps it is part of human growth to be lost, to forget the way back home, to search for it, because unless you go astray, there is no need for search. Unless you lose the way, there is no question of finding it. Unless you forget yourself, you will never realize yourself; hence it is not against your spiritual growth.

It is part, an absolutely intrinsic part, that you should be lost in darkness, in agony, in suffering. But there is no need to remain in the dark night of the soul. One need not make a house in suffering and misery, in ignorance, in dishonesty, in a false and phony life.

One has to use this opportunity. Yes, I call it a golden opportunity, knowing perfectly well that it is painful. But all birth is painful, and a spiritual birth more so.

You should not settle in suffering, in misery, in pain. You should continue to search. The question is not of finding the right way. Every way is right if your search is deep, your hope enormous, your trust infinite. Then wherever you are and whatever path you follow, you will reach the ocean -- just as every river reaches the ocean, passing through the mountains, through the valleys, through strange lands, strange people, without any guide, without any map, without anybody to indicate the right direction.

Every river, small or big, reaches to the ocean. It seems a deep thirst, an intense longing, makes every way the right way.

All ways are going towards the ocean.

You just have to be patient enough, trustful of existence.

And your remembrance will be of enormous value: one day you knew yourself, you were not yet gone astray, you had not moved on the paths of desire and ambition. You were still within yourself, sincere, honest and innocent. You know that the space you are searching for again is not imaginary. You have known it, you have been it; it is only a question of how to enter that space again.

The logical way is to find the right path. And there comes one of the greatest problems for every spiritual seeker, because every path leads you away from yourself. Every path indicates towards some goal, somewhere else.

Hence the question is not of finding the right path; the question is of finding the right consciousness, awareness. And strangely, immediately the whole problem changes.

It is a dream you can go far away, you can visit some faraway star. But when you wake up you will wake up in your own room, in your own home. The question is not to find a right path from the faraway star to come back home.

You are already there, you have just forgotten it.

That is the meaning of one of the most beautiful words -- which has been contaminated by religions. That word is sin; its root meaning is forgetfulness. If forgetfulness is the sin, then awareness is the only virtue.

You are asking, "There arises great darkness in me and I wish to trade in this intolerable Agama and start afresh, so that somehow I would not grow with my personality so inseparably glued to myself. I remember there was once innocence and I had a sense of myself. Try as I might, I can't recover it, can't separate off the witness, can't trust in my seeing. So long ago I took a shortcut and now I can't remember where I left the honesty and the innocence and the love, for the false, the trying, the stupid. How can I find my way back?"

Just by being awake! Shake yourself, slap yourself -- but wake up. Jump out of the bed --

but wake up.

Your suffering is a dream, your darkness is a dream, your going astray is a dream. That's the meaning of the word maya. Man lives in illusion. The way out of illusion does not exist, because the way out of illusion will be another illusion.

You have simply to wake up.

There is no way, no bridge.

One state is of unawareness, another is of awareness. And from unawareness to awareness the distance is nil... just a little effort, a little jogging.

A man walks into a bar and orders a glass of beer, which he swallows down in one gulp.

Immediately he orders another, and again swallows it down in one gulp. Still thirsty, he orders a third and a fourth. By this time he needs the bathroom. The bartender tells him,

"down the corridor and first on your right." The man stumbles down the corridor, misses the turn, goes through another door and falls straight into the swimming pool. When he finally comes to the surface, he yells out to the surprised attendant, "Wait, for God's sake don't flush!"

Agama, you are where you have always been; you have not moved even an inch away from your innocence, or your being, or your sincerity. It is not possible in the very nature of things to go away from oneself, just as you cannot run away from your shadow. The faster you run, the shadow runs faster; the slower you go the shadow goes slower. But you cannot run away from it.

If this is the case with your shadow, what about your innermost being? How can you go away from it? Wherever you are, it will be in the innermost shrine of your consciousness

-- always intact, uncorrupted.

So all that is needed is to sit silently, to close your eyes and to look into yourself. You will find again the same space, that you remembered with such great passion, with such great love. It is still there. And the same is the case with everybody else.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I BELIEVE IT WAS SARTRE WHO COINED THE TERM "EXISTENTIAL

NAUSEA" TO DESCRIBE SEVERE ALIENATION. I LIKE TO THINK THAT WHAT

I AM FEELING IS MORNING SICKNESS -- IN ANTICIPATION OF THE BIRTH OF

MY SELF-REALIZED BEING. IT SEEMS IRONIC TO ME THAT, ALTHOUGH I HAVE EXPERIENCED EXQUISITE MYSTICAL INSIGHTS, I STILL FALL INTO

PITS OF DEPRESSION AND ALIENATION WHERE WORDS AND ACTIONS

SEEM ONLY TO EMPHASIZE A FUTILITY IN HUMAN ENDEAVORS. WORSE

STILL IS A DEEP SHAME THAT I AM FULL OF DOUBTS WHEN SO MANY

LOVELY FLOWERS HAVE BEEN PRESENTED TO ME FROM THE HANDS OF

EXISTENCE. WORDS REALLY DON'T COMPENSATE FOR THE ALIEN GAP, BUT JUST HEARING THE TENDERNESS OF YOUR VOICE SOOTHES THE

BLOWN-OUT CRATERS ON THE DARK SIDE OF MY MOON. WOULD YOU

SPEAK ON ALIENATION?

The philosophy of existentialism has given a few new words tremendous emphasis. One of those words is alienation -- to feel alien to oneself.

Man has always felt that he does not know himself. It is not something new; just the name is new and the emphasis is new. Twenty-five centuries ago Socrates was telling people, "Know thyself." He was saying, "You are a stranger to yourself. You don't know your being; you don't know all the dimensions of your being. You don't know, why you are here. You don't know from where you have come, you don't know where you are going. And most important, you don't know whether you are or not."

It happened... George Bernard Shaw was traveling from London to a small town in England. The ticket checker came into his compartment. He looked in all his pockets, in the suitcases, but he could not find the ticket. The ticket checker told him many times,

"Don't get so worried. You are a world-famous figure, I know you. You must have forgotten the ticket somewhere. When I come on the next run, I can see it. There is no hurry."

He was trying to console the agitated George Bernard Shaw, but George Bernard Shaw was perspiring. Listening to his words he became very angry and shouted, "Shut up! I am not looking for the ticket for you. Now the problem arises, where am I going? Can you tell me?"

The man said, "How can I tell you?" George Bernard Shaw said, "Then don't talk nonsense. I am not worried about you; I am worried about where I am going. Now what will happen to me?"

Everybody is going somewhere, certainly. And nobody is going to ask for your ticket, but still... those who are intelligent are themselves bound to inquire "Where are we going?"

But all these questions are secondary. The basic question is "Who am I?"

This strangeness about oneself, this ignorance about oneself, if felt deeply creates in existentialist terms a nausea. One starts feeling nauseous. One is here, one is going somewhere, one is coming from somewhere... there seems to be no meaning in all this.

And there are so many worries, so much suffering, so much anguish to go through for what?

Existentialism is a negative philosophy. But the modern man needs it, just as a shock.

Existentialist ideas cannot be fulfilling; they cannot remove the nausea, they can only deepen it. They cannot destroy your alienation, they can only make it sharper. They cannot take away meaninglessness from your life, they can only write it in bold letters.

They can surround you with a feeling of sickness. If death is the end, then life is nothing but sickness -- sickness unto death. But existentialism can help intelligent people not to be satisfied with nausea, but to inquire.

There have been people who have found themselves. Their serenity is a proof of it, their fragrance is evidence of it, their rejoicing is an argument which cannot be refuted. A Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Chuang Tzu, a Bodhidharma -- nobody can deny their grace. Nobody can deny that these people have gone beyond worries, beyond anxiety.

These people have found something which fills their life with songs of joy. They have found some treasure which is inexhaustible and makes them dance in utter gratitude.

Their very presence has convinced millions of people that life need not be a sickness unto death; on the contrary life can become such a dance that death becomes the ultimate culmination of the dance. Life can be transformed so deeply that even death disappears as darkness and becomes a dawn, that even death is no more an end but a new beginning.

Existentialism has paralyzed immensely, terribly, the intelligentsia of the Western world.

The impact of the existentialists has been great. And the conclusion of their philosophy is nothing but suicide, which can relieve you from all nausea, all alienation, all meaninglessness, all anguish, all suffering.

There has never been such a negative philosophy in the whole history of man. There have been atheists, who denied God, but they denied God to support life. They denied God so man can be absolutely free, without anybody dominating him and dictating to him and giving him commandments. Atheists were humanitarians; they raised man as the highest value. To the theists they looked negative because they were negating God, but nobody has seen that they were affirming life.

In fact, compared to atheists the theists are negative, because they deny life, they negate life, they teach people to renounce life for a fictitious god, for a hypothetical god for which they don't have any proof, any argument. But theists have been thought of as positive thinkers, and atheists as negative thinkers. This evaluation is totally wrong, according to me. Atheists are very positive; theists are absolutely negative.

But the existentialists have far transcended the theists and their negativity; they were at least affirming a fictitious god. Atheism was denying only a fiction. Existentialists are denying the fiction of god and they are also denying the reality of life; not only denying, but giving it such condemnatory colors that it seems it is a calamity to be born, it is a punishment to be born... that life is not a joy, but simply another name of hell.

Existentialism has to be understood very deeply, because philosophically it may become the cause of the third world war. It has destroyed all that was beautiful in life. It has negated everything that was valuable -- love, silence, meditation, joy. It has erased them all. Life is only a sickness, and we are clinging to life because we are afraid to die. It is not that we love life; we hate it -- but at least it is known. Who knows, death may be far worse. It is better to remain with the known, although it is miserable.

They have created the philosophical background for people like Ronald Reagan to destroy the whole humanity. If existentialism is true, then there is no harm in destroying the whole humanity; in fact it should be taken as a blessing that all sickness disappears, all that is ugly disappears.

And all is ugly according to the existentialists. There is not even a single thing which can be appreciated.

Unless the West becomes aware of meditation, unless meditation penetrates the Western intelligence, there is a danger. The politicians are creating weapons to destroy, and the philosophers are creating readiness to be destroyed, willingness to be destroyed. It is the greatest conspiracy against life between politicians and philosophers.

And these existentialists.... One wonders! I have written letters to Jaspers, to Jean-Paul Sartre and they didn't even have the courage to answer. I asked them, "If your philosophy is right, you should commit suicide. Why are you living? For what? Waiting for death?"

According to them, life is nothing but a waiting room and the train that will come, its name is death.

Neither Jaspers nor Jean-Paul Sartre ever replied. All these philosophers, from Soren Kierkegaard to Marcel, were living perfectly happily, enjoying Nobel prizes and preaching a philosophy which is itself really sick.

Life is not sick. It is the wrong glasses they have on their eyes. Just today I heard some news. A man shot his wife in New York. The police came, and the man was absolutely unafraid. He said, "Yes, I have killed my wife." But his son said, "Father, she's not my mother and she's not your wife." He said, "My God, I forgot to put on my glasses!" He killed some other woman, thinking that she was his wife.

Existentialism is giving wrong glasses to people. It is the most anti-human, anti-life ideology ever preached.

Prem Padmini, you need not be caught into these sick ideologies. I am here to open new windows for you, and you can see with your own eyes the immense beauty of life, the great blissfulness of life... the tremendous silence which is a song without sounds, and a dance that goes on eternally in the trees, in the rivers, in the mountains, in the stars.

The whole existence is full of rejoicing; you just need to open your windows. Your darkness is your own creation, your alienation is your own creation; otherwise you are not a stranger to yourself. You are not a stranger to the trees, to the rivers, to the mountains.

It is our existence; we are part of it.

Our heartbeat is part of the universal heartbeat.

And it is not a dead universe; it is immensely intelligent, conscious, sensitive. It is divine in its every dimension. But you have to learn to participate in the dance.

You are sitting like a cripple, and because of your crippledness -- which is just your idea; you are not crippled, you have just been told that you are crippled, you cannot dance, you will fall, so sit silently -- you are not participating in the dance that is going all over the place.

The cripple automatically becomes a critic. He starts hating that which he cannot do. He starts calling the dancers stupid, mad, insane -- "What is the point of all this dance? what is the meaning of all these songs and music? It is just noise and nothing else.

So as not to see one's crippledness, one starts condemning those who are not influenced by crippled philosophies and religions.

Be a participant! In the beginning it may be a little difficult, but step by step start moving a little.

A husband asks his wife which she likes most, Christmas or sex. "Christmas," she says.

"Why is that?" asks her husband. "Is it more romantic?" "No," she answers, "but it happens more often."

Now, if Christmas happens more often, then life will look like a nausea, a sickness.

Participate in the small joys of life, and it will open its great treasures. It contains immense riches, but it needs you to explore them. It gives you challenges, because it is one of the parts of understanding that what you find with great difficulty you enjoy more.

That which is very arduous brings great rejoicing; that which is obvious, freely available, will not give you joy.

Life follows that principle, it keeps its treasures hidden. But it goes on challenging you, calling you. You have to become pilgrims, seekers, searchers. And all the doors are inside, so you don't have to go to the Himalayas. You have just to go inwards. The deeper you go in, the more you know that life is not alien; it is your very heart. You are not separate from it. You have always been part of it, in some form or other, and you will remain always part of it.

You belong to this eternal celebration.

Existentialism is one of the most dangerous approaches to life -- far more dangerous than your religions, because your religions are very poor in arguments. Existentialism is very rich in arguments, so convincing that once you are caught in its trap, you cannot escape.

Just remember one thing: not a single existentialist philosopher has committed suicide.

That destroys their whole philosophical approach.

Only once before in the past in Greece there was a great philosopher, Zeno. He was not teaching so many ugly things, and making man really feel nauseous, but he was certainly teaching that life has no meaning and only cowards go on living because they don't have the guts to commit suicide. He himself lived a long life of ninety years, and thousands of people committed suicide under his influence. When he was dying, one young man asked, "Just one question more: how come you managed to live ninety years while your followers, particularly young people, have committed suicide according to your philosophy?"

He said, "I had to live to teach the philosophy. It was such a suffering to live, but I had to suffer for the sake of humanity."

Philosophers can be very cunning. Now this is cunningness, pure and simple. But at least he accepted one thing -- that he lived to teach his philosophy. Jaspers and Jean-Paul Sartre and Marcel did not even answer my question. They could have at least said, "We are suffering greatly, but because we want to awaken humanity to the reality, which is nauseous, we are somehow managing to remain alive." Even that much they were not courageous enough to accept. And strangely enough, when Marcel was given a Nobel prize, he accepted it. Life is a nausea. What is a Nobel prize? A cancer? Happily, he accepted.

These are just intellectuals playing games with words, mind games; but they don't know anything of meditation. If they had known just a little bit of meditation not only would their life have been richer, they would have changed the whole West, particularly the Western youth, into a happier, a more radiant, alive generation.

But all that they have created is a subtle willingness for suicide, a deep acceptance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If life is such, then to destroy it is not evil; then Adolf Hitler is a great prophet and he helped six million people to be relieved from a life which was nausea. He was the greatest servant of the Jews: without him, six million Jews would still be suffering from nausea, anguish, anxiety, meaninglessness. Adolf Hitler is a great savior. And now he has come in a far greater form as Ronald Reagan. Perhaps Ronald Reagan will prove the greatest savior of humanity by destroying all life.

Existentialism has to be fought, it has to be destroyed by the roots, because it is in favor of death and against life -- and without knowing life. And to know life there is only one way, the way of meditation.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WHY IS IT THAT MY VALLEYS ARE DEEPER THAN MY MOUNTAINS ARE

HIGH?

Ramaprem, it is unfortunate that your valleys are deeper than your mountains are high, but the responsibility is yours. You are digging your valleys every day deeper and you have not made any effort even to climb the mountains. To make them bigger is a totally different thing; you have not even climbed them. You are going deeper into your valleys, and digging them more and more. Most of the men in the world are gravediggers; they go on digging their own graves.

An old man was dying, a very rich old man. His four sons, who were all rich in their own right, had gathered to say goodbye to their father. They were sitting around him. The youngest son said "We should arrange a Rolls Royce to take him to the graveyard. That was his lifelong desire, to ride in a Rolls Royce, but he was so miserly, he could not manage it. At least we should give him a chance. He will be dead, but his spirit, his ghost, may enjoy the trip. And it is not very costly because it is one way."

But the second son, elder than the first, said; "You are forgetting our family heritage.

What difference does it make to a dead man whether you take him in a Rolls Royce or in a four wheel Ford truck? It makes no difference to him but to us it will make a difference.

At least I am not going to contribute if a Rolls Royce is brought; I will contribute at the most for a Ford truck. A dead man is a dead man. He knows nothing about where he is sitting. It will do, and we will take him in the nighttime, so nobody knows and nobody sees."

The third brother said, "You are all being too extravagant. What is the need of a Ford truck? Just a bullock cart... and one of my servants has a bullock cart, so we need not even pay anything. A dead body will enjoy the bullock cart and the open air more than any Rolls Royce."

The eldest brother said, "You all seem to have gone wrong, you have all gone insane; it is sheer wastage. We should put him, in the deep darkness in the middle of night, by the side of the road where people throw all their garbage, so in the morning the corporation truck will take him away. They do the same with all the beggars, and a dead man, whether he was rich or a beggar does not make any distinction. There is no problem; a dead man is a dead man, it is just a corpse."

Just then the old man tried to sit up. He was still alive and listening. He said: "My sons, just help me to find my shoes." They said, "What are you going to do with your shoes?

Are you going to die with your shoes on?" He said, "I have still a little life left. I can walk to the graveyard. In the night, who is going to see? And you are four; you can dig the grave and I will help as much as I can in my old age. Then you can take my shoes back, because they are almost new. I have used them only for ten years; they are good enough for you and your children."

You ask, why your valleys are deeper. Instead of digging your valleys, learn the art of climbing the mountains. Reach to the sunlit peaks of the mountains. Certainly valleys are more secure, more cozy, more comfortable, less risky. Climbing a mountain... if you really want to climb a high mountain like Everest it is dangerous. But the more dangerous it is, the more alive it makes you.

Friedrich Nietzsche used to keep a small card on his table. He had written on it himself,

"Live dangerously!" Any visitor was bound to see it and ask him "What does it mean?"

He said, "That is my whole philosophy, because I have found that the more dangerously you live, the more deeply you live."

As you live more dangerously, you really live. A few moments of dangerous living, as if you are walking on a razor's edge, are more precious than a long life without any danger, without any risk, comfortable and cozy, everything insured, everything secure.

The way of the sannyasin is really the way to live life dangerously.

A young man asked his friend, "How come that old maid keeps getting the best-looking boys for each dance ?" "That is easy," his friend replied. "When she was young she gave it away, later she sold it, and now that she is rich, she is buying it back!"

She really lived, in every possible way. Most people are avoiding living.

George was a sprightly eighty-eight year old when he married Ruby, a lusciously ripe eighteen year old. As they prepared for bed on their wedding night he asked her, "Tell me, sweet child, did your mother tell you the facts of life?" Blushingly she murmured,

"No."

"That's too bad," George said, "because I'm afraid I have forgotten them."

Now it is too long... eighty-eight years old, but still trying his best -- not accepting old age, not being worried about death, and although he had gone senile, still ready to live.

But most people, even when they are young, are living reluctantly, resisting life, afraid of life, feeling guilty to live because that's what they have been told, that's how they have been prepared. Their whole conditioning is so life-negative that even if they want to live, their guilt does not allow them to live.

As far as my people are concerned, my single-pointed, unconditional advice is to live as intensely as possible, as totally as possible, because that is the only way to know the godliness of life, to know its divine fragrance, its divine taste. And the most strange fact is, the people who live totally, fully, transcend the very desire to live a mundane kind of life. They move beyond the mundane to another dimension, another sphere: the sacred.

Live as a Zorba; then it will be possible for you to live as a Gautam Buddha. Zorba has to be the foundation of your life, and Gautam Buddha your highest peak. Live without any fear, because there is no god you have to be afraid of. And there is no heaven where your tortures will be rewarded, and there is no hell where your joys will be punished. This moment is all. Always remember in whatever moment you are that it is all.

Ramaprem, one day one of Mulla Nasruddin's friends asked him if he could borrow his donkey to carry some vegetables to the market. "No," said Mulla Nasruddin, "that's not possible, because my donkey is not here, and what's more, he is sick." At that moment, his donkey appeared from around the corner calling, "Heehaw, heehaw."

"You said your donkey is not here, and that he is sick," accused Mulla Nasruddin's friend,

"and here he is and yelling `heehaw, heehaw,' as well as can be."

"Who do you believe, "asked Mulla Nasruddin, "my donkey or me?"

Ramaprem, if you believe me, then there is no problem; then the sunlit peaks are very close by. But if you believe religious donkeys of all kinds and all sorts -- hindu shankaracharyas and Ayatollah Khomeiniac and pope the Polack -- then I am helpless.

Then you have to go on digging your valleys deeper.

Just trust what I am saying, because I am not saying anything based on any scripture. I am saying only things based on my own experience; hence what I am saying has an authority -- which these shankaracharyas cannot have; they are only representatives, they don't have their own experience... these popes cannot have; they are only elected people.

It is a very strange world, where religious leaders are also elected, elected by all kinds of idiots, elected by the followers.

I am not elected by anybody; neither am I representing anybody. I am simply telling you what my experience is; hence I have an authority that these people cannot have. I don't want you to believe it; I want you to trust it. And I make the difference, because by believing you will remain just a follower; by trusting you will come to the same status and the same space in which I am living.

Believing is cheap.

To trust means you are accepting a challenge to climb the sunlit peaks of mountains.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #39

Chapter title: Growing up comes by itself

31 May 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

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8705310

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN39

Audio:

Yes

Video:

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Length:

78

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY, I FOUND MYSELF UPSET, IMPATIENT, AND IRRITABLE.

WHEN WILL I GROW UP? WHEN WILL WE ALL COME TO THE

RESPONSIBILITY OF JUST BEING THE YOU IN US: THAT GRACEFULNESS

THAT WE ALL KNOW OURSELVES TO BE? I FEEL THAT THE TIME IS RIPE TO

STOP WHINING ABOUT MISERY, AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS, PAIN, AND

DISCOMFORTS. COULD IT BE THAT AS A DISCIPLE, I SIMPLY TAKE YOU, YOUR PRESENCE, YOUR ANSWERS, YOUR INSIGHTS, AND YOUR GRACE

FOR GRANTED, AS A WAY TO AVOID JUST STEPPING INTO MYSELF, INTO

THE DEVOTEE?

Satyadharma, it is natural to be impatient. And a great understanding and awareness is needed not to be impatient, because impatience is not going to help; on the contrary, it is one of the great hindrances. You have to understand impatience as your enemy. You want the vast and the mysterious to open its doors, without much effort on your part. It is not possible. There are a thousand and one doors, and only one is right; you will have to knock on all the wrong doors to find the right one. Either in scientific research, or in a spiritual seeking, patience is absolutely necessary.

I am reminded of Edison who invented the first electric bulb. He worked on it for three years. All his colleagues and his disciples slowly, slowly left. They were impatient, they wanted it to happen immediately, and they could not believe the patience of Edison.

Every day, Edison would come fresh, young, excited, and they would say to him, "We have experimented in so many ways, and we have failed in every experiment. Why not change the subject? We should work on something else."

Edison would say, "Who told you that we have been failures? Each failure brings us nearer to success because there must be only a limited number of doors. We knock on one door, and it is not the right door -- but it is not a failure. One door, a wrong door, is eliminated; success is closer. We knock on another door; it is not the right door. But we are even closer to success -- two doors are eliminated. Soon we will be knocking on the right door.

But the patience that he had is part of a very intelligent and very genuine seeker. After three years, in the middle of the night, he knocked on the right door. For the first time, the human eyes....

He was alone, all his colleagues had left; he was tired, utterly exhausted, and thinking himself almost mad. He was alone when he discovered the electric bulb. It had taken three years. Day and night he had been thinking only of one thing -- from where to approach this? And when the room was lighted up with electricity, he was sitting there in utter wonder. He was the first man to see something which had never existed before. He could not take his eyes off the electric bulb.

It was getting late, and finally his wife shouted from the other room, "Put that stupid light off!" She was not aware that it was electricity. She said "Come back, and go to sleep."

He said, "It is not the stupid light that you are acquainted with; it is what my three years of patience has created. You should come here and see!"

Because of his patience -- he has a uniqueness in the whole history of man -- he discovered one thousand inventions. Anybody else could have done it, but nobody had that quality of patience. There were many intelligent researchers, but they would go a little way and have a few failures... and start moving into another direction.

Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the most important Sufi mystics, one day took his disciples to a nearby farm where the farmers were trying to dig a well. They had made eight holes, and now they were working on the ninth; on each one they had gone only so far, and then seeing that there was no water, they dropped that project and started in another place.

They had destroyed the whole farm.

Jalaluddin Rumi had taken his disciples for a specific purpose -- to see how impatience is idiotic. If these people had put all the energy that they had used in destroying the whole field with several holes into digging a single hole, they would be bound to find water. But these are not the kind of people who are going to find water.

He was telling his disciples, "You should not be impatient. Put your total energy, your total trust, one pointedly, arrowed towards one goal. When the master is with you -- who has traveled the path, up and down many times, and who knows that the path is going to lead you to your cherished dream -- don't feel dejected, don't feel impatient, don't start new projects again and again. That way nobody has ever been able to find anything."

You say, "The other day I found myself upset, impatient, and irritable!"

Satyadharma, you cannot suddenly find yourself upset, impatient, and irritable. You must have been always impatient, upset, and irritable. Perhaps the other day you came to a peak of realization; you realized that these great qualities are in you. But they must have always been there; they cannot come suddenly. You must have become accustomed to them.

"When will I grow up?" What is the hurry? And what are you doing by growing up?

Even if you grow up today, what will you do? You will get even more upset and impatient and irritable, thinking, "My God, there was a goal, now even that is finished.

Now my life is absolutely meaningless."

Growing up comes by itself. You have to work, but not directly on how to grow up soon; you have to work more on meditation, more on silence, more on love. And the total result is growth. The growth itself is not something separate; it is the whole synthesis of all great qualities. You have to work on those qualities.

In my childhood -- and perhaps in India in everybody's childhood -- it must have happened... I used to plant mango seeds. My impatience was so much that I could not even sleep the whole night -- I wanted to see what had happened in the night. In the morning, I would dig them up again, and see whether anything had happened or not.

Nothing had happened!

The mango seed, when two leaves start growing in it, can be taken out, and it makes a very good whistle. My interest was not in the mangoes, my interest was in getting more whistles. But even that needs patience -- just those two leaves. But impatience was such that it was even impossible to get those two leaves to grow. Every morning I would dig up the seed to see what was happening, and that would destroy the whole thing.

Growth is something that happens by the side. You meditate, you sing, you dance, you rejoice, and suddenly, one day you will find those two leaves of the mango are growing above the ground -- so fresh, so beautiful. Growth is a finding on the margin; you cannot make it a goal. That's what is making you so upset, impatient, and irritable! You have made growing up your goal. Now what can you do? Get stretched on a traction machine?

"When will we all come to the responsibility of just being the You in us: that gracefulness that we all know ourselves to be?" Any question about when shows that you have not understood my emphasis on the present moment; you have not understood my approach of here and now. Enjoy this moment, and forget the lot! And growth will come suddenly one day, not as a reward, but as a shadow of your living moment-to-moment, joyously.

"When" always takes you into the future, it always thinks of tomorrows. And the basic spiritual insight of thousands of years is that tomorrow never comes. This very moment will become another moment, your today will continue to remain today, the tomorrow will come in the form of today. But our whole system of thought is goal-oriented. We are always living in the future, and nobody can live in the future; or we are living in the past, and nobody can live in the past either.

The only way to live is to enjoy this moment, to cherish this moment, to make it as beautiful as possible. And out of this moment will come the next moment, out of this moment will come your whole future. This moment contains the whole eternity -- past and future.

You are saying, "I feel that the time is ripe to stop whining about misery, and misunderstandings, pain, and discomforts. Could it be that as a disciple, I simply take You, Your presence, Your answers, Your insights, and Your grace for granted?"

Do you really feel, Satyadharma, that "the time is ripe to stop whining about misery, and misunderstandings"? And what are you doing in your question? What is this about being

"upset, impatient, and irritable," and "when will I grow up"? If it is not whining about misery, and pain, and discomforts, then what is it? You have not felt that the time is ripe -

- you have only thought. Thinking is of no help. Thinking is a cheat. It talks great things, it gives you big promises, but the goods are never delivered.

Remember a clear-cut distinction between thinking and feeling: those who are feeling

"the time is ripe" are not whining about any misery. They are enjoying the ripe time, and by enjoying, they are making it riper.

Of course, it is true -- at least about you -- that you have started taking my presence for granted. That is the natural habit of the mind. It starts taking for granted things which it will repent only when it has lost them.

There is a beautiful Sufi story.... A very rich man, super-rich, became bored with life because he had known all the pleasures, all the joys that money can purchase, but they were not truly satisfying. He was still thirsty, he was still hungry for something authentic.

He was enquiring from sages and saints, and all that they could say... he had tried their rituals, worship, prayer and nothing worked.

One saint out of desperation... because this man was torturing him continually again and again about his misery -- "Time is passing, life is limited, and what kind of saint are you?

You cannot show me the right path. And I have twenty-four hours to devote to it; I don't have to work to earn money or anything, I don't have children, and I have earned so much money that it is enough for ten lives at least." The saint sent him to a Sufi master who was thought to be a little bit insane, and to whom many sages were sending their disciples when they wanted to get rid of them. But that insane Sufi master only looked insane; he had a super-sanity.

The rich man took a big bag, filled it with diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires; and went to the Sufi who was sitting under a tree. He told the Sufi his whole story... that he was very miserable, he had everything that the world can afford. "I have brought, just to give you a proof, this whole bag worth millions. All I need is peace of mind." The Sufi said, "I will give it to you. Get ready!"

The rich man thought, "This man seems to be strange. I have been to so many saints --

nobody was so quick, and nobody promised to give it to me. They all said, `Go through this ritual, this worship, this prayer, this meditation. Work it out yourself.' This is the only man... perhaps, they are right that he is insane. He is saying, `Get ready. Don't waste my time!' "So hesitatingly he said, "Okay, I'm ready." But he was very afraid -- although he had come to get peace of mind. And when the man said he was ready, the Sufi master took hold of his bag, and ran.

It was a small village with small streets with which the Sufi was perfectly acquainted.

And the rich man had never run. He ran behind the Sufi master shouting, "I have been cheated! This man is not a sage. He's not insane, he's very cunning." But he could not get hold of the Sufi because he was going so fast and taking so many turns in the village. The old man was fat -- huffing, puffing, perspiring, crying -- and the whole crowd was laughing. He could not understand why these people were laughing, and nobody was helping! But the village knew that that man was not insane -- he was super-sane. He had his own methods.

Finally, the rich man reached to the same tree. The Sufi had reached far ahead; he was sitting with the bag there. And the rich man was shouting, abusing.

The Sufi said, "Stop all this nonsense! Take this bag." The man took the bag immediately, and the Sufi asked, "How are you feeling?"

He said, "I'm feeling great peace."

The Sufi said, "That's what I was telling you. If you are ready, I can give you peace immediately. Have you got it?"

He said, "I have got it!"

"Never again ask anybody about it!" You have started taking for granted all your riches. I gave you a chance to lose them, and suddenly you became what you really are -- a beggar. And these very precious stones which have lost their value to you are again precious." But it happens. The people who live in palaces start taking those palaces for granted; the people who are rich never think about the miseries of poverty. The people who have got a master start taking him for granted -- that there is nothing to be done; you only have to ask the question and your master is there to answer it.

But my answers cannot be of any help.

My answers are only a provocation and an invitation, a challenge to work through the misery and the darkness towards the dawn, towards light.

I can show you the way, but I cannot walk for you.

And if you start taking me for granted, then don't be miserable; take your misery also for granted. Accept that you are a miserable person, that it is your destiny. You don't take your misery for granted, but you can take your master for granted. You don't take your problems for granted, but you take my answers for granted.

So you have to be clear, very clear, Satyadharma. In your whole question, only your last line is true, and authentic: "As a way to avoid stepping into myself, I have started taking you for granted."

It is a very easy way to ask a question, to get an answer, and out of the answer, make a few more questions for tomorrow... and you remain the same. My answers are remedies; they are medicinal. You have not just to create more questions out of them; you have to make an effort to live those answers. Out of living those answers, your questions will disappear.

And my answers are simple. I am not requiring you to grow into some self-torturing saint; I am not asking you for any ascetic disciplines. I am simply asking you to relax, to trust existence, to find a few moments of silence and peace which are absolutely available to everybody -- whoever closes his eyes, relaxes his body, sits silently.

The silence I'm talking about is not some acquirement or achievement. It is a discovery. It is already within you -- just the mind has to be quiet so that you can hear the music of silence that surrounds your whole being, so that you can smell the fragrance of your being itself. And once you have known it, then you can repeat it as many times in the day as you like, whenever you have time. Even sitting in a train or in a bus, you can just close your eyes and move inwards. It is only a question of taking the first step, then everything else becomes easy. But remember to be patient.

A Polack air cadet is taking his first sky diving jump. "What happens if the parachute does not open?" he asked his instructor. "Don't worry," replies the instructor. "There is only one chance in a thousand that it will happen, and you have a spare parachute too."

"But," replies the anxious student, "what if that one does not open either?"

"There is only one chance in a million that that will happen," the instructor assures him and adds, "and then the ambulance is there on the field to pick up the pieces."

The nervous cadet boards the plane which takes off. At ten thousand feet he jumps out of the plane, and pulls the cord of his main parachute. It does not open.

"Shit!" he says, and then pulls the cord of his reserve chute which also refuses to open. "I knew it," he says to himself. "And I bet with my luck, the ambulance won't be there to pick up the pieces either."

Just don't be so miserable! Most probably, the first parachute will do. If everything goes wrong, then even with your luck, you will find the ambulance to collect the pieces.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

MICHAEL WAS HELPING PATRICK CHECK TO SEE THAT HIS CAR

INDICATORS WERE WORKING. HE PUT HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WINDOW, AND YELLED, "YES, PATRICK, THEY ARE... NO, THEY'RE NOT... YES, THEY

ARE... NO, THEY'RE NOT. " OSHO, NO I'M NOT... YES I AM... NO I'M NOT... YES

I AM. RECENTLY I'VE NOTICED THOSE SPACES IN BETWEEN, AND NOW

THEY SEEM TO BE COMING MORE AND MORE IN EVERY WAY.

ONE ADVERTISEMENT FOR BEER CLAIMS TO "REACH THE PARTS THAT

OTHER BEERS CAN'T. "PARTS OF ME THAT JUST A FEW WEEKS AGO I DIDN'T KNOW EXISTED ARE BEGINNING TO FEEL SPACIOUS, LIGHT, AND

GRATEFUL. I AM BEGINNING TO FEEL THE FLOW AND THE PACE OF

EXISTENCE, TO RELAX INTO IT, AND TO TRUST IT. WILL YOU PLEASE

COMMENT?

Dhyan Sagar, the workings of the mind are just like that -- split between yes and no, between to be or not to be. The mind cannot have one voice; it is always balanced by its

"against" voice. That is simply the nature of the mind: it is split, it is schizophrenic. In a more philosophical way, they call it dialectical.

But my whole teaching is to go beyond the mind, not to be bothered with it. Neither its

"no" is of any meaning, nor even its "yes." The only use of the mind is to use it as a stepping-stone, to go beyond it. Don't try to solve problems of the mind, they are insoluble. You will get into a thick forest, and find it almost impossible to find the way back home.

The mind is a Polack.

How do you make a one armed Polack fall off a flagpole?

Answer: You wave to him.

Why did the Polish Government import five hundred million tons of sand from Saudi Arabia?

Answer: They wanted to drill for their own oil.

Did you hear about the Polish lesbian?

Answer: She likes men.

The mind is certainly part of Poland.

One contemporary logician has invented a word, "po." And my suspicions are that he has taken that word "po" from Poland; otherwise, there is no way he could manage this word

"po." He has invented it because his philosophy needed it. He says that Aristotle has given us a philosophy of yes and no; either something is right or something is wrong, either something is black or white -- a very simple duality. Either you believe in God or you don't.

But what about things when the real answer is neither yes nor no? For example, God. To say "yes" is wrong because you have not experienced it; to say "no" is wrong because you have not explored it. So neither yes is applicable, nor no.

According to this man's logic, when somebody asks you, "What about God?" you have to say "po." Po is noncommittal; it does not mean yes, it does not mean no. It simply means,

"I don't know." But rather than accepting the ignorance, it gives you a good feeling to say

"po." You put, in fact, the other person in a state of ignorance because he cannot understand -- "What is po?" He has never heard the word.

My suspicion is that he has got this "po" from Poland. There is no other way to get it. But even with "po", mind will not be the solution. You can go on repeating "po" but you will remain as poor, as ignorant, as miserable as before. This "po" is not going to transform anything in you.

Only one thing can transform, and that is going beyond the mind, going beyond thinking, and coming to a space where the sky is absolutely without clouds. And then no question arises, and no answer is needed.

People think that Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathustra, or Lao Tzu have found the answer. They are wrong. They have lost both -- the question and the answer. They have found a silence, undisturbed either by questions or by answers.

When I said this to Tibetan Buddhist lamas, they were shocked because they were thinking Gautam Buddha had found the answer. I said, "If you find the answer, you are still inside the mind, you are still very close to the question." Gautam Buddha has gone beyond the question and the answer. He has found silence -- indestructible.

Philosophy finds answers, religion finds a state which is far beyond questions and answers. Questions and answers look childish, look like toys to play with.

Ten years ago an anthropology student spent some time studying rural regions of Kashmir. One day he was driving down the road when he saw a man on a donkey, while his wife walked ten yards behind him. "Why do you do that?" he asked. "It is our age-old tradition," the man replied.

Recently, the student, now a reporter, was sent back to Kashmir by his newspaper. By a strange coincidence he found himself on the same road, with the same man he had seen ten years before. But this time the man's wife was walking ten yards ahead of him. The man on the donkey was exactly ten yards behind the wife.

"What happened to the traditional custom?" asked the reporter. "Has the tradition changed?"

"No, " said the man. "The tradition has not changed, but now, you see, there are land mines."

Mind is very cunning. It will use traditions, it will use religions, it will use philosophies --

just to survive. It will give you all kinds of questions, and all kinds of answers -- just to survive. But any question raised by the mind is as futile as any answer found by the mind.

Mind is an exercise in utter futility.

Only very few people in the world have been able to find the truth that the mind is our only problem.

If we can go beyond mind into silence, into utter and profound silence -- undisturbed by anything, not even a ripple of thought -- then we have found it... not the answer, but something existential, a transformation, a mutation, a revolution in ourselves which destroys all questions and all answers, and leaves us in utter serenity, in a tremendous beatitude.

Meditation is nothing but annihilation of the mind.

Meditation is not the training of the mind: Meditation is simply cessation of the mind.

Just cease to be a mind, and you will find a pure being, unpolluted and pure from eternity to eternity.

Little Ernie was always saying things that got him into trouble. One day his mother was having a friend to lunch who was bringing her new baby who had no ears.

Ernie's mother called him and said, "Ernie, don't you say anything about the baby. In fact, don't even speak at all."

"Okay," said Ernie.

The friend arrived with her baby. Ernie looked at him, took his hand, and said, "What beautiful little hands he has."

"Ernie," warned his mother.

"And what beautiful brown hair he has."

"Yes," said the proud friend.

"Has he got good eyesight?" asked Ernie.

"Ernie!" yells his mother.

"Why?" asked the baby's mother.

"Because," says Ernie, "he will never be able to wear glasses."

The mind is so cunning; it goes on round about, but comes finally to some trouble, to some problem. You can repress its one question by one answer, but it will create new questions which will be nothing but echoes of the repressed question.

A seeker of truth is a seeker of the beyond. The beyond is our home.

The mind can be Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan; the beyond is just pure, without any objective. To me, the future man, the new man will live in the beyond.

Living in the beyond does not mean that you cannot use your mind; in fact, on the contrary, only those who live in the beyond are capable of using their mind as an instrument. Mind goes on torturing those who have not moved into the beyond; it is a nightmare. And they cannot use the mind because they are not above it.

Be a witness to the mind.

In your witnessing, the beyond will open its doors.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future

Chapter #40

Chapter title: Absolutely without any goals

31 May 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive

code:

8705315

ShortTitle:

GOLDEN40

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

66

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN I VISITED SARJANO'S PIZZA PARLOR YESTERDAY, I FOUND HIM

SOBBING BY A HUGE VAT OF SPAGHETTI. HE SAID THAT, IN SPITE OF YOUR

ASSURANCES, HE FEELS IT IS ALL HOPELESS. HE SAID, "I CAN-A NEVER

GET-A ENLIGHTENED-A. I'M-A TOO MUCH-A ATTACHED-A TO MY PAST-A. "

I TRIED TO CHEER HIM UP BY SAYING THAT YOU WERE HELPING US TO

RETURN TO THE SOURCE, AND WHERE THERE IS SAUCE THERE MUST BE

SPAGHETTI. BUT HE WAS INCONSOLABLE. BELOVED MASTER, PLEASE, CAN YOU HELP?

Maneesha, Sarjano need not become enlightened -- he is already. Those who have been to his place have tasted enlightenment in his spaghetti.

It is true, he is too much attached to the past-a. I would like to suggest to him that in our place he should change these names a little

bit -- because I am against the past, I cannot allow any past-a here. So I have to rename his pasta; it will be called from tomorrow: futura. And his pizza should be called presenta. The language should be meaningful. Pizza reminds one of pee -- that's why I have never been calling it pizza. I have been always calling it "piesta" just to avoid that pee.

And Sarjano need not worry about enlightenment; those who are with me are already enlightened. They may recognize it, they may not recognize it -- just out of humbleness....

A very large elephant was moving sedately through the African jungle when he caught sight of a mouse. He stopped in astonishment; he had never seen a mouse before. "My God," he said, "you are small!" "Yes," said the mouse, "I have been ill lately."

Following an ancient custom, the rabbi of the local synagogue prostrated himself before the Ark of the Lord, "Oh Lord, forgive me, for I am as nothing." Then the cantor followed, "Oh Lord, forgive me, for I am as nothing." A little old man praying nearby in his tobacco-stained shirt and old shoes called out, "Oh Lord, forgive me, for I am as nothing." The disgusted rabbi said to the cantor, "Look who thinks he is nothing!"

In the society where everything turns into ego, even humbleness -- which should be egolessness -- becomes a subtle ego in itself. But my people are not egoists; hence they need not be humble either -- because humbleness and ego are two extremes of the same energy. My people are simple, they are just exactly in the middle; they follow the golden mean.

Nirvana, enlightenment, kaivalyam, moksha, all great experiences, are not to be proclaimed. People will recognize them just by your joy, by your playfulness, by your presence. And Sarjano is playful, joyous -- sometimes a little too much. Once in a while he goes to the extreme, but most of the time remains "normally mad." I am going to visit his place one day. I have heard too much about it. He and Kuteer are both doing great things there.

Sarjano has made a great futura for me, a huge wristwatch with numbers and hands. He must have devoted so much time and so much love... and it came with the message:

"Bhagwan, I can only offer you this kind of watch." You can see his humbleness, his love. He is one of my most beloved disciples.

You all have to remember that I have changed the names.... We are thinking about the new man and we are thinking about the future of humanity -- and this is the last talk of this series. It is perfectly the right and ripe time to give Sarjano's creativity new names: futura and presenta.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT LOVE AND FREEDOM, AND MY

GIRLFRIEND HAS GONE OFF WITH ANOTHER MAN. I LOOK INSIDE TO SEE IF

THERE IS ANYTHING RESEMBLING LOVE THAT WILL WILLINGLY GIVE THE

OTHER FREEDOM, AND I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING EXCEPT THIS BLACK

MISERY, WHICH I AM SURPRISED TO FIND MYSELF ENJOYING. DO I HAVE

ANY OF THE NEW MAN IN ME OR IS IT ALL OLD?

Vijen, these are the blessings I have been talking about every day. After all, your girlfriend has left you. It happens only to very fortunate people and you know it!

You say you are enjoying it; it is just out of old habit that you are calling it "black misery." You don't see the contradiction: it is a pure white blessing, not black misery. It is black misery to the man with whom your girlfriend has gone! You should now pray and meditate for that poor fellow. Your girlfriend has done enough for you; now she will do the same to the other fellow.

You say, "I am surprised to find myself enjoying it." Everybody will enjoy it, because everybody is tortured with our so-called relationships. They start very beautifully, very sweet, but they end up very soon in utter misery, in absolute darkness, and there seems to be no end to the night. That's why my vision of a new man is that he will only relate with others, but there will be no relationship as such -- no binding for tomorrow, no contract for the future. Today is enough unto itself; enjoy it. If tomorrow you find yourselves still together, it is good. If you find yourselves separating, separate with gratitude, because for one day you have given great joy and blissfulness to each other, and it is good that before things become bitter you should separate. At least in your memory those beautiful moments will always remain -- fragrant, fresh, alive.

Wealthy Hymie and Becky are sitting in their luxurious New York penthouse watching television when there is a knock on the door. Hymie opens it and is confronted by a hooded six-foot burly figure. "Please," says Hymie, "take my money, anything, but don't hurt me." "Sir," said the hooded figure, "I am a rapist, not a thief." "Thank God," says Hymie and calls over his shoulder, "Becky, it is for you."

Three months later, same scene: same knock on the door, same hooded figure, but this time Hymie closes the door on him saying, "I have already given."

Life could be a real excitement, an ecstasy, but because of our ugly heritage it turns out to be a hell. And it is not enough that you change the woman or the man. Within a few days, the second man or the second woman will again end up in the same dark space.

Perhaps existence has a different design for man, and we have not listened to it. That different design is that we should remain strangers, meeting and separating without creating any kind of imprisonment for each other, any contract for the future, any promises. Without promises and without any contracts -- if we can live life moment to moment and allow change, without any reluctance, without any resistance to it happening, joyously, life can become a celebration.

But man has listened more to stupid priests, ignorant philosophers, criminal politicians, rather than listening to his own heart and listening to existence itself in deep silence and meditation. Unless man follows his nature, his existence, his own heart without any inhibitions, life is going to remain gloomy; it cannot release the tremendous blissfulness it contains in itself.

The new man has to prove that we can live without any religion and without any morality, that we can live without any God and without any priests, that we can live simply according to our own heart, wherever it leads, just like a white cloud floating in the sky with no direction, with no goal, enjoying every moment wherever it is.

The old man was goal-oriented; hence religions became relevant, moralities became prevalent. The new man is going to be absolutely without any goals, totally in tune with the present moment, not listening to any dictates of God -- which are all fictitious.

A little boy was sitting on the curb, crying, and an old man was passing by and came over to him. "What is the matter, little boy?" he asked. "Why are you crying?" "I am crying because I can't do what the big boys do," he said. The old man sat down on the curb and cried too.

Moses came down from the mountain where he had been negotiating with God on behalf of his people. He called all the people together to give them the message from God.

"Well", he said, "I have got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I have got him down to ten commandments. The bad news is, adultery is still in there."

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

I WAS TRAVELING IN THE HIMALAYAS FOR SEVEN WEEKS. THE DAY I WAS

TO RETURN TO POONA, YOU ANSWERED A QUESTION I HAD SENT IN EIGHT

WEEKS BEFORE, ABOUT FEELING HOPELESS. WHILE YOU WERE

ANSWERING IT, I WAS RECEIVING THE ANSWER EXPERIENTIALLY,

WAITING ON THE VARANASI TRAIN PLATFORM FOR TWENTY-EIGHT

HOURS. EACH HOUR IT WAS ANNOUNCED THAT THE TRAIN WOULD

ARRIVE IN ONE HOUR; BUT EACH TIME THERE WAS NO TRAIN -- ONLY

MORE PEOPLE, MORE HEAT, MORE NOISE, MORE SMELL, AND MORE FLIES.

I FINALLY TRULY GAVE UP HOPE, PUT MY STRAW HAT DOWN OVER MY

EYES, AND CRIED. WHEN I LOOKED UP AGAIN, THE FLIES LOOKED

PSYCHEDELIC WITH THE SUN SHINING THROUGH THEIR WINGS, THE

SOUND OF THE TRAINS AND THE CHAIWALLAHS WERE MUSIC TO MY

EARS, AND MY HEART WAS FULL OF LOVE FOR EVERYONE. OSHO, YOUR

SENSE OF TIMING IS UNCANNY. HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Prem Indivar, it is a secret, but one day I can whisper it in your ears -- just you have to keep the promise not to tell it to anyone else. You have to continue to say, "He has not said it to me yet." And they will understand that I have already said it.

A man was standing exactly where you have been on the Varanasi station, seeing the train off, and he observed someone near him shouting at one of the departing passengers,

"Goodbye, your wife was a great lay! Your wife was a great lay!" He was stunned.

After the train pulled away, he went over to the man who had done the shouting and asked, "Did I hear you correctly? Did you tell that man his wife was a great lay?" The other man shrugged his shoulders. "It is not really true," he said, "but I don't want to hurt his feelings."

"What is the difference between America and England?" asked the teacher. "I know,"

said Hymie. "America has Ronald Reagan, Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Stevie Wonder.

England has Margaret Thatcher, no cash, no hope -- and no wonder."

So don't be worried about what happened on the Varanasi station platform. This is usual in this country. I have been traveling for many years around the country; I must have waited on every platform. A few incidents will help you:

One day, for the first time in my life, I found the train coming exactly in time. That is absolutely a unique occasion in India. It simply does not happen. I was so much amazed and felt so grateful that I went to the driver to thank him and I told him, "This is my first experience that the train has come exactly in time. You must be the best driver in the country."

He said, "Don't make me feel ashamed."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "This is yesterday's train. It is exactly twenty-four hours late!"

Just at that time, when he told me that it is twenty-four hours late, I said, "My God." The stationmaster was standing by my side. I asked him, "If trains are going to be late -- and I have been traveling for twenty years -- then what is the point of publishing timetables?"

He said, "You are a strange man. Without timetables how will we know how much the train is late?"

I said, "That's right; I had not thought about it."

He said, "Everything would get mixed up. The timetable is published so that you can know how much the train is going to be late."

On another junction, just as you are saying... the train was announced again and again,

"one hour late... two hours late." I could not believe it when I heard that it is one hour late; then it became two hours late, then it became four hours late. I said, "My God, is it coming this side or is it going the other way? If it was one hour late, how it can be suddenly four hours late now?"

I went to the stationmaster and I asked, "In which direction is the train going?"

He said, "Don't be angry. It is just to protect our lives that we cannot declare that it is forty-eight hours late; people will kill us. So we declare in installments; it keeps people calm and quiet that "just one hour more... okay two hours more... and by these installments we manage forty-eight hours."

I said, "I can understand your great compassion; otherwise there would be many heart attacks, heart failures... if you start declaring it exactly right." I have seen trains coming sixty hours late and I have been sitting on the platform for sixty hours, but it was always

"two hours more... two hours more." It can happen only in this country, which has learned to live patiently -- nobody bothers. People accept it as if it is determined by fate; you cannot do anything about it.

But you went through a really beautiful experience -- it was because of your patience.

You say the moment you covered your face with your straw hat and cried.... It must have cleaned your eyes and it must have softened your heart, and when you looked again, the flies had a psychedelic color -- their wings in the sun rays were tremendously beautiful.

The noises on the platform suddenly became an orchestra. It was patience and it was crying that gave you a very new experience.

Ordinarily man has been brought up with the idea that crying is only for women, not for men, although nature has made tear glands of equal size behind the eyes of men and women, both. It is absolutely certain that nature intends men also to cry and weep and have tears. You may not have cried in your whole life. Crying was such a new experience to you, so relaxing, creating a kind of let-go, that everything around you which was disgusting just a few moments before became beautiful.

Crying is certainly one of the most important things for everybody to learn. There may be millions of people who have never cried. They don't know the joy of it, how it relaxes, how it cleanses your eyes -- not only the outer eyes but your inner vision -- and how it makes trees look more green, the sound of words more clear. The noises in a marketplace certainly start changing into a harmony because you are in a harmony.

You dropped the hope, you cried over it, you became innocent like a child. You should learn something from that experience. The platform of Varanasi station turned, for you, into a religious experience.

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

WHY IS IT THAT WHENEVER I COME TO ASK A QUESTION, QUESTIONS OF

GREAT SIGNIFICANCE, THAT I KNEW WERE THERE BEFORE, ELUDE ME. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT AND MEDITATION, BUT

WHEN I GET DOWN TO WRITING THEM, THE QUESTIONS LOSE ALL

REALITY FOR ME. THE SIGNIFICANCE AND DEPTH OF THINGS ALWAYS

FRIGHTENS ME. COULD IT BE THAT I AM AVOIDING THE DEEP TREASURES

OF MY BEING?

Premdipa, the questions about enlightenment and about meditation are not yet your deep search. You are not avoiding anything through them. On the contrary, when you try to write the question about enlightenment or meditation it loses all reality to you because it has no reality for you -- it is a borrowed question. You hear so much about enlightenment here, about meditation; naturally you become curious. But curiosity is not inquiry, and unless a search becomes so authentic that it becomes a question of life and death, the question cannot have reality. You can ask it, but it will remain phony -- to you and to me.

I can see through your questions, because my basic effort is not to answer the question but to answer the questioner. And in an effort to answer the questioner, I have to destroy the question. All my answers are an effort to destroy your question.

I am not giving you the answer.

I am simply taking away the question, so you can be more empty, more silent, so that you can find the answer yourself.

My answer cannot be your answer.

My experience cannot be your experience.

The teachers in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities, give you answers relevant to your questions; they are not concerned with the questioner at all. It may be anybody, X, Y, Z. Their answer will remain the same if the question is the same. But my answer will not remain the same if the questioner is different, because no two persons can ask the same question. Their words may be the same, the construction of their questions may be the same, but the meaning cannot be the same -- because the sources out of which those questions are arising are different.

It is perfectly right to understand that enlightenment and meditation are still not your authentic search. Rather than borrowing those questions from others, look into yourself.

Find out your own questions. They may not be very big and great; they may be mundane.

Somebody's girlfriend escapes, somebody's boyfriend is pretending that he is paralyzed.

They may be stupid, they may be absurd, but they will be real and I would like to answer them, because I can destroy them and bring you out of an absurdity, of some mundane situation....

Yes, one day it will be possible for you to ask questions of a higher reality -- about enlightenment, about meditation, about consciousness, about being, about the ultimate --

but they have to come from your innermost core; otherwise answering them is simply wasting not only your time, not only my time, but everybody else's time unnecessarily.

It is perfectly right that you should start asking what is significant to you. Here, nobody is going to laugh at your question, nobody is going to ridicule you, nobody is going to condemn you, because this is a gathering of seekers to help each other -- fellow travelers.

If somebody falls, all the hands around him should help him to be again on his feet. It is not a question of laughing; it is a question of your love, of your compassion, of your fellowship.

A Jewish matron, showing off to her friend at an art gallery, was pointing out the paintings, "That's a Rembrandt," she said.

"It is a Velasquez, Madam," corrected the guide.

"Then that is a Goya."

"A Rubens, Madam."

"A Turner."

"No, Madam, a Constable."

"Well, that is definitely a Picasso," she said.

"No, Madam, it is a mirror."

Your questions have to be authentically yours, they have to mirror you. Don't pretend that you know about Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya... just a cheap mirror will do; just look at your own face. Questions should come from your own reality; then they can be dissolved, and you can be put on a journey of transformation.

A man stalking through the jungle, hunting wild animals, suddenly stumbles across a beautiful woman lying naked in the forest. She says to him seductively, "I am game," so he shoots her.

People have to behave according to their own understanding. Now that idiot shot the beautiful woman because he understood only one meaning of the word game; his understanding was that of an ignorant hunter. But one cannot do otherwise.

You have to act according to your own reality.

Even your questioning is a significant act. Don't borrow your questions; don't take them from the atmosphere. If everybody else is interested in a certain thing, it does not mean you have to be interested also. This is not a crowd. Here we respect the individual.

And that is my message for the new man: that he will be an individual, not a cog in the wheel. He will not belong to any crowd -- political, religious, social, racial, national. He will not belong to anyone.

He will be alone, standing like a beautiful Himalayan peak in his own individuality. He can have friends, he can have fellow travelers, fellow seekers, but he cannot belong to any ideology -- which forces him to be blind, to be a believer, which forces him to toe the line of a certain concept.

He will keep himself absolutely free from the crowd; he will not be a sheep, he will be a shepherd. Everyone will be a shepherd -- not only Jesus Christ...!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Table of Contents

Chapter title: Peaks beyond peaks unending

Chapter title: Untry and untry again

Chapter title: Loneliness is aloneness misunderstood

Chapter title: Love: the purest power

Chapter title: That beyondness is you

Chapter title: Most people return unopened

Chapter title: Gorbachev: a new beginning

Chapter title: Existence is taking care

Chapter title: The second russian revolution

Chapter title: Buffaloes are never bored

Chapter title: Absolutely without any goals