The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Talks given from 06/09/87 am to 03/10/87 pm

English Discourse series

28 Chapters

Year published: 1988

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #1

Chapter title: The great pilgrimage: from here to here

6 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709060

ShortTitle:

PILGR01

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

134

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO

WHY AM I SUCH A BEGGAR FOR ATTENTION? WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT?

Prem Kabir, it is one of the human weaknesses, one of the deep-rooted frailties, to seek attention.

The reason one seeks attention is because one does not know oneself. It is only in other people's eyes one can see his face, in their opinions he can find his personality. What they say matters immensely. If they neglect him, ignore him, he feels lost. If you pass by and nobody takes any attention, you will start losing what you have put together -- your personality. It is something that you have put together. You have not discovered it, it is not natural. It is very artificial and very arbitrary.

It is not only you who is a beggar for attention; almost everybody is. And the situation cannot change until you discover your authentic self -- which does not depend on anybody's opinion, attention, criticism, indifference, which does not have anything to do with anybody else. Because very few people have been able to discover their reality, the whole world is full of beggars.

Deep down you are all trying to find attention; it is nourishment for your personality.

Even if people condemn you, criticize you, are against you, that is acceptable, at least they are paying attention to you; if they are friendly, respectful, of course that is far better, but you cannot survive as a personality without some kind of attention. It can be negative, it can be positive, it doesn't matter. People must say something about you; respectful or disrespectful, both fulfill the same purpose.

I would like you to think about the word `respect'. It does not mean honor, as it is said in all the dictionaries without exception. Respect simply means looking again, re-spect.

When you are passing by on the road, somebody looks back again, you have caught his eye -- you are somebody. Because respect gives you the idea of being somebody special, you can do anything stupid just to get attention.

In all the ages people have tried in a thousand and one ways to get attention. Those ways are not necessarily rational -- for example, the punks in the West. What are they really wanting by cutting their hair in strange and weird ways, and then painting it with different psychedelic colors? What are they wanting? They are beggars. You should not be angry with them because that is what they want. You should not condemn them because that is what they want. Their parents should not criticize them because that is what they want. They cannot survive without people paying attention to them.

People have done all kinds of things you may not believe in the past. People have remained naked.... What was the need for Mahavira or Diogenes to be naked? It is no longer natural for man to be naked in all the seasons; he lost that capacity long ago. All animals are naked, but they have a natural immunity. When it is winter their hair grows, when it is hot summer their hair falls. Nature has given them a protection.

The same protection was available to man too, but man is intelligent and can improve on nature. He found ways to cover his body according to the seasons. Naturally his body lost the natural growth of hairs. Now, to be naked... suddenly your body cannot create the mechanism to protect you.

I know Mahavira or Diogenes are unique individuals, but I think they were a little uncertain of their uniqueness. They fulfilled that suspicion, that missing gap, by being naked, because you cannot avoid giving attention to a naked person in a world where everybody is wearing clothes. The naked person stands aloof. You cannot avoid... it is almost irresistible to look at him, to ask, "What is the matter?"

But their nakedness became something spiritual; people started being respectful just because they were naked. Now, nakedness is not a quality or any qualification or any creativity; all the animals, all the birds, all the trees are naked.

There are still Jaina monks in India, not more than twenty. They used to be in thousands, but now to find that many stupid people is a little difficult. One Jaina monk dies and is not replaced, so their number goes on falling. Only twenty people all over India are still naked -- and I have seen many of them; they don't show any sign of intelligence, they don't show any quality of silence, they don't show any joy. Their faces are sad, dull, sleepy. They are suffering, they are torturing themselves, just for the simple reason that it brings the attention of the people.

Anything, howsoever stupid, is possible for man if it can bring attention to him. In Russia before the revolution there was a Christian sect which used to cut their genitals publicly on a particular day each year -- and they had thousands of followers. Their only qualification for being spiritual was that they had cut their genitals. When the day arrived, they would gather in a church courtyard and they would cut their genitals and pile them up. And thousands of people would come to see this stupidity.

The women were not left behind... of course they were in a difficulty because they don't have hanging genitals to cut; their genitals are inwards. They started cutting their breasts

-- they were not ready to be left behind. It was such a messy and bloody affair, but people were touching their feet, worshiping them, and all that they have done is just an ugly act against nature and against themselves.

What is significant if a man goes on a fast? Mahatma Gandhi used the strategy his whole life: It was nothing but catching the attention of the whole nation. And if he was going to fast unto death, the whole world's attention was immediately caught. Otherwise there is no spirituality in fasting: millions die starving. Millions are going to die in the coming ten, twelve years from starvation. Nobody will give any honor or respect to them. Why?

Because their starvation is inevitable. They are not starving wilfully but because they don't have food; they are simply poor and starving people.

But Mahatma Gandhi had everything available to him, although he lived like a poor man.

One of his intimate followers, a very intelligent woman, Sarojini Naidu -- has a statement on record that to keep Mahatma Gandhi poor they had to spend treasures on him. It was not a simple poverty, it was a managed show.

He would not drink the milk from a buffalo because it is rich, rich with vitamin A and other vitamins. He would not drink the milk of a cow because that too is rich, and poor people cannot afford it. He would drink only the milk of a goat, because that is the cheapest animal and poor people can afford it. But you will be surprised: his goat was being washed twice a day with Lux toilet soap! His goat's food consisted of the richest nourishment that any rich man may feel jealous of. It is such an insane world! The goat was given the milk of a cow to drink. Cashew nuts, apples and other nourishing fruits were her only food; she was not living on grass. Her daily food in those old days cost ten rupees per day; that ten rupees per day in those days was enough for a man to live for a whole month.

And Gandhi was traveling third class. Naturally, he was attracting attention -- a great man is traveling third class! But nobody saw that the third class compartment, which could have carried sixty people at least, was carrying only a single man; it is far more costly than the air-conditioned compartment. But it attracted attention.

He started using clothes just like the farmers of India -- they are eighty percent of the people in the country. Because he was using farmer's clothes -- the upper body is naked, only the lower body has a small piece of cloth to wrap around -- the poor people of this country became immensely respectful and started calling him Mahatma, the great soul.

But I have been looking into his life as deeply as possible. I don't find any great soul; I have not found even a little soul -- just pure politics in the name of religion. Knowing perfectly well that India can be impressed only by religion, he was doing devotional songs every day in the morning and in the evening, but it was all to attract attention.

Attention gives you tremendous nourishment for the ego. And there are instances... his secretary -- private secretary, Mahadeo Desai -- has written a whole diary of the many years that he spent with Mahatma Gandhi as his secretary. Many times there are mentions about J. Krishnamurti, with such sarcastic remarks that one cannot believe that Mahatma Gandhi had any insight into meditation or awareness: otherwise he cannot be sarcastic.

You can criticize, but criticism needs understanding. You can say Krishnamurti is not right, but then you have to give evidence -- on what grounds? But just to laugh and giggle when Krishnamurti's name was mentioned... Krishnamurti was saying, "I am the awakened one; you also have the capacity to be an awakened one," and that was making Mahatma Gandhi laugh sarcastically.

Meher Baba, another man of the same caliber as J. Krishnamurti, gave a telegram to Mahatma Gandhi saying, "You have been in search of God, you have written your autobiography and titled it EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH, but you don't know anything of meditation, of silence. If you are really interested I can come to you and I can make you aware of the dimension of meditation." And the whole gang that was around Mahatma Gandhi laughed -- "This fellow thinks that he is God himself." And Mahatma Gandhi replied, "I will do my own search; you need not trouble to come here."

A third time it happened. One man of the name Kedarnath was of the same caliber as J.

Krishnamurti, but was not world known. He was not a man of words but a man of silence, peace. He stayed in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram, and soon the pendulum started moving towards him. The disciples of Mahatma Gandhi by and by started deserting him. In his morning devotional songs, the number of people was declining: they were going to sit in silence with Kedernath.

Finally it became such a situation: the ashram was Mahatma Gandhi's, Kedarnath was just a guest, but he captured almost all Gandhi's disciples. Gandhi was left alone, but his ego would not allow him to go and sit where all his disciples were sitting -- in silence with Kedarnath. It was with great humanity and compassion that Kedarnath left the ashram in the middle of the night just to avoid a clash, because now it was becoming clear that Mahatma Gandhi had lost control of his own disciples. Kedarnath did not want to create any conflict.

Sri Aurobindo had a certain clarity. He was not an enlightened man of the category of J.

Krishnamurti or Meher Baba, but he was very close. Perhaps one life more and he will be enlightened; he was just on the border line. He declared, "India will become free, will attain freedom on my birthday" -- and it actually happened. The fifteenth of August is Sri Aurobindo's birthday, and he had declared it thirty years before. People had completely forgotten about his declaration, but India became free on the fifteenth of August.

Sri Aurobindo sent a message to Mahatma Gandhi, "Now that the country is free, you need a complete program for its progress, because it is one thing to fight for freedom and it is another thing after attaining the freedom to create a nation; tremendous responsibility falls on your shoulders."

And the reply that Mahatma Gandhi gave was again simply sarcastic: "You have left the world; you live in your ashram. You don't have to worry about what happens to freedom and what we are going to do; that is our business. You have left it, you don't have to interfere."

Now a man like Sri Aurobindo could have given insight, but that insight was not accepted

-- and it shows. In those forty years that have passed since freedom, India has become worse every day. It has no program; its population has doubled, more than doubled. Its poverty has doubled -- the poverty grows according to the population. By the end of this century, India will be for the first time in the whole history of mankind, of millions of years, the most densely populated country. Up to now, China has been the first. So only one achievement seems to have come out of forty years of freedom: people have produced more and more children.

By the end of this century, just thirteen years away, India will have one billion people in the country. When it became free it had only four hundred million people. It seems that each year there is an increase of one million people -- but no technology is growing, no science is growing, no new methods are being used. And this population growth goes on making the country poorer and poorer. India is living on loans from the rich countries like America, and that is a new kind of slavery, economic slavery.

The days of political slavery are past, because it was unnecessary.... It is a similar case: the days of slaves are past, and the days of servants have come in because the slave was a great responsibility to the slaveowner. He had to take care of the slave's health, he had to take care of his body, food, clothes, his medicine, because he was an investment. He has purchased the man, and if he dies his whole investment is gone.

Slavery disappeared not because slaves revolted against it; there is no instance of slaves revolting. Slavery died because the people who were enslaving other people found better ways -- servants. You are not purchased; hence it is not an investment. If you die, you die; it is not a loss to the owner. He pays you, but he has no concern for your body, for your health, for your family. This was far better.

The same has happened in the world of freedom. The British Empire disappeared, all other empires have disappeared, because political slavery became costly, very costly. It was the responsibility of the rulers to feed people, at least.

The moment Britain saw that India is growing so fast in population that it will be impossible to feed the people, and the whole responsibility will be on the head of Britain, Atlee sent to Mountbatten an urgent message: "You finish the whole thing before 1948, and if you can do it earlier I will praise you. Whatever way has to be found, be quick, and let them be free. Because then the whole responsibility will be on their own heads. They cannot complain, `Britain is exploiting us; that's why we are poor.'"

Now nobody is exploiting you, and your poverty has grown much greater than it has ever been under slavery.

Politicians can pretend to be religious if religion is attractive. Because they need attention their whole personality is false. It depends on how many people are following them; it depends on the number of people who are attentive to them. It is a politics of numbers.

The Catholic pope is against birth control, against abortion, not because he is compassionate, saying, "This is absolute cruelty and violence," not because he is life-affirmative -- the whole Catholic attitude is life-negative, it is against life. Then why this insistence that there should be no birth control and no abortion? Because this is the only way to increase the number of Catholics, and this is the only way to make other people so poor that they have to come under the fold of the Catholic empire.

Now that there are so many orphans in India, Catholics have a good opportunity. And one wonders... a woman like Mother Teresa is awarded a Nobel prize, is awarded many doctorates in India by Indian universities, is awarded prizes by the Indian government, all because she is taking care of orphans. But nobody thinks that that care simply means converting those orphans into Catholics. Naturally Mother Teresa cannot be in favor of birth control -- from where will she get the orphans?

Christianity cannot be in favor of a world which is rich. The scientists are declaring continually that we have come to such a point of technological progress that now there is no need for anybody to be hungry, to be starving or dying because of shortage of food. It has never before been possible, but now scientists are saying that we can feed five billion people very easily, we can feed even more -- but those voices are silenced. No politician pays any attention, because politicians are also interested in having a big following.

In India Mohammedans will not be ready to accept that you should not marry four women... which is simply a human matter. But they have made it a point that it is a religious matter. I cannot understand how it is religious to marry four women. And if it is religious to marry four, then it will be doubly religious to marry eight. Perhaps that's why Mohammed himself married nine women. The reality is that four women can produce four children in the year; vice-versa will not help. One woman marrying four men will still produce one child, not four children. But one man marrying a number of women can produce more children.

You will be surprised to know that India has already been divided in the name of religion, and Mohammedans have taken Pakistan on one side, and Bangladesh on another side; the country has been cut into three parts. Now again Mohammedans are growing so much that India is the greatest Mohammedan country in the world. No Mohammedan country has so many Mohammedans as India has. Any day they can start demanding a separate country, because they are second in number to Hindus, and Hindus are not a converting religion. Mohammedans are a converting religion, forcibly too. There is no need of any argument; the sword is the argument!

Your so-called religious leaders, your so-called political leaders, all need attention, all need their names and their photos continually in the newspapers, because if newspapers forget anybody's name for a few months, people forget that man also. Now what do you know about Richard Nixon? Where is that poor fellow? One day he was the greatest, most powerful man on the earth, and now you will only hear about him the day he dies, and that too will be on the third, fourth page of the newspapers in a small column. What happens to these powerful people? When they lose people's attention, their personality starts disappearing.

I have known many political leaders in this country. Perhaps this country has more ex-ministers, chief ministers, governors than any other country. Once they become "ex" they are finished. Then nobody pays any attention to them, nobody asks them to inaugurate bridges, railway lines, hospitals, schools. No paper even bothers where they are, whether they are alive or dead. And there was a time when they were in the newspapers every day, on the radios, on television.

One of my sannyasins works in the Indian television. She wanted to bring a small piece from my talks every day to the television. The director said, "We can accept the material, but we cannot mention Osho's name."

She said, "But this is absolutely illegal, and it is stealing."

But the director said, "You should not mention his name at all " -- because that's what the Indian politicians want, and that's what the politicians of the whole world want.

The Attorney General of America has emphatically declared in a press conference, "Our whole effort will be to silence Osho's voice completely."

One reporter asked, "What does it mean? Do you want to assassinate him?"

And the Attorney General laughed. He said, "No, we will find some roundabout ways so he is not heard any more."

The American government is pressurizing the Indian government so that no foreign news media will be allowed to reach me. And I am receiving letters from Germany, from America, from Greece, from England, from Australia, "What is the matter? Why is the Indian government absolutely stubborn that they don't want any news media, newspapers, radio, or television people to come to Poona?"

This is the way, in their eyes, to silence me. They are wrong. I have my own ways: I have my own people who are enough... just person to person. If a man like Gautam Buddha, without any television, without any newspapers, without any radio, could convert the whole of Asia, what is the problem? I am not dependent on their news media.

But the fear of the politicians is... the whole media attention should be focused on them --

and why are people asking to go to Poona? Why don't they ask to come to Delhi? That hurts them very badly.

It is not only your problem, that you are a beggar for attention; it is a human reality. And the reason is that you depend on your personality -- which is false, which has been created by the society, and which can be taken away by society. Don't depend on it. It is not in your power.

That which is in your power is your own individuality. Discover it! And the name of the science to discover it is meditation.

Once you know yourself, you don't care about others. Even if the whole world forgets you it does not matter, it does not even make the slightest difference to you; or the whole world can know -- that too does not give you any ego. You know ego is false, and to depend on the false is to make houses on the sand, without foundation. Your personalities are almost signatures on water. You have not even signed, and they disappear.

A group of Jewish mothers were drinking coffee together, and bragging about their children. One had a four-year-old who could read already. Another had a five-year-old who had already appeared on television. Then Becky Goldberg spoke up and said, "That's nothing. You should see my little Hymie. He is only five years old, but the other day he went to the psychiatrist all by himself!"

A middle-aged woman confessed to her priest that she was becoming vain.

"Why do you think so?" asked the priest.

"Because," replied the woman, "every time I look in the mirror I am inspired by my beauty."

"Don't worry," said the priest, "that's not a sin, that's only a mistake!"

It was a big meeting of the medical society in honor of an ear specialist who was retiring after more than fifty years of service. As a gift, they presented him with a golden ear. He stood up to make a speech, and after the applause had died down, he looked at his gift and said, "Thank god I was not a gynecologist!"

Don't depend on others!

Be independent in your being.

Just listen to your inner voice.

You can listen the moment you start stilling and silencing your mind -- and it is not difficult. And when I say it is not difficult, I say it with absolute authority: It is not difficult! If it has happened to me, it can happen to you -- there is no difference. All human beings are potentially capable to know themselves. And the moment you know yourself, then nobody can take away your individuality. Even if they kill you, they can only kill your body, not you.

When Socrates was poisoned, the chief judge said to him, "I feel sorry that I had to agree with the majority. They all wanted to kill you. And you are such a strange fellow... I gave you three alternatives, but you did not accept."

The chief judge had tremendous respect, but what to do? The majority was shouting, "He should be killed because he is corrupting our youth. He is giving them ideas which are against our tradition, against our religion. He is making them skeptical of the old and the ancient. He is making them explore the reality on their own, and not just believe in knowledge and ancient scriptures. He is destroying our tradition. We don't want this man; this man should be destroyed."

But the chief judge understood the whole situation. He said to Socrates... because in those days in Greece there were city states; Athens was a city state and the Athenian law was not applicable outside Athens. So he said, "The first simple choice is, you just move out of Athens, just outside the boundary line, and there you can make your school, your academy. Those who want to learn will come there."

Socrates said, "That will show my fear of death... and some day I am going to die, I am old enough. These people are too impatient; I will die by myself. So to escape from Athens just for a few years... my being does not support such an idea. I cannot act out of fear. I would rather accept death, because you can only kill my body but not my spirit.

And the body is going to die anyway, any moment!"

The chief judge said, "The second alternative is if you promise not to talk about truth, to stop teaching, you can live in Athens."

He said, "Then what will be the point of living? To me, truth is higher than life. Life comes and goes; truth remains. No, I cannot accept that."

The chief judge said, "Then the last thing is that you can say, Ì am sorry that I have hurt people's feelings.' Just a simple apology will make me stand in your favor, and you can be saved from this ugly act of poisoning you to death."

Socrates said, "That is not possible, because I have not done anything wrong. I cannot say I am sorry. I can only say I am immensely happy, and the question of an apology does not arise. For centuries you all will be condemned because you poisoned me. And one thing I would like you to know is that your name will be remembered only because you gave the judgment for my death; otherwise, nobody will remember you."

This is the man of individuality, who does not care for his life, for his body, who has no fear. He accepted death with joy.

An individual is the only person who can get rid of this state of begging; otherwise you are going to remain a beggar your whole life. And in subtle ways you are continuously begging. Every young man falling in love with a woman will ask the woman, "Am I the first man you have fallen in love with?" It is almost inevitable. And every woman will ask, "Am I the first woman you have fallen in love with?" Why such questions? The woman wants you never to have paid attention to anybody: "I am the first, the most beautiful woman in your eyes."

Man all through history has insisted that he will marry only a virgin -- for what? It is such a stupid idea, because a virgin is absolutely inexperienced. You should insist, "I should marry someone who has some experience." This is simple, logical, rational and scientific.

But all the societies have insisted that they will accept in marriage only a virgin girl.

In the middle ages there were doctors in Europe... because the woman's virginity can be judged, checked. There is a very thin layer of skin -- if she has not been in a sexual relationship, that skin remains intact; if she has been in a sexual relationship, that skin is broken. That broken skin proves that she is not a virgin. Now sometimes it can be broken just by riding on a bicycle, it can be broken by riding on a horse, it can be broken by any accident -- falling from the staircase. It is not something that can be broken only by making love. But every young man was alert on his first night as to whether the woman was virgin or not, so there were doctors in Europe who used to fix a false skin to make anybody virgin! Their profession was flourishing greatly.

I was in Greece, and I asked one of my sannyasins, "In Greece is virginity immensely valued by the orthodox church of Greece?" And the sannyasin I was asking had been one of the most beautiful women, one time chosen as Miss Greece.

She laughed. She said, "The church goes on saying that virginity is our fundamental principle, but it is very difficult to find a virgin in Greece!" But before getting married, they become virgin. It is just a very small thing for a gynecologist to fix a thin layer of skin.

I have heard one priest was asking and thundering and threatening the people of his congregation, "If you are not virgin, you will suffer hellfire. So all women who are virgin, or who have been virgin before their marriage, stand up!" Nobody stood up. He said, "I say again..." One woman with a little baby stood up. He said, "I am happy at least one woman has followed the religious principle of the Greek orthodox church."

The woman said, "Forgive me Father, I am not standing for myself; I am standing for the baby. You cannot expect a six-month-old baby to stand by herself! She is certainly a virgin, I can guarantee it!"

All kinds of stupid notions have prevailed in humanity. And you have to follow these notions if you want attention. In India, if you want to have attention... There was a man in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram, and he was an intelligent man. He had been a professor, a retired professor, Professor Ranga. He lived for six months only on cow dung and cow urine -- just these two things for six months -- and he became more of an attraction than Mahatma Gandhi himself. Everybody who was coming to the ashram was going to see Professor Ranga. Even Mahatma Gandhi called him a great man, a great spiritual man! I don't see how cow dung can make a man spiritual. It simply can prove that he is stupid.

But in Hindu society where the cow is accepted as the mother, the holy mother, this is a great spiritual attainment.

All over the world you will find the same kind of superstitions in different ways. And if you want the attention of people, you have to follow their ideas. You have always to be a follower, you have always to be a believer, you have always to be stupid and idiotic.

But if you want to get rid of this begging, you will have to get rid of your ego and your personality. You will have to learn that there is nothing in respect, there is nothing in reputation, there is nothing in respectability. They are all bogus words, meaningless, contentless. The reality belongs to you, but unless you discover it, you will have to depend on others.

You are emperors, but you have to discover yourself.

And this discovery is not difficult:

Your kingdom is within you.

You just have to learn to close your eyes and look inwards. A little discipline, a little learning not to remain focused on the outside continuously, but to turn inwards at least once or twice a day, whenever you can find time... slowly, slowly you start becoming aware of your eternal being. Then the idea of attention simply disappears.

And the miracle is: the day you don't need anybody's attention, people start feeling your charisma, because charisma is the radiation of your individuality. They start feeling that you are somebody special, unique -- although they cannot pinpoint where your uniqueness is, what it is that attracts like a magnet.

People who have discovered themselves have found thousands of people attracted towards them, but they are not asking for it.

Question 2

BELOVED MASTER,

HOW CAN HYPNOSIS AND MEDITATION COME TOGETHER?

Amrit Nirjan, hypnosis has been condemned by all kinds of ignorant people. They don't understand anything about it, but you will find people everywhere condemning it. The word is used without knowing even the meaning of it. People will say to you, "You are hypnotized, that's why you go to Osho!" But just ask them what hypnosis is. They cannot even tell you the literal meaning of it, nor can they tell you what is the technique of it.

Just the word is enough to condemn anybody, "You are hypnotized."

Hypnosis is a tremendously beautiful art, and there is nothing wrong in it. But everything can be used in a wrong way or in a right way. You can have a sword and cut somebody's head. That is not the fault of the sword; the sword is neutral. With your sword you can prevent somebody from raping a woman. But the sword is absolutely neutral, neither good nor bad; every energy is neutral.

Hypnosis is a tremendous source of energy. The word itself means deliberate sleep. You know ordinary sleep, you sleep every day; because it is ordinary sleep, it does not go deep enough. Its function is to help your body to recover its energy lost in the day-to-day work, so tomorrow morning you can get up fresh, again able to work. The ordinary sleep only goes so deep that it can help your body to recover, rejuvenate.

Deliberate sleep is the meaning of hypnosis. It is a simple thing, but it goes as deep as you are ready to go. It refreshes your body, it silences your mind, it cleanses your heart, it can reach to your very being. It all depends on your willingness -- nobody can hypnotize you against your will. That also is a greatly fallacious idea prevalent in the world, that somebody can hypnotize you against your will. That is impossible. Nobody can hypnotize you against your will.

Simple methods are used by the hypnotist. He will tell you to relax and concentrate on something shiny, without moving your eyelids; just keep your eyes open as long as you can, and only when it is almost impossible for you, when the eyelids close by themselves

-- you cannot do anything, you cannot stop -- only then... You are relaxed, lying down in a silent place, looking at a very strong light which tires the eyes, staring at it. The hypnotist is repeating, "Your eyelids are becoming very heavy, the light is too strong and you are going to fall asleep soon." And he will go on repeating it.

It takes not more than three to five minutes before you will start feeling your eyelids have become heavier, and heavier, and heavier. And a moment comes when you cannot keep them open, they simply close. Then the hypnotist starts telling you, "You are going deeper, deeper. And you will hear only my voice and nothing else." Your total willingness is needed. If you are reluctant, if you don't want it, then the hypnotist is absolutely helpless. It is not a power of the hypnotist as it is understood in the world, it is the willingness of the hypnotized that brings that deep kind of deliberate sleep.

If you follow, cooperate with the hypnotist, he can take you deeper, deeper, deeper... the mind has become silent. And the moment he says anything, it simply sinks into your being. Your heart is dancing with harmony -- no tension, no thought. You have entered into the innermost shrine of your being; now relax there.

But this is possible only, and I am saying categorically only, if you are willing to go into it. But it is tremendously helpful, because you find it very difficult on your own to go into that deep silence where the world is left far behind. And if the hypnosis is going to be used for meditative purposes... It can be used for many kinds of purposes, it can be used for healing.

Seventy percent of your diseases are just mind diseases, they are not really there. You simply believe they are there, and because you believe, they are there. It is because of this there are so many `pathies': allopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy, ayurveda, unani. There are so many `pathies', Chinese, Japanese... and all function perfectly well, but only for seventy percent.

Only allopathy is a scientific methodology; it functions on one hundred percent of your diseases. But every pathy... homeopathy is nothing but sugar pills, but it works, and the work is not small -- seventy percent. For seventy percent of sicknesses it is perfectly good. Naturopathy works, and naturopathy is very simple, for example, having a mud bath. Fill your bathtub with mud and lie down in the mud, and it cures many things. It has been found that seventy percent of diseases are in your own hands.

I had a doctor who was a fake doctor. He was my friend. He had no degrees, but his board was full of degrees -- all kinds of degrees, from inside India, from outside India.

And he made a lab. As you entered into his clinic, first you would pass through a tremendous lab, which was all just bogus -- great machines that you have never seen, which have nothing to do with medicine -- and he would impress you in this way.

When you reached his office you would be surprised. He never used an ordinary stethoscope; he had a very special arrangement. He was a genius although he was a fake.

But he was a genius! You would have to lie down on the table, and above your head there were many big bottles with colored water, joined with a tube. That tube he would attach to the stethoscope, and the water would jump. You would see the water jumping --

whether red water is jumping or green water is jumping. You have never seen such a thing!

It created great trust in the man: "That man is not ordinary." And he was just watching the water...! That could have been done by anybody, by an ordinary stethoscope; it was nothing... your heart is jumping, so the water is jumping. Everything was special! He had almost cured the person by the time he was out of his clinic, and he was simply giving water, colored water, to people.

He was caught by the police. As I heard that he had been caught, I went immediately to the police station and I told those people, "He is fake, but he has helped hundreds of people -- you should also consider that. It is absolutely unjust to harass him. It is true that those degrees are false, but those degrees are not given by any university, any medical college; so what is wrong if he has used the alphabet and he has made his degrees himself? Your concern should be how many people he has helped. And those are the people whom nobody could help."

People used to go to him only as a last resort, because his fees were very high. Naturally, he had such a great establishment, his fees were almost eight times more than any qualified doctor. And he said to me, "Even taking eight times the fees helps the patient.

When he pays so much, he gets well quickly. When he pays so much, he believes that the doctor is not ordinary. So it is not only a question of getting more money, it is a question of helping the patient. It is part of treatment."

But the police were not ready to listen to me; he was presented before the magistrate. I went there too, and I said, "You should look at the record of how many people he cures.

And those are the incurable people. They have been to allopathy, they have been to ayurveda, they have been to homeopathy. Nothing helps, but this man manages to help them. Now the real criterion should be how much service, how much help he has given, but you are simply bothering about certificates."

The magistrate said, "I can understand you, but I have to follow the law."

So the poor doctor is behind the bars. But I was continually talking to him, and he was very open and clear. He said, "I have arranged this whole thing as a hypnotic strategy.

Once the patient is hypnotized, is ready to cooperate with me, once he trusts me... and he has to trust because he has paid so much money, and he has to trust because I am the last resort. He has been to all kinds of doctors. If I fail, then he has no hope, so naturally he has to trust me. And he can see that it is not an ordinary doctor's clinic. It is so extraordinary that it is impossible for the doctor to fail."

If somebody is not willing, the hypnotist has to create the willingness. Hypnotism is not some power in the hands of the hypnotist. That idea I want to criticize absolutely, without any conditions attached to it. It is thought all over the world that it is a power in the hands of the hypnotist. It is not; it is your power.

The hypnotist is only a help to awaken you to your own power, and then it can be used for many things: for healing, for making you live longer, for changing your harmful habits, smoking, drinking. It can do tremendous work.

It can be used as an educative methodology. You can learn in hypnosis better than you can learn ordinarily, because everything is silent and you are hearing only one voice.

Even if somebody else comes and talks, you will not hear, you are open only to a small narrow way to the hypnotist. He can teach you any new language. He can teach you any new science. He can teach you arithmetic, anything within minutes for which people take hours and days to learn.

And it can be used for meditation too. As far as I am concerned hypnosis is simply a relaxed, deliberate sleep with a small opening, a little window, to the person who hypnotized you. He can tell you that your meditation will go deeper every day, and if this thought gets in your unconscious, your meditation will start going deeper. Just a few sessions and he can give you the last post-hypnotic suggestion: now you don't need any hypnosis; your meditation will go deeper on its own accord.

Hypnosis has not been used in the whole of history for meditation, but it can be used, and it can be used with tremendous power, because you have to fight so much with your thoughts unnecessarily. That whole struggle with your mind can be dropped by hypnotic sessions without much effort.

Hypnosis is also capable of giving you a post-hypnotic suggestion, if you want to hypnotize yourself, by a simple strategy: count from one to one hundred, and from one hundred back to one. By the time you have reached back to one, you will fall into deep hypnosis. And you can tell yourself before going into hypnosis -- because you will be alone -- "The state of hypnosis will last only for fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes I will come out of it." This is auto-hypnosis.

Hetero-hypnosis means somebody is helping you. In the beginning it is good to take help.

But you have to be very willing, in a very loveful atmosphere.

An old man was torturing his family continuously with this disease, that disease. And he was reading the encyclopedia and finding diseases. He was reading medical magazines and finding new diseases that have just been discovered, and he would immediately start torturing his family, "I am suffering from this disease." It was a way of remaining in power. He was retired. Nobody cared about him; in fact, he was a burden. But even if you are a burden, you don't want to be neglected. His method not to be neglected and not to be ignored was to create new diseases.

Doctors were tired because they said, "That man is strange, he has no disease. He just goes on reading and finding diseases from encyclopedias, and then we have to treat something which he has not got -- and that may unnecessarily create trouble." Medicine which is given to a person who has no disease may cause some trouble, particularly allopathic medicines which are almost all based on poison. So the doctors were saying,

"We are tired, just..."

Then one doctor said, "It will be good if you go to a hypnotist. I have a friend who is a very good hypnotist, perhaps he may be helpful." Now the old man is saying that he is suffering from sleeplessness, so the hypnotist will be perfectly the right person. He will give him sleep. He will also give him the the post-hypnotic suggestion, "You will go to sleep -- just drink hot milk before you go to bed and immediately you will fall asleep."

He will associate sleep with the hot milk, and once it gets associated in the mind, it works.

Every child knows that the teddy bear works; you take the teddy bear away, and the child cannot sleep. And everybody has his own methods of creating teddy bears. You will find somebody clutching his blanket. If you don't allow him to clutch his blanket, he cannot sleep. Everybody has a certain posture of sleeping. If you don't allow him that posture, he cannot sleep. These are natural ways of auto-hypnotizing yourself.

So the hypnotist was brought, and the old man was told, "Now you forget... all your diseases will be finished. We have found the greatest hypnotist." The old man lay down, and the hypnotist said, "Just as I say you are falling asleep, asleep... and your eyelids are becoming heavy, so heavy, mountainously heavy so that you cannot keep them open... "

And soon the old man was fast asleep.

The doctor took away his bag, slipped silently out, took his fees, and the family was very happy that this is the right man. But as the son came back, the old man opened one eye and said, "Has that crank gone or not?" He was not willing; he was just pretending.

Immediately the moment he said, "Your eyes are becoming heavy," he closed his eyes, listened to the whole thing, and knew that this is stupid. How can this create sleep?

Your willingness is absolutely needed. It is you who creates the hypnosis, not the person who hypnotizes you. But it is good in the beginning if you can help each other. There is nothing much to it; anybody you trust can help you and take you deep into hypnosis. And when you are in deep hypnosis he can check whether you are in deep hypnosis or not. He can push a needle in your hand; you will not feel it. He can take your hand up and leave it, and it will fall because you are not awake and you cannot keep it that way. So there are just a few small things he can try to find out if you are really in hypnosis.

Then he can tell you about meditation: whenever you sit to meditate, take a bath, make a special room for your meditation. Don't do anything in that room so that it remains vibrating with your meditativeness. Burn incense, bring roses and flowers, sit silently.

Close your eyes, watch your thoughts and you will immediately go into deep silence; thoughts will disappear. This can happen without hypnosis but it takes a longer time.

Hypnosis is a short cut.

Your question is significant, Amrit Nirjan. You are asking, "How can hypnosis and meditation come together?" They can come together very easily. Hypnosis can be used for many purposes -- it can be used for meditation. And the people who said you are being hypnotized by me are, in a way, right. Just because I don't use methods of hypnotizing you, that does not mean that hypnosis is not created by you.

I am not hypnotizing you, but you love me, you trust me -- that's enough. And then when I stop for a moment, you also stop with me. When I am not speaking... just a gap, and you are also in a gap. Slowly, slowly your heart starts the same rhythm as my heart. My words start having a certain music, a certain solacing, a certain relaxing quality. All depends on love, all depends on trust, but you are creating it.

I am not hypnotizing -- I am not a hypnotist.

I don't need to be, I am myself. My presence is hypnotizing. So I don't need to tell you,

"Lie down and I will move a crystal... ding-dong, ding-dong. You are falling asleep, ding-dong.... " I have told you the story...

A sex maniac was being hypnotized by a ding-dong hypnotist, and the sex maniac jumped; he said, "Doctor, it works! My ding-dong is asleep!"

I am not a ding-dong hypnotist!...

I love you. I want to share my truth with you for no other reason except that I am so full of it, I cannot contain it. I want to share; I want to unburden myself. And if you are ready on the other end to receive it, hypnosis will happen automatically. And with hypnosis, because my insistence is continuously on meditation, you will find it easier to meditate here with me than anywhere else -- in the beginning at least.

Later on, when you have developed on your own and you are more confident that you can fly in the silent spaces of your heart, then you will be able to create the same state anywhere; I will not be needed.

I don't want you to be addicted to me -- because I am not a drug, and I don't want you to be addicted to anything. But you can use things which have been condemned by ignorant people, not knowing what they are saying. You can use them for tremendous benefit, for your spiritual growth.

Just an innocent heart is needed for meditation. And hypnosis can cleanse your heart and can bring you into the state of a small child.

Little Roger was frightened of the large bulldog that occupied the yard next to his home.

One day, feeling adventurous, Roger climbed the fence. The huge bulldog rushed up to him and licked his face. The boy began to scream and his mother came running to his side.

"Did he bite you, darling?"

"Not yet," whimpered Roger, "He just tasted me."

That is the simplicity of a child.

Old Sam Rosenbaum was seventy-five, really very old, and finally got his nerve together to take a flight in a small airplane. As he climbed out after the ride, he turned to the pilot and said, "Sir, I wish to thank you for both those rides."

"What are you talking about?" said the pilot, "You had only one ride."

"Oh no I didn't," said old Sam. "I had two: my first and my last!"

In old age also, if people have lived rightly they come back to the same innocence of a child. And according to me, unless an old man becomes again a child, he has missed the opportunity of growing in the spiritual dimension; he has wasted his life in trivia. He has been collecting only seashells and colored stones on the sea beach, but he has not been able to discover the treasure of consciousness, awareness, enlightenment.

Hypnosis can be certainly used. Here we are going to create a school for hypnosis, where you will be able to learn how to auto-hypnotize yourself so you don't have the dependence on the hypnotist. And then you can use that auto-hypnotizing process for meditation.

This is a pioneer effort to bring hypnosis and meditation together for the first time. But together they can be tremendously great. They can bring you so much light, so much blissfulness -- and so easily. I like to repeat Chuang Tzu's statement, "Easy is right; right is easy." I don't want you to become unnecessarily self-torturing, following unnecessarily long, arduous ways to come to yourself.

You don't have to go anywhere.

I want to teach you the great pilgrimage from here to here. I want you to learn the art of reaching to God singing, dancing, rejoicing.

Laugh your way to God.

In essence that is my teaching.

And it is possible, with the help of hypnosis, to make meditation the easiest process. But drop any idea of condemnation of hypnosis, which you may have gathered because all the world, the whole world, is afraid of being hypnotized. There have been people, highly intelligent, who wanted to come to see me but they finally decided not to because they were afraid they may be hypnotized. Nobody can hypnotize you against your will.

Millions of people would like to come. They are reading my books, they are listening to my tapes, they are seeing the videos, but they are afraid to come close to me. A fear has been created by the so-called religious leaders that they will be hypnotized.

It happened that one famous but ugly and pornographic magazine, STERN, from Germany, had sent a reporter. He became so interested because he wanted to write an inside story. So he meditated, he listened to me, he did everything that sannyasins are doing here. He became so joyful and blissful that he became a sannyasin! He wrote the story, he went back. The STERN editorial board was very annoyed. The first thing they said was, "You have been hypnotized. We cannot publish your article. You have written it under hypnosis."

He said, "What nonsense you are talking!"

They did not publish his article. On the contrary, they fired him. And they managed to distort his article the way they wanted: they left out everything that was positive, they inserted their own interpretations, and colored the whole thing in such an ugly and negative way that even he was surprised, because when they fired him... and he was one of their most important chief reporters.

He had come to live here, then he lived in the commune in America, and I think soon he will be coming back. Wherever he will be, he will be a sannyasin. He has tasted the experience himself. It is no more a borrowed knowledge; it has entered into his being, but it is not hypnosis.

He was wrongly understood, and he was wrongly condemned. Journalists come, but they always are spectators. They will not know what is happening to people in their inner being. Unless they become insiders, their reports are worthless. Many other people come, just as spectators to see what is happening.

This place is not for spectators.

This place is only for those who have courage to participate in this tremendous experiment of consciousness awakening.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Be a joke unto yourself

7 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709070

ShortTitle:

PILGR02

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

92

mins

Question 1

BELOVED MASTER,

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU ARE TRULY THE FIRST MAN THIS PLANET HAS

EVER KNOWN WHO REALLY UNDERSTANDS WOMEN AND ACCEPTS THEM.

PLEASE COMMENT.

Prem Bubula, I have told you that a woman is to be loved, not understood. That is the first understanding.

Life is so mysterious that our hands cannot reach to its heights, our eyes cannot look into its deepest mystery. Understanding any expression of existence -- men or women or trees or animals or birds -- is the function of science, not of a mystic. I am not a scientist. To me science itself is a mystery, and now scientists have started to recognize it -- they are dropping their old stubborn, superstitious attitude that one day they will know all that is to be known.

With Albert Einstein the whole history of science has taken a very different route because the more he went into the deepest core of matter, the more he became puzzled. All logic was left behind, all rationality was left behind. You cannot dictate to existence, because it does not follow your logic. Logic is man-made.

There was a point in Albert Einstein's life when he remembers that he was wavering about whether to insist on being rational... but that would be foolish. It would be human, but not intelligent. Even if you insist on logic, on rationality, existence is not going to change according to your logic; your logic has to change according to existence. And the deeper you go, existence becomes more and more mysterious.

A point comes when you have to leave logic and rationality and just listen to nature. I call it the ultimate understanding -- but not in the ordinary sense of understanding. You know it, you feel it, but there is no way to say it.

Man is a mystery, woman is a mystery, everything that exists is a mystery -- and all our efforts to figure it out are going to fail.

I am reminded of a man who was purchasing in a toy shop a present for his son for Christmas. He was a well-known mathematician, so naturally the shopkeeper brought out a jigsaw puzzle. The mathematician tried... it was a beautiful puzzle. He tried and tried and tried and started perspiring. It was becoming awkward: the customers and the salesmen and the shopkeeper were all watching and he has not been able to bring the puzzle to a solution.

Finally he dropped the idea and he shouted at the shopkeeper: "I am a mathematician and if I cannot solve this jigsaw puzzle, how do you think my small boy will be able to?"

The shopkeeper said, "You don't understand. It is made in such a way that nobody can solve it -- mathematician or no mathematician."

The mathematician asked, "But why is it made in this way?"

The shopkeeper said, "It is made in this way so that the boy from the very beginning starts learning that life cannot be solved, cannot be understood."

You can live it, you can rejoice in it, you can become one with the mystery, but the idea of understanding as an observer is not at all possible.

I don't understand myself. The greatest mystery to me is myself. But a few clues I can give to you:

A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions that your wife asks you for nothing.

The key to happiness: You may speak of love and tenderness and passion, but real ecstasy is discovering you haven't lost your keys after all.

Women begin by resisting a man's advances and end by blocking his retreat.

If you want to change a woman's mind, agree with her.

If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her -- don't listen to her.

The lady walked up to the policeman and said, "Officer, that man on the corner is annoying me."

"I have been watching the whole time," said the cop, "and that man wasn't even looking at you."

"Well," said the woman, "isn't that annoying?"

The romantic young man turned to the beautiful young girl in his bed and asked, "Am I the first man you ever made love to?"

She thought for a moment and then said, "You could be -- I have a terrible memory for faces."

A young girl said to an old maid, "You must have missed a great deal by not marrying!"

"Only the ceremony!" replied the old maid.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve was nagging Adam, as usual. "I saw you playing around with another woman underneath the tree of knowledge last night!" she screamed.

"But Eve," said Adam, "you know that there is only you and I here in Eden!"

"Don't lie to me! I always know when you are lying!" Eve whined.

"Eve, listen! This is just a fantasy brought on by your menopause."

"Don't give me any psychological bullshit! I know what I saw!" Eve roared.

"Okay, okay, then if you don't believe me, just count my ribs."

A man went on a safari with his wife and his mother-in-law. One day he was lying morosely in his tent when he heard a cry from his wife. He jumped up and rushed into the clearing. There, out in the open, he saw mama-in-law shaking her fist at a huge lion who was standing five feet away from her, ready to move.

"Do something!" pleaded his wife in alarm.

"Why should I?" retorted the frustrated hunter. "That lion got himself into this mess -- let him get himself out of it!"

Everything is mysterious: it is better to enjoy it rather than trying to understand it.

Ultimately the man who goes on trying to understand life proves to be a fool, and the man who enjoys life becomes wise goes on enjoying life, because he becomes more and more aware of the mysterious that surrounds us.

The greatest understanding is to know that nothing can be understood, that all is mysterious and miraculous. To me this is the beginning of religion in your life.

Question 2

BELOVED MASTER,

I LOVE TO DO T'AI CHI AND IT HAS BECOME MY DAILY MEDITATION, BUT I HAVE A TENDENCY TO BECOME TOO SERIOUS ABOUT IT. CAN YOU DRIVE

OUT THE MONKEY?

Anand Srajan, it is impossible for anybody to drive the monkey out of your mind, because it does not exist; your seriousness is creating it. And nobody can change your seriousness either. It is your life attitude which is making you serious. What is there to be serious about? Existence is a continuous celebration, a festival that knows no holidays.

You are serious because for thousands of years people have been telling you that the serious man is a better man, higher man, more evolved than the nonserious. The nonserious have never been taken into account.

But to me the situation is just the reverse. The nonserious one is the one who will come to know the real life and its experiences. Seriousness is closing you, making you hard, making you sad. Seriousness comes from ambition, from desire which you are not being able to attain.

But the religions have paid too much respect to seriousness. I have never come across in any religious scripture of any religion -- and there are three hundred religions on the earth

-- that anybody has paid respect to nonseriousness, to playfulness, to a sense of humor.

They all make you dodos.

I have heard... one day as the bishop entered a church in New York, he could not believe his eyes: he saw Jesus Christ standing there.

He said, "My god! I thought that prayers are never heard. I never believed that there is any God or any son of God -- but what to do with this fellow? Either he is a hippy or he is Jesus Christ. I am in trouble."

He approached the man and asked, "Can I ask you who you are?"

And the man said, "You have been serving me, spreading my word, and you don't recognize me!"

The bishop's heart started sinking: "My god! He is Jesus Christ! And now there is bound to be trouble."

He phoned the pope in Rome: "What am I supposed to do? In our teaching courses there is not even a single mention that `Jesus will come one day to your church.' So what has to be done, what is the right course? How should I behave?"

The pope said, "Don't create trouble for me! It is good that he has come to New York. Do two things: first, the most important, look serious and busy. Who knows, he may be...

And second, don't forget to inform the police."

Religions have been teaching people to be serious because seriousness creates a certain kind of dullness in your consciousness. Seriousness is not a help. It is poisonous; nobody can take it away, unless you understand... then it will disappear.

A psychiatrist and a friend were walking down the street, and a stranger passing by suddenly kicked the psychiatrist in the shins. The shrink walked on as if nothing had happened. His friend was astounded. "Aren't you going to do anything about it?" he cried.

"Why should I?" asked the psychiatrist. "It's his problem."

If the monkey is there inside you, it is his problem! He must be getting tortured with your seriousness and your t'ai chi. Don't be worried. He himself will be trying to find a way to get out of the mess.

A man who is playful does not bother about things like t'ai chi! There is so much to enjoy around and you, like an idiot, do t'ai chi! Naturally you are becoming serious. A beautiful woman passes by... and you are doing t'ai chi! Can't you do anything playful, blissful, pleasant? Naturally you are becoming serious because you are losing contact with life.

There are all kinds of idiots in the world. Somebody is doing t'ai chi, somebody is doing aikido, somebody is doing jujitsu, somebody is doing yoga, standing on his head. Now, I don't think any woman is going to be interested in you: this kind of fellow who is standing on his head is already dead! So then nobody takes interest in you, and you become serious. You are creating it, and you want me to chase it out. I am not responsible for it. Who suggested you do t'ai chi?

I have heard that three missionaries were caught by cannibals in southern Africa. The chief of the cannibals asked the first, "Which do you want -- you can choose -- do you want `chi-chi' or do you want death?"

The man thought about it and he said, "Whatever chi-chi is, it cannot be worse than death." So he said, "I want chi-chi."

So he was given the treatment they called chi-chi. He was sexually abused, beaten... and as chi-chi started, he started thinking, "It was better to choose death. These people will kill me by chi-chi, and they are unnecessarily humiliating me."

And the other two missionaries were watching what was going on. Then the turn came to the second: "What do you want?"

Death is such a dangerous thing... he thought, "One can survive chi-chi, but death you cannot survive." He also said, "Chi-chi."

So again the whole game began. All the cannibals were beating him and doing all kinds of stupid sexual perversions -- and the poor missionary had come to save them...!

Now the turn came of the third, who was the chief missionary. The chief asked, "What do you think -- chi-chi or death?"

He said, "It will be a great mercy if you allow me death. Chi-chi I have seen."

But the chief said, "This is a problem: we don't kill anybody before chi-chi, and after chi-chi nobody survives!"

Now what are you interested in t'ai chi for? Naturally it will make you serious. You will forget laughing, you will forget a sense of humor -- a man of t'ai chi has to be serious.

And you are asking me to take out the seriousness... and the monkey. The monkey comes in the same package! You become serious and the monkey will come in.

And as far as the monkey is concerned, it is his problem -- you don't worry. You just get rid of this chi-chi.

Just to deceive you they have changed the name to t'ai chi!

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

I CANNOT PUT MYSELF ON THE LINE ENOUGH. I AM AT YOUR FEET.

Nirupa, you must be living in a misunderstanding, because I have never been angry at you; I have never been angry at anyone, Ronald Reagan included!

Asking to be forgiven... you are asking something which must be your projection. I have never been angry at anyone. You have been always forgiven, but you must be carrying something in your mind. You say, "I cannot put myself on the line enough."

Who is asking you to put yourself on the line enough? As you are, you are perfectly okay and acceptable and lovable -- but you seem to be a martyr.

Who can be perfect in this world?

The world itself is not perfect, because perfection means death. If you want to live, you have to remain a little bit imperfect always, so that you can go on perfecting yourself.

Evolution is nothing but a constant imperfection. Imperfection gives you space to grow into.

And remember one thing: you will never be perfect. You will be coming closer and closer and closer, but you will never be perfect. Perfection is not allowed by the laws of nature itself.

And the idea that "I cannot put myself on the line enough" -- there is no need. Put on the line as much as you enjoy -- that is enough.

But I have a feeling that you want to go up the ladder to the highest rung... But you don't know that the ladder at the highest rung goes nowhere. You come to the highest rung and then you look stupid. Then your whole life is wasted: you have become the president, you have become the prime minister and all kinds of nonsense people. But they all feel awkward; that's why they go on smiling to hide... so that nobody suspects that they have been stupid. There are ladders and ladders....

Hymie Goldberg is right. He became the richest man and when asked, "What have you learned?" he said, "Nothing but climbing ladders -- and at the end there is nothing."

But you cannot even say that at the end there is nothing.

Nirupa, you are perfectly good. You have always been good. My love to you has never wavered. It does not waver to anybody. And I know your devotion, your dedication; it is immensely valuable.

But you are living in some misunderstanding. Drop that misunderstanding. You are on the line, and there is no need to be forgiven. You have all my love, as everybody else has.

Here there is no hierarchy. Here there is nobody higher and nobody lower.

There was to be a christening party for the new baby, but before the ceremony the priest took the new father aside and asked, "Are you prepared for this solemn event?"

"I think so," replied the father. "I've got cheese rolls, salad and cake."

"No, no," interrupted the priest, "I mean spiritually prepared?"

"Well, I don't know," said the man thoughtfully. "Do you think two cases of whiskey are enough?"

You are living in some fantasy about yourself and torturing yourself. A few people like torturing... And I told you, here there is no hierarchy. And that's one of the most important things to be remembered: the people who are doing the work are just functional; they are not higher than you.

In the commune in America... because I was silent and in isolation, people created hierarchies just out of their routine habit. As I came out, those who were at the top of the hierarchy tried to persuade me that I should not speak, that things are going well and I should not see anybody -- everybody is okay.

I asked, "Then what is the purpose of me being here? If they are all okay, I should go back to my country where nobody is okay." I had to insist: "Now it is enough. Three years is enough, and I want to come to my people and see what is happening."

And when I started speaking the whole gang that had created the hierarchy escaped, because now there was no possibility... wherever I am there is no hierarchy, only functions. Somebody is doing cleaning, somebody is doing the work of the secretary, somebody is doing the work of the person in charge of the ashram, but there is nobody higher and lower.

And you should remember, Nirupa, a very significant law: The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank -- the really big chunks always rise to the top!

Don't be bothered.

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

SEVERAL TIMES I HAVE READ IN YOUR BOOKS, OR HEARD YOU MENTION, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACT THAT MAN THINKS ABOUT WOMAN ONCE

EVERY THREE MINUTES, WHILE WOMAN ONLY THINKS ABOUT MAN ONCE

EVERY SEVEN MINUTES. IS THIS ONLY A PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE, OR DOES IT GO DEEPER? TO BE MORE SPECIFIC, PLEASE EXPLAIN THE TWO

(OR FOUR) SIDES OF THE MIDNIGHT BEDROOM DILEMMA OF "I HAVE A HEADACHE."

A few things first. The psychological fact of man thinking about woman every three minutes -- they cannot wait more than that -- is only average, because science talks only about averages. Don't believe that you are the average person; the average person does not exist. There may be people who are thinking only of women all the time!

A psychologist was testing a patient. He drew a straight line on the paper and asked the patient, "What does it remind you of?"

He said, "It reminds me of women."

The psychologist said, "Strange. A straight line?" But he tried more lines. He made a triangle and asked the man, "What does this remind you of?"

The man said, "You seem to be a strange person. This reminds me of women!"

The psychologist made a round circle. The man got very angry. He said, "You are coming too close. I am suffering from women, and you are reminding me of them again and again. Are you a sex maniac or something?"

The psychologist said, "It is a very strange, peculiar case. Why do these things remind you of women?"

The man said, "Everything reminds me of women! Look out of the window" -- a camel was going by. "That camel too reminds me of women. You remind me of women! In fact, I don't think about anything else -- this is my whole life philosophy."

Those three minutes are for average people -- and average people don't exist. It is just a mathematical calculation in which children are included who don't think of women; in which really ripe and grown-up people are included who don't think of women; in which sex maniacs are included who don't think about anything else.... So don't be satisfied with the average; just look at yourself and find out how many minutes you can remain without thinking of women.

My own experience of thousands of men is that the gap is at the most one minute. You can keep a watch in front of you and test whether in one minute the idea of women comes or not. And you will be surprised: "My god. Every minute I am thinking of women."

The case with women is totally different. Seven minutes is also an average, but ordinarily no woman thinks of man every seven minutes. The average is because women sex maniacs also exist. There are women who don't think of men at all -- hours pass -- and they feel great relief.

And you are asking me -- this has become the midnight bedroom dilemma of "I have a headache." That is a female thing, not a male thing. It is a female strategy. Unless you are very close to female chemistry you will not say, "I have a headache."

Man uses the woman just like sleeping pills. Sex gives him a good sleep. All energy is gone out of him. Now there is nothing else to do except to fall asleep and hope that in the morning he can get up.

Man's mind is different than woman's mind. They function in different directions.

Doctors, who are mainly men, have researched and come to the conclusion that no man has died while making love. That's true. In the whole history of billions of human beings no man has died by making love, while making love. Nobody has suffered a heart attack while making love.

So for man, woman is almost a commodity to be used for good sleep, for no heart attack, for avoiding death as far as he can.

But the woman has been almost tortured. First she has had her orgasmic joy taken away, because man finishes too soon, before the woman has even begun. The difference in the orgasmic capacity between man and woman is immense; it is a recent discovery, in this century -- the whole humanity in the past has lived in darkness.

Man's sexuality is local, genital. Woman's sexuality is widespread, all over her body.

Naturally, to attain an orgasmic experience her whole body has to throb with joy, tremble with ecstasy -- but that will take time. By the time her whole body is ready and trembling and feeling a dance of energy in her being, the man is fast asleep. He is finished, he has gone to sleep.

Man has been in many ways cruel, primitive and barbarous towards women. He has never cared what she feels; he is only concerned with himself. He has been using women -- and remember the most humiliating thing in the world is to be used, because that brings you down from your dignity into a commodity.

Commodities are used. Human beings are not used, but women have been used for thousands of years. In fact, they have even forgotten that they have any orgasmic capacity. Naturally, they try to avoid this ugly scene as much as possible; hence "I have a headache" is a feminine strategy.

You are in a deep misunderstanding; put things right! If you want a woman not to have a headache, then be playful with her: sing, dance, bring to your bedroom the atmosphere of a temple, burn incense, take a good bath after the whole day's... And your love should be the climax.

But wait! Unless the woman starts throbbing and trembling and starts becoming ecstatic, only then making love to her will you have an orgasmic experience and she will have an orgasmic experience. And when both orgasmic experiences happen simultaneously, it is a tremendous phenomenon. Religiously it is a tremendous phenomenon, because it will give you the first glimpse of meditation.

My own understanding is that man has come to know about meditation from no other source, because there is no other source available. How did man start to think, in the very beginning, about meditation? Mind, you know, is natural; meditation has to be achieved.

Something must have given him a glimpse beyond mind. Orgasmic experience gives you a state when time stops, mind stops, and you are sheer joy.

That has been, according to me, the source of thinking that going beyond mind is possible. And if it is possible in sexual orgasm, a few adventurous people, pioneers, must have tried... why can't it be possible alone? Because two things they have got absolutely correct: time stops, mind stops.

Of course you cannot stop time directly; hence the conclusion: stop the mind. And the moment mind is silent and has stopped, time stops, and suddenly you find yourself, without any sexuality, in an orgasmic joy which is far deeper than the sexual. In sex you are dependent on the other person; now you are absolutely free.

If people like Gautam Buddha or Mahavira became celibate... it was not that through being celibate they became Gautam Buddha and Mahavira. The situation is just the reverse: they became Gautam Buddha and Mahavira by meditation and they found a far bigger freedom and orgasmic joy. Sex disappeared from their life.

But people have looked at it wrongly. From the outside you cannot see their orgasmic joy; you can only see that this man has become celibate. Perhaps by becoming celibate you will also attain the orgasmic joy. It does not work that way.

Mind has to stop first, then time stops. And when both time and mind are stopped you have tremendous ecstasy, ecstasy so great... There is not only a difference of degree between sexual orgasm and spiritual orgasm; the difference is qualitative: it has a beauty of its own, a blissfulness of its own, a contentment of its own.

But the whole of humanity has been misled because of a logical fallacy. People saw that Bodhidharma or Sanai or Ta Hui have become celibate... perhaps by becoming celibate we will attain to their enlightenment. But by becoming celibate you will become only a pervert.

Just the other day my news service, Anando, has brought the news that in Europe Catholic bishops and priests are leaving the churches and getting married. And the fear has arisen... in the backward countries many people have been converted and now they are becoming bishops and cardinals. Perhaps the day is not far away when black people will be teaching in the white countries as bishops and cardinals. And then the final step is the first black man becoming the pope -- because it is a question of majority or minority, and white bishops are becoming the minority every day.

But those priests are on the right path. They have suffered unnecessarily and now they have gathered courage and they are marrying. My feeling is it is a good sign.

But the Catholic church is afraid that black people may dominate Catholicism. That would be a strange situation, because the white man has always thought that he is carrying the whole burden of humanity, that he is responsible for everybody's salvation. It is not going to be so anymore. Soon black people will be the saviors of white people. You have saved for many centuries, now give them a chance. You have not been able to save anything; perhaps black people may be able to save.

The danger is greater because black people are sexually more powerful than white people... perhaps because of the climate, their situation, their food. If black people start dominating the Catholic church, then there is going to be an immense perversion of sexuality; it is now Africa which is suffering most from the disease AIDS. But this influx cannot be stopped; the Catholics have invited it themselves.

Just try to be alert and don't imitate, and your seriousness will be gone, your headache will be gone.

Father John, a Catholic priest, was astonished one day to see his friend, Father Michael, driving a Mercedes-Benz. He asked him how he could afford such a great car when all he could afford was a bicycle.

So Father Michael told him that one day during the prayer before the collection he was swinging his rosary when he realized that the whole congregation was hypnotized. So he told everyone to empty their wallets and when he counted the money he had enough to buy a car.

Father John said, "That's great. I'm going to try it."

But a few weeks later when they met again, Father John was still riding his bicycle.

"What happened?" asked his friend.

"Well," said Father John, "everything went just as you said and the congregation was completely in my power. But just then I dropped the rosary and said, Òh shit,' and I'm still cleaning the church!"

Paddy and Maureen live in an old house, very close to the railway station, and every time a train goes by, the door of their bedroom wardrobe opens by itself. Maureen gets so fed up with this that one day she calls a carpenter to come and fix it. But he can't locate the problem and he decides that the only thing to do is to get inside it, close the door and watch what happens.

Just then Paddy comes home. He sees a pair of men's shoes in the bedroom and starts looking around for the owner, but before Maureen can explain a train goes by, the wardrobe opens by itself, and the carpenter is revealed inside.

Paddy is furious. "And what the hell are you doing here?" he cries.

"You won't believe this," says the man, "but I'm waiting for a train!"

Life is so hilarious, and you are having a headache!

Enjoy life and you will forget not only the headache but even the head, because one remembers the head only when he has a headache -- have you noticed that? My definition for a healthy man is that he does not feel his body at all. The moment you have a heartache you feel the heart; the moment you have a stomachache you feel the stomach; when you have a headache you feel the head. If you are perfectly healthy you will not feel the body at all. It is simply there.

But mistakes happen because our clarity about existence is not meditative. Our mind is continuously creating unnecessary problems, unnecessary dilemmas.

Hymie Goldberg was a string salesman from New York. His boss sent him to the deep South in order to open some new accounts for the company, but Hymie encountered discrimination everywhere he went and was unable to do any business. Finally, in Mississippi, an anti-Semitic store owner said to Hymie, "Okay, Jew, I'll buy as much string as reaches from the end of your Jewish nose to the tip of your Jewish prick."

A month later, the same store owner was surprised to receive four hundred cartons of grade "A" string. Inside was a bill for twenty-five thousand dollars and a note which said: Thank you for your generous order. I hope we can do business again soon. Signed: Hymie Goldberg. Living in New York, circumcised in Warsaw.

That much length...! Just be clever and you can use any situation for being happy.

Question 5

BELOVED OSHO,

SITTING IN FRONT OF US, WHAT DO YOU SEE? DO YOU FIND ALL THESE

JOKES WHILE LOOKING AT US?

Svabhavo, you are right. I have to confess it: looking at you, what else can be found? You are all a joke unto yourself.

Gautam Buddha said as his last statement: "Be a light unto yourself." The day I leave the body please remind me, so that I can make my last statement: "Be a joke unto yourself."

That is far more joyful than being a light unto yourself. What are you going to do with a light? Light your cigars, or burn people's houses?

But being a joke unto yourself, you will be a bliss for everyone.

You are right... this is the way I find jokes -- looking at you. So be aware when I look at you; I am searching for a joke!

A big old Indian was sitting in a bar out West when a dirty hippy came in and started to drink a lot and insult all the other people there. Soon everyone had left the bar in disgust except for the old Indian who just watched the hippy with interest.

So the hippy walked over to him and said, "Hey, Indian, what the hell are you staring at?"

"Well," said the Indian, "many years ago I was arrested for making love to a buffalo, and I just had a feeling that maybe you are my son."

I see your troubles and really... I take them seriously, but deep inside I am giggling. Not to offend you I talk about your problems, which are sheer nonsense -- but don't tell it to anybody!

Once there was a man who had everything a man could desire: a wonderful job that he liked, a wonderful wife and wonderful children, but then one day he began to see spots in front of his eyes. At first he tried to ignore them, but they began to get worse. So finally he paid a visit to the doctor. The doctor examined him but could find nothing wrong with him, so he sent him to a specialist, a neurosurgeon, who examined him thoroughly with many tests. He also could find nothing.

But he said to the man, "Although I can find nothing specific, I have seen cases like this before; often it is some pressure on the brain, which usually results in death after six months to a year."

The man became very upset, but then he decided that if indeed he only had such a short time to live, he would enjoy life and do everything he ever wanted. The man loved nice clothes, so he went to the best tailor in town and said, "Give me the best clothes you have in your store: English imported suits, Italian leather shoes, hand-stitched silk ties, and one dozen of the best tailored silk shirts, size fourteen neck."

The tailor who had taken all his measurements said to him, "Fourteen neck? You don't have a fourteen neck -- you have a fifteen neck!"

"Don't tell me what I have," said the man, "I have been wearing a size fourteen neck all my adult life."

"Well, if that's so," said the tailor, "then you must be seeing spots in front of your eyes!"

Seeing you, certainly I rejoice. So many jokes all around! Perhaps this is the first gathering in the world where jokes are being used for your spiritual growth....

And you cannot be otherwise -- unless you become enlightened. Only enlightened people don't have anything in life which you can make a joke of. But in ignorance and unconsciousness, whatever you do is somehow hilarious -- your fights, your love affairs, your marriages, your divorces. If you start watching your behavior, you will find out for yourself -- "My god. My whole life is full of jokes!"

And it will be a great revelation... far greater than the revelation of God, because that too is only a joke and nothing else.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #3

Chapter title: Into the open sky

7 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709075

ShortTitle:

PILGR03

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

81

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN YOU DON'T ANSWER A QUESTION?

Kala Shreeman, not answering a question is also answering it -- but you have to be more intelligent to understand it. People don't understand even the answered questions, but my approach is hope for the best and expect the worst! Whether you get it or not, I will haunt you until you get it.

There are questions which can be answered only by not answering them; they are real questions. Only unreal questions can be answered, only questions arising out of the mind can be answered.

But there are also questions which arise not out of your mind, but our of your very being.

They are not questions of curiosity, but questions of deep longing, searching, seeking.

They are not accidental -- you have not asked them just "by the way." Their meaning is as precious as life itself. Those questions can be answered only by silence.

Jesus spoke continuously for three years; that was his whole period of work. He started his work at the age of thirty, and people crucified him at the age of thirty-three. His period of work was very short, while Buddha worked for forty-two years, Mahavira worked for forty years.

There is only one question that Jesus did not answer. In those three years, thousands of questions were asked, and he answered them. He answered the way people have very rarely answered -- with such sincerity and such authority that even his enemies used to say, "We have never heard a man speak this way! The same language, the same words, but from an authentic individual their fragrance is different, their music is different. Their penetration is deep; they touch your very heart."

Jesus' words are not just words, empty and contentless; his words are his very being. He is pouring himself in his words -- and that makes the difference, the great difference.

But one question he has not answered, and that was the question asked by a sympathizer who wanted to save him. It was asked by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Judea was a slave country under the Roman Empire, and Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea. He was not a Jew, hence he could not understand why the Jews were so mad against an innocent young man. Jesus may have been saying things which they don't agree with, but that does not mean that a person should be crucified. It shows really the weakness of you who cannot answer his arguments.

The Jews had a great number of learned rabbis -- they could have challenged Jesus. Jesus was an uneducated carpenter's son; he knew nothing of scriptures, but he knew something more valuable. It seems he knew himself. And that is the only holy scripture there is.

The learned rabbis were angry because an uneducated man was speaking with such authority. They were hesitant about their own beliefs... they were also talking great things, but all those great ideas were borrowed. He was speaking directly, spontaneously, according to his own experience -- not within quotes.

Pontius Pilate's wife was a very educated woman; she heard many stories about Jesus, and many times she went in disguise to hear him. She was immensely impressed, and it was she who convinced Pontius Pilate that what is going on -- this insistence of the Jews, of the crowd, of the masses, to crucify a young man -- is simply ugly, inhuman..."and you have to do something."

Pontius Pilate called Jesus to his palace. The man was so beautiful and so simple, so poor, so humble, that there was immediately a rapport between Pontius Pilate and Jesus.

Pontius Pilate was a very learned Roman scholar. He could see at least that the young man had something in his being which was radiant, which those learned rabbis didn't have. But they had power....

He wanted to save Jesus, although it was risky... risky because if the whole Jewish population of Judea -- and they were the only people in Judea -- were against Pontius Pilate, he might lose his tremendously powerful position. The Roman government, the Roman emperor would not want a governor in Judea who is not liked by the people, so it was against his own position. But still he wanted to do everything to save him.

The last question he asked was not answered by Jesus. The question was, "What is truth?" Jesus looked into his eyes, utterly silent, and did not say a single word.

Pontius Pilate understood the meaning of the not answered question, and he felt even more sorry and in a dilemma -- what to do? Still he tried.... As he went into his house, the first thing he did was to wash his hands. That act -- of washing his hands -- remained uncommented on for two thousand years.

It was Sigmund Freud in the early part of this century -- strangely, himself a Jew -- who first made the statement that Pontius Pilate washed his hands because he wanted to be clear, at least before God, that he was not responsible for the crucifixion of this beautiful young man. "I wash my hands, I don't have his blood on my hands."

He tried to put up three people for crucifixion. It was an ancient tradition in Judea that the people could ask for at least one person to be released from being crucified, and he was hoping that by putting up three persons, the Jews would certainly ask for Jesus to be released.

Jesus was a Jew; he was not a Christian -- he had never heard the word Christian. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew. The word Christian came into existence three hundred years later.

But when Pontius Pilate came and asked the people -- and thousands of people had gathered -- "According to the convention, I can release one person from crucifixion. He will be made completely free..."he was shocked that they all shouted only one name. That name was not Jesus; that name was of a murderer who had murdered at least seven people. I say at least because that was on the record of the government; he may have murdered more, he was a born murderer and criminal. His name was Barabbas -- and the whole Jewish crowd, without exception, asked that Barabbas should be released.

No man of any intelligence could have believed it, and even Barabbas could not believe it. He was also thinking that this young man -- he has not done anything wrong, he has not harmed anybody, he has not committed anything criminal -- is bound to be released.

He could not believe his own ears when he heard that people were asking for Barabbas.

Even when he was released, going out in the crowd, he looked again and again with unbelieving eyes: What is happening...? All these people know him; he is a drunkard, he is a murderer, he is a robber -- there is not any crime that he has not committed. These are the people who know him, and these are the people who have put him into the hands of the government. Strange, why have they asked...?

And Jesus was crucified.

It is a very strange story: his whole life he answered every question, and at the last, when a significant question was asked, he remained silent. Do you think he did not answer? He answered by his silence. Nothing can be said about truth, and anything that is said about truth is not truth.

You can be truth, but you cannot say anything about it.

A truth uttered immediately becomes a lie.

So when sometimes it happens that I don't answer a question, Kala Shreeman, it means the question is of the category which can be answered only in silence. But I don't want you to be so serious...! Truth, or untruth -- but don't be serious! If you want me to answer any question... I am ready to lie, but I will answer.

I care more about you than any truth.

Eunice came home with a brand-new mink coat.

"Where did you get that?" asked her husband, Bernie.

"I won it in a raffle," she replied. The following night, Eunice walked in with a beautiful diamond bracelet.

"Where did that come from?" asked Bernie.

"I won it in a raffle," said Eunice. "I'm going to another raffle party tonight, and I'm in a hurry. Would you mind drawing my bath?"

Bernie did as instructed, but when Eunice came in to take her bath, she found that there was only a half-inch of water in the tub.

"Bernie," she asked, "Why didn't you fill the tub?"

"Well, darling," he answered, "I didn't want you to get your raffle ticket wet!"

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WILL YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT HOW YOU WORK ON US?

Swami Antar Aseem, have I to say even that too? Can't you figure out how I work on you? You are asleep, that is true, but not that much asleep! And why have you written behind your name, "Indian"? Because here, in this temple, there is no one who is Indian, and there is no one who is German. This is the only gathering in the whole world where there are only human beings. Perhaps it is because of your Indian mind that is still hanging around you that such a question arises.

I am working on you from morning to evening, from evening to morning... even in the night, even in your dreams I am working on you -- and you don't understand how I am working? That means I will have to say a few things about Indians!

Indians are all alike, but they have different faces so you can tell them apart.

There are two types of people in this world: those who come into the room and say,

"Well, here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are!"

The first ones are the Indians; they are the most egoistic people on the earth -- "Here I am." Their "I" perhaps is the most subtle and strong and ancient "I." Every Indian thinks he is spiritual; it is very difficult to find an Indian who is not a great saint! At least, I have not found one yet.

There is an Indian saying, "Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment."

That is true for India. This reminds me of Carnegie, one of the richest men in America.

He was delivering a talk in a university, and he said something about opportunity, and a student asked, "You are right in saying, Ìf you use the opportunity you can also become as rich as I am' -- but how to know when the opportunity comes? As far as I am concerned, I become aware only when it is gone, and then I say, `My god, it was an opportunity' -- but it is too late. So what do you suggest I should do?"

Carnegie said, "As far as I am concerned, I keep on jumping. I don't wait for the opportunity; whenever it comes I will ride on it -- but I go on jumping. I am always ready... it will come. But if you are not ready, then you will become aware only when it has passed, because opportunity passes in a single moment."

India has been losing all kinds of opportunities because people go on waiting, as if it is God's responsibility to do things for you. People go on repeating that when things will become worse -- and I am amazed how things can be worse than they are! -- then God will come in an incarnation and save people. This means: Try to make your opportunities and life worse, so God comes sooner. And they are trying hard! They are becoming more poor, they are becoming more retarded, they are becoming more addicted with the past, they don't think of the future.

These are the signs of a country which is too old: in the future there is only death and nothing else.

Indians must have one of the best countries in the world, with all kinds of climates, with all kinds of different cultures, people. But it has not used any opportunity; it is a fatalist country, it believes in fate. If things are going to be better, they will be better; if they are going to be worse, they will be worse -- you cannot do anything. This impotence has become symbolic of the Indian mind.

There is another Indian saying -- and these sayings show the wisdom of centuries -- "If the shoe fits, it is ugly." A strange statement! Whenever things are good, Indians don't feel good: if the shoe fits, it is ugly. The shoe is good only when it pinches....

Mulla Nasruddin was purchasing a pair of shoes, and the shopkeeper was saying, "Mulla, you are trying an almost impossible job. You are trying to force your foot into a shoe which is one size smaller than you need."

Mulla said, "You keep quiet! I know what kind of shoes I need."

The shopkeeper was very much puzzled, but Mulla managed to force his foot into a small shoe, and tears came to his eyes. The shopkeeper said, "What are you doing?"

Mulla said, "You don't understand the philosophy of it."

The shopkeeper said, "There is some philosophy in it?" -- in India everything is philosophical!

Mulla said, "Yes, this is not an ordinary philosophy, but a great philosophy. This is the only thing that keeps me happy."

The man said, "And tears are coming to your eyes...."

Nasruddin said, "That's why I cry the whole day: it is pinching so much that I forget all worries, all difficult problems -- the wife that is waiting at home, the difficult children, the ugly neighbors, business failures -- everything is forgotten when the shoe is pinching.

And when I reach home and I take the shoes off, it is such a relief! This is the only relief in twenty-four hours. I feel so good and so grateful to God that one day has passed....

Now the problem will arise again the next day, in the morning; I can rest the whole night, and my sleep is really deep, because of the whole day's torture."

But this is the philosophy of this country. People are living in self-inflicted torture.

Torture has become something of a religious discipline: the more you torture yourself, the more religious you are and the closer to God.

Another proverb for you:

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

That's how Indians go on remaining in utter misery, but still contented. It is simply a case of bad memory; they forget that it was the same yesterday, and it was the same the day before yesterday. Every day seems to them to be new -- and it has been so old and so dirty. It has been for centuries the same slavery, the same poverty, the same suffering, but every day the Indian gets up and thinks that everything seems to be new. Just a case of bad memory... but very advantageous: you will not find anywhere in the world people so contented and so miserable at the same time.

You should look into Indian proverbs and you will find the very heart of the Indian personality. Another proverb says:

Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They are too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.

He who laughs last is most likely a German. The Indian never laughs.

For an Indian, cleanliness is next to impossible!

To an Indian, to err is human, but it feels divine!

To the Indian mind, it is absolutely clear:

Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether!

There is no time like the present for postponing what you don't want to do!

A small ad in a Poona newspaper: "Young farm worker wishes to marry beautiful girl with a tractor. Please send photo of the tractor!"

For an Indian, it is a simple task to make things complex, but a complex task to make them simple.

Why have you written "Indian" after your name? Such things provoke me!

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

EVEN THOUGH IT SEEMS THAT LIFE FOR ME IS WONDERFUL, I SEE THIS

HAPPENING ONLY ON THE SURFACE. WHEN I MOVE A LITTLE DEEPER, MY

REALITY IS OF A RESTLESS BEING WORRYING ABOUT ALL SORTS OF

THINGS.

I FIND THIS CIRCLE BORING WHERE I AM STUCK NOW. MAYBE IT'S

BECAUSE OF MY LACK OF MEDITATION; STILL I DON'T SEEM TO FIND THE

WAY IN, DEEPER -- EVEN WHEN THE DOOR IS WIDE OPEN.

OSHO, I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY, "BEFORE YOU DIE, DESTROY THE EGO." I AM GRATEFUL TO EXISTENCE FOR EVERYTHING, INCLUDING THIS EGO, BUT NOW IT FEELS TO BE THE RIGHT TIME TO MAKE ROOM AND BE

FINISHED WITH IT.

BELOVED OSHO, IS THIS HAPPENING BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW

MEDITATION?

Nivedano, you will always remain crazy! What are you doing here if you don't know meditation? You have perhaps got lost and forgotten your way, and somehow ended up here -- because here everybody is doing meditation.

I have been telling you to be thankful to existence, but I have never told you to be thankful for the ego. Ego has not been given to you by existence. It is your own great creation! And now you feel that it is the right time to make room and be finished with it.

Great idea! -- but the problem is that you don't know whether this is happening or not, because you don't know meditation.

Nivedano, if it is happening then you must be knowing meditation without knowing it.

There are many people who have qualities they are not aware of, but this is a very rare case! I have never heard of anybody who is in meditation and does not know that he is in meditation -- because meditation is such a tremendous difference, such a qualitative difference from your ordinary life that you cannot miss it. It is almost impossible; that's why I said you are going to remain crazy. This is possible only if you are crazy.

Contemplate over this small story:

A man decided one day that he was not paying enough attention to his family, so that evening he went home, kissed his children, gave flowers to his wife, shaved, showered and changed before dinner, and told lots of funny stories during the meal. Afterwards he whistled while he cleared the table, and insisted on washing and drying all the dishes.

When he had finished he went into the living room and found his wife in tears.

"Everything has gone wrong today," she sobbed. "The vacuum cleaner broke, Ernie threw his ball through the bedroom window, Polly fell and tore her best dress -- and now you come home so drunk, you don't know what you are doing!"

Nivedano, you are doing meditation. I look at you, and I feel you more grateful than anybody present here -- more prayerful, more humble, more simple, more silent.

Just this morning, passing by Buddha Hall, I saw your little child. He looked so beautiful.

I enquired whose child he is, and Nirvano told me, "He is Nivedano's child." For a moment I thought Nivedano must have looked exactly like this child -- so simple... but he still looks just like a child whenever I look at him.

He may not be the same with others, that is almost certain, but as far as I am concerned, when I look at him, he looks so silent, so saintly.... Although he does not know what he is doing, he is doing well.

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO,

AGAIN ON THE SUBJECT OF DESTROYING EGO, ANOTHER QUESTION

APPEARS TO BE RELEVANT TO ME RIGHT NOW, AND THAT IS THE FACT

THAT WHEREVER I GO, SOONER OR LATER, TROUBLE BUBBLES UP.

USUALLY IT HAPPENS WITH AUTHORITIES OF SOME KIND.

OSHO, I WONDER IF THIS HAPPENS BECAUSE, BEING UNAWARE, I GO ON

PUSHING THE EDGES? OR IS IT AN OLD HABIT OF THE EGO? OR....?

Nivedano, no matter where you go, there you are!

The bank robbers arrived just before closing time, and promptly ordered the few remaining customers, as well as the clerks and guards, to take their clothes off and lie face down on the floor.

One nervous blond pulled off her clothes and lay down on the floor, face up.

"Turn over, Maybelle," whispered the girl lying beside her. "This is a stickup, not the office party."

Nivedano, it must be just the old habit -- you think it is the office party! If you feel that wherever you go sooner or later trouble bubbles up, just be a little aware! And don't thank existence for the ego, because that is the cause of the whole trouble. If you are carrying your ego, wherever you go trouble is bound to bubble up.

Ego is the only trouble in the world.

If everybody in the world just for one hour decides to put the ego aside -- just for one hour -- there will be no trouble, no problem; there will be such great peace and silence and love that we have not known before. This whole planet has not known that.

But the ego is nourished on troubles. If it cannot create trouble, it will starve to death. It needs continuous nourishment, and that nourishment comes from trouble. So if you understand that the trouble is a pain in the neck, and you are tired of it... If you are not tired of it, then I am not saying you have to drop it; first get really tired, then there is no need for me to tell you to drop it. You will just drop it.

Trouble is your spiritual cancer; it is better to get rid of it. It is the only agony of the human soul, the only hell that really exists. And it is within your hands to get out of it.

I have told you a story that I love.... A Japanese king went to see Master Lin Chi. He touched the feet of the master and before he could say anything, Lin Chi said, "You idiot!

You don't know even manners."

The king completely forgot for what he had come. He pulled out his sword, and Lin Chi laughed. He said, "You have forgotten your question. Now I remind you" -- because the king had sent his prime minister before him to inform Lin Chi that he is coming and his question is, "What is hell and what is heaven?" Now, when the sword was just about to fall on his neck, Lin Chi said, "Wait a minute! This is the door of hell."

The king was shocked. His hand stopped. He put back the sword in the sheath, and Lin Chi said, "That is the door of heaven. You had forgotten your question, but your prime minister told me. It was good that he told me before, otherwise you would have killed a poor man unnecessarily, and you would have suffered hell -- because hell is not anywhere else but in your ego. When I said, `You idiot!' what was the trouble? Why did you become so angry? Who was hurt? It is your ego that was hurt."

If you don't have any ego, it doesn't matter whether somebody says you are an idiot or somebody says you are a genius. It does not matter... they are their opinions. You know who you are -- you don't depend on other people's opinions. Your ego depends. Your ego keeps you a slave of the society in which you live. Ordinarily people think that their ego is something very precious. It is nothing but their slavery.

A man becomes independent and free and individual only when he has dropped his ego, when he is just a silent being, without any idea of "I" -- just a pure silence... THIS

silence. And if in this silence you look inward, you will not find any "I," any ego, any self, but just a pure space.

This pure space is your spirituality.

This pure space is your enlightenment.

This pure space is your ultimate ecstasy.

The ego is preventing everything. Ego is making you a beggar, while you are an emperor of a great empire. Of course, that empire does not belong to the outside world; it is in your own being, but its vastness is as big as the universe itself.

Your ego is keeping you encaged, imprisoned. Don't nourish it... and I am saying it because I know it is everybody's possibility not to nourish the ego and to get out into the open sky.

One day at the London zoo two Jewish ladies, both blond and middle-aged, were standing in front of the cage of Guy the gorilla, and no doubt passing remarks on aspects of his physique.

Suddenly Guy, who was kept alone and whose life was very boring, was possessed by a tremendous urge. He gripped the bars before him, and, such was the force of his lust, wrenched them apart. He leaned out, seized the blonder of the two ladies, drew her into the cage and pulled the bars together. The hapless, screaming, blonder lady was dragged towards the inner sleeping quarters, screened from public view.

Some days later, recovering in a Harley Street clinic, the lady was visited by her friend.

"Oy Veh, Rachel," the friend commiserated. Then, whispering hoarsely "... and tell me how you feel?"

Came the reply, "How do you THINK I feel?... he hasn't written, he hasn't phoned."

Nivedano, learn to laugh at your own ego. The moment you are gripped by your ego, relax and have a good laugh.

And don't be worried... and I know you are crazy, you will not be worried what people think about you. But if you can laugh at your ego, that is the best way to kill it. Don't be serious about your ego, because that is very nourishing food for the ego. That's why all egoists are serious people.

The people who can laugh and enjoy and be playful are never egoists. It is on this particular point that I disagree with all the religions of the world. They have made people's egos very strong by teaching them to be serious about life.

My effort is to erase the tremendous impact of millions of years of religious training. On the one hand they say, "Drop the ego," and on the other hand they don't allow the childlike playfulness.... On the one hand they go on insisting, "Drop the ego," and on the other hand they don't have any sense of humor.

No religion in the world has accepted a sense of humor as one of the fundamental religious qualities. I accept it, and I want that no religion can possibly exist in the future unless it has as a fundamental quality the sense of humor.

A religion without laughter... a God who cannot laugh and dance and sing is not worthy of being God. Send him to hell!

Question 5

CARISSIMO OSHO,

BECOMING MORE AWARE OF MYSELF, I HAVE OFTEN BEEN FEELING MORE

INTENSELY "UP AND DOWN," AND SINCE BEING IN THE ASHRAM THIS

FEELING HAS GROWN.

WHENEVER I ASK SOME SANNYASINS "HOW DO YOU FEEL?" THE MOST

POPULAR ANSWER IS, "UP AND DOWN."

I CAN RECOGNIZE A TRICK OF THE MIND IN THIS FEELING, BUT A DOUBT

ARISES: ISN'T THIS (UP AND DOWN) THE SHAPE OF THE VERTICAL GROWTH

LINE AND THE RHYTHM OF HUMAN BEINGS, GIVEN THAT HUMAN LIFE

STARTS FROM AN "UP AND DOWN"?

Kala Shreeman....

Maurice came home from work early one day and found his wife in the arms of his best friend, Max.

He staggered back and said, "Max! I am married to her, so I have to do that. But you?

You are a free man!"

Old Finkelstein was seventy-five when he decided to marry a young girl of twenty. His friends were scandalized, and one of them said, "Finkelstein, do you realize that a man of your age having sex with a young girl could be very dangerous -- even fatal?"

Finkelstein considered for a while, then shrugged and said, "Oh, well, if she dies, she dies!"

Life is such... it is up and down! It is up and down everywhere, not only here. And the moment it stops being up and down, you are dead! So let it go as up as possible and as down as possible.... The higher it goes, the deeper it goes, the better. Why are you worried because everybody says, "Up and down"? They know... and you know also.

Paddy was known for his foul language by everyone in his congregation. The parson took him aside on Sunday and said, "Every time you swear you must give five dollars to the nearest stranger. That will cure you soon enough."

As Paddy left the preacher, he stubbed his toe and then silently handed the five dollars to a woman just entering the church.

"Okay," whispered the woman, "But can you wait until after the service?"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #4

Chapter title: Suddenly you have blossomed

8 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709080

ShortTitle:

PILGR04

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

71

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IS THE DEVIL REALLY MALE?

Deva Prachurya, it is a beautiful question because the women's liberation movement is talking about God being a woman; they have started pronouncing him not he but she. But none of them has thought about the devil, which is a counterpart. They both exist together, just like light and darkness, life and death.

Both are hypothetical. God does not exist the way you exist and the trees exist and the mountains exist; it is just a hypothesis. And because of the hypothesis of God, theologians have had to create his other pole, the other polarity, the devil. So the devil becomes darkness and God becomes light.

The Hindu UPANISHADS have one of the most beautiful prayers, perhaps the most beautiful in the whole world of religion. I love its poetry, but I don't agree with its philosophy. The prayer is very small, but very pregnant with meaning and significance. It says, "Lead me from darkness to light" -- tamsoma jyotirgamaya. It says, "Lead me from untruth to the truth" -- astoma sadgamaya. And in the final stage it says, "Lead me from death to life" -- mrityorma amritamgamaya.

It is sheer poetry, you cannot improve upon it -- but it is utterly false, because darkness and light are one phenomenon. You cannot go from darkness to light, because light is nothing but a little less darkness, and darkness is nothing but a little less light. It is a difference of degrees. Neither can you go from untruth to truth -- the same differentiation of degrees is there. Every untruth has something true about it, and every truth expressed has to join hands with untruth.

And you cannot go from death to eternal life, because death is part of life. It is not against it -- it is the very crescendo of life. They both exist together. A person who cannot die, cannot live either. Life exists with death almost like two wings of a bird: you cannot have the bird flying in the sky across the sun with one wing. Life and death are just like your two legs -- you cannot move with one leg.

Existence is dialectical: it always has its opposite. Without the opposite, it will not exist.

Because man created God as the very holy of the holiest, he had to create a devil. It was just an absolute philosophical necessity! The devil is the counterpart of God. You will be surprised to know... your name is Deva Prachurya. Deva means divine, and devil also comes from the same root; it also means divine.

But both are hypothetical. I have no objection if God is a woman, but certainly I am immensely happy if the devil is a woman! God may be, may not be, but the devil is certainly a woman; otherwise for such a long eternity the devil could not have been nagging God continuously! From whom is God escaping? Where is he hiding, and from whom? Why has he not the guts to come out, at least once in a while, to remind people that he is still alive? The woman does not allow it.

So I am not certain about God, but, Deva Prachurya, woman is certainly a devil -- and vice-versa!

Mrs. Markovitz got a knock on the door.

"It is your husband," shouted her neighbor, "he is face down in the swimming pool. I think he is drowned."

"Is today Wednesday?" asked Mrs. Markovitz.

"Yes," said her neighbor, "it is, but..."

"What time is it?" Mrs Markovitz asked.

"Eleven o'clock, but..." replied her neighbor.

"Then don't worry about a thing," said Mrs. Markovitz, "the pool man will be here in an hour!"

The husband has drowned... but the wife and the husband are the greatest enemies in the world; psychologists call them "intimate enemies." They have always been! It is a very recent development of insight.

God being a woman will create trouble. Then the devil will be a man -- because they have to be polar opposites. Perhaps the women's liberation movement has not thought about the implications of what they are doing. I would like God to be the man and tortured by the devil, the woman, rather than vice-versa, because good can be tortured by bad, but bad cannot be tortured by good. But the question simply has not come up around the world -- and women are insisting that God is a woman.

It is really strange that nobody has bothered about the devil, who is a more important person than God. God is only a VIP, the devil is a VVIP! God may have created the world, but the devil is running it -- and running it so devilishly and so perfectly.

Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan -- who do you think they represent? Certainly not God! They represent the devil, and they have made our history. They are the people who go on creating more and more evil in the world.

Friedrich Nietzsche has declared, "God is dead and man is free." His statement is incomplete; he has forgotten about the devil. God may be dead -- most probably he cannot manage to survive the devil for so long -- but the devil is there. And unless the devil is also dead, man cannot be free.

Man's real problem is not God; that poor fellow has never been seen after those first six days when he created the world. Since then nobody knows where he is -- whether he is sick, or got so tired of creating the world in six days that the seventh day he rested... that is allowed. But what happened on Monday? On office days you should be back. Since then he has been on holiday... it is an eternity. Most probably he died.

But the devil is still alive, and shows himself again and again. You cannot conceive of Adolf Hitler in any other way than an incarnation of the devil; you cannot think of Nadirshah and his great company, Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, as anything other than incarnations of the devil.

I remember one case... Nadirshah attacked India -- and he was a man who enjoyed killing people so greatly that his whole life he was killing and killing. One night he asked his soldiers to bring the most beautiful woman of the area, so they brought a prostitute from a nearby village. In India, prostitutes are a little different than in the West. In the West they are only sex objects. In the East they are artists, dancers, singers; their being sex objects is secondary.

She danced, and Nadirshah was very happy. The night was almost coming to an end when Nadirshah said, "Now I want to go to sleep, you can go back."

He gave immense rewards to the woman, but the woman said, "It is dark outside. With so much money, so many diamonds... I am a woman and alone, and the path goes through a dark forest -- I cannot go."

Nadirshah told his soldiers, "You go ahead of her, and go on burning everything that you find -- forest, village, anything. Make it a light."

Nobody has made light that way -- just a small torch would have done. But Nadirshah had such a devilish mind: he burned seven villages and the whole forest to make it almost look like day. He told the prostitute, "Now you can go. And you will remember that you had come to see not some Tom, Dick, Harry; you had come to see the great emperor, Nadirshah. He can make the night into day." Thousands of villagers were burned alive.

You cannot say such a man represents God in any way.

The devil is spread all over your history; even today, the devil is ruling you. The devil is a politician, has always been a politician. God is a nice guy -- if he exists -- very gentlemanly, has remained almost anonymous, almost a nobody. If one has to think about who is more important, indubitably it is the devil.

I would like him to be a woman, because the woman has many devilish qualities. But then God will have to be a man, because the polarity... both cannot be women, both cannot be men. If both were women, there would have been constant struggle and fight and jealousy and envy. If both were men, there would have been homosexuality and AIDS. So that is not acceptable; they have to be polar opposites.

My feeling is that the devil is man and God is woman -- at least he has been functioning as very womanly. The devil is very aggressive, and God goes on retreating.

So your question is very important theologically -- although in reality they both don't exist. Hypotheses cannot be male or female: two plus two is four -- do you think it is male or female? It is just neutral, it has no genital difference.

God and the devil are just theological hypotheses. It simply shows the weakness of the theologians that they could not manage the world without false hypotheses to support their systems. God they needed to create the world -- without ever bothering who created God. Their fundamental idea is that without somebody creating, nothing can be created; that's why they have accepted God as the creator of the world. But why stop with God?

What happened to the original thesis?

The thesis was that nothing can be created without a creator. Who created God?

According to all religions... the question has remained unanswered. They know that if they say God A was created by God B they will get into more trouble... then God C and God D, and the whole alphabet. Still, when they reach X,Y,Z, nothing will be solved --

who created God Z?

In fact they have started from a very wrong premise. Existence is intrinsically self-generated. It has always been here, so the question of creation does not arise. And it will always be here, so the question of destruction does not arise. It may pass through many phases of evolution, but it will remain.

If God can be dropped, there is no need for the devil. They are a married couple --

because nobody has seen either of them, it is very difficult to say who is man and who is woman. But the devil seems to have been functioning around the world for centuries; after those six days, he has been in charge.

Most probably, if you want hypotheses also to be divided as male and female, then he seems to be the male, because he has been working all along... and God must be a housewife -- that's why you don't see her any more in the marketplace. But the devil you will find anywhere. You don't have to look for him; he is looking for you!

I am more interested that you get rid of both -- whoever they may be, male or female.

Getting rid of both of them, existence becomes absolute freedom; man attains dignity and self respect.

The very idea of God and devil makes you either the slave of one or the slave of another.

The sinners are the servants of the devil, and the saints are the servants of God. But to be a servant, to be a slave, is against human dignity.

Hence I say unto you: God is dead, the devil is dead. Their death is very necessary for you to be alive. If they are alive, you are dead. Then you are imprisoned from both sides.

Then man has to do a strange game continuously: he works for the devil, and worships God -- because you have to keep both of them happy.

An old man was dying and suddenly he started worshiping first God, repeating his name, and then the name of the devil. His family was aghast! They said, "Are you mad? In the last moments of your life you are remembering the devil?"

He said, "I don't want to take any chance... who knows where I am going and whom I am going to meet? And it costs nothing, so I will remember both. Whoever meets me, I have remembered him, and if nobody meets me, there is no problem. If both meet me, then too there is no problem. I am calculating every possibility."

Man is crushed between the devil and God, between good and evil. I want man not to be crushed, not to be enslaved, but to be an individual in his own right, free. And out of his freedom, and out of his awareness, he should act -- not according to what God wants.

I have told you the story of the ten commandments. When God made the world, he went to the Babylonians and said, "Would you like to have a commandment?"

They said, "First we would like to see what it is."

And he said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

The Babylonians said, "What would we do? We don't want any commandment, please forgive us."

He went to the Egyptians, and he went to other races. Nobody was willing, because everybody asked, "What is the commandment?" And they said, "We don't want to be encaged in any commandment. We want to live on our own."

Finally he reached Moses and asked him, "Do you want to have a commandment?"

Moses asked, "How much does it cost?"

This is a rare question! God had gone all around the world... and it was only Moses who asked the price, the first thing. God said, "It costs nothing."

Moses said, "Then I will have ten!" If it does not cost anything, why not have ten? --

that's how there are ten commandments.

Every religion has created its own commandments -- strange, unnatural -- out of fear or out of greed. But they have made this poor humanity that you see around the world.

Even the richest man is so poor because he does not have the freedom to act according to his own consciousness. He has to act according to principles given by somebody else, and one does not know whether that man was a con-man, a fraud, a poet, a dreamer. There is no evidence... because so many people have claimed that they are incarnations of God, that they are messengers of God, that they are prophets of God, and they all bring different messages. Either God is mad or these people are simply lying. Nost probably they are lying...!

It gives you a great egoistic feeling if you are a prophet, a messiah, an avatara, a tirthankara -- somebody special, not just an ordinary human being. Then you can dominate. This is a different kind of politics. Wherever there is domination, there is politics.

The politician is dominating because of physical force -- his armies, his armaments, his nuclear weapons. The religious prophets, messiahs, saviors, avataras are dominating you spiritually. Their domination is more dangerous -- they are far greater politicians. They are dominating your life not only from outside but from inside. They have become your inside, they have become your morality, they have become your conscience, they have become your very spiritual being.

From inside they go on dominating you, saying what is right, what is wrong. You have to follow them, otherwise you start feeling guilty, and guilt is one of the greatest spiritual diseases. If you follow them, you start feeling unnatural, neurotic, perverted, because you are not following your nature. If you follow your nature, you are not following your prophets and your saviors.

All these religions have created for man a situation in which he cannot be at ease, he cannot enjoy life, he cannot live it in its totality. So my suggestion is, it is better to let both guys be dead. And what does it matter? -- when one is dead, whether he is man or woman does not matter. A dead woman is not dangerous, neither is a dead man. They are not alive.

Let humanity be free from all these old superstitions which have dominated so badly, and distorted human nature so immensely. You can see the humanity that is the result. You say that a tree is known by its fruits. If that is true -- and that is true -- then your whole past of prophets, saviors, avataras, tirthankaras, God, devil, should be judged by the humanity that you find today.

This insane humanity -- miserable, suffering, full of anger, rage, hate... If this is the result of all your religions, of all your leaders -- whether political or religious -- then it is better to let God and the devil die. With God and the devil gone, political leaders and religious leaders will not have any support; they will be the next to die.

I want man to be politically free, religiously free, free in every dimension to function out of his own still small voice, out of his own consciousness. And that will be a beautiful world, a real revolution.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I FEEL SO BLESSED TO HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO FLOAT IN YOUR

OCEAN OF SILENCE. DOES MY WANTING MORE BLOCK MY AVAILABILITY

TO RECEIVE IT?

Anand Saten, I am sorry to say to you that your wanting more is certainly going to block your availability to receive the bliss that you are receiving without expectations. This is a simple, basic rule.

Jesus says, "Ask and it shall be given to you." I say, "Don't ask, otherwise it will be not given to you; not only that, whatever is given to you will be taken away." Jesus says,

"Knock and the doors shall be opened," and I say unto you, "Knock, and even if the doors are open, they will be locked!"

Jesus says, "Seek and ye shall find," and I say unto you, "Seek, and you have missed forever. Don't seek, and you are it -- there is nothing else to find."

The bliss that you are finding here is not coming from outside; it has been within you always -- you just have never been in the company of blissful, madly divine people.

Seeing so many people flowering, suddenly you have blossomed.

Blissfulness is contagious. That's my whole idea of creating small oases around the world, where people can find blissful people all around. The very presence of those blissful people will transform them. Intrinsically everyone has the capacity, but they are always surrounded by miserable people so they never become aware that there is a possibility of being blissful. Everybody is miserable and it looks a little weird and awkward and embarrassing: when everybody is miserable and you are enjoying, one feels guilty. You have to be part of the company you have chosen.

The whole world can be blissful because everybody carries it within himself. But there are a few points to be remembered, and the most important is: don't ask for it, don't knock for it, don't seek it, don't expect it -- otherwise you will become closed. Remain available and open, and it comes... and it comes in abundance.

Paddy drove through the red light and smashed into a car driven by Father O'Hagan. The car turned over three times and the priest was thrown from the vehicle into the gutter.

Paddy rushed over and said, "I am terribly sorry, Father".

"Saints above!" said the shaken priest, "You almost killed me."

"Here," said Paddy, "I have got a small bottle of whisky. Take some and you will feel a lot better."

Father O'Hagan took a couple of large gulps and then continued his tirade: "What were you doing? You nearly launched me into eternity."

"I am sorry, Father," said Paddy. "Take a few more sips and it will ease your nerves."

The priest took another large gulp and almost finished the bottle, which he offered to Paddy saying, "Why don't you have a drink?"

"No thanks, Father," said Paddy, "I will just sit here and wait for the police to arrive!"

Just be a little alert, that's all! If you can learn only one lesson, that of being conscious, blissfulness will arrive. And it is natural -- I can understand -- when it comes, you want more. But you have to be alert not to want more. On the contrary, be thankful for that which has come, and more will be coming -- that is absolutely certain. I say it on my own experience, not according to any scripture, or according to any religion, or according to any saint.

Don't expect! Whatever you get, be grateful for it. Instead of expecting more say, "This is too much! I don't deserve it, I have not earned it." Bow down to existence in deep gratitude, and you will feel flowers of bliss and benediction showering on you from all sides.

Once you have learned the simple rule, you will never expect -- and you will always be getting more and more. Just remain available, keep the doors and windows of your heart open.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

FOR A FEW DAYS MY HEART HAS BEEN JUMPING ALL AROUND THE

ASHRAM AND IT FEELS LIKE I AM LOSING CONTROL. BELOVED MASTER, HOW FAR CAN I GO?

Nirgrantha, you have already gone too far if your heart is jumping all around the ashram!

And you are still saying, "It feels like I am losing control." You have lost control long ago; otherwise how can your heart go on jumping all around the ashram?

You forget all about control. This place is not for people who control; this place is for people who let their heart dance wherever it wants to dance!

Remember a famous proverb: Talent is what you possess, genius is what possesses you.

You cannot control genius; you can control talents. Here we are creating the possibility for your sleeping genius to be awake. Once your genius is awake, you are going to be possessed, you will not be in control -- and there is no need to be in control. The sky is vast, millions of stars are moving without crashing, and no traffic control! Here I see thousands of hearts dancing, running -- no traffic control! Nature manages itself so perfectly that if you don't disturb, everything goes alright -- and very smoothly.

A man dressed as Adolf Hitler visited a psychiatrist. "You can see I have no problems,"

he said. "I have the greatest army in the world, all the money I ever need and every conceivable luxury you can imagine."

"Then what seems to be the trouble?" asked the doctor.

"It is my wife," said the man, "she thinks she is Mrs. Jones."

So just remember one thing: you can be dancing all around joyously, just don't get caught up with a wife, otherwise she will control you! You have lost control -- and here in my place there are great women controllers! The moment they see that some fellow is getting out of control, they immediately control. So avoid a wife. Once in a while you can dance with any woman, but remain free.

Control is not my message; control is repression. Nirgrantha... I have given you the name Nirgrantha; do you understand its meaning? One who is absolutely free -- without any complexes, without any chains, without any bondage. And you are asking me about control...?

I had explained to you when I gave you the name to drop all chains, drop all bondages.

Just be yourself and do whatsoever pleases you. Just remember one thing: don't interfere into anybody's life, and don't allow anybody else to interfere in your life. This is true humanity -- authentic, honest, pure.

It was a rough ocean crossing, and Mr. Levensky was suffering the tortures of sea-sickness. During one of the more unsettled periods, he was leaning over the rail retching miserably, when a kindly steward patted him on the shoulder. "I know sir," said the steward, "that it seems awful, but remember -- no man ever died of sea-sickness."

Mr. Levensky lifted his green face to the steward and said, "For heaven's sake man, don't say that. It is the wonderful hope of dying that is keeping me alive!"

It is a very strange life!

"Be careful," the doctor told the relatives of an elderly man who was dying.

One by one they went up to him, "You look so much brighter today," exclaimed his daughter.

"You must be on the mend," said his son.

"I have not seen you look so healthy for years," said his wife.

The old chap opened his eyes and said, "Thank you for your kind words; it is good to know that I am going to die cured!"

Nirgrantha, rather than dying cured, why not live cured?

You are cured if your heart is jumping -- I have never heard of any dead man's heart jumping all around the ashram. We have three enlightened dead men in the ashram. This day is in their memory, and even on this day, they are not here! Dead men, even if they want to jump, cannot jump. So while you are alive, enjoy it to its fullest. Don't be worried about being tired or anything, because finally in your grave you will have enough rest!

Live a life of immense intensity and totality so that in your grave you don't toss and turn, because there is not much space! Don't miss this moment in thinking about control. In graveyards you can think about all these great things, and nobody will prevent you. You can keep control, you will have to keep control! You can follow all ten commandments, you will have to follow -- how can you commit adultery in a grave?

Before that, it is good to live as joyously and as freely as possible, because who knows when you will be coming back to this beautiful earth, to these beautiful people? Even today you will not find a gathering of such beautiful people.

This is my only crime: I am condemned all over the world for simply one reason, that I am making people live totally and intensely, not bothering about their commandments, not bothering about their holy scriptures, not bothering about their gods and their devils, their heaven and their hell.

All those things are to be thought about and contemplated in your grave. You will have enough time, almost the whole of eternity. So lie down there and be philosophical, be moral, don't commit any sin. But right now, don't be bothered about all these superstitions.

Only one thing has to be remembered, and that is to be as conscious as possible, because that will make you dance rightly, in right places, with right people! Your consciousness will not allow you to jump on somebody else's toes. That is the only sin.

According to me, to interfere in somebody's life is the only sin, and the only virtue is not to interfere in anybody's life. Let him be himself, and let you be yourself... your freedom.

This is, according to me, the authentic religiousness.

This is the only holy pilgrimage:

From here to here -- you don't have to go anywhere.

From now to now -- you don't have to travel in time or space.

Nirgrantha, you are in a good spirit; don't lose the track of it. Control is an old habit which every child is being taught from the very childhood: control -- control everything -

- discipline, behave.

Now you are no more a child, and I am not your father -- I am not even your uncle!

Throw all control, throw all licenses, throw all boundaries. Life is so short, don't destroy it in controls and boundaries and mannerisms and etiquette and all kinds of nonsense.

Rejoice! I repeat, rejoice -- and rejoice totally. And if your heart is dancing, give it full energy. Everybody's heart is dancing. This is a place of dance, of song, of laughter. And I say this is the only kaaba, the only holy place in the world today. All holy places have become unholy, they have become prisons for man in the name of morality, control, discipline.

This is a small place with a vast territory of independence, freedom. The whole sky is yours -- even the sky is not the limit.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #5

Chapter title: You have never looked inside

8 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709085

ShortTitle:

PILGR05

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

86

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

GIVE ME SOME SUTRAS TO MEDITATE ON.

Devageet... Devageet is a dental doctor, but lately he is turning into a philosopher! Just today he has sent a telegram to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, saying "Drop the idea of saving the world through transcendental meditation. I have a better suggestion...." His suggestion is `transdental medication'! And I think that if the world can be saved by yogic hopping, then there seems to be no problem why it cannot be saved by transdental medication.

He is asking for some sutras to meditate on, but sutras are serious, and meditation does not need any sutra. Meditation is a state where absolute emptiness exists, not even a sutra; there is not any possibility of any object. A philosopher never meditates, a philosopher contemplates. So I can give sutras for contemplation, but not for meditation because that will be absolutely wrong.

Meditation simply means silence -- absolute, unconditional serenity of the heart, of the mind, of the being... no stirring of any kind. Even a sutra is enough of a disturbance. You can contemplate on a sutra; sutra is Sanskrit for maxim.

The first... a successful man: one who earns more than his wife can spend.

And second, a successful woman: one who finds such a man!

Third: A jealous man always finds more than he is looking for.

Fifth: Some minds are like concrete -- mixed-up and permanently set.

Sixth: The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance. The last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

Seventh: What Poona really needs is a vegetarian mosquito.

Eighth: The man who admits he is wrong is wise. The man who gives in when he is right is married!

Ninth: The rich get richer and the poor get children.

Tenth: Middle age is when it takes longer to rest than to get tired.

Eleventh: You never know how many friends you have until you rent a cottage in Poona.

Twelfth: You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step in it.

Thirteenth: Virtue is its own punishment.

Fourteenth: By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he is too old to go anywhere.

Fifteenth: Prayer must never be answered. If it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes a correspondence.

Fifteenth: An asylum for the sane would be empty in this world.

You don't get it! You belong to this world!

Sixteenth: It is always the best policy to speak the truth unless you are, of course, an exceptionally good liar.

Seventeenth: He who does not mind a big belly will hardly mind anything else.

Devageet, contemplate as much as you can, but it will not lead you anywhere. Anything that can bring you some light, some conclusion, is not contemplation, it is meditation.

It has been an old fallacy that meditation also needs an object to meditate upon. The very word `meditation' is wrong because it gives the idea that you have to meditate upon something. Meditation simply means that you don't have anything left to meditate upon.

All is empty: there is no object, no chanting, no mantra, no sutra... just pure emptiness.

And suddenly all your energy of awareness turns upon yourself, without any effort on your part.

And the turning of the energy of awareness upon yourself is the ultimate experience of life, of light, of everything that is really valuable;everything that cannot be purchased but can be attained, everything that is not a commodity anybody else can give you but is something that you already have -- but you have never looked inside.

Looking inside is meditation -- just pure looking inwards, a turning of the eyes inwards one hundred and eighty degrees, and you have arrived home. Not a single step has to be taken, because you are not going anywhere; you are simply coming from here to here.

You are already there where you need to be, just you are not aware. Hence, meditation can be called awareness, watchfulness, alertness, witnessing -- but it is not thinking.

Contemplation is thinking; it will not lead you anywhere.

No philosopher has reached to any conclusion that solves the ultimate question of life, Who am I? But you are not to think about it... what will you think about it?

There are many people who have followed Maharishi Raman. His teaching was very simple -- he was a simple man, uneducated, not learned. He had escaped from his home when he was only seventeen. He escaped because his father died. When the whole family was weeping and crying, and the neighbors were preparing to take the dead body to the funeral pyre, nobody noticed that Raman had disappeared.

The experience of the death of his father became a tremendous revolution in Raman's mind. He was only seventeen, the only son of a poor family, and he escaped to the mountains. He remained his whole life on the mountain of Arunachal where he did nothing but just sit and watch inside. He never asked anybody anything. He had no master, he had nobody to guide him, but just sitting silently watching his own mind, he transcended his mind and he came to know himself.

And by knowing himself he came to know the ultimate bliss -- the ecstasy that surrounded Gautam Buddha, the enlightenment that was radiating from Mahavira, the joy, the dance of all those who have awakened. So whoever was asking him, "What are we supposed to do?" he had only one answer his whole life: "Meditate on `Who am I?'"

But people have misunderstood him... even such a simple statement. He was not saying,

"Contemplate," he was not saying, "Think about `Who am I?'" -- what can you think?

Either you know or you don't know; thinking is impossible. What will you think? If you start you will think, "This is my name, this is my country, this is my family, this is my race, this is my caste, this is my profession...." But what will you find by doing this? You will not find out who you are. These things are all on the periphery.

But Raman was not a master in the sense that he could explain to people that watching the mind, the whole process of the mind, the whole traffic of thoughts... Even "Who am I?" is a thought; don't get stuck to it. Just watch that thought too, and a moment comes when all thinking disappears -- just by watching. Just as you bring light into a dark room and darkness disappears, as you bring watchfulness to your mind, mind disappears.

And the disappearance of the mind is the beginning of knowing yourself.

This is the highest peak of consciousness, and unless a man achieves it, he has wasted his life in trivia. He lived only in name; in fact he vegetated. He may have been a very rich vegetable... They say there are only two kinds of vegetables, cabbage and cauliflower; the cabbage category is uneducated, and the cauliflower is a cabbage with college degrees.

But there is not much difference.

If you really want to live and not to vegetate, meditation is the only way; and meditation means no-mind... just silence.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU HAVE SPOKEN TO US ABOUT BEING IN THE WORLD YET NOT OF IT.

HOW COME YOU HAVE NOT SPOKEN TO US ABOUT BEING IN THE

COMMUNE YET NOT OF IT?

Deva Shravan, I have spoken about being in the world but not of it. A commune is not a community, a commune is not a world, a commune is not a society. A commune is a very friendly gathering of people who live in the world but are not of the world.

A commune is not an organization, it is simply the gathering of individuals. It does not take away anybody's individuality. It does not destroy your dignity, your pride, your self-respect. On the contrary, it gives you dignity, respect, love: it accepts you as you are. It does not demand that you should be somebody else, then only will you be thought worthy; it does not ask you to be a saint. It simply loves you as you are. That's why in the commune there is no question at all...

How can I say to you, "Be in the commune but don't belong to it"? The commune is basically individuals who have learned to be in the world and not of the world. That statement is true about the world, because the world tries to strangle you, the world tries to make you a prisoner in a thousand and one ways. The commune gives you total freedom to be yourself; there is no question of belonging to it. Each individual exists as an individual, not as a part of the commune.

In the larger world each individual is only a cog in the wheel, he does not exist as himself. He is only a number, just like in the armies. A soldier dies... on the board of the office appears the notice that "number sixteen has died." In the army names are not recognized, but only numbers.

You will be surprised what the psychology is behind it; there is tremendous meaning. If your name is recognized, then you have a wife, you have children, you have old parents, an old father, an old mother, who must be waiting for you, who must be praying that you come back home alive. If you have a name, you are irreplaceable; but if you are just a number -- number sixteen...

Numbers don't have wives, they don't have children, they don't have parents -- nobody is waiting for them. In fact numbers can be replaced, but names cannot be, individuals cannot be. Hence for centuries armies have been changing people into numbers. So when somebody looks at the board -- how many numbers have died -- he does not feel anything about their wives, their children, their father, their mother, their friends, all their hopes, all their prayers.... It is a very cunning strategy to deceive people. And these numbers can be immediately replaced by other numbers; somebody else will become number sixteen. There is no problem in replacing numbers.

Society also, in a more subtle way, makes you just a part; it never allows you total freedom to be yourself. You are a husband, you are a wife, you are a father, you are a brother... you are never yourself, you are somebody else. There are a thousand and one expectations from you to be fulfilled; those are your chains. There are responsibilities and duties; those are your prisons.

In a commune you don't have a duty, you don't have a responsibility. You don't have to be somebody else to be worthy, to be respected, to be prestigious. Just as you are, in your utter nudeness, you are accepted, loved. Your very being is enough, nothing more is needed.

You don't ask a roseflower to be somebody else, and you don't ask a lotus to be somebody else. A marigold is as beautiful as the rose. The world would be poorer if there were no marigolds, and only roses. The world is richer because more variety is there.

Each individual in a commune is unique; in the world he is just a carbon copy. In the commune, everybody is original; in the world, only a true copy.

The world expects you to follow, imitate -- everything others are doing you should do.

The commune does not ask anything of you; you should simply do what is spontaneous to you, what you feel like doing. You should allow yourself absolute freedom for your potential to blossom. Hence I have not talked about the other part of your question, because that will be against the very idea of the commune.

A commune is not an alternative society.

A commune is a brotherhood of rebellious souls.

Bernie was more than a little annoyed when a neighbor telephoned at 3:OO a.m. and complained, "Your dog is barking so loudly that I can't sleep!" The neighbor hung up before he could reply.

The following morning at 3:OO a.m. Bernie called his neighbor and said, "I don't have a dog!"

This is your world -- utterly insane! That's why I say that unfortunately you have to be in it. Be, but don't belong to it; keep yourself as much unimpressed, uninfluenced by others as possible. Keep your originality; don't lose it in the crowd.

The young bride was inconsolable, in spite of the fact that her dead, seventy-five-year-old husband had left her ten million dollars in his will. Her friends tried to make her understand: "You are so young," they said. "You have a great life ahead, and ten million dollars! He had to die sooner or later."

"You don't understand," she sobbed. "He was the greatest lover. We lived next door to the church and he used to make love to me by the sound of the church bells -- ding-dong, ding-dong. And he would be alive today if it wasn't for that damn fire truck!"

That's why I say: Don't belong to this world. Be in it, but be alert that you don't get lost in the madness that is all over the earth.

Old man Finkelstein, aged eighty-five, went to a sperm bank to make a deposit. The young woman at the reception was skeptical. "Are you sure that you want to do this?" she asked.

"Yes," said old Finkelstein. "I feel it is my duty to give something from myself to the world."

The woman gave him a jar and directed him to a room down the hall. When thirty minutes had passed and he did not return, the girl began to worry that he might have had a heart attack. But just then the old man came out of the room and approached the woman.

"Listen," he said, "I tried it with one hand, then I tried it with two hands, then I got it up and hit it on the sink, then I ran warm water on it, then cold water over it, and I still can't get the lid of the jar open!"

It is better not to be part of this insane world! Remain sane. Insanity is normal in the world -- that's why you don't detect it. Once you understand that it is the normal insanity, and you start looking deeply into it, you will be immensely surprised that you are living in a big madhouse.

The commune is a rebellion, it is not a revolution. A revolution creates an alternative society. For example, what happened in the Soviet Union was a revolution; it created an alternative society. But that society is as insane as any other society; perhaps it has different names for its insanity, but nothing has changed.

Seventy years after the revolution, people are standing in queues just to get bread -- even today. Seventy years ago they revolted against the czar to make a new world where nobody will be poor, but what actually happened is that they have created a world where nobody is rich. They have brought equality to the world, that's certainly true: they have made everybody equally poor. People in the Soviet Union, which is one sixth of the whole world, are living in a concentration camp.

I have been in America, and my sannyasins in the Soviet Union are trying for me to enter into the Soviet Union some day. Today they must have gathered to celebrate -- they have informed me that they will be gathering at the same time as we are. They have to gather in basements. They have to read books silently, "underground," so nobody can hear.

The KGB, the Intelligence Department, has caught hold of twenty sannyasins and has interrogated them continuously for weeks, harassed them just because they had my books. They have taken away all their books, and they were trying to force them to tell who the other sannyasins are. And because they were not telling, they were harassed continuously in the middle of the night; they would be called to the police station and the whole night continuous interrogation... and this is revolution!

Man has become even more a slave than he was ever before. Man was not such a slave even in the days of the czar before the revolution; society was not so dominant and so afraid of people and their freedom.

America makes claims of democracy. I lived there for five years, and there is no democracy at all. It is one of the most hypocritical societies; it is deceiving the whole world in the name of democracy. It is another kind of dictatorship. But the whole world is like this....

I have been refused entry by twenty-one countries. Even before I had applied for a tourist visa, the German parliament decided and ordered all the borders and all the airports that if I try to enter into the country from anywhere I am not allowed... not only that I am not allowed in the country, my airplane has not to be allowed to land at any airport.

What kind of world have we made?

I have not done any harm to those people. I have never been in their country. And what harm can I do if my airplane just lands for refueling in their international airport? -- and why do you call it an international airport? In what way can I affect their morality, their religion, their tradition?

I was never aware that people can be so afraid of rational thinking, of intelligent behavior. I had never thought that the whole world lives under different kinds of superstitions. They are so afraid that somebody may create an upheaval -- at least in the younger generation -- by making them aware of their superstitions.

But to live under superstitions is to live blindly. That's why I say: don't belong to this world. This is not the world for human beings, this is not the world for intelligent people; this is an ugly world created by millions of years of superstition and darkness, exploited by the religious leaders, politicians and so-called moralists. They have all proved to be parasites -- and nothing else.

A commune is not an alternative society. A commune is simply a brotherhood without any organization, without any hierarchy. Nobody is your religious leader and nobody is your political leader. Everybody is simply allowed to be his natural self, without any judgment and without any evaluation.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

I FOUND OUT THAT MY TWO BASIC INTERESTS ARE SEX AND MEDITATION.

AM I DOING RIGHT? I WANT TO BE YOUR FAVORITE DISCIPLE. WHAT TO

DO? WHICH IS THE WORST QUESTION TO ASK YOU?

Chaitanya, you have asked it! You say your interests are two: sex and meditation. If sex is your interest, forget all about meditation. When you get tired of sex, fed up with it, then the same energy that was involved in sex can be used for meditation. But you can't have both together -- that will be like riding on two horses together. Either you have sex, or you have meditation.

But one thing you have to understand: you cannot have meditation unless you have transcended sex. But transcendence should not be understood in the old ways as repression. Transcendence is experience, so much experience that you don't think anymore about attraction, infatuation.

Sex simply drops like dry leaves from the trees.

It is not that you have to make some effort. If you have to make some effort to drop it, it will remain with you. And if it is there, meditation is impossible; it won't let you be silent. It is one of the most torturous biological slaveries. It is good to get rid of it by experiencing it with totality and intensity -- don't think of meditation at all. Sex, lived totally, will bring you to meditation; and then meditation will be very easy, because there will be no biological pull against it. Your so-called priests, monks, saints, cannot meditate.

Even a man like Mahatma Gandhi, at the age of seventy, was having sexual dreams. This was the result of a whole life of repression. And finally at the age of seventy-five he started to sleep with young naked girls.

His disciples, who had become the rulers of the country -- he was the greatest spiritual and political leader, both -- tried to hide this fact; the masses of the country should not know about it. They protected him in every way. The news should not become common; people should not come to know about it. There was a danger that he might lose all his saintliness. People have respected him, followed him... and before his death, he will see himself fallen, failed.

They tried to persuade him to stop this, but he had his explanations and excuses. He used to tell them, "This is an experiment to check on my celibacy -- whether I am really celibate or not."

Mind is very cunning. Nobody in the world has ever checked celibacy this way before. If you are celibate, I don't think you will not know whether you are or not, whether the idea of the other sex comes to your mind or not. You don't need any test. You yourself will be enough to know whether your mind is visited by sexual ideas, dreams, fantasies, or not.

But the reality was he was tortured... and the reason was not that he was insincere; he was a very sincere man, but he followed a wrong path sincerely. Always remember: just sincerity is not going to help. You can be very honest, very sincere, very arduous... but if you are on a wrong path all your sincerity will lead you not to the goal you wanted to reach, but exactly to its opposite.

Gandhi could never understand what meditation is, and that was one of his greatest failures. He could not understand that you can be free from any desire only if you have lived it completely, entirely. If something has remained unlived it is going to haunt you.

Chaitanya, you are saying sex and meditation are your two basic interests. Please have one basic interest! And sex is absolutely first, because that is your biological bondage.

You have to get free of it, and the way to get free of it is not to fight with it -- that's what religious people have been doing for centuries. They have not succeeded.

Not a single person has succeeded in transcending sex by fighting it, by repressing it.

Live it! -- and don't live it with guilt, don't live it as if it is something wrong, it is a sin. It is not. It is neither a sin nor a crime, it is an absolutely natural way of reproducing. You are not responsible for it.

You are produced through sex. Your every cell is sexual. Nature has found a way to go on reproducing life in new forms; sex is simply a methodology which nature has chosen.

You cannot fight with nature. Nature is vast and tremendously strong, but you can get beyond it, and the way beyond is through it -- not by fighting, but by understanding, experiencing.... And the more you become experienced, capable of understanding, it is absolutely easy to move your energy into the second stage of evolution: from sex to meditation.

Meditation is very simple if sex has been lived completely without any fear, any repression, any guilt. My own understanding is that by the time... just as at the age of fourteen you become interested in sex, if you live perfectly and totally and sincerely --

religiously -- your sexual life, by the age of forty-two you will be out of it.

Life has seven year cycles. If you take as an average seventy years, it has ten cycles of seven years. The first seven years you are absolutely innocent -- you are just as a saint should be. Your second seven years are a preparation for sex; slowly, slowly, the snake of sex starts uncoiling within you. By the age of fourteen you are mature and you can reproduce children. From fourteen to twenty-one your sexual energy is at its highest peak, exactly between fourteen and twenty-one: that means seventeen and a half is the climax of sexual energy.

But this society has lived with such repressive and unnatural, unscientific ideas that these are the years when you are told to be celibate. And these are the years when you could have lived sex, and celibacy would have come by itself by the time you are forty-two.

Between twenty-one and twenty-eight, sex is very normal, very natural. From twenty-eight to thirty-five, sex starts declining. From thirty-five to forty-two, sex reaches its ultimate decline. From forty-two to forty-nine, sex disappears. That's why in ancient India the wise people decided that by the time one is fifty-one should start preparing for vanprashtha. His face should be now towards the mountains, towards the forest -- that is the meaning of vanprashtha. He is still in the world, but now his whole consciousness has turned and he is getting ready to move into the deep forest to be alone. The days of meditation have come.

By the time a person is fifty his children will be nearabout twenty-five. They must be getting married, they must be getting into a profession. The father can look forward to twenty-five years more... these are the twenty-five years, from fifty to seventy-five, that he can watch -- he can live in the world yet not be of the world. He can watch his children slowly taking over. And after seventy-five all his interest in the world will have disappeared; then meditation will be his only interest.

But this is just a formal categorization. It depends on you and your intensity of living.

You can be beyond sex by the time you are thirty-five. You can be beyond sex without much difficulty when you are forty-two. But it is unfortunate that people die still as foolish as young people.

Psychologists have come to the conclusion that most people die with the idea of sex...

that is their last idea. They may be repeating the name of God, but inside they are thinking, If only it was possible one time more...! They have not lived their life wholeheartedly. That's why something that should have ended at forty-two has continued up to eighty, up to ninety.

Chaitanya, live your first interest and be finished with it. But be finished with it by living it, joyously! There is nothing wrong, there is no sin. Then meditation will become absolutely simple and easy, because your mind will not be burdened with sexual infatuation and desires. That is your only bondage. All other bondages are secondary, all other bondages are branches of your sexuality.

For what do you want money? For what do you want power? Have you watched that all other interests are centered on sex? A man without money will not be able to get the most beautiful woman; a man without power will not be able to get the most beautiful woman.

All your so-called desires are centered on a single fact, a single interest, and that is sex.

Just live it, and live it joyously without any fear of hell or heaven. There is no hell, no heaven.

Once you are out of sex, once it has disappeared like smoke disappearing into the sky and you cannot see it, then meditation is so easy. You don't have to make any effort, you have just to sit silently with your eyes closed, relaxed, and you will find meditation is there.

Sex and meditation...? You will not be able to live sex fully, and that will go on lingering with you. And you will not be able to meditate because sex will continuously interfere.

You know the stories of the old seers, that even at their height, in their old age, after a long, long preparation of austerities, fasting, chanting, studying holy scriptures -- doing everything -- when they come to the point of realization, the stories say that suddenly apsaras from heaven... Apsaras are nothing but heavenly prostitutes, specially provided for the saints. They are sent down to disturb these poor fellows' meditation.

This is strange, why should anybody be bothered about these poor fellows who have been torturing themselves in every possible way -- starving, fighting with their body, repressing their sex? There is nobody who is sending these apsaras, and these apsaras are nowhere. It is just their own repressed sexuality that starts coming up in fantasies, in hallucinations.

And it is so simple... if you want to experiment with what hallucination is, just go to a mountain cave alone, fast three weeks, and don't meet anyone. By the end of the second week you will start talking to yourself -- and not only will you talk, you will answer also!

By the third week you will start seeing people... if you are a man you will see women; if you are a woman you will see men. By the fourth week you will not be able to make a distinction at all whether the woman that you see sitting in front of you in the cave is real or an hallucination...!

Just four weeks' experiment and you will know how apsaras have come. They will come to you too;they have not stopped the process of coming. But it is simply the hallucination of your repressed desire, so deeply repressed that it takes revenge -- with a vengeance.

My suggestion to you is, first sex, because it is more basic to your body, to your life; it is the foundation of life. Meditation is the highest peak, but sex is the roots. First think of the roots.

Meditation is the flowers. They come at the very end, at the very top of the tree; they will come. But don't try both together, otherwise you will remain wishy-washy, always halfhearted... meditating and thinking about sex, making love and thinking about Gautam Buddha! This will simply drive you crazy.

And you are asking, "I want to be your favorite disciple."

I feel scared! Please just remain a disciple! I don't have any favorite disciples, because to have favorite disciples means people who will betray you, people who will become Judases, people who will assassinate you. People who are first trying to be favorite disciples soon would like you to move over, give place to them; now they want to be masters. I don't want any favorite disciples. This is simple politics. Just keep to the space where you are. I am feeling perfectly at ease; when you come too close... I am allergic!

And you are saying, "What to do? Which is the worst question to ask you?" You cannot ask it. What worse question can you ask? You have asked it. But I can answer you, as bad as you like! Just I am looking for a worse...! So just be patient! It is really the worst, so just be quiet.

An English lady was on holiday in the wild west. One day she decided to visit an Indian reservation and became interested in the number of feathers in the men's headdresses. So she asked one brave, and he replied, "Me only have one feather because me only have one squaw."

Thinking this was a joke, she asked another brave. "Me only have four feathers because me only have four squaws," he replied.

Somewhat perturbed, the English lady decided to ask the chief, who had a magnificent headdress full of feathers. "Me Chief," he replied, "so me fuck them all! Big, small, short, tall... me fuck them all!"

The lady was horrified. "You ought to be hung!" she cried.

"You damned right," said the Chief, "me hung like a buffalo!"

The English lady cried, "You don't have to be so hostile!"

"Hoss-style, dog-style, any style... me fuck them all!"

With tears in her eyes, the lady cried, "Oh, dear...."

"No deer," said the Chief, "Deer run too fast and asshole too high!"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #6

Chapter title: Expectation breeds frustration

9 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709090

ShortTitle:

PILGR06

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

109

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I NEED MY GUITAR TO PLAY MY MUSIC.

I HEAR YOUR BLESSED MUSIC, BUT I DON'T SEE YOUR GUITAR.

BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS YOUR INSTRUMENT?

AND A FEW SUTRAS FOR ME TOO.

Milarepa, neither the music is mine nor the guitar. The music belongs to existence, and the guitar belongs to you. You are the guitar, and this whole vast universe is the music.

I am at the most just a passage for the music to reach to the guitar. That's why you don't see my guitar -- because you don't see yourself. Who are you? On whom am I playing my music? You hear my words and you also hear my silences, and naturally you feel a certain music surrounding me. That music is your response, your love, your trust.

In a way I am not here. It has been a long time since I left this small house for the eternity. It is the compassion of eternity that this small house still goes on continuing to function. It is also your love, your prayers, your gratitude that helps my body-mind system to function. I don't have any desire to be fulfilled. All is fulfilled -- and when all is fulfilled a music arises. I don't have any ambition.

Just the other day Hasya was telling me about one beautiful man who is being followed by many people. Lovingly he is called Dada. Bhadra's husband is his follower, and he stays at Bhadra's house. He told Bhadra, "I agree with Osho on every point except one --

that is, he wants to save the world. I have been around the world," he said, "and I am fed up, and I don't see any hope for the world."

He is going to come to Poona. I told Hasya to meet him and tell him one thing, "You must have had a desire to save the world and you are feeling frustrated."

I don't have to save anybody. The world is perfectly saved -- this moment at least. Why not enjoy this moment?

I love talking to my people without any purpose. It is just my joy seeing your faces, seeing your intrinsic capacities. Who cares about the world? -- if it dies next moment, we will still be playing guitars, singing, dancing, celebrating a last farewell to the world.

Who has given the idea to this man Dada that I am a savior? It is enough to save yourself.

I am not a savior and I am not at all interested what happens to the world ultimately. I enjoy the idea, the dream that some miracle will happen and this world will be saved, but it is not my goal; I am not an optimist. Only optimists turn into pessimists. Dada must have been thinking himself to be a savior, and seeing the whole world he is feeling frustrated. I have never felt frustrated by anything, because I have never expected in the very beginning. If you don't expect you avoid frustration.

I am a man of total acceptance.

If this world exists, good; if it does not exist, better. But why should I be puzzled about it? It is my joy, and this joy is not the kind which makes people serious.

I have looked into Dada's books before; his famous book is BEYOND THE MIND.

Strange that a man who knows beyond mind should be frustrated.... Who can be frustrated? No-mind has never been heard to be frustrated. And he thinks he has given up the idea, and this is his disagreement with me. He has given up the idea; I never had the idea. And whatever he is saying is just a repetition of J. Krishnamurti.

J. Krishnamurti has left many orphans in the world, illegitimate children, because he never accepted them as his disciples. But deep down they enjoyed the idea that without being a disciple they are gathering so much wisdom. Soon all of them have become masters. I have come across many masters who have never been disciples. It is simply ego.

With J. Krishnamurti's idea that "nobody is my disciple," you feel relaxed: this is great you don't have to love this man, you don't know the beauties of grace that exist between the master and the disciple. You enjoy only one thing: the ego that you are nobody's disciple. And then these who are nobody's disciples start collecting disciples -- and of all that they are saying, not a single thing is original; it is all borrowed.

I have told Hasya and Kaveesha that when Dada comes here, "Encounter him and put him right. He is misguiding many people."

I am a man who lives moment to moment, and I want those who love me to learn the art of living moment to moment. What happens tomorrow we will see tomorrow. At least one thing is certain: whatever happens, our blissfulness, our ecstasy, our dance, our song will continue -- if not on this planet, then on another planet.

There are millions of solar systems, and each solar system has hundreds of planets, each planet has many moons. Our earth is very poor, with just one moon. Our sun is mediocre; it is six thousand times bigger than the earth, but compared to other suns, which are millions of times bigger than this sun, it stands nowhere in the queue.

What is the problem? We have not asked this planet to be born; it was existence's decision to be here. Why should one worry if existence wants us to take our song and our music and our consciousness to another planet? We will be there... one thing is certain: this commune is going to exist. The whole existence is there....

Ronald Reagan cannot manage to destroy the universe. This poor earth will be destroyed... that too is possible if existence deep down wills to destroy it. Or perhaps the earth itself has become old, tired, fed up with all kinds of nonsense that man has been doing, and it wants to go into eternal sleep. It is a living being.

But these are not our problems. Our only problem is how to be in this moment, so totally, so intensely that we don't need another moment. This will be enough to give us fulfillment, contentment, ecstasy, which I don't think this man Dada has ever glimpsed.

Pessimists cannot get it; optimists only hope for it. We are realists, existentialists: we have it right now.

It is not a question of getting fed up, it is not a question of hoping for the future. We take the present moment and squeeze the whole juice of it -- that's our religion. Wherever we will be, one thing is certain: we will recognize each other just by the style of squeezing the juice from the present moment.

Faces may be different, planets may be different, that does not mean anything. We have a key to recognize our people: in their eyes, in their faces, they are always existential.

Milarepa, you are my instrument. Your guitar is my guitar. Your fingers playing on the instruments are my fingers. Can't you allow that?

Ramakrishna was dying. He had a cancer of the throat; he could not eat, could not drink.

His disciples continuously were harassing him saying "Why don't you close your eyes and tell the mother goddess?" -- he was the priest of a temple of mother goddess Kali --

"Just saying, `Remove this cancer' will be enough."

Ramakrishna said, "Don't be angry with me. I have tried it, but the moment I close my eyes and I see the mother goddess, I forget about the cancer."

All the disciples gathered with Ramakrishna's wife, Sharda, and told her, "Now only you can help."

Sharda went to Ramakrishna and said, "This time you are not going to forget the cancer.

Why are you making so many people miserable?"

And Ramakrishna respected his wife so much; she was almost a mother to him rather than a wife. He touched her feet the very moment he had been shown her as a candidate for marriage. Everybody thought, "This boy is mad. Who touches the feet of the wife? --

and she is not your wife yet."

And the first thing he called to her was, "Mother, don't forget me; I had chosen you."

Everybody in the village tortured him, "You idiot, the wife is not called mother. And touching her feet..." He had three rupees. He offered those three rupees to the feet of Sharda. The family of Sharda also became puzzled: "The man seems to be crazy."

But Sharda insisted that if she will marry anyone, that is the man: "The innocence, the purity... he is no ordinary human being. He has something of the beyond already" -- and he was only thirteen years old.

Since Sharda married Ramakrishna he always called her mother. It doesn't look good not to follow the advice of the mother. He said, "I will try one time more, and because you are telling me, I will put my whole energy to remember what I have to say to the mother goddess."

He closed his eyes... and then opened them laughing. He said, "Sharda, call all the disciples in who have made you their mouthpiece, because I remembered and I told her.

And she said, `Ramakrishna, you have been using this throat for so many years. Now you have so many throats, your disciples, your lovers -- why can't you eat through their throats, why can't you drink through their throats? Why cling to this body? Why not spread into everybody's body who loves you, who will welcome you in the silences of his heart?'"

There was great silence, there was nothing to say.

Milarepa, you hear my music; that music comes from the beyond. I cannot claim any monopoly, any copyright on it. And you want to see my guitar -- just look at your guitar, just look at your hands. In deep love a synchronicity happens. You start doing things which my deepest being wanted to do, but I don't know music; I cannot even recognize which is a guitar and which is a harmonium and which is a saxophone.

I have never been a singer, not even a bathroom singer. I have lived in many houses in this country with many friends, and many times people have asked, "At least we were thinking you will be singing in the bathroom, but you don't sing?"

I don't know singing... I am a song. I don't know singing -- you will have to sing in me.

You will have to allow yourself to be totally available to me.

You can dance and it will be my dance.

You can sing and it will be my song.

You can play on instruments, but your fingers will be in synchronicity with me, and I am in synchronicity with the whole. So it is just formal to say that you are my songs, that you are my music. I am just a small passage; the beyond comes through me to your eyes. And because it is of the beyond it has a tremendous capacity to transform you.

I have not said a single word to you on my own; hence I can claim originality in the literal sense of the word. Ordinarily originality means nobody else has said it, only I am saying it; that is using the word wrongly. Originality should mean it is coming from the origins... origins of life, origins of love, origins of existence.

And you are asking, "And a few sutras for me too."

Milarepa, that is not your business. Devageet has gone mad contemplating on transdental medication. You are already crazy, you can go far -- Devageet you can leave far behind --

so I am a little worried about you. But whatever has to be, has to be. These are a few sutras for you:

If your neighbor does you harm, just buy each of his children a drum.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and the success is sure.

Sex is what happens between a man and a woman before they get to know each other.

Reality is what your mother thinks you ought to live in.

You know you are getting old when the girls at the office start confiding in you.

A woman can keep one secret -- the secret of her age.

... Except for that, she cannot keep any secret!

God invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.

A man never knows what a fool he is until he hears himself imitated by one.

... It is natural. How can you see your face without a mirror?...

Be nice to people on your way up because you will meet them on your way down.

A mistake is evidence that someone tried to do something.

... You can see the mistake all over the world. This is the only proof that God tried to do something. Perhaps he was the creator. Creation may not need some creator, but mistakes need someone to do them. This whole world is a mistake, and I think this is the only proof that God may have been trying to do something....

If a person does not learn from the mistakes of others, he won't live long enough to make all of them himself.

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

Everyone is as God made him, and often a good deal worse.

Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

It is difficult to climb a ladder with your hands in your pockets, but it is possible if your hands are in someone else's pockets...

Then you can climb any ladder. The people you see at the top, those big chunks, their hands are always in somebody else's pocket.

So whenever you meet the so-called leaders, popes, shankaracharyas, take care about your pockets. They are not interested in you, they are interested only in your pockets....

Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children.

The hardest task of a woman's life is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious.

How do you know your therapy group is right for you?

One: It is too expensive.

Two: All your friends have done it.

Three: It focuses on problems you never knew you had.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

EVERY TIME I COME TO YOU, I FEEL LIKE ONE OF THOSE ANCIENT

WARRIORS WHO CAME TO PAY HIS RESPECTS TO THE EMPEROR. HE

WOULD ENTER INTO HIS PRESENCE, TAKE OFF HIS HELMET AND PUT IT AT

THE FEET OF THE EMPEROR.

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT I AM PUTTING MY HEAD AT YOUR FEET.

MORE SO WHEN I ASK YOU A QUESTION, AND EVEN TREMBLING INSIDE, I PUT MY HEAD AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE, FOR YOU TO CUT IT WITH YOUR

SWORD.

BUT EVERY TIME, TO MY INFINITE SURPRISE, YOU SHOWER THE NECTAR

OF YOUR GRACE ON MY POOR HEAD, THE FRAGRANCE OF YOUR

COMPASSION, AND AN OCEAN OF LOVE IN WHICH I FIND MYSELF

DROWNING DEEPER AND DEEPER EACH TIME.

BELOVED MASTER, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR SWORD?

HOW MANY TIMES WILL I HAVE TO PROVOKE YOU TO CUT MY HEAD?

Sarjano, it surprises me to know that you have a head. Some idiot guy must have given you the idea.

I have not lost my sword -- you have forgotten your head somewhere... maybe drowned in spaghetti!... or do you prefer pizza?

But as far as I know you don't have any head. I have tried to cut it, but what to cut?

Certainly you are brave enough to go on trying again and again and again. This does not suit the Italian; this is the American stupidity! Try again and again and again... For what?

-- for the sake of trying. Everybody in America is so busy trying, and nobody knows for what. Trying itself has become the goal; speed itself has become the destination.

But Italians are far more loving beings, far more centered in the heart. Perhaps that's why you go on living without a head -- the heart is enough. And no master in the whole of history has cut anybody's heart with the sword. But I am not a reliable man, so you be alert!

A story for you...

The English pirate ship was alone on the high seas. Suddenly the lookout came running.

"Captain! Captain!" he cried, "there are five Spanish galleons on the horizon!"

"Quick!" said the captain. "Bring me my red coat."

So he did, and the captain put it on, and the pirate ship defeated the Spanish galleons.

The next day the lookout came running again. "Captain! Captain! There are TEN Spanish galleons on the horizon!"

"Okay," said the captain. "Bring me my red coat."

He put it on and they defeated the ten galleons.

"Captain," asked the lookout. "Would you tell me why you always ask for your red coat before we go into battle?"

"Oh, that's because if I'm wounded, the blood will not show; then the men will not be frightened and we will fight to victory!" the captain replied.

The next day the lookout came running. "Captain! Captain!" he cried, "there are a hundred Spanish galleons on the horizon!"

At these words the captain's face turned white, and he called to his lookout, "Quick, bring me my brown pants!"

Just be alert!

I love you, so I'm going to kill you -- that's certain. Love is a sure killer. But I kill gradually, because in my experience if you kill suddenly, people start escaping.

Gradually, they don't know what is happening, they come to know only when they are gone.

And this place is for only those who are ready to be gone. You become your ultimate flowering only when you are not. It is a strange fundamental law of existence, and there is no way to change it.

The more you are, the less you are.

The less you are, the more you are.

If you are all, then you don't exist. If you are a nothingness, you have tasted existence for the first time.

So, Sarjano, while I go on taking small pieces from your ego, from your so-called personality, you keep yourself engaged in spaghetti and pizza. It is a perfect art!

The authentic master kills the disciple, so that he also can become a pure nothingness, and can become one with the universe. The ancient sages of this country have said that the master is a death. Unless you find a master who can be a death to you, don't waste time. Go on searching, somewhere you will find a master who is going to erase you completely. He will give you your real and authentic being.

Your question is right: I have not lost my sword. It is just because you don't have your head, so you can't see it. But you can feel, and that is far better -- to function through the heart.

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

KAHLIL GIBRAN HAS SAID, "I WILL TELL YOU A THING YOU MAY NOT

KNOW: THE MOST HIGHLY SEXED BEINGS UPON THE PLANET ARE THE

CREATORS, THE POETS, SCULPTORS, PAINTERS, MUSICIANS -- AND SO IT

HAS BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING. AND AMONGST THEM, SEX IS A

BEAUTIFUL AND EXALTED GIFT."

PLEASE TALK ON SEX AS PART OF THE CREATIVE LIFE OF THE ARTIST.

Dhyan David, Kahlil Gibran is a man of tremendous insight. What he says is always significant and worth contemplating over. He has forgotten just one thing, which is natural, because he had no experience of that faraway horizon. He talks about the creators

-- the poets, the sculptors, the painters, the musicians -- but he forgets completely about the awakened ones. It is not right to forget; in fact he had no idea -- and they are the highest creators. Poets and sculptors and musicians and dancers are very low categories in comparison to a Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu.

What he is saying is absolutely right: sex is the only energy you have. But you can use it in a destructive way -- and that too he has forgotten. An Adolf Hitler or a Joseph Stalin or a Benito Mussolini or Ronald Reagan, these people are all abnormally highly sexual. In a few people the sex energy is so much that they cannot be satisfied by only creating children.

This is simply a known fact, that children are created through sex. So sex is certainly a creative force, which can even create life. But there are highly sexed people, and just to produce children is not enough to exhaust their sexuality. They create music; music becomes their outlet. They create art, they create paintings, poetries... and they are thought of always by the society as outsiders, they are not accepted as normal human beings. Something is crazy about them; they are eccentric.

So he has forgotten two things. One is that the destructive people are also highly sexed people, but they use their energy in destruction. It is not automatically decisive that a highly sexed person will be always a creator; most probably he will be a destroyer.

But he is right that sex creates children, creates painting, creates music, creates sculpture.

The world is divided into three kinds of people: the normal sexual people who only create children, the abnormally sexual people who either become destructive, create wars, destroy as much as they can -- and the third category, the creators.

Kahlil Gibran's insight is right, but incomplete. He himself is a poet and a painter, but he knows nothing about awakened consciousness. That is the highest point of creation: creating yourself as an immortal. Because it is an inner creation, people don't count Gautam Buddha as a creator, or Mahavira or Naropa or Tilopa; they don't consider these people as creators, because they can't see what they have created. They have created themselves, and that is the greatest creation in the world. Just look at Gautam Buddha, his silence, his peace, his understanding, his clarity, his blissfulness, his ecstasy...

unwavering.

No enlightened person has ever committed suicide, but the great creators Kahlil Gibran is talking about are well known for two things: either they go mad or they commit suicide.

They go mad when their energy cannot find an outlet. They are mad in their paintings, in their poetry -- but nothing satisfies, everything falls below their standard. That drives them mad. Almost every great artist in the West has at least once visited the madhouse for a few years. Or when they feel they are exhausted and now there is no more energy left to create, their whole meaning of life disappears. Creation was their meaning. In creating things they had become small gods, and now they are nobody, exhausted, used cartridges. These are the people who commit suicide.

Van Gogh I can give you as an example -- one of the greatest painters the world has ever known passed through all the stages, so he is a perfect example. He was so mad in creating. He was a poor coal miner's son, uneducated, but from the very beginning he started painting laborers, old people, children. And whoever looked at them was amazed: his painting was almost photographic.

His parents wanted him to be a priest. Fortunately, he did not listen to them. He went to the school to become a priest, but all that he did there was drawings of the professors, the missionaries. He never learned anything else. Finally, he was brought back home. The parents were tired; they told him, "Now you are free. Whatever you want to do... but we are not going to take any financial responsibility." He was even happy in this situation.

He left for Paris.

He was Dutch. His younger brother was employed, and out of compassion every week he used to send him the exact money so that he could purchase bread and butter for seven days. He was afraid to send him enough for the whole month, because that would go into purchasing paints and canvases. But he was not aware what he had done to his brother.

Out of seven days he used to eat three days -- one day here, one day there -- and four days he saved money to purchase canvases, colors, brushes, whatever is needed for painting.

No man has been so mad that he was dying of hunger and starvation, but that was the only way to paint. And the great difficulty was -- otherwise things would have been easier and more comfortable -- he did not manage to sell a single painting, because his paintings were the paintings of a genius, and a genius always comes before his time. This existence has strange laws.

Now his paintings... only two hundred have been saved. He used to give paintings to his friends just for a cup of tea, just for a packet of cigarettes.

Now his paintings are the costliest paintings in the world. The last painting was sold for thirty-five million dollars -- that is the record. Never before was any painting sold at thirty million dollars; the last record was only nine million dollars. I don't think any painting is ever is going to outdo him.

Why could people not purchase his paintings? He was ready to give at any price, just the cost price. He worked for days and he was not asking even for labor. They could not understand those paintings; those paintings needed a genius to understand them. He has painted stars, not the way you see them, but as spirals. Now who is going to believe that these are stars? -- everybody knows what stars are! Only just this year it has been found that stars are not the way you see them, but the way Vincent van Gogh saw them.

Strange, without any scientific instruments without a big lab... tremendous clarity.

It took one hundred years for science to find out that his stars are the only right stars, and all other stars painted are just rubbish. The same has happened about his other paintings.

If he could have sold his paintings, he could have made more paintings, but he became tired, starved. His only desire was to paint all the phases of the sun, from the sunrise to the sunset, a whole series of paintings.

The day that series was complete he had exhausted all his energy. He simply wrote a letter to his brother, "I am not committing suicide. I have burned myself out. But I am dying happily because what I wanted to accomplish is accomplished -- I am one of the most contented men. The last painting is complete today." And he shot himself dead. He was only thirty-three years of age.

It is true that you have no other energy than sexual energy. All creation is out of sexual energy. In other words, every creation is a by-product of your sexual energy; even if you become the richest man in the world, that is sexual energy. But Kahlil Gibran has forgotten two things: one, that sexual energy can be destructive; second, that sexual energy never brings you to self-realization, which is the ultimate creation.

It seems he was not actually aware. Although he has written books on Jesus, and he spoke in the language of tremendous beauty and poetry, he was looking at Jesus as a poet. He was not aware of Ta Hui or Bodhidharma or Gautam Buddha, and he was not aware what the problem is. In the East, no enlightened person goes mad, no enlightened person commits suicide. Going mad is the function of the mind. Committing suicide is also the function of the mind.

And because the enlightened person is beyond mind, there is no question of madness, and there is no question of suicide. He lives, and he lives totally. He lives, and he lives at the very peak of intelligence and understanding and awareness.

But I want to add this much to Kahlil Gibran's statement: that these people are also immensely sexual, perhaps more sexual than the poets, than the singers, than the musicians. They have so much energy that they are capable of self-realization, that they are capable of giving a rebirth to themselves.

But basically I agree with the incomplete statement of Kahlil Gibran. I would have loved it if he had made it complete, but he himself was not complete. It is a great exercise of understanding if you look at Kahlil Gibran's statements, and then you look at Kahlil Gibran's life. You will be amazed; his life was very ordinary, perhaps below ordinary, and the poetry is reaching to the stars.

Because they are not artists of life -- they are artists creating objects who have forgotten themselves -- their situation is exactly like the scientist's. A man like Albert Einstein has immense energy, and that energy is sexual, because there is no other energy. The word

`sex' has become so condemned that it is better to say it is life energy, just to protect the energy from the centuries of condemnation.

Albert Einstein worked on objects, faraway stars, the speed of light... and he managed to figure it all out. But he never bothered about his own life; he remained focused on the outside.

If a poet turns inwards he becomes a mystic.

If a scientist turns inwards he becomes a mystic.

The energy is the same, but the direction changes.

Kahlil Gibran lived a very miserable life, sometimes ugly. He was a man of great anger, quarrelsome, but he has created great poetry. If you just look at his words, they are pure twenty-four-carat gold. But avoid the man, don't look at him; otherwise your respect for his words will be lost.

The poets, the scientists, the musicians and other creators have a double personality, a split personality, some kind of schizophrenia. One part of them goes on creating, and one part lags far behind.

The mystic is the only person in existence who is not schizophrenic, who is unique and one, organically one, undivided. His life and his words have the same flavor. But I think Kahlil Gibran in the first place was not capable of knowing the interiority of a mystic; and in the second place, perhaps he was afraid to say that a Buddha is created by great abundance of sexual energy. Nobody bothered him, nobody condemned him when he called poets and sculptors and musicians and other creators oversexed. But if he had called Jesus, Gautam Buddha, Mohammed, Moses oversexed, he would have been condemned all over the world.

But I want to say that all great people in the world, destructive or creative, are people of so much energy, life energy, life force, that they cannot contain it within themselves; they have to do something. I would like that they all turn inwards, so their life is not a split and an agony, and so it becomes an ecstasy.

Joe was sitting at the bar, slowly sipping his drink, when his friend, Mickey, came running in.

"Joe," he shouted, "get over to your house real quick. I just stopped off to see you and I heard a man's voice in your bedroom. So I looked through your window and I saw your wife in bed with another man."

"Is that so?" said Joe, matter-of-factly. "What does this guy looks like?"

"Oh, he's tall and completely bald," said Mickey.

"And did he have a thick red mustache?" asked Joe.

"Right, right!" yelled Mickey.

"Did he have a front gold tooth?" asked Joe.

"Damn it, you are right!" replied Mickey.

"Must be that idiot Dick Roberts," said Joe. "He will screw anything."

There are people of that category also -- no life energy, at the most lukewarm. They never create anything. Even to create children is such a task.

And by the way, I should also mention to you -- to make Kahlil Gibran's insight more clear -- that no impotent man has been a poet or a sculptor or a scientist; the question of being a mystic does not arise. Perhaps impotency is the worst situation a man can find himself in. But strangely enough all the religions are teaching people to be impotent; they call it celibacy.

Because of this idea of celibacy, religions have been absolutely uncreative. The energy was there in people... they could not create, because to create you need an esthetic sense, you need a loving heart, a feeling individuality. To become celibate they have destroyed all these qualities. So the only possibility for their expression of sexual energy is either perverted sex, homosexuality, lesbianism, or destruction in the name of God, in the name of truth, in the name of Christianity, in the name of Islam.... They have been continuously destroying each other.

Perhaps nobody has looked at the psychology of why it happens. It has nothing to do with their metaphysics; it has something to do with their inner life force. They cannot contain it... then a crusade, jihad, a religious war -- Jews fighting with Mohammedans, Mohammedans killing Jews, Christians killing Mohammedans, Christians killing Jews.

Hindus have completely destroyed Buddhism in India. Buddha was the greatest man on the earth in the past history... and he has left such a great impact on every intelligent being in this country.But when he died, within five hundred years the old priesthood of the Hindus, the brahmins destroyed everything that they could.

You will not believe that Mohammedans not only killed human beings, they also destroyed great pieces of art, because they were worshiped as religious -- beautiful statues of Buddha, great temples.

In every ancient well in India there are beautiful statues, because out of fear that their statues would be destroyed, people have thrown them into the wells. So whenever an ancient well is cleaned or looked into, they are surprised..."What is the matter?" In every well are beautiful statues of Mahavira, of Bahubali, of Gautam Buddha.

There was no need to destroy the whole statue because a superstition exists all over India that if a statue is a little bit damaged -- one ear is missing -- it is no more worshipable; it has to be removed. There are millions of statues so beautiful... somebody's ear is missing, somebody's nose is missing, somebody's hand has been cut -- that was enough, and they have been thrown out.

I happened to be in a city near Katni in a small place in Madhya Pradesh. There are thousands of statues -- the village consists only of statues, so beautiful that thousands of people must have worked for thousands of years -- but nobody lives there. I enquired, tried to find out in old gazettes of the government, and I found only one reference in an old scripture. That village was the village of sculptors. Being afraid that their statues will be destroyed, they covered their statues with mud and escaped, burned their houses so nobody will think that there is a village.

Now it has become a thick forest, wild trees have grown, but it must have been a very great place when it was alive. Those statues show that the village must have contained thousands and thousands of great artists. Now it is a ghost village. Only statues... they have been discovered during the British regime; their mud has been taken away. It was one of the great discoveries.

In Khajuraho, one of the most famous cities of temples, there were one hundred temples.

It is simply mind-boggling to see a single temple; it takes almost one day, there are so many statues. You cannot find a single inch which is not carved... and huge temples.

They were also buried under mud, small mud hills. Only thirty could be saved; the Mohammedans destroyed seventy.

They have been discovered again, and there is no sculpture anywhere in the world -- I have looked into all kinds of sculpture that existed and exists in the world, but the beauty that Khajuraho sculpture has is just superhuman -- so perfect that one cannot believe things can be made so perfect, so beautiful.

Religions have only destroyed, because they prevented the creative dimension. In the name of celibacy only two things have happened: destruction and AIDS. These are the two great contributions of all your religions. And if man is intelligent enough, there is no need to say that these religions should disappear. They have done enough harm. We don't need them at all; we can be religious without religions.

I have made you serious again! Once in a while I forget. So for no reason at all, just for a good laugh, because I hate to leave Buddha Hall unless I see you all are rejoicing and laughing...

A Polish worker went to a local bank to deposit his wages of one week. Worried about the dire conditions of the Polish economy, he enquired what would happen if the bank collapsed.

"All our deposits are guaranteed by the ministry of finance," the teller replied.

"But what if the ministry of finance could not honor the guarantee?" the worker persisted.

"In that case the Polish government itself would intercede," the teller said with growing irritation.

"But what if the government would go bankrupt?" the worker asked with undiminished concern.

"In that case our socialist comrades in the Soviet Union would naturally come to our assistance," the teller retorted.

"But what if the Soviet Union collapsed?" the Polish worker persisted.

"Idiot," snapped the teller, "is not that worth losing one week's wages?"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #7

Chapter title: First have your cup of tea

9 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

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8709095

ShortTitle:

PILGR07

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Video:

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Length:

101

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

LAST NIGHT AS YOU WERE GIVING SUTRAS FOR DEVAGEET TO

CONTEMPLATE, YOU WENT DIRECTLY FROM THE THIRD TO THE FIFTH, WITHOUT SPEAKING ABOUT THE FOURTH. IS THERE SOME SIGNIFICANCE

IN THIS?

Sarito, I don't know much arithmetic... that's why I continuously go on counting on my fingers! But that is the original way. That's why there are ten digits in every language --

man started to count on his fingers. Because there are ten fingers, that's why ten is the basic number in all languages.

I am an original man.

But aside from that, there was really something significant. The fourth I have saved for you. So now I will have to begin from the fourth.

The fourth is: There are four stages of getting old.

First, when you forget names.

Second, when you forget places.

Third, when you forget to zip up.

And fourth, when you forget to zip down.

The fifth sutra for you: A ninety-three-year-old man married a ninety-one-year-old lady and they spent the first three days of their honeymoon just trying to get out of the car.

Sixth: Middle age is when you have stopped growing at both ends -- and have begun to grow in the middle.

Seventh: An optimist is a man who goes to the window every morning and says, "Good morning, God!"

The pessimist goes to the window every morning and says, "Good god -- morning!"

Eighth: There are two ways to be rich. One is to have all you want, the other is to be satisfied with all you have.

Now I have forgotten the number... I assume it is ninth: Freedom is a great thing. It means a man is free to do just what his wife pleases.

Tenth: A man does not stop playing because he grows old, he grows old because he stops playing.

Eleventh: Tolerance is sometimes the uncomfortable feeling that the other person may be right after all.

Twelfth: To have average intelligence is to be less stupid than half of the people and more stupid than the other half.

... My god, I have forgotten the number! I hope it is thirteenth: If all else fails, give up.

Fourteenth: It is always best not to tell people your troubles. Half of them are not interested, and the other half are glad you are getting what is coming to you.

Fifteenth: When Henry Ford was asked for the recipe for a long and happy marriage, he replied: "Always stick to the same model."

Sixteenth: A man who can smile when things go wrong has probably just thought of someone to blame it on.

Seventeenth: Inscription on the tombstone of a notorious hypochondriac: "See!"

Eighteenth: A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are.

Nineteenth: The definition of alimony: "The screwing you get for the screwing you got."

Twentieth: The ten best years of a woman's life are between thirty-five and thirty-six.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT IS THIS GENERATION GAP? I HEAR SO MUCH ABOUT IT THESE DAYS.

Jayesh, two old men of eighty were sitting in their club when one said, "Do you think there is as much love, as much fun going on as there used to be?"

"Yes, certainly," said the other, "but there is a whole new bunch doing it."

That's what the generation gap is.

A large crowd had been waiting quietly at the foot of a mountain. Moses had been gone for hours. Suddenly his white robe was seen fluttering in the breeze, and now the lawgiver stood before his flock: "People of Israel! I have been with the Lord for seven hours and I now have some good news, and some bad news...."

"Speak, O Moses!" shouted the crowd.

"The good news," says Moses, "is that I have managed to bring the number of commandments down to ten!"

The people cheered. Then they cried, "Moses, what is the bad news?"

Moses sadly replied, "Adultery is still in."

For the new generation it is no longer in. That's the generation gap, Jayesh. Now the whole meaning of adultery has changed: it simply means to be adult.

There has never been any generation gap in the past. Hence, one has to look deeply into it because this is the first time in the whole history of man that even the expression

"generation gap" has been used. And the gap is growing bigger and bigger every day.

Things seem to be unbridgeable.

There is certainly a great psychology behind it. In the past there used to be no young age.

You will be surprised to know about it: children used to become adult without being young. A six-year-old, seven-year-old child would start working with his father; if the father was a carpenter he would learn carpentry, or at least help his father. If the father was a farmer he would go to the farm with the father, would help him with the animals, cows, horses. By the age of six or seven he had already entered into life. By the age of twenty he would be married and have a few children.

In the past there was no "younger generation" hence there was no gap. One generation followed another generation in a continuity, with no gap between them. By the time the father died his son would have already replaced him in every field of his life. There was no time to play and there was no time to get educated; there were no schools, no colleges, no universities.

The new generation is a by-product of many things. In the past the only way of learning was to participate with the older generation, work with them -- that was the only way to learn. And of course the older generation was always respected, because they were the teachers. They knew, and you were ignorant; the ignorant necessarily respected the knowledgeable. Hence in the past it was almost inconceivable that the younger people would disrespect the old people, or could even think in their dreams that they knew more than the older people. Knowledge was very decisive.

The people who knew had the power, and the people who did not, had no power. It was in those old days that the proverb must have been coined: "knowledge is power." That was the only criterion in life, so you never heard of any revolt of the young against the old.

This generation has come to a new, totally new stage. The child never goes following in his father's footsteps. He goes to the school; his father goes to his shop or to the office or to the farm. By the time he comes back from his university he is twenty-five years old.

For these twenty-five years he has no connection with the older generation. His only connection is financial; they help him financially. In these twenty-five years many things happen: one, he knows more than his parents because his parents had been to school at least twenty, twenty-five years before. In these twenty-five years, knowledge has taken such quantum leaps -- it has grown so much....

I was very much puzzled when I was in the university: my professor of psychology was quoting names and books which had been out of date for almost three decades. And because I was so interested to know everything -- before I entered into myself, I had to know everything that was happening around -- I was continuously in the library.

And it is impossible to respect a professor who knows less than you know, who is outmoded. He should be ashamed to remain in the seat of the professor. That's what I told my professor of psychology: "It is simply undignified for you to remain in that seat, because you don't know what is happening in the field of psychology today. You know what was happening thirty years before. Since the day you left your university you have not touched a single book."

He was very angry. He said, "Who says that?"

I said, "Come with me, I have checked in the university register." For twenty years he had been a professor in that university and he had not taken a single book from the library. I had looked into twenty years' registers, just to check whether this man had ever had issued in his name even a single book.

He could not believe... when I took him to the library he said, "Where are you taking me?"

I said, "This is the library."

He said, "But what is the point of it? What are we going to do in the library? How are you going to prove that I have not been reading?"

I said, "You just come in." And I had those twenty years' registers there, and I told him,

"These are the registers for all twenty years and your name is not mentioned even a single time. And now I am coming with you to your home."

He said, "For what?"

I said, "Just to see what you go on doing, how many books on modern psychology are in your home. I am giving you a chance: perhaps you have your own collection and you don't come to the library."

He said, "No, there is no need!"

I said, "You don't be worried. I have been there this morning already -- I don't take chances. I asked your wife and she said, `That idiot, all he reads is the newspaper.'"

Education has created one of the most important elements of the generation gap. Teachers complain that students don't respect them -- why should they?

When addressing a meeting of professors, I said to them, "Every professor is complaining about only one thing: `Something has to be done; students don't pay respect to us.' And I am here to say something exactly the opposite: Something certainly has to be done, because no professor seems to be respectable. It is not a question of students not paying respect to you; it is a question of your own. You are no longer respectable. Why were you respectable in the past? -- do you understand? You knew more. Today, students know more than you. Unless you remain ahead of your students you cannot be respected."

Respect needs some rationale. Parents are continually complaining that their children don't respect them, because children are no longer the old kind of children who were following in their footsteps. A new dimension of education has opened in this century which is not in the direction of the old. The old direction was simple: follow the elders, because they know and you don't know. There was only one way of knowing and that was by experience. Naturally, the older person had more experience.

Now, through education, experience is not at all a necessity. By learning, studying, you can know as much as you want. Just sitting in the library you can know the whole world in all its dimensions, whatsoever is happening. You need not even move out of the library.

It reminds me of Karl Marx -- the founder of communism, the last religion in the world.

He spent his whole life, without a single holiday, in the British Museum, just reading and reading and reading. He used to reach the British Museum before it opened; he would be waiting on the steps. And there were many occasions when he was pushed out forcibly because the museum had to be closed. There were a few occasions when he was taken away in an ambulance... because he had been reading all day since the morning -- without eating, without drinking, and he had fainted on the table.

Now if this man knew more than anybody else of his generation, however old he was...

he could not respect old age. Old age has lost respect because a new territory, a new space of learning and knowledge has opened up.

You are going to see a still bigger gap -- one of which humanity is still not aware -- and I am talking about it for the first time. One gap has been created by education. If meditation becomes a worldwide movement, another gap will be created which will be immense. Then the old man and the young man will be as far apart as the two poles of the earth. Even communication between them has already become difficult; it will become impossible.

The people who are here with me can understand what I am saying. If you start moving into the world of no-mind, then the people who are old, who have gathered much knowledge in the mind, will look to you retarded, undeveloped, very ordinary. There is no reason why you should respect them; they have to respect you -- you have transcended mind.

And the world is becoming more and more interested in meditation. It will not be long before the day when meditation will become your education for the ultimate. Your ordinary education is about the outside. Meditation will be the education about your interiority, about your inner being.

Of course it will take a little time, because there will be many frauds; there will be many pretenders, false prophets, technicians. You have to understand the difference between a meditator and a man who knows the technique of meditation; he is not himself a meditator -- he is a technician.

For example, I have not seen Dulari here; she is one of my old fellow-travelers. So I enquired today what has happened to Dulari, and I have heard that she has been in one man's meditation camp. That man is utterly, utterly stupid. But he knows the technique, about that there is no doubt. He has been in Burma... and in Burma... he was only a businessman, but he learned the Burmese technique of Vipassana.

Vipassana has many forms: the Burmese, the Ceylonese, the Tibetan, the Chinese, the Korean, the Japanese. The Japanese is the best. But all those techniques have come from Gautam Buddha; perhaps he never thought that it would be possible to learn the technique and not to do the meditation. The technique is simply how to do it.

This man, Goenka... I have never thought it worthwhile to say anything about him. Many of you must have been in his Vipassana camps.... Just a few days before I left America I received a newsletter in which he had made a statement about me. That amazed me -- that was the beginning. I started looking into this man's capacity, potentiality, realization. He made a statement that he had seen me and talked with me for hours in Madras. Now, I have been to Madras in India only once. That was twenty-five years ago, and I am absolutely certain that I have met nobody and talked with nobody for hours about Vipassana. Even the word Vipassana was not mentioned while I was in Madras for three days.

Seeing this statement gave me the idea that this man cannot be a meditator. If he can lie so easily.... Now Dulari has been in his camp, and after the camp she has been meditating, using the technique given by him, for ten hours a day.

I want Dulari to be alert. And particularly her husband should report to the police, because meditation -- particularly Vipassana meditation -- should not be done more than two hours. And those two hours have to be early in the morning; the best time is before sunrise. If somebody goes on meditating for ten hours, the ultimate consequence is going to be insanity. And there will be by-products also; for example, a man meditating for ten hours will lose his sleep completely.

I had a case sent to me from Ceylon, which is a Buddhist country, with so many Buddhist priests preaching Vipassana meditation.... The technique is so simple, but they have never done it themselves. To teach anything to anybody which you have not done -- and experienced all its possibilities, consequences, difficulties, problems that it can lead you into -- then you are a criminal.

This man who was sent to me was a Buddhist monk. He had lost his sleep for three years, and every treatment was done but no treatment was successful; no medicine would work.

He had been told by his teacher -- I cannot call him a master -- to do Vipassana in the night. Even if you do Vipassana in the day, its effects will carry into the night; that's why I am suggesting the most distant point, before sunrise. Just two hours are enough; more than that... even nectar can become poison in a certain quantity.

Vipassana for ten hours a day can drive anybody mad. That's why I want to make it clear, because if Dulari goes mad I will be condemned because she has been associated with me for twenty years. She should stop doing that technique. At the most, for two hours before sunrise she can do it; that will be healthy and that will bring her deep insight and understanding. But ten hours is too much. Her consciousness will not be able to contain that much. Instead of having a breakthrough, the greater possibility is of having a breakdown. It can become a strain -- it will become a strain.

That's why I am saying, if she continues then her husband should inform the police. And if she goes mad then he should sue this utterly, utterly stupid Goenka for driving his wife mad.

There are many idiots all around. And because humanity has come to a crisis point where it needs a new dimension for consciousness, naturally many people will come with false ideas. Or maybe the ideas are right but the person who is bringing them is not right; then too the idea is going to harm humanity.

Meditation is not something mechanical; hence there can be no technicians of meditation.

Goenka is a technician: he knows exactly what is being done in the Burmese style of Vipassana, but he is not a man of meditation -- he is not a man of enlightenment.

And now he has made teaching Vipassana his profession; now it is a business. He is still a businessman. He was a businessman in Burma; just the commodity has changed. He must have been selling something else; here he is selling the technique of Vipassana. And people are gullible. When they see that so many people are going, they start thinking perhaps they should also go.

The generation gap that education has created is nothing compared to the generation gap that meditation can create. This gap is quantitative, that gap will be qualitative. A man with meditation has no age: he is neither a child nor is he young nor is he old. He is eternity itself. How can you expect from him that he should be respectful to old idiots, donkeys and all kinds of animals all around?

But this is also a time to be very alert and very aware: don't be too much impressed by what a person says. Look deeper into the person and his individuality. See whether he has ecstasy in his eyes, watch whether his gestures have the grace of a Gautam Buddha, look very carefully to see whether his inner being radiates light and fragrance. Is he a man of love, compassion and truth? Look at the man, not at his knowledge, because knowledge is available in the books so easily; anybody can collect it. But your being is not available in the holy scriptures.

Your being you have to find. You have to sharpen your intelligence and you have to bring the ultimate within you as a guest. And when the ultimate is a guest within you, you are a flame, you are a fire. Of course your fire does not burn anybody, but heals. Your fire is cool, not warm. Your fire is just a lotus flower.

The seeker should look at the master first -- not at what he says, but what he is. Is he something transcendental? Is his life a laughter, a song, a dance, a joy, a blissfulness? Or is he just a pretender, a businessman fulfilling your expectations -- of course, showing humbleness, humility... just business tactics.

A man of real truth has no need to be humble. He is neither egoist nor humble, because those are the same things in different quantities. Only the egoist can become humble. I cannot say I am a humble man. I cannot say that I am a simple man, because simplicity is only a lesser form of complexity, and humbleness is on a lower strata, the same as ego.

They are not different; the degrees are different.

I am neither humble nor egoist.

I am simply just the way I am.

These people will pretend everything. They will behave in every way that you expect them to behave. That is their whole strategy of catching people. But the intention is to exploit.

Vipassana is one of the greatest meditations, but only in the hands of a master. In the hands of a technician it is the greatest danger. Either the man can become enlightened or the man can become mad; both possibilities are there, it all depends under whose guidance it is being done.

When the Ceylonese monk was sent to me I said, "I am not a Buddhist, and you have been under the guidance of Buddhist monks. What was the need for you to come to me?"

He said, "They have all failed. They have taught me, but they cannot cure me. And I am going crazy. I cannot sleep a single wink."

When he told me this... Buddhist monks are not supposed to laugh, but I told him a joke.

For a moment he was shocked, because he had come very seriously. I told him that a man in England, no ordinary man but a very rich lord, was asking another lord -- with the English attitude, mannerism: "Is it right that you slept with my wife last night?" And the other lord said, "My friend, not a wink."

Even the Buddhist monk laughed. He said, "You are a strange person. I have come from Ceylon and you tell me a joke! And I am a religious man."

I said, "That's why I am telling you a religious joke. If you stay with me I will tell you irreligious jokes too."

I said, "Your problem is not curable by any medicine. Your problem is created by your Vipassana."

He said, "Vipassana? But Vipassana was the meditation of Gautam Buddha; through it he became enlightened."

I said, "You are not a Gautam Buddha, and you don't understand that Vipassana done after sunset is very dangerous. If you do Vipassana for just two hours in the night, then you cannot sleep. It creates such awareness in you that that awareness continues the whole night."

And if somebody is doing Vipassana for ten hours, almost the whole day, the sanity will give way. And then Goenka will not come to help, because he will not even be able to understand that this has happened because of Vipassana. And you cannot sue him in the court, because even the law does not understand that Vipassana can create madness in people.

My whole effort here is to keep you as non-serious as possible, for the simple reason that meditation, all kinds of meditation, can make you too serious and that seriousness will create a spiritual disease and nothing else.

Unless a meditation brings you more laughter, more joy, more playfulness, avoid it. It is not for you.

Jayesh, the generation gap is unfortunate. I am not in favor of it. I have my own strategy for how it can be avoided.

The whole system of education has to be changed from the very roots. In short... we prepare people in education for livelihood rather than life. For twenty-five years we prepare -- that is one third of the life -- for livelihood. We never prepare people for death, and life is only seventy years; death is the door to eternity. It needs tremendous training.

According to me -- and I feel with great authority that this is going to happen in the future if man survives -- that education should be cut into pieces: fifteen years for livelihood, and again after forty-two years, ten years in preparing for death. Education should be divided in two parts. Everybody goes to the university -- of course to different universities, or to the same university but to different departments. One is to prepare children for life and one is to prepare people who have lived life and now want to know something more, beyond life.

Then the generation gap will disappear. Then the people who are of an older age will be more quiet, more silent, more peaceful, more wise; their advice will be worth listening to.

Just sitting at their feet will be a great blessing; the respect for the old will return. Except this, there is no other way.

Education divided in two parts means young people study for life, and middle-aged people study for death. Of course, the middle-aged people will be studying meditation, singing, dancing, laughing; they will be learning celebration. They have to make their death a festival -- that should be the goal of the second part of education.

They will paint, they will play music, they will sculpt, they will compose poetry; they will do all kinds of creative things. Livelihood they have managed; now their children are doing that. Geography, history and all kinds of idiotic subjects, their children are learning. Let them know where Timbuktu is.

I have always wondered why -- with my geography teacher I was continually in conflict -

- "Why should I know where Timbuktu is? What business is it of mine?"

He said, "You are strange, nobody has ever asked this."

I said, "I am going to ask on every point... Constantinople, which in Hindi becomes even worse: Kustuntunia. I have no business with these things. Teach me something valuable."

And my geography teacher used to hit his head... he would say, "The whole of geography is this!"

The history teacher was teaching about the ugliest people that have existed in the world.

From the history teacher I never got any idea about Bodhidharma or Zarathustra or Baal Shemtov or Lin Chi or Chuang Tzu; I never got any idea, and these are the people who have made humanity evolve.

But I have heard about Tamerlane. Do you know what lang means? He was one-legged.

It is Tamurlang. Giving him respect, nobody called him "one-legged Tamer" but he created so much nuisance that very few people can be compared with him. And for almost three generations... his son was worse than him, and his grandson defeated both.

About these people, who were just murderers and criminals, the whole history is full.

And they are called emperors, conquerors, "Alexander the Great." Even if they were really bad, still history repeats their names, their great acts: "Ivan the Terrible!"

This kind of history is bound to create wrong kinds of people in the world. All these histories should be burned simultaneously all over the world, so all these names disappear completely. And they should be replaced by those beautiful people who have all the credit for your being human. They are the people who have made humanity worthy of respect, who have given it a dignity and a pride, and who have opened doors of mysteries, of the beyond.

The second part of education should consist of meditativeness, of awareness, of witnessing, of love, of compassion, of creativity -- and certainly we will again be without any generation gap. The younger person will respect the older person, and not for any formal reasons but actually because the old person is respectable. He knows something beyond the mind and the young person knows only something within the mind.

The young person is still struggling in the trivia of the world, and the older person has gone beyond the clouds; he has almost reached to the stars. It is not a question of etiquette to respect him. You are bound to respect him, it is absolutely a compulsion of your own heart -- not a formality taught by others.

In my childhood... in India it is an absolute formality: anybody who comes as a guest, you have to touch their feet. Before my father became completely aware of my behavior he used to push down my head: "Touch the feet, the guest is God. And he is an old relative, you should follow the custom."

One day a male goat with a beard entered just in my house. I touched his feet. My father said, "What are you doing?"

I said, "A guest is a God -- and moreover with a beard! An old goat needs respect. You come here and touch his feet."

He said, "Your mind functions in a very different way than anybody else's."

I said, "You have to understand it: from now onwards if I meet an old dog on the road I'm going to touch his feet, an old donkey and I'm going to touch his feet. What is the difference between an old dog, an old donkey, and your old guest? To me they look all the same. In fact the old donkey looks so philosophical; the old dog looks so ferocious, like a warrior -- they have some qualities. That old fellow that you were forcing my head down for.... Next time you force my head down you will repent!"

He said, "What are you going to do?"

I said, "I will show you, because I believe in doing things, not in saying things."

Next time one of my faraway relatives came and my father forgot. He pushed my head down. And I had a big needle ready in my hand, so I pushed the needle into the old man's foot. He shrieked. He almost jumped. My father said, "What has happened?"

I said, "I have warned you, but you never listened. I don't have any respect for this person. I don't know him, I have never seen him before; why should I touch his feet? I am ready to touch the feet of someone whom I feel is respectable." He understood that it is better not to force me because this was dangerous. Blood was coming out of that old man's foot.

I never stood in my university classes when the professors entered. In India you have to stand up. The professors looked immediately at me -- forgot everybody else; they focused on me. And if it was just the beginning of the year they would ask, "Why are you not standing?"

I said, "There is no reason."

And the professor would say, "You don't understand. Have you never stood before in any class?"

I said, "Never, because I don't find any reason. I'm perfectly at ease."

He said, "You.... How to make you understand that when a professor enters into the class, out of respect you have to stand up?"

I said, "That's right. But I have not seen yet anything respectable in you. If I see something, I will stand up. And remember: there should not be double standards."

"You mean..." he said, "what do you mean?"

I said, "I mean if I enter the class, you have to stand up -- of course, only if you see something respectable in me. Otherwise there is no question, you can remain sitting down, or if you want you can even sleep. I don't care a bit."

My professors used to try to persuade me. Once in a while the vice-chancellor would come on a round, and they would try to persuade me that "Just for once... we don't want you to stand for us, but when the vice-chancellor comes into the class, don't create a fuss.

Because then nothing else happens except the discussion about it."

I said, "I am helpless. I cannot do anything against my will. Let the man come. If I feel that he is respectable I will stand up. You don't have to tell me."

And the first vice-chancellor under whom I was studying, the first time he came into the class he was drunk. And I am so allergic that I immediately felt that he was drunk. I remained sitting. The teacher looked at me, stared at me, gave indications that "You stand up." I remained sitting. When everybody was told to sit down, then I stood up.

I said, "Now is the time for me to stand up. This man is drunk. It does not matter who he is, I am going to report him to the police."

And the vice-chancellor was so much afraid and so nervous.... He had put his hat on the table. In a hurry he took my professor's hat and went out of the class. And my professor was running behind him to say, "You are taking my hat."

I said, "You see what happens when you are drunk? That man has not even the guts to remain here and you wanted me to stand for him?"

The generation gap exists simply because the reason for respect has disappeared. Unless you create the reason again, the respect will not return. On the contrary, every kind of disrespect will take place. But it is possible to change the whole system.

I would love that the older people be not just old but also wise, not just in age but also in understanding, not only horizontally old but also vertically old... not only growing old but growing up also.

A society where old people are still behaving like young fools is not a society worth calling cultured or civilized. Old people should behave like enlightened people -- not only behave, they should be enlightened. They should become a light to those who are still young and under biological infatuations, natural bondages. They have gone beyond; they can become guiding stars.

When education for death and education for livelihood are separated, when everybody goes twice to the university -- first to learn how to go around this world of trivia and the second time to learn about eternity -- the gap will disappear. And it will disappear in a beautiful way.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

I'M IN A HURRY TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Chitten, first just listen carefully to this small story.

The plane had just taken off and the captain was telling the passengers about the altitude of the plane, the cruising speed etcetera. But he forgot to switch off the microphone.

He then turned to his co-pilot and said, "First I'm going to have a cup of coffee and then I'm going to screw that pretty stewardess, Denise."

The shocked stewardess was down the end of the plane when she heard this come over the loudspeaker. So she began to rush down the aisle to tell the captain to switch off his mike.

Halfway down the plane an old lady stopped her and said, "There's no hurry, Denise, let him have his cup of tea first."

Chitten, there is no hurry at all. First have your cup of tea!

Enlightenment will be coming, just you have to learn waiting for it. Hurry will not help.

Hurry is going to hinder.

The only thing that is a hindrance is hurry.

The moment you are in a hurry you are never here; you are looking far ahead. You are running. And for enlightenment you have to be still and silent and in this moment --

utterly still, because this whole pilgrimage is from here to here.

For centuries people have been hurrying, and missing. I teach you a totally different approach: of being here, without any hurry -- the whole eternity is there. And don't be a beggar: the moment you are ready and ripe, enlightenment will happen.

Trust existence.

This is the only thing worthwhile for those who are interested in becoming enlightened.

Trust existence that whatever is needed, for whatever you are worthy, it will be given to you. You need not even ask for it. Only the unworthy ask; only the undeserving desire.

The deserving remain silent; the worthy never demand, but when it happens they are full of gratitude. They wait, they allow the spring to come at its own pace, and when the flowers start blossoming they enjoy the fragrance with tremendous prayer in their hearts, of gratitude.

The very desire to be in a hurry can lead you in a wrong direction, because there are peddlers all around who are ready to give you enlightenment instantly. That's why I told you: first have your cup of coffee -- that means instant coffee... but let enlightenment come on its own.

One day a young woman was walking home when a man grabbed her, dragged her into a back alley, and started molesting her.

"Help! Help me someone," she cried. "I'm being robbed!"

"You are not being robbed, lady," interrupted the man, "you are being screwed."

"Well," she replied, "if this is being screwed, then I have always been robbed before."

Don't get mixed up. Everything in the world needs hurry, because so many people are running for it. You cannot wait; otherwise you won't get it. You have to trample people, you have to go ahead without thinking what means you are adopting. Even if people are to be killed, kill, but remain ahead; otherwise you are going to miss. That is one dimension of life -- of trivia, of meaningless things, money, power, prestige.

But there is another dimension where there is no need to be in a hurry, because there is no competitor. You are alone. In your inner world nobody can enter. In your stillness you suddenly find yourself, absolutely alone, surrounded by nothingness. Just rejoice in it, relish it. Your enjoyment of your aloneness and nothingness will make you ripe for the enlightenment to happen.

It happens.

I can say it to you because it has happened to me. I am not depending on any Gautam Buddha or any Jesus Christ. Whatever I am saying I am saying with my own signature.

Hence I can say with absolute authority without any hesitation: there is no need to worry.

It comes, and it comes without giving you any advance notice. It comes so silently that you cannot even hear its footsteps.

You just have to be ready and ripe, and to be ready and ripe there is only one way: be still and wait. Don't move, not even in your thoughts, not even in your emotions... just a pure pillar of stillness. And suddenly there is the explosion, and where there was darkness is light and where there was death is pure life and where there was sadness is just an explosion of song and dance and laughter.

But never think in terms of hurry. That is a hindrance. Be patient.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #8

Chapter title: Forget trying to get it!

10 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709100

ShortTitle:

PILGR08

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

95

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY THAT IF ONE GOES DEEPLY INTO SEX IT

WILL EVENTUALLY DROP OFF BY ITSELF. I HAVE THOUGHT LONG AND

HARD ABOUT THIS, DESPERATELY TRYING TO PENETRATE ITS HIDDEN

MEANING, BUT ALL I GOT WAS A HEADACHE.

Devageet, it is a good sign, the headache -- the beginning of the revolution. Only one thing you misunderstood. I have not said that sex will fall off, you will fall off -- but enlightened, don't be worried.

Here people die only enlightened; otherwise they hang around, hang around, go deep and go hard... and one day they drop off. And this dropping off is really entering into eternity.

You would not need any meditation. Meditation is needed for those who cannot think too hard and too deeply. The headache indicates what is going to happen to you...

But it does not matter whether sex falls off or you fall off. Your physical, mental, social personality is what you know about yourself. The moment sex drops off, you become for the first time really alone -- because sex is your relationship with the world. For the first time you become immaterial, because sex is binding you to matter. For the first time you become transcendental to your body and biology.

The death of biology or chemistry or society in you is, in other words, the resurrection of your real life.

I have always loved the story about Jesus. Christians have misunderstood him, as usual; they thought that it was really a factual resurrection -- bodily, biologically, psychologically. That's where they have missed the point. He certainly resurrected, but in a spiritual sense. He died on the cross as a physical personality, and he resurrected as a spiritual being.

So whether sex drops or you drop -- because you and sex are almost synonymous -- what remains is your authentic life.

So, Devageet, you are moving on the right path. Headache... and the head will drop off; then other aches and other things will start dropping off. Finally you will be left only with that which is immortal. And that is our whole search, that's what we are seeking. These things which can be taken away will be taken away; only that which cannot be taken away from you is yours.

A reporter once asked Winston Churchill whether he agreed with the prediction that women would rule the world by the year 2000.

Churchill replied, "Yes, they will still be at it."

`Woman' is also a symbolic word. To man it represents nothing but sex. If you take it literally, then Churchill is to be condemned for condemning women. But if you take its metaphorical meaning, then `woman' is replaced by `sex'; that's what it represents in man's mind. And sex has been ruling over the world from the very beginning, if there was any beginning, and is going to rule man to the very end -- if there is an end.

Only a few people have transcended the physical, the sexual, the psychological, and have entered into a different dimension that I call enlightenment. And unless the enlightened are listened to, understood, there is no hope for the world.

It is not that millions of enlightened people are needed; just two hundred enlightened people on the earth, and the whole earth will be dazzling with their light, with their being.

And those two hundred will create chain reactions: they will provoke you for the great pilgrimage, they will remind you who you are. Just looking into their eyes, suddenly inside you will click -- it is only a click -- and the whole dimension changes.

Paddy and his friend Sean were sitting in a bar moaning to each other, talking about how ugly their wives are -- a common topic among husbands.

"My wife is so ugly," said Sean, "if I want to make love to her I have to put a bag over her head."

"That's nothing," said Paddy. "My wife was so ugly when she was born that the doctor slapped her mother."

But these statements have become ugly in the sense that they have forgotten that instead of `woman' they should use the word `sex', because that's what it means in the deepest core of the mind of the male.

As far as women are concerned, they are not interested in man's physical body; they are not interested in his ideological, philosophical, mental gymnastics. Their approach is far more direct: they simply see your spirituality. The thing a woman is attracted to is the charisma, the aura of spirituality around a man; hence they never talk about the ugliness or beauty of men. That is not their concern. That is a great difference between the approaches of men and women.

Women go directly deep inside men. That's why it is one of the most difficult things to keep a secret from the woman: where will you keep it? -- she goes directly inside you.

And she is capable of going directly inside you because man has lived very superficially.

Many men are not aware that they have hearts. Yes, they know they have lungs, but the lung is not the heart; neither is the brain the mind, nor is the mind your being. These are superficial layers.

No woman in the whole world has created any ideology, any great metaphysics, any great philosophy. Her concern is not the outside; her concern is the inside. That's why I have immense respect for women. Perhaps no man in the whole world ever had as much respect for women as I have.

Women have been loved, but not respected. And without respect the love is nothing but lust; you label it with a beautiful word, but deep down inside you it is always sex, always sex. Man has reduced woman and her spirituality to such a state that she has become only an object of sex.

And if the American trend has to be followed -- where everything has to be used once and thrown away -- the ultimate consequence is coming closer: use the woman once and throw away. They are already doing it in a way....

In America, three years is the limit for everything. People change their jobs every three years, they change their cities every three years, they change their wives every three years. But those three years will get smaller and smaller -- perhaps even by the time the honeymoon ends, everything has ended. Most probably it has ended. But people go on pretending that it is still continuing, because they have given so many promises, so many words to keep that now it looks very awkward to go against their own promises.

But a woman loves in a different way. Her love has some quality of spirituality. Man's love is only physiological, biological. You may not have found a single joke in any language of the world from women against men. It is below her prestige. All jokes are from men against the woman, because for him woman is not a spiritual being at all.

In China for thousands of years the woman was accepted by law as a commodity that a man possesses. He can bargain, he can stake her in gambling, he can sell her, he can even kill her -- the court was not concerned. If you kill your chair you will not be arrested... the woman was not more than that. And the whole past has been so ugly that man has not even asked forgiveness for it.

Women have been treated like cattle. But the woman has not, in spite of all this ugliness that has been done to her, changed at all. She still loves... and her love has a purity and a beauty and a grace. Man's love is ugly, animalistic; it is not more than a sneeze -- he is just relieving himself. But the woman is not relieving; she is living it with its totality. It is a prayer to her, as sacred as any prayer can be.

These are the differences that have to be bridged. At least for my people I want these differences to be bridged. Just as we don't discriminate between religions, we don't discriminate between nations, we don't discriminate between races, the final discrimination that has to be dropped is between men and women. They both are beautiful. If they become a little more alert, they are in fact two complementaries of one whole: man is half, just as the woman is half.

My effort, in spite of the whole world's condemnation of me, is to bring man and woman to a space where they can accept each other as their other part, as their other pole. I don't care about the condemnation of the world; it simply brings giggles to me. Who cares about idiots condemning you? -- they are not even worth any reply. But even if a small section of society starts respecting each other, there will be a tremendous revolution.

My own understanding is that as your love deepens, your sex disappears -- because love is so fulfilling, what is the need of this bullock-cart sex? It is out of date....

And soon the day will come when children will not be born out of men and women's sex.

We have suffered very much: blind children, retarded children, have had to live their life in utter agony and suffering... but there were no means to clear the situation. But now we have the means, now love can be completely a fun, a joy, a celebration, with no responsibility, no fear of making the woman pregnant, because that keeps her in bondage and that keeps you also in the bondage. You are partners in creating a child; now you have to be a partner in bringing him up.

I have heard... in a court a man, ninety-five years old, and a woman, ninety-one years old, appeared for divorce. The judge had seen many cases but this was really shocking. He could not believe it: one foot is already in the grave; for what do they want a divorce?

He asked, "How long have you been married?"

They said, "It is very difficult to remember. Maybe seventy-five years, or it could be a little more."

The judge said, "I cannot understand: you managed to live together for seventy years, and now at the very end you have come to divorce."

They said, "We had to wait for all our children to die. Now we are completely free, no burden."

Man's past history, Devageet, has been really not human. It can be human only if the woman and the man are no longer just sex partners; that drags them both to the very lowliest spaces. If they can love each other with respect, not using each other as commodities, men and women both will have a great uprising of consciousness.

The more your sex energy becomes love, the more you are a spiritual being. Sex is only a reproductive process forced by nature on you. Nature has been using you just like a factory -- and you don't have even the dignity to declare, "I am not a factory."

But this can happen only if you are alert, aware, conscious of what you are doing, what you are thinking, how you are behaving. And that brings such grace and such beauty, that the physical beauty simply disappears. I have seen many beautiful women with very ugly minds. I have seen many beautiful men, but their beauty is not more than skin-deep. And this is the trouble: beauty is always skin-deep, and ugliness goes to the very bones. Go on digging to the bones, to the marrow, and you will find it... it is there.

Love is the alchemy to change that ugliness from within. And once it disappears from within, even an ordinary face, a homely face, starts shining with the bliss and joy of the beyond.

Don't be worried about the headache; the headache is simply an effort of biology to drag you back. I have not suffered almost for thirty years from a headache. Slowly, slowly I have forgotten how it feels. And because I have not suffered from headache, I don't feel my head either. It is only pain that makes you feel anything. But thirty years before I have also suffered from headache, and the headache is certainly concerned very deeply with sex.

No medical researcher has come to the conclusion, but I say it from my own discoveries that I go on and on making -- I'm an incurable discoverer -- and sooner or later science will have to agree with me. The sex center exists in the head, not in the genitals -- that much science has come to know. And if the sex center exists in the head and not in the genitals, then sex deprivation can create a headache. It will not create genital ache because there is nothing... it is only an extension of a certain center in your mind.

Why have people started thinking -- and doctors have started even advising their patients

-- that sex is good for your mental health? And they are right: all the people who have repressed sex in the past in the name of religion, have suffered tremendously with headaches. Even a man like J. Krishnamurti suffered for forty years continuously with such great headaches, migraine, that even he, a man of such understanding, used to think of hitting his head with the wall and be finished -- the pain was too much.

J. Krishnamurti was brought up by people with all the old ideas: Repress your sex. He was not allowed to meet young women. Even when a woman who was almost the age of his mother once had been taking care of him when he was sick, immediately great turmoil started in the leadership of the Theosophical Society: "They have fallen in love. Remove the woman" -- and the woman was removed. It was sheer stupidity: Krishnamurti was not more than fifteen, and the woman was nearabout fifty. But the woman was a beautiful woman, very understanding. No man can take care of anybody else the way a woman can take care even of strangers.

I was in jail in America. They had put me in the medical ward, so that nobody could say that I had been tortured, harassed. In the medical ward there were six women nurses and a doctor, and one male nurse. It never used to be that way in the past. In fact, in this country you cannot find a male nurse; in this country `nurse' means a woman. A male nurse looks awkward, unpsychological.

I watched the way the woman doctor behaved with me -- with such respect and such love.

And all the nurses... the oldest nurse -- a very womanly woman, almost a Jewish mama --

took care of me so much that during the three days I was there she dropped one of her holidays. She said, "I cannot go out...."

All the nurses behaved as though I had been known to them forever: I was not a stranger but part of their heart. But the male nurse was a trouble. One day only was given to the male nurse in seven days, but that one day he tortured me -- not physically, but he would come into my cabin and he would start asking questions... and religion and theology and philosophy....

I told him, "Listen... with great difficulty I have got these few days' holiday, and you are destroying that. I have forgotten all about religion, all about philosophy, I don't know anything. Just don't torture me."

But the male mind functions only intellectually; it does not know anything about the heart. Not a single woman in the medical ward ever asked a single question. They brought my food, they managed... the doctor managed that I should not go to the common toilet, she gave me her own bathroom: "We will feel ashamed to send you there, it is dirty. All criminals... While you are here just use my bathroom, and I will remember it: because you have used my bathroom, it becomes a temple for me. The moment I enter it I will remember you."

The head nurse has never gone in her life to purchase things for the prisoners; they come on a fixed routine basis. But for me she used to go every day -- and she was an old woman -- to purchase fruits, vegetables, anything that was vegetarian. I asked her, "You are unnecessarily taking trouble. Things come, they are perfectly good. If they are good for other human beings, they are good for me too. Just take care because I am a vegetarian."

She said, "No, those things come mixed with non-vegetarian food. And you are here only for a few days."

The last day when I left the first jail, all the nurses and the doctor and the sheriff and the whole staff had tears in their eyes. The doctor said to me, "We don't want you to leave."

I said, "It is a jail. As far as I am concerned there is no problem, I can remain here. But millions of people around the world are waiting for me to get out. Your tears prevent me... it looks very heartless."

She said, "No, I understand. Just in three days you have become so much part of us, we have forgotten completely that you are a prisoner here" -- because the whole day I was sitting in the doctor's room. To make me comfortable, she had moved to another room --

because there prisoners will be coming, patients will be coming -- and they did everything that a loving family can do.

She said, "Forgive my tears. Don't take any note of it. It is my problem that we will miss you from tomorrow."

When I shook hands with the nurses they were all trembling. They had all cut photos from newspapers and they said, "Please, give a signature and write my name. This is our most precious gift. We are enough rewarded... otherwise this jail is a torture house. Even in the medical part the torture continues; it is just a strategy to show to the world that a sick person is not tortured."

But because the whole staff was in such a deep loving attitude, they could not do anything to torture me. The nurses brought soaps from their homes, new combs from their homes. If they cooked something which was vegetarian they brought it from their home. I said, "Why are you taking so much care of a prisoner?"

They said, "You are not a prisoner. You have changed the whole climate of the medical ward."

But it is to happen all over the world.... The woman has to be respected, not only used.

And slowly, slowly you will see that sex is the lowliest form of relationship. It will drop.

Just go a little higher in your consciousness... But I don't want you to drop it with effort, deliberately, because then it will cling around you. Go into it. It is our destiny to pass through that fire test.

And once you have gone through it and come out of it into the clear, meditation becomes so easy that you don't have to do it. Just sit by the side of any tree and from all over a subtle showering of a new silence, of a virgin serenity, starts falling over you, just like rain, or just like flowers of madhukamini falling in thousands.

I have not seen any other plant which has so generous a heart as madhukamini. The word madhukamini means `honey woman'. Its fragrance is incomparable. And the most beautiful thing is that it goes on showering almost like water, rainwater. The petals of its flowers go on falling the whole night. You can sit underneath it and you will be all covered with flowers.

Something like this is bound to happen, Devageet, if you allow the false personality that surrounds you to die. Then love and meditation are not two things -- they become one.

The loving is meditative, and meditation is nothing but the radiation of love.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IN MY MIND I AM WRITING TO YOU ALMOST EVERY DAY. ALL THESE

QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS BOIL DOWN TO THE FOLLOWING:

GRATITUDE -- I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU, OSHO, BELOVED MASTER --

AND ATTENTION. COULD YOU SAY IN DISCOURSE, ONE SINGLE TIME,

"HELLO, HAREESH," SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR IT, SO THAT I AM CERTAIN

THAT YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE KNOWS I AM EXISTING AS YOUR LOVER

AND FELLOW DANCE-PARTNER?

Hello, Hareesh.... But this will not be enough. It will be just plates without anything to eat, to drink. It will look like a desert where nothing grows.

And people are saying "hello" to each other without any reason; so I say... but I would like to present you also something, so "Hello Hareesh" is not empty. My first present: A man sitting in a bar is complaining to the bartender: "After one year and three thousand dollars with that psychiatrist, he tells me I'm cured. Some cure! A year ago, I was Nancy Reagan -- now I'm nobody."

A Roman Catholic, a famous priest, and a Protestant minister, also very famous and well-known, had a heated discussion over the merits of their respective faiths.

Finally they agreed to differ, and as they parted the Catholic said, "Let us go our ways --

you continue to worship God in your way and I will continue to worship him in his way."

The minister's wife... my second present... was becoming upset that her husband exclaimed, "Oh, Jesus, sweet Jesus!" every time he reached orgasm.

"It's perfectly proper, my dear," he assured her, "and in accordance with THE BIBLE

where it says, `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

And the third:

The Catholic priest heard a number of women confess that the grocer's new delivery boy had seduced them all. He made them each put ten dollars in the poor box.

The delivery man appeared last, and the priest asked angrily: "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"Just this," replied the boy, "either you cut me in on those ten dollars or I take my business to another parish."

Hareesh, keep your business here!

I can understand a deep desire in everybody to be loved, and I love you all whether I know your names or not. Names are just labels stuck to you. You have come here in the world without names, and you will leave this world without names.

As far as I am concerned you don't have a name; and if you look within yourself, you will not find any name there. You are a nameless reality -- and it is good, because every name creates a boundary around you, makes you small.

But your question is significant. Attention can do two jobs: if it is forced, it nourishes the ego; if it is prayed with gratitude, it nourishes the soul.

I cannot say anything against your question. Your question is so full of love, gratitude, that I can repeat as many times as you want, "Hello, Hareesh." It will not strengthen your ego, it will weaken it. And so many people here, hearing me calling to you, "Hello, Hareesh," are also repeating the same. Then it becomes a tremendous energy field, a brotherhood of spirituality, where everybody is to share his abundance.

It is perfectly right. Many would have liked the same, but could not gather the courage.

You are a courageous man. And you are asking "... and everybody else knows I am existing as your lover and fellow dance-partner." Here we are not gathered to talk about nonsense -- about God, heaven and hell. Here we have gathered to rejoice, to sing, to dance together in such an ecstasy that individualities melt into each other and it becomes one organic whole.

I have seen it becoming one organic whole many times, when you all laugh together.

Even the Germans don't understand why they are laughing -- but they are intelligent people: seeing that everybody is laughing, they also participate. In fact, they laugh louder than anybody else, so nobody suspects that they are Germans. Of course, outside Buddha Hall they enquire of people, "What was the matter? Why were people laughing so much?

I could not get it."

My suggestion to all the German sannyasins is: Forget trying to get it -- that is what is troubling you! You are engaged in trying to get it and the moment passes.... Everybody is laughing, and you are always second; you cannot laugh first because you have not got it yet.

Here it is a temple of celebration, utterly pagan. Nobody is serious, nobody is bothering about how to reach heaven, how to get a harp, sit on a cloud and go on singing for eternity, "Alleluja, alleluja...." Those are the idiots. They have been taken up just to relieve the earth.

If you can rejoice with me you have understood me.

If my music has touched your heart, it is enough.

I am not here to convert anybody; I am just here to help you learn a little dance of the soul. This is the most religious phenomenon: the dance of the soul -- no fear of punishment, no greed for any reward.

This moment is all in all.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WOULD YOU TELL ME A JOKE OR GIVE ME SOME SUTRAS, OR ANYTHING

BEFORE I LEAVE?

Hari om tat sat... that is the starting of any Eastern holy scripture. It is a very beautiful thing: hari means a thief, OM means the ultimate music of existence. Tat sat means this eternal music of existence... the thief is the only truth.

This question is from Dhyan Om. He is back. For a few days he had disappeared -- not from the ashram, but he had stopped asking questions because I loved him so much that I gave him good hits. The greater hit you get, remember, your reward is much... you deserved it.

First he is asking, "Would you tell me a joke or give me some sutras, or anything before I leave?"

In the first place, why should you leave?

In the second place, you are a joke unto yourself; you don't need any jokes. But I will not disappoint you.

A few sutras for you:

A curved line is the loveliest distance between two points.

Get it?

I have also been a German in one of my past lives, so I understand the Germans more than anybody else.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we are young. The young sow wild oats, the old grow sage.

It is really difficult.... But I will go on telling sutras until you get one.

A cigar gives a wise man some time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

The principle thing an inquisitive child learns is how little adults know.

You know you have reached middle age when weightlifting consists merely of standing up.

We are all born mad; some remain so.

I will not say to which category Om belongs. Most probably he has remained so.

Behind every successful man is an astonished woman.

A Japanese proverb: Nothing is as ancient as progress. It started from the very moment Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden.

I have heard the first words of Adam to Eve were, "We are passing through a great crisis...." These are the first words, and they continue to be relevant every day. Thousands of years have passed, but we are passing through the greatest crisis every day.

Any child who gets raised by the book must be a first edition.

There are books on how to raise your children, how to be a mother, how to be a father; it is so unbelievable that all the animals are raising their children without any difficulty, without reading any book. Only man seems to be utterly retarded. He needs to read how to raise his children. He has forgotten even the simplest things which any animal, any bird, knows perfectly well. Still we go on calling it evolution, for the simple reason that nobody objects. And even if they object -- for example this bird is objecting -- we don't understand their language.

Temptation usually comes in through a door that was deliberately being left open.

A man may know his own mind and still know next to nothing.

The latest thing in clothes is usually the woman you are waiting for.

When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.

Beauty is only skin-deep, but ugliness goes right to the bones.

What no wife of a philosopher can ever understand is that a philosopher is working when he is staring out of the window.

You can be positive of anything of which others are as ignorant as you are.

It is because of such fundamental principles that God goes on existing, the devil goes on existing, heaven and hell go on existing, sin and virtue go on existing. And you can be positive, absolutely positive... because neither you know nor anybody else knows, so nobody is going to contradict, nobody is going to negate. Only an innocent person may perhaps start saying things which go against all the ignorant people of the world.

One of the hardest decisions in life is deciding when to start middle age.

One: old age is when your symptoms are the most interesting things in your life.

Two: old age is when your face in the morning has more wrinkles than your bed.

Three: old age is when you not only cannot remember when you first made love, but also when you last did it.

That is real old age!

And you ask for a joke also. A joke that I hope can be understood... otherwise I will try another -- but I will not allow you to leave this place disappointed.

First: Rabbi Gideon Finkelstein died and went to heaven. He saw only three people there, reading by a dim light. One of them was reading PLAYBOY, another PENTHOUSE, and the other POPULAR SCIENCE. He decided to see what hell was like.

The rabbi got to the devil's domain and it turned out to be a big night club with every kind of music being played. There was an eight-piece Dixieland band, a thirty-piece swing band, three discos, and all the people were dancing.

Rabbi Finkelstein went back up to heaven and asked for an audience with God. "I don't understand it, Lord," he said, "there are only three people here in heaven and they are all reading. Down in hell everybody is dancing and having a good time. Why can't we have that in heaven?"

The Lord said, "I can't hire a band for just three people."

And second..if you have missed the first joke, this certainly you will miss.

Three old ladies were sitting together on a park bench when a flasher walked up to them, opened his coat, and exposed himself.

The first old lady had a stroke, and the second old lady had also a stroke, but the third old lady's arms were too short to reach.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #9

Chapter title: Enlightenment is none of your business

10 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709105

ShortTitle:

PILGR09

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

102

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WATCHING THE MIND, IT SEEMS TO ME THERE IS AN INFINITE OCEAN OF

THOUGHTS. MEDITATION GIVES ME MORE PEACE AND GROUNDING, BUT

HEARING YOU SPEAK ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT -- IT SEEMS TO ME FAR, FAR AWAY.

CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME ADVICE?

Dhyan Jashan, enlightenment is as far away as you are from yourself; hence the distance differs from individual to individual.

You are certainly in a difficult position: first, you are a German, and nobody has ever heard of any German becoming enlightened. Only one of my German sannyasins used to become once in a while enlightened, and again he understood, "What am I doing? It is not for me," and he dropped the idea. That happened many times. Just now I have heard that he is washing dishes in a Zorba the Buddha restaurant. The person who told me about him had asked him, "What happened? You had become enlightened...."

He said, "Forget all about it. Five times I became enlightened, and then I dropped the whole idea. I am feeling far happier washing dishes in the restaurant." What was happening was that whenever he would come here he would become unenlightened, and whenever he would go to Germany he would become enlightened. In Germany there was no question, no objection; nobody has even heard what it means, so in Germany it would be easier. Here it is a little difficult.

Secondly, you are really in a big dilemma: you are a liar! First a German, and then a liar makes things very complex -- otherwise enlightenment is as easy as nothing else in the world. Everything needs some effort, except enlightenment. Everything needs you to go somewhere, everything needs you to do some climbing the ladder -- except enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the easiest, because it is not an achievement. Don't make a goal of it...

that's what is making it difficult for you. If you are feeling good and grounded in meditation, you are perfectly in the right direction. Just get all your ocean of thoughts settled. Let it become a lake without any ripples.

You drop the idea of enlightenment -- it is none of your business. Meditation is going well; that means the tree is growing well, the flowers will be coming in their own time, in their own season. No tree is worried, no tree is concerned about why the flowers have not come yet; they always come in their own time.

All that you have to take care of is that the tree should not die, that it should be nourished, that it should have a good soil, that it should be watered, that it should have your love, your friendship. All you can do is nourish your meditation, become more and more grounded and centered. One day suddenly, from nowhere... the explosion.

You don't have to go to enlightenment; it comes to you. In fact, even that is not right to say. It does not come either; it happens -- and it happens from your innermost core. It is an explosion, just like the explosion of an atom. Atomic explosion comes from the innermost core of the atom. Enlightenment is the explosion of your innermost life center.

Suddenly all darkness is gone! A light has descended upon you from every side, and a light that needs no fuel... a light that remains, that has come forever.

Nobody can become unenlightened; that is an impossibility, that's a difficult task -- even a German cannot do that. But enlightenment becomes a problem because you go on hearing me. I am the problem. I cannot stop talking about enlightenment, and that creates the desire in you and the longing in you. Just don't listen to me! The moment I say

"Enlightenment..." simply say, "It is not for us." If you can avoid...

You cannot make me feel responsible for it, because I am helpless, I will continue to talk, I cannot talk about anything else. Whatever I say suddenly turns out to be something about enlightenment. Just watch...

A priest went to a ranch in order to buy a horse, and saw a beautiful one that he liked and asked if he could try it. "Sure," said the rancher, "but I have to tell you something. That horse used to be owned by the bishop, and if you want the horse to move, you have to say, `Good Lord,' and if you want him to stop, you have to say, Àmen.'"

"That's okay," said the priest and jumped up and said, "Good Lord." The horse promptly moved off and then was seen galloping in the mountains. The priest was yelling, "Good Lord, good Lord." and the horse was really moving.

But suddenly they were coming to the edge of the cliff and, in panic, stricken with fear, he yelled, "Stop, stop!" That did not work and then he remembered and shouted, "Amen."

The horse stopped right on the edge of the cliff and, wiping his brow with his relief, the priest said, "Good Lord!"

Do you think Gautam Buddha could have made this story in any way connected with enlightenment? But I am just incurable. I see every element in it exactly leading to enlightenment. All that you need is the last "Good Lord"... finished!

There is no hurry. You are moving slowly, gradually, you are getting grounded, becoming centered, but listening to me your desire catches fire. It starts thinking, "If meditation is so beautiful, so silent, what will enlightenment be like?" And then it becomes a constant worry and a tension. It will not help you; it will even disturb your meditation.

But you should look at my trouble also. If I don't talk about enlightenment, you are not going even to do meditation; if I talk about enlightenment, that disturbs meditation. Now you tell me the way...! So just be sane. Enlightenment comes -- I can guarantee you it comes. It is not as though it is something that has not happened to many people. You have the potential for it, but you have to understand the whole process.

In the beginning the master goes on telling you all the beauties and all the blissfulness and all the ecstasies of enlightenment. He has to -- otherwise who has time to meditate?

Television is there, football matches are going on.... The world all around is so full of idiots doing all kinds of gymnastics: boxers are boxing, actors are acting -- who has time for meditation, and for what?

If I don't talk about enlightenment, then naturally you will ask me, "Why should I meditate?" And the moment I say "Enlightenment..." trouble arises. Then your mind is habitually making everything a goal, far away. Mind enjoys challenge, and enlightenment is not a challenge.

People even want to go to Everest. When Edmund Hillary, the first man who reached on top of Everest, was asked by the news media, "Why did you take such a risky step of going to the highest peak of the Himalayas?" His answer was really beautiful, an answer with great understanding.

He said, "It is not a question of my going. It is just because Everest is there, unclimbed, and I cannot tolerate it. It is not troubling me, it has nothing to do with me, but simply the idea that it remains unclimbed... hundreds of people have died trying to climb it, and it has become a challenge. I will risk my whole life." You will not gain anything....

He reached to the top, looked all around, and felt embarrassed, because there was not even somebody to say "Hello, hi, Edmund Hillary, how are you?" -- not even a single tree, not even a single bird, not even a single animal, nothing. Just miles and miles of eternal snow which has never melted... He did not remain there for more than two minutes; what is the point? Man may go to the moon, man may go to Mars, man may go some day to some star. They are challenging to the mind. Mind is very interested in any challenge: provoke it, and it will go.

But enlightenment is not a goal, it is not Everest, it is not the moon. It is you. You don't have to go anywhere, not even out of your room. You don't have to take a single step.

You have just to be silent, unmoving, and it is there. It has always been there.

So you should understand: the problem of the master is that he has first to talk about enlightenment to create a little interest, a little longing in you, and then he has immediately to make it clear to you that you should not make your longing attached to a goal. You have to find it just within yourself. No effort, no doing, no action... nothing is needed.

Dhyan Jashan, if you can simply remain meditating and enjoying the silence and the peace of it, you have done whatever is needed on your part. Now leave enlightenment to existence. Existence is not miserly; it is not exhausted because a few people have become enlightened. There is no quota, that only so many people can become enlightened. The whole world can become enlightened, everybody has the intrinsic potential; you just have to disconnect your meditation from any goal-orientation, from any motivation. It is not difficult if you understand: just a little intelligence...

But we live in a world where intelligence is not valued, where the mediocres rule, where the mediocres are the leaders... where the intelligent people simply get out of the crowd, they don't want to be unnecessarily hassled and hustled in the crowd; they stand by the road and let the crowd pass. Once you become aware of the strangeness of the people around you, you will be surprised: how have you been missing it up to now?

Just today Neelam has brought a news which has been published by all the newspapers of India. The statement is from a man called Devahar Baba, who is worshiped by thousands of Hindus, thought to be a great saint. All his qualities for being a great saint are very peculiar. One is that for twelve years he was standing in the water day in, day out. He will eat standing up to his chest in the water, he will do everything there: that made him known nationwide, a great man. Somehow people persuaded him that "it is enough, twelve years..." Just out of compassion he came out of the river, and since then he has been sitting in a small hut made for him on a tree. These are his two qualifications for being one of the representatives of Hinduism.

His statement was just according to his qualifications. The statement was that the world can be saved, all problems can be solved, if only cow slaughter is stopped. Now his statement is being published by every newspaper without a single criticism -- but my statement will not be published by anyone. Now this is sheer stupidity, not intelligence.

How can the world's problems be solved by stopping cow slaughter? But in India it is a very common way of thinking....

Mahatma Gandhi used to think that if everybody starts spinning his own clothes, all problems will be solved. India is great in finding simple solutions! Now Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is saying that if people start learning yogic hopping, which he calls yogic flying, all problems will be solved. There will be peace, serenity, no war, no hunger.

And I am amazed that nobody criticizes them, nobody holds them by the neck and tells them, "You idiot!..." The world is suffering with so many complex problems, and you are suggesting that somebody sitting in the lotus posture, hopping, will solve all the problems. Nuclear weapons will disappear, communism will not be against capitalism, the Soviet Union will become a democracy, America will distribute all its wealth to the poor, the West will distribute all its products to the poor countries -- just because a few idiots are sitting in the lotus posture and hopping. I cannot even conceive in my dream...

Perhaps that's why I have stopped dreaming for thirty years. I have not dreamt for thirty years -- what to dream? And if you call these people idiots, immediately somebody's religious feeling is hurt. Immediately an arrest warrant... I have been summoned thousands of times -- I have even forgotten the number -- and how many times have they issued arrest warrants for the single reason that I have made some reasonable statement?

It is a very unreasonable, almost insane world in which you are living. If you can manage just to meditate, you have done more than is expected of the contemporary man. And your meditation is going good. Just go on saying, "Good Lord!" In meditation there never comes any cliff. You don't have to remember "Amen" -- there is no need.

Meditation slowly, slowly turns into your enlightenment. You suddenly become aware one day, Where is that darkness? where is that continuous rush of thoughts? where has the mind gone? Suddenly you are absolutely as hollow as a bamboo; but your hollowness is not empty -- it is full of joy and full of rejoicing. You will dance for no reason at all, you will sing for no reason at all, songs that you have not composed, dances that you have not learned. They are just bubbling spontaneously in your consciousness.

That is enlightenment, but don't make it a goal.

Meditation is enough.

Everything else follows on its own.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT SEX AND MEDITATION THE OTHER

EVENING I GOT MIXED UP. SO OFTEN BEFORE I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY:

"LET YOUR SEX BE YOUR MEDITATION." ALSO, HOW DO YOUR LATEST

SUGGESTIONS FIT INTO 'THE TANTRA VISIONS'?

PLEASE COMMENT, BELOVED OSHO, I AM PUZZLED.

Dhyan Smita, when I said, "Let sex be your meditation," did you do it? When I was talking about TANTRA VISION, what did you do about it?

It seems my work is talking and your work is listening, and then finding out contradictions -- what I said yesterday, what I said the day before yesterday...

You get puzzled because you don't do anything. If you had done sex as your meditation, the question about sex and meditation as two interests would not have arisen. Now the question has arisen that you have two interests. That means my first statement has not been heard. And I am not a person to remember what I have said yesterday; I don't know even what I have said today -- otherwise I will be in the same boat as you are, puzzled!

I go on making as many contradictions as possible without any puzzlement. It doesn't matter. I must have said to somebody, "Let sex be your meditation." His question must have been different, the person must have been different. It would have been possible for him to make sex his meditation.

But the person who has asked, "I have only two interests in life -- sex and meditation,"

cannot deceive me, whoever he is. I may not know him, but his question gives me absolute perception of his innermost being. His only interest is sex. Meditation he is putting in just to make the question look religious.

I cannot say to this person, "Let sex be your meditation." I can say to this person, "Let meditation be your sex" -- and that's what I have said. First get finished with sex, have it as much as you want -- because meditation can be done even when you will not be able to go into sex.

You can always go into meditation to the very last moment of your life -- it can be postponed. But you cannot rely on whether tomorrow sex will be possible or not. It is not within your hands; it comes on its own at a certain age, and at a certain age it disappears.

Then people are talking about it and thinking about it -- which is perfectly good, but there is no sex at all. It is all cerebral, in the mind. And sex in the mind is the problem, not sex as a generative force.

I want to tell you that in the mind these two things, sex and meditation, cannot exist together. Sex is pulling you downwards, and meditation is pulling you upwards.

A thief was caught and brought to the court. He had not stolen anything, but some drama was going on in the house, and he forgot completely for what he had come there. And he enjoyed the drama so much that he was caught. The court asked him, "Why did you remain the whole night, and not steal anything? For what have you entered? You are a well-known thief."

He had been to jail many times, and it was the same judge. He said, "I know you perfectly well, but this is strange, something new. You have not stolen anything, and still you remained inside the house the whole night."

The thief said, "These things we can discuss later on. First I want Your Honor to make it absolutely clear to me that one punishment you will not give me. You can send me to the gallows... but don't tell me to be married to two women."

The magistrate said, "What nonsense are you talking? There is no punishment like that."

He said, "Then it is perfectly okay. That is the problem. I had gone into the house to steal.... But the man has two wives, and one lives on the first floor, one lives on the ground floor. The man was being pulled by one upwards and by the other downwards.

And it was such a funny scene -- one was pulling him by his hairs, the other was pulling by his legs -- that I forgot completely for what I had come there.

"I enjoyed it so much that I started giggling, and that's how I got caught. If I had remained silent there was no problem, I would have escaped very easily. But the poor man... that's why I said to you from the very beginning, `Just don't give me that punishment!' One woman is enough, two women are too much."

The man who is saying, "Sex and meditation are my two interests..." if I say to him, "Yes, go ahead," he will be torn apart. Sex will give him continuous downward gravitation and meditation will try to pull him out of the hands, the chains and the forces of gravitation that pull you down.

Meditation is a way to open your wings and fly into the sky. It does not believe in gravitation. You cannot have both.

So always remember: if I am saying something, do it. You are not here as my examiners so that you have to find out what contradictions I have been telling you. But people take such self-appointed positions....

Now Sarjano has written a letter to me. He goes on writing stupid letters almost every day. Just because last night, when I went out, Avirbhava was on the outside door to open the car... And I have my own way of relating to people; I scare her, and she is so innocent, she gets scared -- at least she pretends. She never disappoints me, "No..." Who is Sarjano to write to me, "I cannot forgive you that you scare simple Avirbhava." Now, who is he?

I used to think that Swabhav is in charge of the ashram... has there been some change?

Sarjano is neither in charge of the ashram, nor is Sarjano a guardian to Avirbhava, nor is Sarjano my boss. So who gives him all these appointments? He cannot forgive me! -- and who has asked him that he should forgive me? I will not ask even God himself to forgive me. Even if I can manage to forgive God, that will be enough. For this whole stupid idea that is going on all around, God is responsible -- if he is still alive. And the day I am going to encounter him is going to be really the last judgment day!

But who are you to judge me, in my own place, amongst my own people? First he was a disciple; it seems now he has become my master.

Dhyan Smita, I will read your question again to make it clear so that you never repeat such stupid ideas again. You have not done anything, whatever I have said; you are just listening and waiting to find contradictions. What will you get out of it? It is a well-known thing that only idiots are not contradictory; they are absolutely consistent.

It needs a little intelligence to be inconsistent, and it needs immense intelligence to be contradictory. Why does it need immense intelligence? -- because unless you can prove your contradictions are complementaries of an organic unity, you don't have the right to make any contradictions. I have never made any contradiction, because I can prove to you each contradiction has its own function in the organic whole where opposites meet and merge and mingle into one unity.

You are not supposed to be here to bother about these things. But this is how people are.

Somebody is worried....

Just today there was an article by Vijayanand. Eight years before he left me; in these eight years so much water has gone down the Ganges, and so many idiots have come and gone here that I cannot remember the names of all of them. Now he goes on writing articles against me, and today's article I was amazed at. What are his objections? He left me because a man who has ninety-three Rolls Royces, dozens of watches, cannot be enlightened.

But he left me in '78, when I had not yet gone to America -- and the reason why he left me was still to happen five years afterwards! He seems to be an astrologer or a palmist or a prophet. And he should know that those cars did not belong to me: I have never looked back at what happened to those cars, I have never bothered to enquire of anybody what happened to those cars.

Here I am a guest, I don't possess anything; whatever my people provide me I use. If they stop providing me even clothes, I will still be delivering lectures, naked! It does not matter.

All those ninety-three cars were not mine. I had never had -- or for almost thirty-five years, even touched -- money. I don't have any pockets to keep it; I dropped having pockets thirty-five years ago. I don't have any bank account. Perhaps I may be the only man in the world who can be called the richest poor man -- richest because I am loved by my people so much that what more do you need. People accumulate money because they are afraid no one is going to take care of them. I'm not worried; I know there are millions of people who would like to take care of me.

Why should I bother having a bank account and paying income tax? I have not paid any income tax to anybody, I have never purchased a ticket in thirty-five years. Somebody purchases it... somebody keeps it... I don't know. I don't know who has my passport, or even whether it exists or not!

I depend on my love, and I trust that love will manage things. And if it does not manage, that too is okay.

Vijayanand does not know that the commune we had managed in America was no ordinary commune -- perhaps the greatest commune that has ever existed in the whole history. Sannyasins from all over the world had put at least three hundred million dollars into the commune. They were not my property... I am giving him the whole list, so for his next article he will be able to prove that "this type of man cannot be enlightened."

The commune had one hundred and twenty-six square miles of land -- that should be mentioned as my property. The commune had one hundred more cars as well as ninety-three Rolls Royces; they should also be included -- make it one hundred and ninety-three.

The commune had also one hundred buses, twenty of them were fully air-conditioned --

that should also be included in my property. The commune had five airplanes -- that should be also included. The commune had its own cranes, its own tractors, all kinds of construction instruments, road-making mechanisms -- it should all be included. Why only ninety-three Rolls Royces? -- why make me poor? It had houses for five thousand people to live in, and it had temporary houses for twenty thousand people, ready any time to be erected. But do you think all that was my property? Do you think anything here is my property?

But these hungry, starving, greedy, sexually repressed Indians, but pretending to be spiritual, are worried unnecessarily. If I am not worried -- and I have never gone to see the garage where those ninety-three Rolls Royces were. The director of that garage is here, and I have been telling him, "I will be coming some day" -- but I knew and he knew that I would be the last person to come there.

He made a beautiful place and he kept those cars with care, with such care that the president of Rolls Royce himself had come to see and was amazed. He said, "The cars, the way you are keeping them -- even we are not keeping our new cars with such care."

Now all those cars are being exhibited in the great cities of America, on television, because one of the sannyasins had painted almost thirty cars in psychedelic colors. All those thirty cars have been purchased by some oil king in the Middle East.

... But nothing belonged to me. I have never looked backwards.

Why should these idiots be interested that I had ninety-three Rolls Royces? They want to prove that if a man has ninety-three Rolls Royces he cannot be enlightened -- that is the rationale of the whole article. If that is true, then Vijayanand has to answer that if Krishna can be a perfect incarnation of God with sixteen thousand wives, what is the problem with ninety-three Rolls Royces? -- at least they are not sex objects. If Krishna and Rama and Parusram, Hindu gods, could have golden chariots, solid gold, and still be gods, what is wrong in having ninety-three Rolls Royces?

And they were not mine at all. It is a strange thing that the whole news media goes on insisting that those cars were owned by me. If those cars were owned by me, then those cars should be here. The government of America has no right to my cars.

Those watches were not mine. Now they are going to... They have exhibited first those watches all over America. One cannot think governments and politicians can be so ugly: in the first place not returning those watches to the commune -- because it was commune property. If it was my property I could have claimed it; but it was not my property, so naturally I cannot claim anything. And now they are auctioning those watches on the sixteenth in Christie's in New York.

Vijayanand is trying to prove that I am not enlightened. But that should not trouble him....

Even if I am not enlightened, I am not a problem to him: I don't harass him, I don't haunt him. But for eight years continuously he has not been here, and he has been haunted by me. He seems to be something of a nutcase. He should just look into the Hindu scriptures, full of pornography; he should look at the highest Hindu trinity of gods: all have wives, and all are so infatuated with women that even to call them gods is simply nonsense.

When Shiva's wife died -- he was one of the trinity -- he proved himself almost to be an insane man. I will not call him a god; I will not call him even a sane man, because for twelve years he carried the dead body of his wife all around the country in search of some physician who may be able to cure her of death. Now, any idiot knows nobody is cured of death; death is not a disease, it has no medicine. This man must have been insane. Even ordinary people have more sanity. But these people are gods, they are enlightened by their very birth!

One should always remember: people who live in glass houses should not throw stones at anybody else. I can destroy their whole Hindu mythology without any effort. It just needs exposure -- it is so full of bullshit.

And as far as I am concerned, I have declared myself to have gone beyond enlightenment just to get rid of all these idiots. So now there is no problem for them -- I have already gone beyond. They don't have to be worried about me. I have left enlightenment also far behind. I am just an ordinary man.

But something goes on hurting their egos. What hurts these people? -- my silence? my love? my blissfulness? Everything hurts them, because everything shows that they are living in gutters, and they don't know the flight of an eagle in the sky across the sun.

But when I find people here too behaving that way, then certainly I start thinking that I committed a mistake by becoming enlightened. I could have lived at ease without any idiot telling me that he cannot forgive me... and I have not done anything to him.

I will tell Avirbhava to find this Sarjano; he needs to apologize to Avirbhava. It is just out of my love, and everybody knows it: whenever I see her, I like to scare her a little -- and she enjoys it. Many times I wanted to pass without scaring her, and I felt, "No, it is not good, because she will be expecting it and I am going without doing it. It is inhuman...."

But what Sarjano has the right to say any such thing to me?

You should be completely aware here.

If you are here, you are here to learn something, not to teach. First become capable of teaching something, then people will come to you. But don't try to impose yourself and appoint yourself as a judge.

This man Vijayanand had come to the ashram just to hide, and out of my compassion I allowed him. Otherwise I would have told him, "Just get lost. There is no place for you here"... because of what he had done. He was in love with his sister's daughter, which is absolutely against Hindu culture, Hindu religion, Indian mind -- and it is also wrong hygienically, scientifically, medically.

I support the Hindu idea because not only is it morally wrong, it is scientifically wrong to be married with such a close relationship. Your sister's daughter is your daughter: to be married to your daughter... That's why he had left Bombay -- because he was harassed and tortured by his family and by others: "What are you doing...?"

I gave him shelter -- that was my fault -- I told him he could remain here, nobody would bother here. Perhaps he has not been able to forgive me because I know the secret, and I know the real reason was not any spirituality, not any meditation, nothing but a shelter.

He has not been able to forgive me; otherwise, for eight years continuously he goes on writing for no reason. This is for the first time... I thought it is better to say something, because this idiot is not going to stop without hammering his skull as hard as possible.

And what did he do here? Out of fear he sent his sister's daughter to England, because the whole family was against, and the whole community where he lived and the whole industry -- he is a director in the film industry -- was against. All his brothers are famous actors, directors -- they were all against. So he sent the girl away, and here he married another girl just to cool things down, so the Bombay people start thinking, "Now the problem is finished, he has married a girl." And that was a pure deception, an ugly, inhuman behavior.

He married the girl just to cool down the heat that was against him; and once the heat was cooled down he dropped the girl. He called the girl whom he really wanted to marry, his own sister's daughter, and he married her -- he committed bigamy too. The girl he married belonged to a very high-class family in Delhi. She had come here to meditate, but got infatuated with the idea.... He bribed her, he blackmailed her by telling her that he was a director -- and he is a director, and a good director -- that he will make her a heroine in his films.

This idea was the bribe, so she was immediately ready to marry him. He got married to her, and after the marriage he sent her back to her home in Delhi saying, "I will come and take you back...." He never went there. On the contrary, the mother of the girl came to me saying, "We don't want this third-rate man to be married to our daughter." They were very rich people; the daughter's father was ambassador in Russia. She said, "If her father comes to know, he will kill me. She is my one and only child."

I said, "I will try." But there was no need to try. Vijayanand escaped from here. He married the other girl, and because the first marriage was not registered, he simply went to the priest who had married them, bribed him, and burnt the marriage certificate. So without a divorce he has married his own sister's daughter.

Now all this only I know. That is the wound that he is carrying against me. I have never told anybody.... But he has been insisting for eight years continuously; now comes the limit. Now I expose him. The family of the girl that he has deceived remains silent, because they do not want to create any stir. The father was a politician and an ambassador, and even to bring it to the court would have condemned the girl and would have created trouble for the family, for her marriage. It was already silent... because Vijayanand got married again, and he denied that he had married the first girl -- because he had burnt the certificate.

Knowing that I am the only person who can expose him hurts, he goes on and on writing against me, for no reason, just to create a defense around himself. I was not going to attack him: I know human stupidity, I know human insanity, I know human frailty and weakness and I have every compassion for it.

But I will not tolerate anybody here in the commune behaving as if he owns the space. If ever again I get any letter like this, you will be turned out of the door. Whoever he is --

because he seems to be very tricky -- one letter he writes which is absolutely ugly, then another letter he writes praising me, and great poetry and great gratefulness... this Italian spaghetti cunningness will not do here!

Dhyan Smita, you are saying, "When you were talking about sex and meditation the other evening I got mixed up." The statement looks as if you were trying to do what I had said before; otherwise, why should you get mixed up? What got mixed up? -- sex and meditation?

What got mixed up? Just one thought that you had heard before and another thought that you have heard now -- only two thoughts. But this place is not for thinking; this place is for going beyond thinking. And if you had meditated, there would have been no mix-up.

You are saying, "So often before I have heard you say..." So often! -- you are saying exactly the same as the German sannyasin was doing: so often he became enlightened!

"So often before I have heard you say: `Let your sex be your meditation.'" What have you done about it? Today I want to say to you, Let your meditation be your sex -- no other sex, just meditation.

"Also, how do your latest suggestions fit into the Tantra Visions?" Who bothers? -- when I was talking on Tantra you did not listen. Now I'm talking on other things, you are not listening. Tomorrow I may not be talking about the same things: are you going just to listen?

As far as I am concerned I have never contradicted myself. Certainly when I speak on Tantra, I speak not as a scholar on Tantra or about Tantra; I speak as an insider who knows what Tantra is. When I speak on meditation, I don't speak about meditation; I speak about my experience of meditation.

Whatever I speak, I never speak without the support of my own experience, and in my experience there is no problem: the Tantra vision, meditation, sex, enlightenment -- all come into one single organic unity.

But that does not mean... According to you, do you want me to say everything every day the same? Then what is the need for me to be here? Just a tape recorder will do.

I am not a tape recorder. I am a living human being, growing continuously, and according to my growth my answers will grow, will become different, have different colors, will have more depth, will have new angles, new dimensions. I am not a system maker; I am simply an explorer of the whole field of consciousness.

So I will make all kinds of statements. Whichever suits you, do it. Don't be worried about my being contradictory, because that is my problem. If I am contradictory you are not going to be responsible for it. I will arrange on the last judgment day with God, who is contradictory: am I contradictory or is he contradictory? But that is my problem. God will not ask you about my contradictions, he will ask about your life, how you have lived it --

have you lived it at all?

Always remember it as a criterion: if there is a God and on the final judgment day he asks you, What is in your hands? -- they will be just empty. You will not have even a few flowers to offer him, because your concerns are all absolutely unnecessary, irrelevant.

Your concerns should be absolutely just you, and nobody else.

First solve your own Gordian knot, first cut yourself asunder, first explode your own potentiality; and then you have the right to advise, you have the right to say something about these great things -- meditation or Tantra or enlightenment. Right now you don't have in any way, any right at all, to say anything.

Do something! Be something! Then your very being will resolve many problems that right now you feel are great problems. You think this is a great problem, and you say, "I am puzzled." Why should you be puzzled? I should be puzzled, it is my contradiction, not yours. But I am not puzzled... nothing puzzles me.

A man was on safari in Africa, but he lost his guide and wandered deep into the jungle.

Suddenly he was surrounded by hostile natives. He was at a loss what to do. But then he remembered a trick he had seen in an old movie.

He dug into his pocket, pulled out his cigarette lighter, flicked it once and a big flame popped up.

"It is a miracle," shouted the chief, collapsing to his knees. "I have never seen a lighter that worked first time."

If you can enjoy me, that is enough. If you can celebrate me, that is enough.

A traveling salesman, staying overnight in a hotel, found a BIBLE by his bed. On the front page was this inscription: "If you are sick, read page forty-two. If you are worried about your family, read page sixty-eight. If you are lonely, read page ninety-two."

He was lonely, so he opened to page ninety-two and read it. When he had finished he noticed on the bottom of the page the hand-written words: "If you are still lonely, call 62485 and ask for Gloria."

I call this kind of BIBLE really holy: this is the service of the poor, of the lonely, of the lost.

Here, you are to rejoice. This is not an academical institute; it is just a divinely mad communion of people who know how to love, how to laugh, how to sing, how to dance.

And you bring academic questions, that I said something and now I am saying something else....

If you go on looking that way you will simply waste your life, because I will go on saying anything every day. But whatever I say is relevant to somebody. If you watch carefully, you should choose whatever is relevant to you, and not only keep it in your memory, but materialize into a realization.

Just a joke to make this silence deeper.... First experience this silence, so that after the laughter you can experience the deepness of it... how laughter can make silence deeper, how laughter can make love deeper, how laughter can make meditation deeper. But first, feel it....

A traveling salesman was passing through a small town in Virginia when he saw a little old man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of his house. The little man looked so contented that the salesman could not resist going over and talking to him.

"You look as if you don't have a care in the world," the salesman said, "what is your formula for a long and happy life?"

"Well," replied the little old man, "I smoke six packs of cigars a day, I drink, I enjoy a large bottle of whiskey every four hours, and six cases of beer a week. I play the guitar and I go out chasing women every night."

"My goodness," exclaimed the salesman. "That's just great! And how old are you?"

The little man took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, "Twenty-five."

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #10

Chapter title: Drunk with awareness

11 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709110

ShortTitle:

PILGR10

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

123

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I WOULD LIKE TO BE IN SYNCHRONICITY WITH YOU. WOULD YOU MIND

TELLING ME WHAT TIME IT IS, SO THAT I CAN SET MY WATCH BY YOURS?

Anand Vimal, it is not difficult for me to tell the time. But keeping your watch in synchronicity with my watch is not the real thing; your heart has to be in synchronicity with my heart. The watch will not help. Just for your consolation, on my watch it is eight-ten. But you have to synchronize with my heart, with my being.

And I know you are coming along, slow but steady... and the moment will come when your heart will beat with the same rhythm as my heart.

Your question is, in a way, significant. Superficially, it is stupid... but there have been many cases of enlightened people whose watches stopped when they died. Perhaps their disciples could not manage to synchronize with the master's heart, but their watch did.

One famous Zen master, Bokuju even told the people that, "when my watch stops, you can understand I am gone. It beats with my heart."

But this is not the case with me. I am in every way eccentric. Automatic watches simply stop on my hand -- because an automatic watch needs some movement, and I am so still.

Finally, I had to change from automatic watches and turn to quartz watches, because whether I am dead or alive they will continue. A battery does not know how to synchronize, but the automatic watch needs movement.

But I rarely make any movement and I don't keep the watch on my hand twenty-four hours -- just when I come to you, so that I remember now it is morning and I have to go to you; and in the evening when I come to you... just these four hours the watch is on my hand.

The remaining time I don't need to know what day it is, what date it is, what time it is.

My people love me so much that they know at what time they have to serve my lunch; at what time they have to put me in the bed; at what time they have to wake me up and push me into the bathroom.

And as far as days and dates are concerned, they are absolutely irrelevant to me. I have no need of any calendar. Even Neelam reminds me about the year, that it is 1987; otherwise, I have no concern. I am not in a hurry, not going towards a goal.

Once in a while, while speaking, I look at my watch; you must be thinking that I am looking at the time, but really I am looking to see whether the watch has stopped or not.

If it has stopped, it is better to stop now; if it is still running, I can manage.

It was a great surprise to scientists why many people's watches stopped when they died, exactly at that moment. Those watches were running in deep harmony with their heart; slowly, slowly those watches had become in a dance with the rhythm of the heart.

But, Vimal, making your watch run exactly as mine will not be of much help. You have to put your heart with my heart, you have to learn to dance with my being -- and that I cannot do. I can provide the opportunity, then it is all up to your intelligence, to take it or not to take it.

If you want to be in synchronicity with me, you have to be as drunk with awareness as I am. It is a strange drunkenness: you are fully aware and still you are as drunk with joy, blissfulness as no drunkard can be. You just look at my eyes: anybody will think I am drunk. You just listen to my words: anybody will think I am drunk.

I have not drunk even water for twenty years! I have been traveling around the country, and this country has such an ugly culture that in the same rivers buffaloes are enjoying their bath, donkeys are drinking, dogs are pissing and men are standing amidst them, chanting to God -- and that water is being used. It is absolutely polluted.

I have heard that America will destroy itself by its nuclear weapons, Russia will follow the same route, England will die because of its hypocrisy and its seriousness and France will die from its sexuality and sensuality. The person who was telling me, I asked him --

"Because I am here now in India, tell me of what India is going to die." He said, "Shitting all over the country!"

India is a big toilet. This is the only freedom India has -- freedom to shit anywhere. I wonder why they have not included it in the constitution? Where they talk about freedom of speech -- although nobody has anything to say -- they should have mentioned that everybody is free to urinate anywhere he wants; everybody is free to shit anywhere he wants. Those would have been realistic considerations.

Freedom of speech in this country? -- I have not seen a single person who can claim that he is a free thinker. They are learned, they are scholars, they can repeat scriptures, but free thinking? -- that does not exist, has not existed since Gautam Buddha. He was the last free thinker in this country. For twenty-five centuries, nobody has bothered to think.

In fact, nobody has time; raising children, creating more misery, more poverty, who has time to think?

I am certainly mad, because I am telling you to go beyond thinking, and you have not even started thinking! Here my work is first to make you start thinking... just to drop it.

You cannot drop anything if you don't have it. A beggar cannot say, "I have renounced the world." The fact is just the opposite: the world has renounced him. Only an emperor can say, "I have renounced the world" -- and it makes sense.

A few suggestions for you, Vimal.

Two drunks were staggering along the railway tracks. "My God!" said the first. "I've never climbed so many steps in my whole life!"

"It's not the steps that bother me," replied the other. "It's the low hand-rails."

Just get a little drunk! This temple belongs to drunkards... and I will know before you know whether your heart is in synchronicity with me or not. You have come a long long way -- just a few steps more.

The politician was trying to calm a group of angry farmers because he had not fulfilled any of his promises.

"If you put a bull into a field of cows one night," he declared, "you would not expect to get a lot of new-born calves in the morning, would you?"

"No," said a voice from the back of the hall, "but you would certainly expect to see a lot of contented faces."

Just looking at you, I know how you are growing. Just the contented faces, just the silence surrounding you... just the depth of your eyes going deeper, becoming oceanic...

just your gratitude to existence reaching to its peak. This is the language that I understand.

If somebody comes to me and says that he is absolutely in synchronicity with me -- that won't do, because that is not the language of synchronicity. Synchronicity speaks itself.

There is an ancient proverb, "Lies have to speak; truth remains silent." But lies deceive you forever, and the silent truth can become your eternal treasure. It has not said anything.

In deep silence you all synchronize with me, because silence knows no distinctions. In laughing together you synchronize with me, because laughter knows no boundaries. In understanding what I am saying and where I am leading you, you synchronize with me.

Watches won't do, Vimal. In fact, you don't want to synchronize with the watch; you want to synchronize with me. That happens as your meditation deepens, as your love becomes unconditional, without any expectations. Once it happens, it has happened forever.

And the synchronicity, the harmony with the master, does not think of contradictions, inconsistencies; those are all far below in the dark valleys. The moment you synchronize, you start rising towards the sunlit peaks, towards the stars.

It will happen.... The way I have been watching you, it is already happening. Don't bother about watches -- because what will you do if I don't have a watch? In fact, the watch I have is not mine. Even if you synchronize with it, you will be synchronizing with somebody else, whose watch I am wearing. People give me watches to wear while they are here, just to bless their watches, so they can rejoice when they go that they are going with something, some heartbeats of me. This is difficult for the outside world to understand.

Gayan makes my clothes. She could have been paid highly anywhere; she is a perfect seamstress. Here she gets nothing except my love. She works day and night -- but perhaps she has got the insight that there is nothing more valuable than the love of one who has arrived. His love will pull you also with invisible strings to the whole.

Everything I have does not belong to me. My shoes Arpita goes on making; my hats Veena goes on making. They rejoice that I am wearing their hats, their shoes, their dresses. Somebody brings a car and is grateful that I am using the car for coming to Buddha Hall. I could have come walking -- it is not such a great distance, just from one house to another house -- but then I would not have made somebody happy without any effort.

It is difficult for the outsiders to understand me. They have never known such a thing --

that anybody will give me their watches just to wear so that the watch starts vibrating with my heart, and then it becomes sacred to them.

One of the best television interviewers in America, Ted Koppel, asked me, "I cannot believe why people should go on giving you watches to wear, Rolls Royces to drive in.

And not one but ninety-three Rolls Royces, and thousands of watches!"

I said, "You don't know the ways of love."

He said, "But I have friends...."

I said, "A friend is one thing -- you don't have a master. You have never loved somebody more than yourself. The moment you love somebody more than yourself, then you are ready to do anything."

It does not matter whether it is valuable or not valuable... people from around the world go on sending me strange things, knowing perfectly well what I will do with them. Just the other day somebody sent a beautiful stone from Mount Sinai, where Moses met God, according to the theology of the Jews, so Mount Sinai has become a holy place.

I respect the idea, although the story may be false. The story may be just a story, but the person who sends a stone, packaged beautifully, has a tremendous love in his heart. What should he give to me? -- everything is trivial. But this stone from Mount Sinai, which is the only place God has ever spoken to any man, is holy. Although it is just a stone, because it is holy, somebody sends it to me.

I go on receiving all kinds of things, and I will go on distributing them to others. What will I do with them? -- I have come naked and I will go naked from the world. And I am still naked under my clothes, I know it!

I have been seeing you, watching you, Vimal. Perhaps you need a few sutras: they bring you closer to me. Seriousness separates; laughter brings closer.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can enjoy today....

If you enjoy it today, you can enjoy it tomorrow too. Why postpone it? Postponement is a disease of the mind; it always goes on saying, "Tomorrow"... particularly for significant things. Any trivia and rubbish it will do today, the significant can be done tomorrow. But that tomorrow never comes: all that comes is always today. And if you have become accustomed to postponing for tomorrow, you have postponed your life completely.

If you have two wives, that is bigamy; if you have many wives, that is polygamy; if you have one wife, that is monotony.

To avoid all these troubles, I don't have a wife! Polygamy will drive you mad; bigamy is enough to destroy your whole life -- and even monotony is powerful enough....

In my vision of a future humanity, there will not be polygamy, there will not be bigamy, there will not be monotony. Individuals will relate with each other, but will not create any relationship. They will remain free, independent individuals.

Now, Chamanlal is sitting before me -- he is from Amritsar -- and he loves me immensely. Very few people have loved me so deeply. I used to stay in Amritsar in his house. He is suffering from monotony: it has taken all his life and all his juice and all his joy. I have stayed in many, many houses all around the country, and it is always monotony.

One of my friends was rich enough... I asked him, "What are you going to do with so much money? Whether you have nine crore rupees or ten crore rupees it won't make any difference. With ten crore rupees you will not be happier than you are with nine crore rupees."

He said, "That's right."

I said, "Now you are fifty. This is the time to turn towards the mountains."

He was a courageous man; he stopped all his businesses, all his factories. When he met me next time, he said, "You have put me in such trouble."

I said, "Trouble?... I was thinking you were troubled continuously -- financing this, financing that, taking loans from the banks. I have put you out of all trouble."

He said, "That's okay -- but now I am suffering from monotony. I have only one wife and for thirty years... just seeing each other is enough torture!"

I told him, "Take a beautiful bungalow in a hill station and move there."

He said, "I can -- but you will have to come with me. If you are there then I don't care.

But if my wife and I are there, we will kill each other." They loved each other -- it is not that they were not loving people. They loved each other, but I could understand his psychology.

Having nothing to do, he opened a dharamshala -- a free house with two hundred bedrooms, for people who come to visit in his city to stay free of charge -- just to create some work for himself and to avoid his wife the whole day. So early in the morning he would go out -- and he was not earning anything... on the contrary he was losing, but he had enough to lose. He would return at ten or eleven in the night.

His wife told me, "You have stopped him from earning money. Now he is losing money, but still the same trouble; in the morning he goes, and in the night he comes back."

I said, "It is not the factories, it is you. Do you really want him -- be frank and sincere --

to to twenty-four hours in the house?"

She said, "No. I have taken a vow not to lie: it is good for an hour or two that we meet, but twenty-four hours... then it becomes heavy. Then we start torturing each other, knowing perfectly well that it is useless."

Every small child wonders why his father did not go into the ice cream business....

The great truth is that women actually like men, and men can never believe it.

Do you really believe your girlfriend likes you? When you see your face in the mirror, you cannot like yourself. Either the girl is an idiot, or... why should she like and love you?

But the reverse is also true: no woman believes that her lover really loves her. She thinks his desire is to possess, she thinks his one-pointed goal is to have a sexual object, available twenty-four hours. Prostitutes are costly, and you cannot depend on them. They are temporary -- temporary structures; you need a permanent, guaranteed relationship with a woman who cannot deny you. The women always suspect they are being used.... I cannot say that they are wrong, neither can I say that the men are wrong.

Love can exist only after meditation, not before it.

That is a simple existential law. Before meditation -- only lust, only sexuality. Before meditation you are an animal and not really a human being. With meditation a transformation comes: you become human, and out of your humanness, love flows.

And when the meditation reaches to the highest peak, the Everest of consciousness, then a new change happens. In science they say that a certain quantity brings a qualitative change. You boil water up to ninety-nine point nine degrees, and it will not start evaporating. It will evaporate only at one hundred degrees. Now, nobody can say why.

This makes life mysterious.

At a certain height, meditation -- when it becomes so easy for you to move into it that no thought hinders -- becomes as easy as breathing. Then comes a transformation, a second transformation: you are enlightened.

And parallel to it, from sex through meditation you move to love. From enlightenment you will become love. It will not be a question of loving anybody; it will be simply a question of your presence. Your presence will be love.

The moment one man's presence becomes love, he has fulfilled his destiny. There is nothing more beyond it. He has come to the beyond.

Home is the only place where you can scratch where it itches.

A diplomat is a man who can make his wife believe she would look fat in a mink coat.

Women like strong, silent men because they think they are listening.

Never look back -- something might be gaining on you.

I was twelve years old before I found out that "Shut Up" was not my real name.

It always pays to smile in the morning, because later in the day you may not feel like it.

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second nature in a married woman.

Vimal, you need not worry. Although I may not be able to see all the faces who are around here, I can certainly feel their heartbeat, whether they are part of my silence or just spectators, or they have come here just out of curiosity, or they are government CID

informers. I can feel at least the heartbeat.

There are police officers, and naturally, they are the most afraid people here: somebody may recognize them. They have changed their dress... but you cannot change your heart. I don't care about your dress and about your uniform; my concern is with your inner being.

That you cannot change, because you don't know about it.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

FROM SOME BOOK I REMEMBER THIS SENTENCE: "FOR THE PILGRIM TO

REACH HIS DESTINY, IT'S ESSENTIAL TO MOVE INSTANTLY, BUT WITHOUT

HURRY. IT IS SO URGENT THAT HE REACHES HIS DESTINY, THAT THERE IS

NO TIME TO HURRY."

COULD YOU PLEASE SPEAK ABOUT IF THERE IS ANY URGENCY, AND HOW

THAT RELATES TO WAITING?

Rabia, you have got caught into a verbiage; otherwise the message is very simple. And it should be simple to you, because that's what I'm saying in many, many ways.

First... the situation is every moment urgent for the simple reason that you cannot rely on the next moment; whether it will come or not is not in your hands. So every moment we are living in urgency. If you want to do something, do it now and here, because how can you postpone it?

Secondly, you say, "From some book I remember this sentence: `For the pilgrim to reach his destiny, it is essential to move INSTANTLY...'" Certainly if you want to come to yourself you should not lose a single moment, because there is always a possibility that death may interfere. But you must have got into trouble because the sentence certainly comes from some great mystic... "but without hurry."

Move instantly because it is urgent, but without hurry, because in hurry you are not together, in hurry you are always late, in hurry you forget the essentials, in hurry you need time. Just to be in a hurry you will require time -- and there is no time. This moment is all and all, and the situation is urgent.

You have been born without your agreement, without a contract, even without your permission; that was not in your hands. You will die without any advance information, without fixing a date and time -- that is not in your hands. Once dead you cannot complain; and not yet born you are nowhere. To whom should existence ask, "Do you want to be born or not?"

So what you have really got in your hands, solid and real, is only this moment, in which you can act intelligently or stupidly; in other words, in which you can act as a meditator or as a mediocre....

But the statement is really beautiful. You got into a puzzle because you cannot think what kind of madness this is. First you say it is urgent, and urgency creates hurry; then you deny that there should be hurry, but the question is so urgent that you should start instantly. You got puzzled into the words. I will tell you how one can get puzzled into beautiful words.

Two men met at a bar and struck up a conversation. After a while one of them said, "You think you have family problems? Listen to my situation. A few years ago I met a young widow with a grown-up daughter and we got married. Later, my father married my stepdaughter. That made my stepdaughter my stepmother, and my father became my stepson. Also, my wife became the mother-in-law of her father-in-law.

"Then the daughter of my wife, my stepmother, had a son. This boy was my half brother because he was my father's son, but he was also the son of my wife's daughter, which made him my wife's grandson. That made me the grandfather of my half brother.

"This was nothing until my wife and I had a son. Now the sister of my son, my mother-in-law, is also my grandmother. This makes my father the brother-in-law of my child, whose stepsister is my father's wife.

"I am my stepmother's brother-in-law; my wife is her own child's aunt, my son is my father's nephew and I am my own grandfather. And you think you have family problems?"

Just don't get caught into words!

The statement is very clear: the situation is urgent because you have no guarantee for the next second. You have to start instantly because you cannot postpone -- the future is not insured -- and yet you cannot be in a hurry because hurry takes time.

So silently, peacefully, without hurry, without any tension, without any anguish, move into yourself instantly. It is urgent. Unless meditation becomes urgent to you, it will never happen; you will die before it. Put meditation on your laundry list as the most important, urgent... number one.

But meditation in your life is just at the very end of your laundry list -- and the laundry list goes on becoming bigger and bigger. And before you finish your laundry list, you are finished, so the time for meditation never comes.

So I take that statement, whoever has made it, as tremendously significant. Rabia, don't try to understand the sentence; I have cut it into pieces clearly for you, so you are not confused.

There is no time for hurry, there is no time for worry; in a single moment what can you do? Only one thing: you can settle within yourself. That will be the great transformation of your being. And certainly it is the most urgent thing -- which we have been trying to postpone as long as possible.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

HOW IS IT THESE DAYS THAT THE MEN ALL SEEM TO BE GOING CRAZY, YET THE WOMEN JUST GO ON BECOMING MORE BEAUTIFUL, MORE

SILENT, MORE GRACEFUL?

Milarepa, it is so simple... that I am amazed that you have asked it. When men go crazy then anything is beautiful. The beauty does not depend on the woman, the silence, the grace; it depends on your craziness.

But still it has some significance to be understood. It does not matter if you ask something stupid or idiotic, still I will give you a significant answer.

You are asking, "How is it these days that the men all seem to be going crazy, yet the women just go on becoming more beautiful, more silent, more graceful?"

A few fundamentals our men and our women all have to understand: one is that man's sexuality is positive, women's sexuality is negative. Negative is not a condemnation, it is just indicating the nature of their sexuality. Man is the donor and woman is the receiver.

My own experience of old-style Hindu monks, Jaina monks, Buddhist monks, Catholic priests is that they don't understand the nature of sexuality. They have a positive sexuality; they collect sperm and they don't have much space for it. They go on eating, they go on nourishing their body, they go on exercising, they go on doing everything that creates more sperms -- and the bag where the sperms collect has a very limited capacity.

That's why man can have only one orgasm at a time: just one shot, and his gun is empty!

But the woman has a negative sexuality. She can have multiple orgasms, because she is not losing anything in orgasm -- except she is getting tired of all the huffing and puffing, and the ugly beast on top doing push-ups! That's another thing, they get tired... they keep their eyes closed and they lie down almost like stone statues: "Let him do it, it is just a question of a few seconds. One can survive."

Within a few seconds the man is finished, but those few seconds are aggressive. His sexuality is aggressive; that's why if he cannot get a woman, he becomes crazy. What to do with his aggressive sex energy? It needs some outlet. That's why he finds all kinds of perversions. Strange... he goes to a woman, to a prostitute, just pays her and loses his energy -- a strange business!

One prostitute can have many customers in one night, because she does not lose energy; on the contrary, the more people are attracted towards her, she starts becoming more graceful, more beautiful. And on the other hand the man is in such a hurry to get rid of his energy, which is becoming a burden, that his eyes go blind. He starts looking at anything resembling a woman -- and suddenly he has found a Cleopatra or a Sophia Loren. His eyes are not clean and clear. A great fog is surrounding him because his sexual energy is so aggressive. It is bound to happen.

And why is the man's semen so overpowering? They have their own problems. In one sexual act a man releases nearabout one million living cells, and those one million living cells have a lifespan of only two hours. Once they are out of the body of the man, that is where politics is born: then one million cells are rushing, trampling over each other to reach to the woman's cell. And the woman has only one cell....

The woman's cell is non-aggressive; it can wait, there is no overburdening. Moreover the woman has every month a menstrual period in which that cell is released. Then for one month she is completely free from sexual desire. In one month another cell will come, another egg will come, so her situation is far more non-aggressive. You have not heard of any woman raping a man.

But man goes mad. He is going crazy because those cells want to get out. It is too crowded, they want a little open sky, a little air. Once they enter into the woman's body, a great marathon race starts, because only one will be able to reach to the cell. The cell, the egg of the mother, is constituted in such a way that it is very loose and very available, but the moment one male cell enters it, it naturally closes, becomes hard. Now no other cell can enter into it.

The passage of the woman's vagina to us seems to be very small, but to the poor male cell it is almost two miles long in proportion to his size. They have never traveled that much, so everybody is an amateur.

I have always wondered why the world is full of idiots and mediocres and fanatics, fundamentalists, fascists of all kinds and sorts -- they come in all sizes. My understanding is that when the man's cells start moving into the woman's body, the wiser ones stand aside. The intelligent ones don't want to mix with the crowd; only the boxers, football players, champions of all kinds of stupid games, wrestlers... they do their great job, rushing over each other. It is a question of life and death: if within two hours they don't reach first, their life is finished, within two hours they will be dead.

Only once in a while it happens that two wrestlers of equal strength reach to the woman's cell at the same time; that's why twins are born. Sometimes even seven children have been given birth -- I think nine is the record -- but it is very rare that out of a million people, nine will reach exactly at the same time, not a single minute, a single second, a split second behind. Then they all enter into the woman's egg.

The world is full of idiots and fools, bureaucrats, politicians, Don Quixotes and all kinds of stupids, competitors, competing in every field of life -- it may be money, it may be power, it may be prestige, it may even be saintliness. It is expected... these are the people who have won the first race.

The intelligent ones, the poetic, the silent, who could have become a Gautam Buddha, who could have become a poet like Rabindranath or Kahlil Gibran... We know -- it is a simple fact -- that intelligent people will not compete with this crowd, and the crowd is not small: one million....

Rabindranath was the thirteenth son of his father. We don't know how many Rabindranaths we have lost, and how many Albert Einsteins are never born, and how many Picassos, van Goghs, Mozarts have never been able to make the race. There are things which only idiots can do. Have you ever seen any wise man participating in a marathon race? Have you ever seen any enlightened one being competitive, begging for votes so that he can become the president?

The wise people keep aloof.

The idiots rule.

And the idiots are in the majority.

I was thinking, Why are they in the majority? -- but then I found that the first marathon race has created the whole trouble. And this situation will continue unless we are more intelligent and stop this accidental birth -- what I call accidental birth.

Now we are at a stage where genetic engineering can manage very easily to give us as many Rabindranaths, as many Picassos, as many Bodhidharmas, as many Nijinskys as we want, on demand, because in those one million cells all kinds of people are there.

The point is we should drop the old idea that you have to produce your son yourself.

Strange... you order your clothes from the best tailor, you purchase the best car, you make the most beautiful house -- not with your own hands. You don't insist that "I will make my car, I will make my house, I will make my clothes, I will make my food"... you will go insane. So why do we insist that the son should be ours? But just our old superstition continues.

According to me, each hospital, each medical college should have semen banks, just like blood banks. You can go and ask for what kind of child, boy or girl, what kind of face, what kind of color you want, how long a lifespan, what kind of intelligence -- poetic, scientific, mystic... you can ask for it. They will have categories sorted out, and your wife will be injected with just a single sperm.

I don't think there is anything wrong in it. You can go on making love, but you should use every birth control method. For birth you have to enquire to the medical authorities....

It will change the whole face of the earth. There will be so many intelligent people, creative people, loving people. It will raise the standard of life, it will raise the standard of health, it will bring about more inventions, more poetry, more sculpture, and it will make man no longer accidental, at the mercy of blind nature.

Then there is no need even to get married, because you will not be creating children of your own. The possibility is already accomplished that the child need not be raised in the mother's womb; the child can be raised in a mechanical womb, far more scientifically.

The best parents will be those who have chosen the best child, with the best qualities, with the best scientific womb, so when he comes out of the womb they can take him home.

This will do two things: the children will become so beautiful and so intelligent, so healthy, so long living, and also the parents will be unburdened.

Every parent is harassing the child to become great, to become Alexander the Great, to become Gautam Buddha. What can the child do? -- it is not in the program of his basic cell. So parents are disturbed because children don't listen to them, and children are unnecessarily harassed and hurt. They cannot forgive their parents their whole life for the way they have been treated in their helplessness, in their childhood.

What you are demanding of them they don't have in their basic program. Every human psychology is completely programmed, his physiology is completely programmed, and everything goes according to the program. There are no accidents. You can have as beautiful women in the world as you like; you can have as strong men in the world as you like.

Now it is within our hands.

Who is preventing it? Your priests and your politicians -- because they will be the ones who will lose all glamour. Far more intelligent people will be there, so these stupid politicians who know next to nothing...

I have seen education ministers who cannot even sign their names, and they are deciding the education for the whole country. I have seen finance ministers who don't know the meaning of finance, who have not any idea how the economy runs. I have seen soldiers who don't have any courage.

This whole society is upside down.

Milarepa, particularly amongst my people it is going to be this way. Man, unless he meditates, will go crazy -- crazy after women. And man finds meditation more difficult than the woman. Experienced mothers who have given two, three births can be asked before the birth and can say whether there is a girl or a boy in their womb, because a girl remains silent, and a boy starts playing football. He starts kicking here and there.

In meditation girls can enter deeper. On the one hand they can go deeper in meditation; on the other hand their sexuality is negative, it is not a compulsion on them.

I was amazed in my experience moving amongst all kinds of monks and nuns, because no monk is really celibate, but nuns are celibate. They can manage to be celibate; they don't have an aggressive sex, and moreover nature has provided that every month their sex energy goes out of their body automatically, they are clean again for one month. But man is in a difficulty. His sex energy can be subdued only by deeper meditation. Then he will not go crazy.

You have to understand another basic law: the woman looks more beautiful the more she runs away from you. She does not want to run away; she waits for you to come closer, and then she starts running again. She wants to be caught, but she is not going to take the initiative so that later on, after the honeymoon, when there will be continuous struggle, she can always say to you, "You were after me. I had never intended to marry you."

After the honeymoon all beauty disappears, because your sexual energy has gone down the drain. Even the most beautiful woman will no longer look beautiful to you because you have used her. You know her whole geography, you know her whole topography; now there is nothing to explore. And man is by nature an explorer, a hunter, an adventurer.

You may not have perceived that all the great cities, all the beautiful houses, all the beautiful gardens are not to man's credit; they are to be credited to woman. She never wanted to be a hunter, she never wanted to run continuously after animals, she never wanted to move. She wanted to live peacefully in a beautiful house surrounded with a beautiful garden.

But man basically is a nomad. That nomadness comes from his basic sexual cell. He is made of those sexual cells which keep telling him, "Go on, go on." He will go to all kinds of strange places for no reason, just because he needs money... and once he has money he starts traveling. A home he does not have.

You will see it in tourists: ninety percent are Americans, because they have so much money that what to do?... Go on, anywhere. And when they go on to the Taj Mahal or to Khajuraho or to Ajanta or to Ellora, they cannot stay there. They cannot watch the beauty silently, look at the great art that has taken thousands of years to make, thousands of people were involved to make it; they will simply go on running, taking photographs.

Back at home they will make a good album and then they will see how beautiful are the things they have seen. And they have not seen... they have only photographed! Those photographs could have been purchased from the market; there was no need to go around the world.

But man is a nomad. Woman is not.

In Hindi we have a word for the wife, gharwali, one who owns the home. But that word we cannot use for the man, who really owns it; nobody can say to any man, "You are gharwala." He has paid, he has earned the money, but the woman is called the owner of the home.

But it is exactly right. Man may have earned, but the woman has made the house. Woman has forced man to live a life settled, silent, peaceful, not to go on running like stray dogs from one place to another.

In my people's world, Milarepa, unless you are meditating deeply you will not be able to transcend your sexual craziness. And I can see -- I have been continuously observing --

women get into meditation quickly. It comes to them easily. The more meditative they become, they will become more beautiful, more serene, more calm, more quiet, more graceful.

But you, not doing meditation, not creating a state of no-mind, will fall a victim of jazz music or skinheads; you will do something stupid.

The doctor was explaining to Paddy how nature makes up for a person's deficiencies.

"For example," he told Paddy, "if a man is deaf, he may have very good eyesight, and if a man is blind, he may have a very good sense of smell."

"I think I see what you mean," said Paddy. "I have often noticed that if a man has one short leg, then the other one is always a little bit longer."

Great thinkers, coming to great conclusions!

The student demonstration had turned into a riot. Suddenly a man staggered out of the crowd carrying a limp girl in his arms.

"Here," shouted a cop running up to the man, "give her to me. I will get her out of this."

"The hell with you," replied the man, "go and find one of your own!"

Even in a riot, when people are being killed, shot, the man's mind remains continuously thinking of sex.

Sex is man's greatest bondage.

You have to make every effort for meditativeness, so that all your sexual energy, instead of moving downwards, starts moving upwards. Instead of finding a beautiful woman, start creating a beautiful man within you. Rather than finding a graceful woman, your energy can make you graceful.

But man is more stupid than woman. The whole of history has been made up by man, and you can see the madness: it is a history not of mankind, but of madness, wars, rape, burning living people, destruction. And now they have come to the peak; perhaps Ronald Reagan will be the last chapter of history -- although there will be no one to read it, and perhaps no one will be able to write it even.

A married couple took their little boy to the circus. During the gorilla act the husband had to go to the bathroom, and while he was gone, the little boy nudged his mother and said,

"What is that long thing hanging down between the gorilla's legs?"

His mother was very embarrassed and said quickly, "Oh, that's nothing, dear."

When the husband returned, the wife went off to buy some popcorn, and while she was gone, the little boy nudged his father and said, "Daddy, what is that big thing hanging down between the gorilla's legs?"

The father smiled and said, "That son, is his penis."

The little boy looked puzzled for a moment and then said, "Then why did mummy just say it was nothing?"

"Son," said his father proudly, "I have spoiled that woman."

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #11

Chapter title: Meditation -- now or never!

11 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709115

ShortTitle:

PILGR11

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

133

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

COULD DRY LEAVES REALLY BE FALLING AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE? I AM

THIRTY, AND I ENJOY SEX WHEN IT COMES, THOUGH I DON'T COME SO

OFTEN. I DON'T FEEL I AM HOLDING SOMETHING DOWN; ON THE

CONTRARY, I FIND I USUALLY HAVE TO HOLD IT UP.

BELOVED OSHO, IT NOW TAKES ME ALL NIGHT TO DO WHAT I USED TO DO

ALL NIGHT. AM I MISSING, OR IS IT MISSING?

Nityanando, this is the difference between the Eastern evolution of consciousness and the Western mind.

In the East, to get rid of sex is a blessing; in the West, it is the ultimate calamity, it is dying before death. The day one starts feeling that his sexual energy is getting down, he starts counting days -- that death is not far away.

In the East, the day one gets beyond sex, he rejoices -- the earlier the better -- because now the time has come to grow into a new dimension, into freedom from biology, into freedom from body, into freedom from mind. It is the beginning of the experience of your innermost self.

Sex is continuously taking you away from yourself. Whether you are a man or a woman, it doesn't matter: sex takes you away from yourself. The moment sex is not there, there is no drive to go away from yourself. You start settling within.

So, Nityanando, old leaves are really falling because new leaves want to grow. And old leaves have to go and give space for new experiences, new spaces. It is a blessing -- don't take it according to the Western, rotten mind.

The West has everything, but it has forgotten itself. And once you are no longer aware of yourself, then sex becomes the ultimate reality. In the West, sex is God. Sex is now the only God worshiped in the West. But sex simply means you are no longer independent: you depend for your happiness, for your joy, on somebody else -- and that dependence is the greatest misery.

It is not incidental that men and women, husbands and wives, are continuously quarreling. Even if they are not quarreling, they are in the mood, and the reason is that nobody wants deep down to be dependent on the other. It brings many other diseases by the side: if you are dependent on the woman you love, you will be jealous, you will be continuously watchful... you will start becoming a detective, a CIA, a KGB, an FBI agent, upon your own wife! You will put your children on alert: Be careful, when I am away... what happens in the house.

Why this jealousy...? The fear is that perhaps she may start loving someone else. And the fear is natural, because you are starting to think of other women: why should she not think of other men? This is a natural corollary that goes on in both the minds. So she goes on detecting you, she goes on looking into your letters, she goes on searching into your pockets, any address, any phone number...

One night a phone rang, and as the bell was ringing Mulla Nasruddin went there, said

"Okay," and put it down.

The wife said, "Who was there?"

He said, "It was nobody. I have just been unnecessarily disturbed by someone phoning on the wrong number."

The wife said, "What is the number from where the phone came?"

These kind of things go on continuously in every house, because the wife has already read the number in his diary. And when he quoted the number, the wife said, "Don't lie to me that it was a wrong number. This is your diary, and this is the number.... Now tell me, what is her name?" -- now it is no more his, now it is her: "Tell me, what is her name?"

Under pressure -- and every husband is under pressure -- he said, "It is nobody, although her name looks like a woman's name. Her name is Kamala... but this is only the name of a horse. And because it is the season of horse racing and I'm thinking to go to the races tomorrow...."

Tomorrow morning again the phone rang, and Mulla was standing by it. The wife said,

"Wait. This time I will take the call" -- and she listened and told Mulla, "Come on, your horse is calling!" It is very difficult... one of the most difficult things is to deceive your wife. But man goes on making his efforts, and is defeated continuously.

I have been going to ask one of my childhood friends, Sukhraj, who is sitting here... For years it has been that whenever he comes, I never see his wife smiling. I don't see in her that she has come with joy; it is as if she has come just to keep an eye on him, because here there are so many beautiful women, and he is a beautiful man. And this is a world of people who are absolutely free, who don't live in bondage of anybody.

She comes to me, she touches my feet, but I have never felt that there is any deep love, respect, feeling, emotion. She seems almost like a zombie, and the reason is clear to me.

Perhaps it may not be clear to her or to Sukhraj, but I want it to be made clear to them.

He would like to come every day; in fact, he would like to live here with me. What is he doing there? -- there is nothing left there for him. And when I am here, and millions of people around the world are coming and going every day....

He loved me when we were so young that now even the memories of those days are difficult to catch up... and he is the only one left. I had many other friends: they came and they are gone, but he has remained with me unwavering, because it was not a question of any ideological agreement, it was a question of love. It does not matter what I say, what I do, what he says, what he does; that is absolutely irrelevant.

So he comes again and again when he can manage. The wife certainly comes reluctantly; otherwise she should be so joyful and she should enjoy all the people around who are living in peace, in love, in freedom, and each moment rejoicing. Here, sitting like a dead corpse simply shows that she has not come. She has to come: she has to come because she cannot leave the husband alone in this strange place.

Nityanando, let the dry leaves fall. You are fortunate that they are falling at thirty. And they are falling at thirty because, as I say, if you live intensely, totally, then the year forty-two... it is only the average, and in existence nothing is average. It all depends on you: there are people who will be at the age of ninety and still thinking of nothing but sex. All other things are finished... the only thing left is sex. That continues to the very end of their life, because they never lived it intensely; they have spread a thin layer of sexuality over all their life. If you live intensely, it is going to disappear sooner.

The thirtieth year is perfectly the right time. That leaves you -- because you are from the West -- at least fifty to sixty years to work upon yourself, to find yourself, and to find the innermost mysteries of existence. In fact, now begins the real life; up to now you were a slave. Now, boundaries are dropping and the whole sky is becoming available to you with all its stars.

But in the West it is certainly a very difficult problem. The whole conditioning of centuries has brought man to such a state that sex seems to be everything: it is money, it is power, it is position. Everything is sacrificed for sex, and everything is achieved only for sex.

Nobody bothers that sex is not your reality, sex is not love, and nobody even bothers whether you are getting anything out of it or not. What are you getting out of it? -- it is almost like people smoking cigarettes: one wonders why they are smoking, and once in a while they also wonder why. But just a habit... and it is only a mental habit. Sex is a biological habit, very deep-rooted.

You say, "It now takes me all night to do what I used to do all night." That's why -- you did well. Soon it will take you twenty-four hours to do what you used to do the whole night!

Now, try to understand: you have lost the infatuation and the foolishness and the slavery, and this is the time to start meditating. If you cannot meditate now, then when will you be meditating? I will not prevent you... once in a while you can have your sex, but it will become more and more sparse.

There is a saying in Tibet: If you feel tired, lie down. If you feel energetic, move over.

But first, feel whether you are energetic, otherwise it is better to lie down.

And from me the advice is:

If you do not know what to do, at least laugh.

Grandma was in her eighties. She tired easily, had little appetite, and was sometimes confused mentally. Her son called the gynecologist, who arrived shortly and was shown up to Grandma's room, where he examined her thoroughly. Half an hour later he came down.

"There is no need to worry," he explained. "There is nothing really wrong with her except her age. She will be alright."

The son was very relieved and went upstairs to see her. "Well, mother," he asked, "how did you like the gynecologist?"

"So that was the gynecologist?" she said. "My god, I thought he acted very familiar for a priest."

Priests and monks and saints, Nityanando, are in more difficulty than you think you are, because the time when they could have been deeply into sex is gone. Now only the thought goes on and on like a continuous record. And the needle of the record has stuck at sex; it does not move from there.

Ronald Reagan gets into bed with Nancy. Ronnie is feeling very horny, so he turns to Nancy and says, "Oh, Nancy, I would like to launch my missile into your Gulf."

Nancy says, "Oh, Ronnie, you are so romantic, but you have not been able to bring your missile up since the second world war."

Ronnie pleads, "But Nancy, I think I can do it if you would only have faith in me."

Nancy replies, "But honestly, Ron, it has been so long since we made war that I would not know where to begin."

Frustrated, Ronnie says, "God, I hate peace!"

Don't be an old fool. And if you can become wise while you are young, just thirty, thank God. Be grateful to existence that he is allowing you so much time to explore much that is not available to any other animal, which is only available to man. And the more time you have to explore it, the deeper will be your insight, the greater will be your consciousness and tremendous will be your splendor. You will not die an ugly death; you will die with a grace and with a smile on your face.

A life that cannot reach to enlightenment has been a sheer waste. It is good that your thirty years were passed in the West. Thirty years in the East are bad luck; thirty years in the West are good luck -- but good luck only if after thirty years you can come into contact with the Eastern mysteries. Then you have more chances than the Eastern counterpart, because the Eastern counterpart has been repressing sex, so it will not be possible for him to meditate at the age of thirty. If he can manage to meditate even at the age of sixty, it will be a surprise.

It is a tremendously fortunate moment, at least for my people, because the East is so orthodox, so traditional, so blind, so deaf, that they will not hear me. They can hear Morarji Desai and even can start drinking their own urine. That is possible because for centuries they have been drinking the urine of the cows, so in fact it is better to drink your own -- self-sufficiency! Why be dependent on a cow? And who knows what kind of dirty water she has been drinking? As far as I know Morarji Desai has no need of any water. The same water goes on circulating, so naturally he never falls sick, because infections are difficult, pollution is difficult....

But they will not listen to me. They cannot listen to any reasonable, logical, scientific truth.

So it is a very strange situation. I am here in the East, but my people are going to be from the West, because only the Western youth can understand. Sex has become futile, he has lived with too many women; drugs have become useless, he has known too much... now what else? There seems to be nothing around which can keep the youth in the West interested, intrigued, still feeling that life may have some significance.

All the modern, contemporary Western philosophers are talking about one thing only: meaninglessness. And they appeal to the Western youth because he can see himself: it is not a question to be convinced about, to be argued -- he has lived everything and he finds everything falls flat sooner or later. He has lived with many women; the woman has lived with many men. They are all alike... you have just to put the light off! The question is only whether the light is on or off; that much difference and the most beautiful woman or the most ugly woman are the same.

Because they have known many women and many men, the hope that still can be helpful in the East is no more for them. In the East everybody is caught up with one woman, and that means monotony. People call it monogamy, but that is not the right word. They are so fed up with the woman, the woman is so fed up with the man, but there is no other way. It is a lifelong contract.

So they go on hoping that, perhaps what my wife does not have, other women have; what my husband is not able for, other people seem to be able.... But in the West, that hope has died. People have tried and found that it is all nonsense; every woman has the same physiology, the difference is just superficial. Every man has the same physiology, and everything comes to the same end.

Then they tried grass, they tried marijuana, they tried hashish, they tried transcendental meditation. Now they are trying yogic flying and making themselves so foolish. But what to do? -- they have to do something, otherwise life seems to be empty.

Nityanando, you are fortunate that life need not be empty for you. If sex is going, say goodbye to it. It was good when it was there; it is better when it is gone. Now begins a totally different space of experiencing. Now begins a new adventure, more free, more individual, more unfettered. And the sky is so vast to explore... and on each step there are miracles and miracles.

So sing and dance and meditate. And life is immensely beautiful: it has all that Gautam Buddha experienced and more, because twenty-five centuries have passed; man has become far more mature, and evolution has gone higher. We can produce greater Gautam Buddhas with more dimensions to them.

In the past it was thought that a man can only experience himself or God -- which are only different names -- if he tortures himself. That was a primitive idea.

I give you a sophisticated, cultured version, the latest edition: there is no need to torture yourself -- it is absolutely absurd! You can be blissful, you can be ecstatic, you can be meditative, comfortably. I don't see the connection that you can be meditative sitting in a bullock cart but you cannot be meditative sitting in a Rolls Royce. If you can be meditative sitting on a camel, then why can't you be meditative flying in a jumbo jet --

which is far more comfortable, far more silent, far more peaceful.

Have you ever tried sitting on an animal like a camel? -- sex is exactly like that! It is the ugliest vehicle.... I have suffered it, I'm not saying it without experience. And those two, three hours I was on a camel, I said, "My god, whether I'm going to survive or not..."

Life has gone on -- in spite of all hindrances from politicians, from priests, from traditionalists, from the orthodox. Life has gone on, although it could have gone far faster if all these hindrances were not there. But still, after twenty-five hundred years we are in a position to create better Gautam Buddhas, better Mahaviras. We know much more about human physiology, we know much more about human biology, we know much more about human sexuality.

The ancientmost book on sex was written in India; that was Vatsyayana's KAMASUTRAS, sutras on sex. But looking at it, it looks as if a child is writing about sex. After Sigmund Freud and Masters and Johnson, and after so many discoveries in biology, in genetics, we are in such a position that we can create far greater giants of enlightenment, awareness, illumination. But if you are feeling too much attached to that which is gone, then your life will be a life of misery, continuously thinking of something which you cannot do. It is up to you.

Being my sannyasin, I don't think you will accept this despair. Less than ultimate ecstasy is not our concern.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER NIGHT YOU SAID THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GO INTO

MEDITATION UNTIL ONE HAS EXPERIENCED SEX TO THE MAXIMUM, AND

THAT IT DROPS BY ITSELF.

OSHO, THIS IS VERY DISHEARTENING TO ME. YOU MUST BE WELL AWARE

OF THE FACT OF HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO HAVE GIRLFRIENDS AND

EXPERIENCE SEX IN INDIA.

MARRIAGE IS NO SOLUTION BECAUSE THEN I HAVE TO FORGET

MEDITATION FOREVER.

OSHO, ISN'T IT POSSIBLE TO GO BEYOND SEX BY BEING A WATCHER OF

OUR BIOLOGY JUST AS WE CAN GO BEYOND OUR MIND BY WATCHING IT?

Manatit Bharti, I can understand your problem. But you have to understand something more difficult than your problem.

You cannot watch your biology. You can watch your mind, because mind is available just like a TV screen before your consciousness. But your biology, your physiology, your chemistry -- that is not available to your consciousness. You cannot watch how your food is being digested; you cannot watch how your food is being transformed into blood, into bones, into nerves. You cannot watch, because for a certain reason nature has not left any door for you to watch that which belongs to the body.

I agree with nature that it is wise that it has closed all the doors: biology, physiology, chemistry -- nothing is available to your consciousness, for the simple reason that there are things which change their nature immediately the moment you watch. I will have to explain to you....

You are in your bathroom making faces in front of the mirror, and then suddenly you become aware of somebody -- just a small child it may be -- looking from the keyhole at what you are doing. Suddenly you change. He has not said anything, neither have you deliberately done anything; spontaneously, with the very feeling that you are being watched, you become a different personality. When you are alone you relax, you put your mask aside.

Albert Einstein was tremendously mystified; he died in a great disappointment. He was one of the most successful men in the world.... But when he reached to the farthest inside of the atom, where electrons, neutrons and protons constitute its body, he simply felt he was going mad, because it was against all logic, against all mathematics, against all the science that we have developed in three hundred years. Those electrons were behaving in such a way that he could not have conceived even in the wildest dream.

What he came to know was that the moment you watch -- and you are watching through very sophisticated scientific instruments, not with naked eyes -- they start behaving differently. He was thinking that they are dead particles of electricity -- but they are not.

They are in their bathroom... and now somebody is watching them, they start behaving differently, in a more gentlemanly way.

He could not believe that watching can make a difference to matter. He said, "Perhaps the mystics are right, that everything is full of life, we are just not aware of it."

Secondly, he became aware that an electron can take a quantum leap. I have used that word many times... but perhaps most of you may not have understood it, because it is out of modern physics. It is a made-up word; it had never existed before Albert Einstein.

One electron is called quanta, because that is the ultimate particle of quantity; you cannot go below it, you cannot divide it anymore. So according to the word `quantity', he named it quanta. Finished, you have come to the end of the line; now you cannot, at least for the moment... Perhaps in the future, better scientific instruments may be able to cut it down more, but whatever happens, the end will be called quanta.

That quanta dazzles every mind, because it takes a jump from place A to place B. It does not travel the distance; between A and B it disappears. At A point you see it, and then suddenly you see it at B point. What happens in the space between? Howsoever fast it can go -- we have now instruments even to know the speed of light, the greatest speed --

there is no problem of any speed. A tremendous discovery, a tremendous miracle... it simply dematerializes at one point and again materializes at another point. The space between is never traveled.

It was very shocking in the beginning, but slowly, slowly the shock was absorbed.

Einstein could see a tremendous possibility in it: the possibility of making a machine which can make a man disappear from one place and allow him to appear in another place without traveling the space between.

That seems to be the only possible way if man has ever to reach to the stars; otherwise no vehicle can take him. The nearest star is four years away -- four light-years away. So if you go to the nearest star it will take four years to reach, with the speed of light, not with the speed of your railway trains or your airplanes -- these are now outdated. The speed has to be exactly the speed of light; that is one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second.

And the problem is that at that speed everything will melt, because it will create such heat, such friction that we don't have any metal to survive in that friction. So anything at that speed will become light, and all the passengers inside will also become light. So that is out of the question, that cannot be done.

At first it had been thought that we may find or we may create some metal, synthetic, which will be able to survive the speed. But that has been dropped; it is impossible. At that speed everything will become light. That cuts our planet off from the whole universe completely. Then it will not be possible ever for man to visit the stars.

But this quantum leap opened a new vista. Albert Einstein was so happy that night, he could not sleep. His wife said again and again, "Why are you not sleeping?"

He said, "I am so full of joy! A tremendously new dimension has opened. One day --

perhaps I will not be here, but one day some man, one of our children, our children's children, may be able to find a mechanism which can transform a human being here...

and he will appear far away on another planet, on another solar system, on another star, millions of light years away, within a second."

Always look at life as opening new doors.

Never be hopeless, never be meaningless.

Never for a moment settle down with the idea that all is finished because sex is finished.

It is good that it is finished... it is good that you are not created by nature in such a way that you can disturb its inner mechanism. If you can look into your chemistry, suddenly your chemical elements will start behaving differently. They don't like to be watched; they are naked, they don't want to be watched! They have their own etiquette, their own culture, their own behavior. They are very traditional people.

So one thing you should remember: biology cannot be dropped just by watching. But sex is not really oriented in biology. In biology is its manifestation; its orientation is in the brain, which can be watched.

So there is no need to be worried because you are in India and girlfriends are very difficult. They are difficult because of your fathers, your grandfathers, and all the idiots that have preceded them. Otherwise there is no reason why they should not be available; the number is almost equal.

But all your great seers have prevented you from getting rid of an ugly slavery, although they are thought to be people who have been teaching you to go beyond sex. I say unto you: They are the people who have been keeping you under the slavery of sex for centuries.

The only way to go beyond it is either to experience it and be finished with it, or the second way, which is a little difficult, is to watch your mind. The center of sex is in the mind, it is not in your genitals -- they are only branches. It shows there, but it is not there.

This was discovered after the second world war, a very recent discovery. A man was shot on the battlefield, and was brought to the hospital. He survived, but his whole leg was to be amputated. His whole leg was hurt in an explosion and particularly his big toe. It was hurting terribly, and he was continuously complaining, "Do something about my toe, it is unbearable."

Finally, they had to give him anesthesia, and when they looked they found it was not only the big toe, but his whole leg had to be amputated, otherwise he would not be able to survive. It is better to have one leg and to be alive than the alternative....

There was no time to ask the man, there was no time to ask his family; it was on the battlefield, and the doctor simply decided, "We have to do it; otherwise the man is gone."

They amputated his leg, and when he came back to consciousness after a few hours he said immediately, "Do something. My big toe is hurting very much."

The doctors laughed, because they knew now there was no big toe. The whole leg was gone, so how could it be hurting? But he was covered with blankets, so he had no idea what had happened. He insisted, and the doctors said, "You don't understand. It is not possible, it is only your imagination."

He said, "What nonsense are you talking? I am suffering and you are teaching me about imagination...?"

So the doctor threw the blanket off and showed him, "Now tell me, where is your toe?"

The man could not believe it: his whole leg was gone! The toe was gone but it was still hurting! He said, "I understand now why you cannot understand me and why you are still unaware of the fact that my toe is hurting very badly."

The man was perfectly sane, and the doctors had to work out what the problem was. Then they found that it is not the toe, but some center in his brain which has been hurt, which is connected with the toe. So whether the toe is there or not does not matter; the toe will hurt, because the center continues vibrating in the same way.

So a man can amputate his genitals, but don't believe that he has gone beyond sex. His sexual center will go on vibrating. You can watch that sexual center: in your meditations it will come in sexual fantasies, just as it comes in your dreams. Don't be disturbed, and don't call it evil, sin....

Don't condemn it, it is natural, perfectly natural. It is just that your society has gone unnatural; otherwise there would not have been so much trouble. If your center of sex in the brain was exhausted by your genitals, there would have been no trouble. But your society has prevented, blocked the way, so the whole of sex has become cerebral. Now it is only in the mind. It goes on and on... and it has no outlet.

Jean-Paul Sartre has written a very beautiful book, NO EXIT. He says, "Any situation in which you find no exit becomes hell." How long can you go on and on, and you don't find any door to get out? The situation may be comfortable....

Jean-Paul Sartre's story -- it is a beautiful story: in a sitting room, on comfortable sofas, a few people are sitting, all strangers. Whatever they need is immediately supplied... but there is no exit; they cannot go out. How long can you remain? -- it is comfortable, luxurious, whatever you need is supplied, but you don't have any privacy, those people are always there. It is a very confined space; you don't have enough space for yourself, and the ultimate problem is how to get out. There is no door at all, and there is nobody to ask. Everybody is a stranger, and they all said, "We are in the same trap."

This is his description of modern hell. But I understand that this is the situation of the modern mind: you are closed in your skull, there is no door, things go on and on....

So your question, Manatit Bharti, is meaningful, but not impossible to solve. You will just have to be more meditative than the Western counterpart, Nityanando. Nityanando can meditate more easily, more relaxedly -- in fact joyously: "This is perfectly good; otherwise the despair..."

You will find it difficult -- but I am not responsible for your difficulty. Your saints, your tirthankaras, your avataras, your mahatmas -- all these whom you have been worshiping, all your jailers, have imprisoned you in such a way that you will never become enlightened.

But if you make a real, sincere effort... and by sincere effort I mean you have simply to watch, not to judge. It will take a little longer time for you than for Nityanando, because he has done thirty years' gymnastics before. So on the whole it won't be much different: he has done much exercise before, but you will have to do it now. His exercise was with other women, your exercise will be with the woman inside your mind, just the image. In a way you will create less mess than Nityanando.

So all in all, all things considered, things are equal. He has done his homework -- you have to start. He is blessed because he is finished with it and he can take a quantum leap into meditation. You are blessed because you need not go through all the pushups that he has done, useless, ugly....

Every morning one feels, "What an idiot I am" -- but by the evening again one thinks, "At least one time more!" And one knows perfectly well that this has been going on for years: one time more. But every evening one becomes helpless; every morning one becomes wise, a sage, one can even teach others.

Just the other day I was telling you about Vijayanand. In his article he says he can teach me one or two things....

I have told my people to inform him, "You are too poor -- just one or two? You come here and I will teach you one or two thousand, or as many as you want! One or two things? -- just two bullets in your gun? Then you will look awkward standing there --

what to do...?"

That reminds me: I was a student, and there was in Nagpur University an all-India competition, a debating competition. And just as I spoke and went back to my seat, the second person... he belonged to the Sanskrit University of Varanasi. The Sanskrit University in Varanasi has nothing to do with English; it is pure teaching of Sanskrit, everything is taught in Sanskrit.

He must have been feeling a little inferior to all the universities' candidates, although the discussion was in Hindi. And it is psychological because there was no need for him to feel inferior. But unconscious man is unconscious.... Just to impress he started, "Brothers and sisters..." and went on. After just two minutes he said, "I will give you a quotation of Bertrand Russell" -- and he did not know much English, so in the middle of the sentence he stopped, the needle got stuck.... He looked all around, and there was no help because there was no question of any help....

But I could not bear to see his awkwardness -- I was sitting closest to him, he was next to me -- so I said, "Start again." Finding no other solution he had to follow me. He started again... but I meant something else: I meant, "Start the quotation again; perhaps by repeating again you may remember...." But this is a problem with memory: if you have come with a memorized lecture, then you cannot start from the middle.

He started again: "Brothers and sisters..." and it was such a hilarious scene: he was saying the same things that he had said! And Bertrand Russell... and again at the same point...

because when the needle sticks it always sticks at the same point on the gramophone record.

He looked at me, and I said, "Start again! There is no way out." And people were laughing hilariously and there were almost ten thousand students of the university, all the colleges, professors, and it was such a tremendous chaos.... But he started again:

"Brothers and sisters..." and came to the same point!

He looked at me, and I said, "What can I do? Start again!" And he was such an idiot that rather than sitting down, dropping the whole thing, he tried one time more. Time was running out... because ten minutes only was the time allowed, and this was the last time.

As the ten minutes were over he had come again to a stop. He looked at me, and I said,

"Now it is finished!"

He was very angry at me. When he came by my side he said, "You are a strange person.

You made me a laughingstock."

I said, "You were looking at me. You were asking me for some suggestion, and whatever I could manage, I suggested. It was still up to you to follow it or not. I was not giving you an order, `You have to start...' I was simply saying that this is one of the ways. If one gets stuck, start again. And it is not my experience, so I don't know -- because I have never crammed anything, so I never stop. If I stop, I stop of my own accord, not out of any compulsion. I can stop anywhere, and I can start from anywhere, I don't go backwards.

So don't be angry with me, I was simply being helpful."

He said, "What, helpful...? I will not be able to show my face tomorrow to anybody.

Everybody is laughing."

I said, "Anyway, your face is not such that anybody would like to see it!"

It will be a little difficult for you, because you will come again and again to the point, sex, because that is your repression.

But always remember: the responsibility goes to your forefathers, to SHRIMAD

BHAGAVADGITA, to the VEDAS, to all your so-called great seers. I am not responsible; I am simply giving you the only possible way. I cannot tell the women of India, "This poor Manatit Bharti wants to get rid of sex, so please help him" -- they will kill me! They are going to kill me anyway, but I will try to continue as long as possible.

And certainly I would not like to be assassinated just for this... your meditation. That is not my business. Either you find some woman or you meditate and be watchful -- don't be involved in your sexual fantasies. They will disappear, but they will take time. But Nityanando has also taken time, thirty years.... You may take not more than three years --

that is the maximum, if you try.

But if you are thinking that I will suggest to some woman, "Help this poor Indian" -- I am not going to do that. The women that come from the West report to me again and again that these few Indians who come don't seem to come for meditation. They come here just to stare at women, or just, if they can get a chance, to touch a woman. When everybody is meditating with closed eyes, they open their eyes. These people are not here for meditation.

No Western woman likes this ugly repressive mind, so you have to suffer for your forefathers, your tradition, your religion. That is nobody else's responsibility.

Just meditate. Women will be coming... but don't open your eyes, because then real women are all around. Those real women are not for you; you have to manage with your fantasy women. They are enough: within three years, if you can continue, you will be finished, they will disappear from your mind.

But this is the difference between the East and the West. There are many other differences, but this is one of the most significant, because it is going to change the whole consciousness of man. But ways can be found. If I can help Nityanando, I can also help you.

You are asking, "Is not it possible to go beyond sex by being a watcher of our biology, just as we can go beyond our mind by watching it?"

Biology you cannot watch; you don't understand what you are asking. Just watching the mind is enough, because mind contains all the centers -- the seven hundred centers which control your whole body. Your whole biology, physiology, chemistry, hormonal system -

- everything is controlled by seven hundred centers in your small skull. You just watch that....

You are carrying a whole load of films in your small head. Sit down anywhere and the film starts. Just don't get involved, don't get interested, don't start saying, "Oh my god, this is the woman I have been looking for!" Don't start saying such things inside you; otherwise you will miss the whole point, you will have to see the film again.

When for the first time in India films started -- those were the days of silent movies -- a touring movie house came into a village. One villager purchased a ticket for the first show -- that was the matinee show -- and there comes a scene when a beautiful woman is undressing. The villager stands up, and many people shout, "Sit down!" -- so he has to sit down.

But he is alerted to what is happening, and just then, when she is going to drop her last piece of clothing, a railway train passes by. He has been trying to look from every angle, but he cannot see the woman. By the time the railway train has passed, the woman is swimming in the lake. He said, "My god, the real thing I missed!"

The show was finished and everybody was gone, but he was still sitting there. The manager came and asked, "Why are you sitting there? The show is finished."

He said, "It is finished, but here is the money for the second ticket. I will see the second show, I will see the third show, I will not leave here unless I get the point."

The manager said, "What point?"

He said, "Don't talk to me; don't disturb me. You just bring the ticket. I cannot leave this seat. From here the view is very clear."

The manager said, "This seems to be strange... but what is the harm?" And he brought him another ticket.

The second show he was very alert, very watchful; he was watching almost holding his breath. But that goddamn train again came!

The second show finished, the point was still missed. The manager came saying, "Now it is time, you have seen the same film twice."

He said, "I have seen it twice, but I will see it thrice, I will see it four times... I will see it my whole life!"

The manager said, "You can confide in me. What is the problem? Don't you understand the film?"

He said, "I understand everything. Only one thing I don't understand: will the train be late some day or not? In this country a train coming exactly at the same time every day is not possible!"

You will have a little difficulty. The train may come at the right time and you may miss the point. Don't be worried. If you can be silently watchful, the mind is enough -- because the mind is exactly all that controls your whole body, the whole system.

I was sitting by the side of the Ganges, near the Christian college in Allahabad. One of my friends was studying there and I was staying with him, but by the evening I had gone on the riverbank. And the Ganges at Allahabad is tremendous, oceanic, very beautiful.

Two great rivers meet there, Ganges and Yamuna.

In ancient times it seems a third great river used to meet there also, Saraswati, which has disappeared in the meantime. What happened to it? -- because in the old scriptures it is mentioned, in all the old maps it is mentioned.... Something went wrong: it may have lost its sources of water, it may have changed its route, but it no longer exists. But still, because of the three rivers, Allahabad is called Triveni. Triveni means trinity, three; the English word three is nothing but the Sanskrit word tri.

I was sitting there alone, just watching the beautiful river flowing so silently, you could hardly suspect the flow of it. At that very time a young man also came who was a Hindu sadhu, a monk. It may have been his place to come every evening to meditate, as it was very silent. He sat by my side in his lotus posture and started meditating.

I was sitting by his side, so I started looking at him to see whether he is meditating or not.

You will say, "How can you see from outside?" There is a small art: you can simply see from the eyelids whether the eyes inside are moving or not. If they are moving, you can see the movement from above, you can see the eyes are moving inside. That means he is seeing scenes -- maybe railway trains are moving. If he comes to meditate, that movement stops, because there is nothing to see.

His eyes were moving, so I shook him and I told him, "Whom do you think you are deceiving?"

He said, "You are disturbing my meditation."

I said, "I am not disturbing your meditation. I am making you clear that this is not meditation."

He said, "How can you say from the outside?"

I said, "That is none of your business. But I can say that you were seeing things -- your eyes were moving."

He became afraid when I said that. He said, "That's true. My eyes were moving, but I never thought that somebody could see that from outside."

I said, "I am in the same profession. You can deceive anybody else, but not me. Now tell me what you were seeing."

He said, "That is too much. You are a stranger, I don't know anything about you!"

I said, "And whom were you seeing? -- they were all strangers...."

He looked at me and he said, "That's true, they were strangers. But you seem a strange man, why are you harassing me?"

I said, "I am not harassing you, I am simply asking what you were seeing. Your being a Hindu monk I can predict that these cannot be male strangers, these were female strangers -- because monks cannot avoid seeing women."

He relaxed. He looked at me and said, "You are right. But how could you manage...?"

I said, "There is nothing to be managed; it is very simple. What will repressed people do?

All their repressions will start like vomiting in their mind."

So, Manatit Bharti, you will have to go through a vomiting experience. Nityanando has already gone....

It does not matter that you have become a sannyasin; it won't change anything unless your sannyas triggers a meditativeness in you.

"Oy Veh, to be a Polish Jew," said Levitz to Joe Finklebaum. "We are persecuted and harassed, and all because we are the chosen people."

"Yes," said Finklebaum. "That's why I changed my name. I was just fed up with being harassed."

"You changed your name? What did you change it to?" said Levitz.

"Well, I used to be called Joe Finklebaum, and now I'm Swami Joe Finklebaum."

But that will not help much! Just by changing your name... and still you remain Joe Finklebaum.

You have become a sannyasin. Now it is a responsibility on you to fulfill the commitment of sannyas -- and that is meditation.

Without meditation there is no sannyas.

It is only your pure consciousness rising upwards -- slowly, slowly moving beyond the gravitation of lower things -- that will make you a sannyasin.

I can define sannyas as a flying experience to the stars.

You should always remain mindful of one thing: that I cannot be deceived. I know how many people are meditating. I know how many people are simply imitating. I know how a few people are simply hanging around. But don't waste your time -- because time is not money, time is life! And if you have taken a step to change, to transform, then don't try to deceive, because you will be deceiving only yourself, not me.

A husband complained that his wife was a liar.

"What makes you say that?" asked the friend.

"Well," said the husband, "she came home this morning and told me she spent the night with Mary."

"Well," replied the friend, "maybe she did. How do you know she was lying?"

"How do I know?" cried the husband, because I spent the night with Mary!"

It is better to be truthful than to be caught lying. Lying is so undignified. But millions of people are pretending to be what they are not. At least I hope my people will simply express what they are.

I told you about this Vijayanand. In his article he says that I preach what I don't practice.

I was amazed -- because I practiced first, then I preached. But these people have their own expectations, and they think their expectations should be fulfilled. For example, a man who is enlightened should be poor, as if poverty is something spiritual. Those who preach it, they should be it. I have no objection about it -- but I have never preached it, so why should I practice it?

I am preaching just the opposite. I have been preaching that the richer you are, the more possibility there is of transformation. And I don't see that comfort is any hindrance to your being meditative: that being in a beautiful garden you can be less meditative than being in the forest; that being naked you can become enlightened more easily than having comfortable clothes.

I think otherwise. I think when it is cold and you are naked -- rather than being enlightened, you will suffer double pneumonia. It is better to have enough clothes, enlightened or not enlightened, then at least double pneumonia will not happen!

But this has been my experience my whole life: people have been condemning me for their teachings. They are not my teachings... I have never said, "Blessed are the poor because they shall inherit the kingdom of God." They are enough blessed if they can even inherit the kingdom of the devil! All religions have evolved only when society was comfortable and rich enough. The twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas were all sons of kings; Gautam Buddha was the son of a king; Rama and Krishna were both kings. And all these idiots go on saying that I should live as a poor man -- then only can their mind be satisfied.

I am not here to satisfy any idiot's mind or his expectations; neither do I expect anything from anybody, nor am I going to fulfill anybody's expectation. Who is Vijayanand? What does he know about my teaching, and what does he know about my practice? I am exactly doing what I am saying. I say only afterwards... Unless I have done it and experienced it, I never say it, because who knows, it may not be right -- and I would not like my people to be deceived. I have not uttered a single word to you which is not out of my own experience.

But I am not here to fulfill somebody else's preachings. I am not here to fulfill the preachings of Mahavira and be naked, I am not here to fulfill Krishna's teachings and have a garage for sixteen thousand women. I am not going to follow Rama's preachings and kill a poor young untouchable because he has heard the brahmins reciting the VEDAS.

Sudras are not allowed to read, are not allowed even to hear the holy scriptures, because their hearing will spoil the holiness of the scriptures. I don't see any relationship. Who is hearing cannot make any difference to the holy scripture. Rama poured hot melted lead into the ears of the poor young fellow, and he died. This was the punishment so that sudras should not come near any temple where the holy scriptures are being recited. That may have been the preaching of Rama, and that may be Vijayanand's God -- God's incarnation -- I don't care.

If I see this fellow Rama I'm going to ask him, "What right have you got, on what grounds...? You are a criminal, you have committed a murder."

If I meet Krishna, who is thought to be the perfect incarnation of God, the whole God come only for the first time... A very strange idea, as if God comes in parts also, installments. Rama was a partial incarnation, perhaps a hand or a head or a leg or something else... you can understand, et cetera. Of what was he the incarnation? what part?

Only Krishna is a perfect incarnation -- which means God comes complete. Then what happens in paradise? And this complete incarnation teaches absolutely wrong things: he teaches violence, he teaches war, he teaches bloodshed.

I am not going to fulfill these people's teachings.

I live according to what I preach.

I challenge Vijayanand to come here and tell me on what grounds he is making such stupid statements. In fact, he is feeling guilty. He was not an ashramite; I have given him refuge here, because he was condemned in Bombay and he would have been condemned all over India. It is absolutely ugly, unnatural, unscientific, immoral, to marry the daughter of your own sister. It is not only against religion, it is against science. It is not only against this generation, it is against future generations -- because their children will be blind, may be retarded, may be born with AIDS... anything is possible.

The closer the blood, the uglier the children; the farther the blood, the better the breed.

That's the whole science of crossbreeding. We bring English bulls for Indian mother cows, and nobody even bothers, "What are you doing? English bulls for your mothers?

Have you gone mad?..."

But if you want beautiful bulls yourself, you will have to bring as faraway males and females as possible together. The crossbreed is always better than the father, than the mother, both. Otherwise there was no need... everybody could have married his own sister. That would have been the easiest and simplest and cheapest way: no cost, no problem, no dowry -- just marry your sister and, just as every story says, they lived happily ever afterwards.

No society in the whole world allows it. Even before the scientific discovery that close blood breeds distorted children, people must have become aware long before, thousands of years before.... But the logic should be taken to its full consequences: no Hindu should marry another Hindu, no Mohammedan should marry another Mohammedan, no Christian should marry another Christian, no Indian should marry another Indian, no Russian should marry another Russian, and no American should marry another American. Just by this simple formula we can bring about a tremendous revolution all over the world.

Insist on faraway blood, and you will have a generation of highly superior beings, intellectually, physically, in every sense.

As far as I am concerned, whatever I am teaching, I am doing. And if anybody has any objection, he is welcome just before my people to present the case, so they can understand. I may not even need to answer; my people can answer, "What stupidity are you talking about?"

Here things are simple and sincere. Whatever I am saying, I am doing; my preaching and my practice are not different.

Such beautiful silence...

This is what I preach,

And this is what I practice.

Just a little story to end up this beautiful peace with laughter.

A salesman is forced to share a room with a rabbi in a crowded hotel. He enters the room and finds the rabbi kneeling in a corner, murmuring his prayers.

"Hi," says the salesman. "I'm your new roommate."

The rabbi nods without interrupting his prayers.

"Well then, which bed shall I take?"

The rabbi points to one bed, continuing to pray. The salesman nervously unpacks his bag, then all of a sudden says, "Say, rabbi, do you mind if I bring up a girl?"

The rabbi, still praying, shouts, "Two, not one!"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #12

Chapter title: I am the first world citizen

12 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709120

ShortTitle:

PILGR12

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

110

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

COULD YOU PLEASE GIVE ME A FEW SUTRAS AND JOKES FOR THE

NOURISHMENT OF MY POOR SOUL?

Devageet, there is no problem in giving you a few sutras and jokes -- but I will not give them for the nourishment of your poor soul for the simple reason that soul needs no nourishment. The soul is never poor.

The only really poor people in the world are those who are unaware of their soul and the treasures it contains.

There is a poverty of the body, which is man-created. Science declares definitively that we can produce enough food, enough nourishment for more than five billion people; by the end of this century the population of the world will be five billion. Who is preventing them...?

Every six months America is drowning so much food in the oceans that just the cost of taking it to the ocean comes to two billion dollars. And the same is happening in Europe: every six months they have so much food that they don't have customers for it --

mountains of butter, and they don't have any more warehouses. Keeping it in the warehouses is costly; they have to drown it in the ocean. The last installment in Europe also took two billion dollars... just to drown the butter, cheese and other nourishing food.

At the time they drowned it, one thousand people in Ethiopia were dying of starvation every day. By the end of this century -- if this stupid politics and these ugly lines on the map don't disappear -- then half the population of the world is going to die. Of course, that half will not be in the advanced, scientifically and technically equipped West; it will be in the East.

I am always surprised at what the Eastern politicians are doing: I cannot deny the simple fact that they are trying to gain more nuclear weapons without bothering that their own population will die in such large numbers -- one in two. That means every house will be surrounded by corpses; there will not be even people to bury them or burn them. The by-products of so many people -- for example, in India fifty million people will die -- their death and their rotting bodies will create millions of diseases, about which nobody is bothering at all.

The Indian prime minister goes to Russia to get more military power; he goes to America to get more uranium so that he can also make nuclear weapons. It seems so stupid and so mad... if we could get rid of all the politicians there would really be peace in the world.

And the same applies to the religious people. Now the Vatican pope comes to India, and goes to Mother Teresa's orphanage, where only seven hundred orphans are. He is very much interested in saving them, but he says not a single word when the European market, where he lives, drowns millions of tons of nourishment which could have saved Ethiopia.

What is true about political leaders is also true about your so-called religious leaders.

Their concern seems to be that it will be better that the East is finished... but their part of the world should become more affluent, more rich.

There is also poverty of the mind. That too is man-created, and in that the religious leaders are far ahead of the political leaders. They have stopped all sources of man's intelligence and its growth. All the religions, without exception, have been trying that man should not have intelligence; on the contrary, they are teaching that you should have belief.

Belief is anti-intelligence.

They have been teaching that you should not have doubt -- and doubt is the mother of all invention. Doubt is the foundation of the whole of science, technology. Any search begins with doubt, and disbelief. If you believe and you don't doubt, you stay where you are, and your position goes on deteriorating because the population goes on growing.

You are becoming every moment more poor than you think, because millions of children are born every day. But the pope did not condemn America for destroying food, did not say a single word to the European governments and the European Common Market against destroying nourishment -- which is absolutely ugly when people are dying. With the same money the food could have reached to Ethiopia. But it reached into the deepest ocean, where it will disappear and be eaten by sea animals. It seems there has suddenly arisen a great love for sea animals....

Man has been kept half nourished as far as the body is concerned, because a half nourished man cannot revolt. His sole concern is at least one meal a day -- and that meal is not scientifically nourishing: just to fill the empty stomach is not to have a nourishing meal. You need certain amounts of vitamins, you need certain amounts of minerals, you need certain amounts of chemicals. Nobody seems to be awake, but an undernourished body is weak, in the state of a beggar -- and beggars don't revolt.

A retarded mind cannot even think that the world can progress, that there can be some evolution possible. The retarded mind has been told by all the religions: Be contented as you are. This contentment is not the real contentment; this contentment is to repress any rebellious situation, to protect the rich and to let the poor die. Be contented....

Marx was right when he said, "Religion is the opium of the people." I want to add a few more compliments to religion: it is not only opium, it is poison, it is suicide, it is murder, it is war, it is rape. It is keeping man continuously in slavery, it does not allow any freedom of thought -- and if there is no freedom of thought, consciousness has no possibility to grow. But the soul is beyond these idiots' hands. They don't know anything about it; otherwise they might have tried to keep it also undernourished.

Devageet, your soul is as rich as any Gautam Buddha or as any Jesus or as any Lao Tzu.

Your soul does not need anything -- except discovery. Never think for a moment that the soul is poor; it is the richest exploration. The finding of it will make you far richer than the richest man in the world. Emperors will look like beggars.

Today in America, which is the richest country, the richest men have only four and a half billion dollars; in Japan, the richest man in the world has twenty-one billion dollars. But their souls are completely forgotten. They are only counting their money, knowing perfectly well that all that money is soaked in blood; all that money is out of exploitation of the starving, of the retarded. The retarded and starving have been kept retarded and starving; otherwise it would be difficult to exploit them.

You cannot exploit an intelligent man.

You cannot exploit a man of understanding.

You cannot exploit a man who knows his own eternal being.

Devageet, your soul needs discovery not nourishment. Soul is not material, it is your eternal energy. It was before your death, it will be after your death.

But for your mind, the first sutra:

A smile is the shortest distance between people.

But even smiles have disappeared. People have fallen so far apart that nobody truly smiles; all smiles have become Jimmy Carter smiles. It is very difficult to find a smile which is not plastic. Just stretching your lips from ear to ear does not mean you are smiling; you may be exercising your lips...!

And have you seen any photograph of Jimmy Carter since he was no longer president of America? I have seen many. I have been watching: the smile has simply disappeared; he looks a sad, defeated, frustrated man. The smile was not his, it was political, diplomatic.

This is really ugly, that people cannot even smile at each other. So I can certainly say it is a significant sutra: a smile is the shortest distance between people.

A statesman is a politician who did not get caught.

They are all thieves, they are all cheats, they are criminals. But when they are not caught, then the politician raises his status: he becomes a statesman.

Life without wife is better than wife without life.

While attending a baseball match, the American president, Ronald Reagan, was accidentally hit on the head by a baseball. Next day, the newspaper headlines read:

"Reagan's head X-rayed -- reveals nothing."

A salesman knocks on the front door of a house and a little boy opens it, turns to his mother and calls, "Hey, Mom, it's a live commercial."

There is always something about your success that displeases even your best friends. I have been asked again and again why America destroyed our commune, and I have answered, "Because we were so successful." If we had not been successful nobody would have cared. But because we were successful in transforming a desert -- which had never produced anything green -- into a beautiful oasis, even friends became enemies.

Nobody can tolerate your success. When you are a failure, everybody has the upper hand; he sympathizes with you, he says, "Poor fellow..." But nobody goes to the successful man to congratulate him; it hurts.

I am happy that the richest country in the world became jealous of a small commune of five thousand people. It has proved indubitably that money does not change people, or their mind.

I could have understood it if our commune in India would have been as successful as it was in America... but I am certain in India we would have been destroyed exactly on the same lines. In fact, they are trying, because we are still gathering, things are returning...

people are coming again, and the fear in New Delhi is great. It is strange: they have all the power, but still they cannot see people happy, joyous, creative, loving and living their own way, living their own style, living in freedom.

Because the whole world is living in slavery, the free man cannot be tolerated. The whole world is a failure. Even the richest are still beggars because they want more. What is the difference?... A beggar wants more, the emperor wants more -- their minds are functioning in the same way.

The commune became the target of the whole of American politics, and particularly the fundamentalist Christians -- because they were not so successful in two thousand years in bringing a smile to people's faces, bringing light to their eyes, bringing silences to their hearts. I had never thought that they will become jealous. I thought they had everything --

why should they be jealous of our cars or our airplanes, our roads, our turning the desert into an oasis? They should have been happy and helpful.

But this is not the way insane people function. They became afraid that an authentic communism is happening -- a communism which is not imposed from outside, which has no dictatorship. Just out of the joy of creation, people are creating. This became more dangerous to them than the Soviet Union. It is absolutely out of all proportion.... But success hurts even your best friends, and failure even brings your enemies to sympathize.

One hopes one day things will be totally different. Success will receive its reward, and failure will receive all the support that can transform it into success. But that is not the thing: sympathy is empty. And destroying success is absolutely necessary, because people start comparing: What has the government been doing? -- the richest government, the most powerful government, which could have changed the whole of America into a paradise.

But even in America, though they don't talk about it, there are thirty million beggars.

Their news media people come to India to photograph beggars, to propagate to the whole world that India is a beggar. But nobody knows that America has thirty million beggars --

and by a very strange coincidence, thirty million people who have been eating too much, they are hospitalized. Thirty million are dying on the streets, and exactly thirty million are eating their food... and dying.

And on those thirty million who have become overfed, millions of dollars are wasted because doctors, nurses, medicines... And nobody is bothering about the thirty million people who don't have food, who don't have shelter, who don't have anything, who can't think that tomorrow will be any different. If tomorrow they can get some food to eat, they will be immensely happy.

Anybody who has a little intelligence can change this whole world within ten years, not more than that.

I provoked Ronald Reagan and his company, because I absorbed three hundred beggars into the commune. And those beggars were surprised and shocked because for the first time they were treated as human beings. Letters were written by beggars to me: "We had been treated almost like stray dogs. We had forgotten completely that we are human beings. You have revived our respect, our dignity; you have made us again human."

Nothing was different for them, they were not treated in a different way; they mixed in the commune. That was my fault... and Ronald Reagan began a whole strategy to destroy this commune. Now three hundred, tomorrow three thousand... and these people will create a situation that the American government will not be able to cope with, although they have all the weapons. They can kill, but they cannot cope.

And their democracy -- I have seen -- is such a hypocrisy, so ugly, that everything against the commune and me has been done illegally, so obviously illegally that although I don't know any law, even I could say to them, "This is absolutely illegal."

I was asked in the jail not to write my name, but to write instead the name, David Washington. I said, "I don't understand. That is not my name. You are forcing me into an illegal act. I will not write that name... Do you think I am an idiot? Can't I see your whole plan? I write David Washington and tomorrow you poison me, and the world will not be even able to trace where I have disappeared, because your register will not show that I ever entered, so the question does not arise that you have killed me."

I said, "Forget all about it. You write whatever you want to write. If you want David Washington, write David Washington." And that law-imposing authority they call marshal in America was asking me to do such an illegal act....

I said, "You should have at least removed your coat on which a great seal shows: Marshal, Department of Justice. Be ashamed, at least, of your coat. You write, I will sign."

He thought that was a good compromise, so he wrote my name, David Washington -- and I signed my name. He looked at it... and my signature is such that even a man who knows Hindi cannot understand it. He said, "What is it?"

I said, "It must be David Washington. If my name is David Washington, this is David Washington." I said, "I have made it clear. My signatures are world-known. Don't try to be clever and cunning. If anything happens to me you will be caught for two reasons: my name is written in your handwriting, and my signature is well-known. It is not something personal; it is almost copyrighted in all the countries. Everybody knows my signature, and nobody knows what it means."

Their plan failed. Just before sunrise I was shifted to another jail, because what was the point? -- now they could not kill me in that jail, and to keep me there was dangerous, because a young woman was also brought on the airplane, sitting by my side. She had seen me speaking on the television many times, so she said, "I am immensely glad that I have the chance for a few hours to sit by your side. I know everything is being done to you illegally. They have not issued any arrest warrant, and they arrested you; they have not shown any reason, any cause, and they have not bailed you."

For three days the government attorney continued to argue, and finally his last statement was, "We don't have any proof, any evidence, and we cannot legally ask the magistrate to prevent this man from being bailed out. But the government wants that he should not be bailed out." And America has been proclaiming to the whole world that their justice department is absolutely separate from their administrative bureaucracy.

And I was not given bail, although they could not prove any reason why I was arrested, why no arrest warrant was issued from the court, why I should not be bailed out. Still, the government wants that I should not be bailed out....

Only in very few moments have I felt my respect for women falling. I have always respected women, and I have given them superiority. But once in a while women have done such ugly acts against me that I had to think twice whether to continue to give them respect or to withdraw it.

The magistrate was a woman, and she did not allow the bail. Even the jailer on the way back to jail from the court told me, "I am surprised... this is the first time. There was no reason at all for anything, they had nothing against you. I had prepared all your clothes and everything so that you can be released; there is no reason to prevent you. But now I know why you have not been given bail: that woman has been blackmailed, she has been told that she will be made a federal judge"... she was an ordinary state judge, and becoming a federal judge is tremendously prestigious. I used to think that women have heart. That day I hesitated a little.

Now they have turned the desert again into a desert; they did not allow us to sell the property. One man was ready to purchase it at forty million dollars -- which was nothing, because the property was worth at least three hundred million dollars. Even the government has appraised it at one hundred million. We were ready to give it to him for forty, but the government did not give us the permission to sell it. The man was suffering from cancer and doctors had said he could not live more than one month. If it can be stopped for one month, it will be easy... then the property cannot be sold.

The man died within a month, and even to the last day he was trying hard. The moment he died, immediately the permission was given, but the permission was given in such a way that any buyer of the property... The government has been preventing, creating a thousand and one difficulties. In one year the desert has settled slowly back. Strange --

they will be happy only when it becomes a desert.

Success is never forgiven.

If you see so many people against me around the world, that is nothing but a measurement of my success. If all the prime ministers and the presidents and the popes and the shankaracharyas are against me, the reason is that they are local, ordinary people.

I am the first world citizen -- and that hurts them very much. I have been loved by all races, all religious people from every nook and corner of the world.

Just now there is an exhibition going on in the Soviet Union. I have sannyasins in the Soviet Union; of course, they have to remain underground -- they cannot declare that they are sannyasins -- but there are a large number of sannyasins. Our stall of books is overcrowded; it is the most successful stall even in Russia. But the people don't have money, so they are stealing books. I have informed my people, "Don't pay any attention -

- let them steal. At least those books will reach to millions of people, and if you catch somebody red-handed, just tell him, Ì'm not against stealing; what can you do if you don't have any money? Just keep one thing in mind: when you have read it, pass it on.

That is the price.'"

They confiscated first all our videos, all our audios -- because they were worried, one never knows what is in them.... Now they have released the audios and videos. They must have seen them first, the KGB must have watched everything!

The president of the exhibition was so surprised that an unknown man, who has never come to Russia... and you cannot send any book into Russia, you cannot send any newspaper, you cannot even correspond with people; everything is censored or confiscated. They could not believe that such a crowd would be there on our bookstall the whole day. All the other bookstalls were empty.

The president came to Lani, who went from here, saying, "What is the matter?" Looking at my beard in one of the pictures he said, "Is this man something like Leo Tolstoy?" --

because Leo Tolstoy had a big beautiful beard. "Why are so many people around here the whole day?" They don't know that most of them are my sannyasins! I am the only underground movement in Russia... and there was trouble. The KGB thinks that I am an American agent, and America thinks I am a Russian agent -- and the Indian government thinks it is unfortunate that I was born here, because they cannot deport me. That is their trouble!

Success brings so many troubles. If I had known...

There is a beautiful song of Meera which says, "If I had known before that love brings so many agonies, I would have informed the whole world that nobody should fall in love." I can say to the world that success is not a bed of roses -- not even mixed with thorns; it is completely thorns.

"I have got insomnia really bad," complained a man to his doctor.

"Insomnia," said the doctor, "is insomnia. How bad can it be? What do you mean?

Insomnia is insomnia -- how can it be bad? What do you mean by saying `really bad insomnia'?"

"Well," said the man, "I have got it really bad. I can't even sleep when it is time to get up."

The trouble arises... he cannot sleep when it is time to get up! If you look in people's minds, their bodies are starved, their minds are retarded.

A patient was making his first visit to the doctor. "And whom did you consult about your illness before you came to me?" the doctor enquired.

"Only the druggist down at the corner," replied the patient.

The doctor did not conceal his contempt for the medical advice of people not qualified to practice medicine. "And what sort of ridiculous advice did that fool give you?" demanded the doctor.

"He told me," replied the patient innocently, "to see you."

Ronald Reagan was grooming himself in front of the mirror before leaving to make an important speech on television.

"I wonder how many great men there are in the world?" he mused.

Nancy looked up and said, "One less than you think."

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

TOO MANY TIMES I COME ACROSS WOMEN WHO HAVE GIVEN UP SEX. I DON'T HAVE THE FEELING THAT THEY HAVE TRANSCENDED SEX. COULD

YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING TO THEM?

Veetdharm, your question shows the essential Indian mind. You may be Indian or not, it doesn't matter. It is a great question! Why should you be worried about anybody else's sex? Are you some kind of sex expert?

You say, "Too many times I come across women who have given up sex. I don't have the feeling that they have transcended sex."

In what way can you feel whether anybody has transcended sex or not? Is there any kind of thermometer? If they are saying they have given up, who are you to doubt them? and on what grounds?

Your question shows more about you, not about the women you have come across....

"Could you please say something to them?" This is a strange question! Is it your question or their question? If they have any problem, they will ask. What concern do you have?

Why are you worried about somebody's sex? And you want me to tell them, not to tell you... and it is your question!

If you had gone to any shankaracharya, he would have condemned those women. I condemn you; it is your repressed sexuality. Your eyes are blinded with your sexuality, so you cannot see anybody else who is beyond sex.

Just watch your own state.

You have suppressed so much sex. I can say definitely without knowing you or who you are, that your eyes have a thick layer of sexual repression. This colors everything into sex.

A psychotherapist was treating a patient. Just to check on his mind, he drew a line on the paper and asked him, "What does this line remind you of?"

The patient said, "It cannot remind me of anything else; it reminds me of women. It is so clear... what is the point of asking?"

The psychologist drew a triangle and the man said, "This is too much. It reminds me even more...!"

The psychologist drew a circle. The patient stood up and he said, "Are you some kind of sex maniac or what? This is absolutely woman.... I thought you were a psychoanalyst --

you need psychoanalysis."

The psychoanalyst was at a loss about what to do. Just then a camel passed by, and he said, "Just one last question. What does that camel remind you of?"

He said, "Don't provoke me, or it will be your responsibility. I may do something for which you will repent your whole life. That is a pure, beautiful woman!"

The psychoanalyst said, "Just the last question, the very last. What else reminds you of women?"

The patient said, "What a nonsense question! Everything reminds me of women, there is no question of any exception."

Now, does what he is saying reflect the psychoanalyst or his mind?

Veetdharm, you are a sex maniac. Those women may have transcended; if they have not transcended, just seeing you they will be immediately transcending -- fast, quick, urgent...

emergency! You are drunk with your repressed sex. It is the most intoxicating thing, and accumulating over many years -- and that's what happens in this country.

Here everything reminds people of sex: a straight line, an animal... it defeats all intelligence. One cannot conceive even in a dream that a camel, the ugliest animal in the world, reminds you of a beautiful woman. Even Sophia Loren may never have thought that somebody will see her in a camel. There are people here from Italy, they can inform her....

A drunk was standing watching a man enter a revolving door. As the door swung round, out stepped a pretty girl.

"Unbelievable!" he muttered. "Absolutely unbelievable!"

You don't see that you are drunk. In fact, nobody looks at himself. People are looking at others, judging others, and these are the real criminals. Without any doubt, I say that these are the sickest people in the world -- those who judge others. In the first place, it is not your business. In the second place, you are interfering into somebody else's space; you are going against his individuality and freedom, and you are without any cause suspecting his truth, his sincerity.

The day I left America I received a letter from a bishop of Wasco County, who had been for almost five years condemning my Rolls Royces. In every Sunday sermon he was not preaching Jesus Christ, he was preaching me and my Rolls Royces. The day I was leaving he wrote a letter to me, "Now you are leaving, it will be great kindness on your part if you can donate one Rolls Royce to this church." Now, this shows the man....

I informed him, "Would you like all ninety-three, or only one?"

And a letter came, "If you can give all ninety-three, that is just the right thing. You are really great. I'm very sorry that I condemned you for five years. You are a man to be worshiped."

It is a very strange world if you understand people: whatever they are saying shows more about them than it shows about the person they are talking about.

"I have brought a frog," said Professor Bradley, beaming at his class in elementary zoology, "fresh from the pond, in order that we might study its outer appearance and later dissect it."

He carefully unwrapped the package he was carrying, and inside was a neatly prepared ham sandwich. The good professor looked at it with astonishment.

"Odd," he said, "I distinctly remember having eaten my lunch."

And these are the idiots who are professors, who are judges, who are police commissioners, who are governors, who are prime ministers, who are presidents....

My own understanding is that a man who does not know himself... this should be the only criterion of man's idiocy. According to that criterion, only the self-realized people are saying something that is coming from their very heart. Others are just befooling you.

They may be learned, they may be clever, they may be able to deceive the whole world, but they cannot deceive themselves.

Just watch your own mind, and see what I am saying.

I have saved another question from this man, to prove... because I don't want to say anything without proof. I don't know the man... but now I will read his second question.

That will prove what I have told you.

Question 3

I AM FORTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD AND MY MIND IS STILL FULL OF SEX. CAN

I SEE THIS JUST AS RIPPLES OF THE MIND OR IS MY SEXUAL ENERGY STILL

LIFE-ENERGY? DO I HAVE TO LIVE IT ALL OUT? IS THERE ANY CHANCE

FOR ME TO NOT END UP AS A DIRTY OLD MAN? SWAMI VEETDHARM.

Now, do you need any other proof? This man writes these two questions and is not able to figure out himself that it is his problem he is projecting on others. And he is forty-seven -- it is time not to be foolish. But it seems as age grows, foolishness also grows.

Old fools are really fools. Young fools have a possibility to transcend, but old fools --

where will they transcend? What is the alternative?

The old boss had managed to get a date with his secretary, but was worried about his diminished potency. So he went to the doctor and asked for something to pep him up. The doctor gave him two pills and said, "Take these with your dinner tonight and you should not have any trouble performing later on."

So the old man and his date went to a beautiful restaurant, and when they had ordered their soup, the old man took the waiter aside and asked him to put the two pills into his soup before he served it.

They waited for twenty minutes, and still the waiter had not brought their soup. So the old man angrily called the waiter over and said, "What the hell has happened to the soup?"

"I'm sorry, sir," said the waiter, "but I did what you ordered and put those pills into your soup, and now I'm just waiting for the noodles to lie down again."

Veetdharm, it is time! Let the noodles lie down.

But I know the repressed sex will continue in your mind. Now the only way is to go deeper into silence and meditation. Become more watchful. Drop all this idiotic judgment about others. Your responsibility is to transform you, not the whole world. Don't try to be a savior. If you can save yourself, that's enough.

You have passed almost two-thirds of your life, but you are just in time, forty-seven....

Perhaps thirteen years are available for the whole of humanity to live, and thirteen years are also available for you to live -- so you are exactly synchronizing with existence.

Nobody else is going to have more time, so don't be jealous. Even the youngest child will live only thirteen years, most probably. There seems to be no reason to expect otherwise, because the so-called wise are suggesting, "Stop cow slaughter and there will be no world war"..."Learn yogic hopping and there will be no world war."

A Jew was caught in Adolf Hitler's Germany before the second world war by a police officer, who said, "Listen, Jew, do you know the real reason why Germany is not as rich as it should be, is not the world's greatest power? Why did Germany get defeated in the first world war?"

The Jew said, "I think it is because of the bicycle riders." The policeman looked around.

There was a crowd listening to what was happening, what the Jew says.

He said, "Bicycle riders? What is the connection between bicycle riders and Germany's defeat?"

The Jew said, "What connection is there between Jews and Germany's defeat? It is the same. Destroy bicycles and I promise you, Germany will start rising in riches, power, it will become a world power."

The policeman said, "You seem to be absolutely mad!"

He said, "If I am mad, then what is Adolf Hitler and the people who are following him?"

Adolf Hitler lied completely saying that it is the Jews -- which is absolutely irrelevant --

because of the Jews, Germany is not getting on, it is being defeated, damaged. And in fact, the Jews were the only people in Germany who were productive and creative. If he had not been against the Jews, there is every possibility that now Germany would have been ruling the whole world. Because Albert Einstein was also a Jew, working under Adolf Hitler, but seeing that millions of Jews were simply slaughtered...

Of course, he would not have been killed; he was their only hope of conquering the world, because he was going to produce the atom bomb. But he escaped from Germany and wrote a letter to President Roosevelt of America saying, "I can create atomic weapons which can destroy on such a large scale -- the biggest city within a few minutes

-- that if you want to win the second world war, I'm the man. I give you the guarantee."

Roosevelt was immensely happy, because Adolf Hitler was winning continually. For five years he had not known any defeat, he went on winning. Wherever he entered he was winning.

It was a Jew, Albert Einstein, who produced the atom bomb. It might have been produced in Berlin, but it was produced in Washington, and that changed the whole of history. But any idiotic idea... and people have been forced to remain so retarded that they go on following it.

For example, Veetdharm, if you are a Hindu, then most probably everything that you are doing is going to lead you to an ugly old age, full of sexuality. Hindus believe that cow milk is the purest thing, the most spiritual. In fact, except for man no animal drinks milk his whole life. Milk is only drunk in the beginning, for a few weeks, a few months at the most, before he starts eating and digesting solid food -- it is just a temporary measure. It is only man who goes on drinking milk his whole life.

You don't understand: the milk you go on drinking is not a woman's milk, it is the milk of a cow, which has the chemistry and alchemy for the bull, not for the man. These Hindu monks go on drinking milk thinking that this is a great thing to keep them celibate. They become bulls! -- because that is the food for bulls, and it has the capacity to create that much sexuality. This is the greatest danger.

Strange things have been suggested to you by stupid people. They tell you, "Take a cold bath before sunrise, and it will keep you celibate." That is pure nonsense. If you want to be celibate, take a good hot bath after sunrise, so the noodles can lie down. In a cold bath noodles will stand up.

But this is for the first time I am saying this... I wanted to say it always, but I avoided it.

Why unnecessarily wrestle with idiots, very ancient idiots? Cold water is certainly going to make you more sexual. Ice cold water is suggested -- and before sunrise, so the water does not become even lukewarm. Hindu sannyasins go at three o'clock in the morning to take a cold bath, shivering, but they don't know what they are doing. They will feel more sexual -- and then a good cow's milk... that will make them a bull. And a bull with noodles standing up -- you are finished!

Question 4

MOST BELOVED OSHO,

NEVER THE EARTH AND THE SKY HAVE BEEN SO BEAUTIFUL.... NEVER THE

EXISTENCE HAS BEEN SO VIBRATING, DANCING ITS MYSTERIOUS DANCE, PREGNANT TO THE FULLEST WITH JOY, SILENCE, LOVE AND YOUR DIVINE

GIGGLES....

IT IS SO MUCH.... YET I CAN ONLY WHISPER THE SILENT JOY OF BEING, WHILE I WOULD LIKE TO CELEBRATE YOU TO THE FULLEST. THANK YOU

SO MUCH, OSHO, AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR KILLING ME SO LOVINGLY.

Kavisho, it is true: my work consists in killing you lovingly, because that is the only possibility of bringing you back into a new light, into a new life.

I kill only that which is not yours, but you believe it is you. I kill, in short, your personality, and leave only that which cannot be destroyed: your eternal being.

The moment your personality drops, you will certainly feel like dancing and celebrating and enjoying. And suddenly this universe will become totally different, because now you have fresh eyes, utterly innocent, uncorrupted by any society, any religion, any politician, any kind of ideology.

Once your personality can be taken away from you -- and it is not you -- then you are left in your utter nudity, in your existential being... the beauty of it, the luxury of it, the festivity of it, will start functioning. It will bring great creativity to you, great intelligence to you, great love to you. You will forget how you lived so long in misery, so long in jealousy, so long in ambitions, all kinds of desires which made you a beggar. You will not believe that this eternal freedom was always available for you, just you had to look into it.

I have called you all here. Perhaps you may not know that I have called you here. It is not that you have come on your own; that would be very difficult. On your own you would be doing something stupid somewhere -- giving birth to more children, worshiping before a stone statue which is made by man, praying to a God which does not exist, which is only an unproved hypothesis, afraid of hell, desiring for heaven. And all is just fiction....

But the personality needs many fictions to support it. Itself, it is a by-product of all these fictions.

Your individuality needs no fiction.

It is your authentic existential being.

I give you that which you already have, and I take away all that you never really had, but you believed you had. I destroy your belief, and that is my way of destroying your personality.

And once your personality is gone, Kavisho, you will become contagious. Your joy, your celebration, your song, your dance will spread into other people's hearts. You will become a catalytic agent. Without knowing, people will start joining you in your dance, in your laughter, in your joy.

What you are saying makes me immensely happy. I would like all my people to come to the same space.

The worried father telephoned the family doctor and said that his teenage son had come down with gonorrhea. "He says," continued the father, "that he has not had sex with anyone but the maid, so it has to be her."

"Don't worry so much," advised the kindly doctor. "These things happen."

"I know, doctor," said the father. "But I have to admit that I have been to bed with her myself, and I seem to have the same symptoms."

"That is unfortunate," said the doctor.

"Not only that -- I think I have passed it on to my wife."

"Christ," said the doctor. "That means we all have it."

Just go on passing.... Just as disease can be contagious, health can also be. Just as misery can be contagious, blissfulness can also be.

One lighted being is bound to create an urgent, instant longing in others to have the same light. One person dancing and singing with abandon is bound to affect people, because they are also carrying the same song hidden, the same dance. They have been crippled by their society. They also have the same eyes for beauty, but they had been blinded by the society. They have also the energy to celebrate, but this society does not believe in celebration.

This society is absolutely insane. It believes in money, it believes in power, it believes in violence, it believes in rapes, it believes in murder, it believes in all kinds of crimes, and it believes in all kinds of fictions, but it does not understand even a little bit about itself.

The moment a small window opens into you, you are a transformed being. The new man is born in you.

Kavisho, enjoy this celebration as much as possible, because whatever remaining falsities, personalities, parts here and there may have remained, they will be thrown away by your dance. Enjoy... this existence is for your enjoyment. It is our existence, it is our home.

Nobody is a sinner except those who don't celebrate.

To me, celebration is the only virtue.

A man was visiting his friend George, who was in hospital dying. The friend said, "Well, anyway George, you have lived a good life. For sure you will be going to heaven."

George replied, "Yes, I have lived a good life, but there is something I never told you."

"What is that?" asked his friend.

"Remember that time I went to Chicago on business last year? Well, I made love with a beautiful woman there."

Shocked, his friend replied, "I can't believe it. I mean, your wife, your kids -- did you not think about them?"

"Yes, I did," replied George, "and then I thought I might as well see what heaven is like, since I already knew what hell was like."

You have known hell; now you are entering, Kavisho, into heaven. Everybody has suffered for many lives in hell. Hell is nowhere in the geography of the world, of the universe; it is in your distorted mind. It is another name for a distorted mind, and heaven is another name for a mind which has transcended itself and reached into a space of no-mind. Hence my insistence continuously for silence. If you cannot reach to silence through music... because music is next to silence....

To create silence I have been giving you all the meditations, all these small gaps... not that I am short of words, not that I have forgotten what I was going to say, but just to allow you to have a little experience of silence, which on your own you find difficult. But in the communion of so many silent people, and in the communion of a man who has reached to the ultimate center of being, it is possible to be infected.

Blessed are those who allow themselves to be contagious to festivity, to love, to peace, to silence, to celebration.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #13

Chapter title: Human mind is a miracle

12 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709125

ShortTitle:

PILGR13

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

122

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

AM I REALLY GETTING OLD, BECAUSE EVERYONE IS GOSSIPING ABOUT IT?

Devageet again! Just two days ago you had become old, and I had to take so much trouble to bring you back. And you slip again! One time is okay, but twice is too much --

it is becoming really a serious problem.

And don't listen to gossip; you are here to listen to the gospel!

But I have also heard the gossip that is making you worried. So first the gossip: One day at the Poona drugstore, Milarepa, Sarjano and Devageet come in to buy some condoms. Milarepa goes first and says he would like a week's supply, which is six. "Why only six?" asks the druggist.

"Well," says Milarepa, "these days I like to have Sunday off."

Next, Sarjano walks up and asks for eight condoms. "Eight?" says the druggist, "why eight?"

"Mama mia," says Sarjano, "I-a always like-a to do it twice-a on Sundays."

And last Devageet walks up and asks for twelve. The druggist, looking at his size and age, is astonished. "Twelve?" he says. "That is pretty impressive for a man of your age.

But tell me, why twelve?"

Devageet replies, "January, February, March..."

That is the gossip that is going all around. And I have to suffer from all these gossips; now I have to bring Devageet back to his senses.

First thing: feel happy that you have friends. The old saying is:

..."The person who does not gossip has no friends to speak of."

You have so many friends; everybody is gossiping about you. So it is not unfortunate --

just for the gossip's sake, just for the friends' sake -- if once in a while you become old.

But remember one thing:

... The only sure thing about youth is that it will change, and about old age, that it will never change.

Old age has something more than youth: it ends, but it never changes. People are too much worried about old age. Anybody can become old; only a great man can enquire about it. It needs some intelligence to enquire about it.

... Old age is when you have learnt to yawn with your mouth closed.

So let that be the criterion for the future. Don't be bothered by any gossip.

... People who complain they don't get all they deserve, don't realize how old they are.

Just remember one thing: old age or no old age, one should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry. And it keeps one always young, at least for the appearance's sake. There are so many ways to appear young; the simplest is:

... Always fall in love with an older woman, and you will be always young. One just has to find a way -- these are problems intrinsic to life.

... Or become a monk: start preaching brahmacharya, celibacy, and you will forget all about old age; you will start making the young feel guilty. These are well-tried methods, for thousands of years. Only one thing is bad about being old and unmarried:

... Married men don't live longer than the single men, it just seems longer.

... One marriage out of every three ends up in divorce -- the other two fight it out to the bitter end.

In India, a marriage is arranged by the parents and the couple don't know each other until after the marriage. The arrangements in the West are considerably different, but the results are identical. Whether in the East or in the West, you come to know each other only after marriage, but it is too late by that time; nothing can be done about it.

... The one who sleeps does not commit sins. The one who commits sins sleeps better afterwards.

... To find out a girl's faults, talk to her girlfriends and say how wonderful she is!

... Marriage is a romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter.

... Never marry a beautiful girl, because she might leave you. Of course, an ugly girl might leave you too -- but so what?

... All marriages are happy. It is the living together afterwards that is tough.*

Devageet, everybody here is sooner or later bound to become old. We have to understand the beauty of old age, and we have to understand the freedom of old age. We have to understand the wisdom of old age; we have to understand its tremendous detachment from all foolish things that go on in the lives of people who are still young.

Old age gives you a height. If this height can be joined with meditation, you will rather feel miserable -- why did you waste your youth? why have your parents destroyed your childhood? why was meditation not given to you as the first gift the day you were born?

But whenever you get it, it is still not too late. Even just a few moments before your death, if you can get the meaning of your being, your life has not been a wastage.

Old age in the East has been immensely respected for the simple reason that in the past it was thought almost a shameless act -- when your children are getting married, when your children are giving birth to children... and you are still infatuated, you are still in the bondage of biology? You should rise; this is time to leave the ground for other fools to play football. At the most you can be a referee, but not a player.

I loved one cartoon in a Dutch magazine. It was strange, because it all consists of world presidents, prime ministers, great leaders, dictators, kings -- I am the only person in that group who is nobody. And I am the first -- unfortunately Ronald Reagan is the last. They have called it a football team, and I am the referee. I was happy, very happy. I would have sued that newspaper if I was part of the football team, but to be a referee is a totally different matter -- let the fools play!

But it is a great insight: I am nobody, I do not count in any way, I have no power...

Whoever made the cartoon must have great insight.

Devageet, unless you can accept everything that life brings you with gratefulness, you are missing the point. Childhood was beautiful; youth has its own flowers, old age has its own peaks of consciousness. But the trouble is that childhood comes on its own, youth comes on its own; for old age you have to be very creative.

Old age is your own creation: it can be a misery, it can be a celebration; it can be simply a despair, and it can also be a dance. It all depends how deeply ready you are to accept existence, whatsoever it brings. One day it will bring death too -- accept it with gratitude.

This gratitude I call religious. This deep acceptance of everything with no complaint, with no desire for it to be otherwise, is the only religion there is.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU HAVE TOLD US THAT THE MIND BECOMES MORE AND MORE QUIET IF

WE MEDITATE REGULARLY. LAST YEAR, WHEN I WAS LIVING IN EUROPE

OUTSIDE OF A COMMUNE, THOUGHTS BECAME STRONGER AND

STRONGER DURING MY MEDITATIONS UNTIL I BEGAN TO DREAD SITTING.

NOW THAT I AM WITH YOU AGAIN, THIS PROBLEM HAS GONE AWAY. BUT I WONDERED: HOW CAN ONE BE A SANNYASIN FOR TEN YEARS,

MEDITATING EVERY DAY, AND HAVE A MIND WHICH BECOMES MORE

AND MORE NOISY?

Sagarpriya, the question you have asked has many implications. First, one has to understand that your mind is very ancient -- twelve years are nothing compared to the mind's history; it is the history of the whole universe from the very beginning.

It has been working so long, so efficiently that scientists say they have not yet been able to create a computer which can compete with human mind. And human mind is placed in a small space, in your skull; their computers are placed in big rooms. One scientist has calculated that it would need almost a one square mile space for a computer comparable to the human mind. Human mind is a miracle.

Sitting with me, you are sitting with a greater miracle. You are sitting with no-mind.

Naturally, silence becomes easier; meditation comes on its own, just like a cool breeze.

When you are left alone, your mind is all that you have. Unless your meditation goes to such depths that you have something more valuable than the mind, this problem will continue to happen.

With me you can have a glimpse, just for a moment. And that glimpse creates the longing to have that moment stretched to eternity. It is so peaceful, so cool, so calm, who would not like it?

But as you go back into the world, there are just computers walking all around; you have to communicate with computers. One physiologist has defined man's body as nothing but a mechanism to facilitate the mind's functioning. You think you are carrying the mind.

The physiologist is saying just the opposite: it is the mind that is carrying you; your whole body is functioning just for the mind's sake.

So the moment you go into the world -- this is not part of the world; we have been trying to create small islands where mind as a computer is no longer required. But in the world you will need the mind. And the problem will continue, Sagarpriya, until you have something more than mind. Just having a glimpse of silence is not enough.

You need a centering, you need a realization, you need exactly enlightenment -- only then can you remain in the world, without your mind functioning unless you want to use it.

Mind is a tremendously valuable mechanism, one of the greatest miracles in biology, in the evolution of man. Mind is simply unbelievable, the way it works... because you don't know anything about it, although it is your mind. You don't know how it accumulates millions of memories.

The scientists have calculated that a single man's mind can contain all the libraries of the world. He can memorize everything that has been ever written, down the ages. That is the capacity; you may use it, you may not use it.

And you don't know about the libraries. Just the British Museum Library has enough books that if you go on putting one book by the side of the other, just as you put them on the book shelf in the library, it will take three rounds of the whole world. And that is only one library! Moscow has perhaps a bigger library, and all the big universities of the world have similar libraries. Just India has one hundred universities with tremendously big libraries.

And the very idea that a single human mind has the capacity to memorize all that is written in all the books that are in existence in the whole world... it simply baffles, it looks unbelievable.

You don't know what your mind is doing for you. Your mind is regulating everything in your body. Otherwise, how do you think that for seventy or eighty years, or even a hundred years -- and there are people who have even passed that; they have reached their one hundred and fiftieth birthday, and there are a few hundred people in the Soviet Union who have passed the age of one hundred and eighty.

Scientists say there is no reason for the body to die for at least three hundred years. It is just an old hypnosis, autohypnosis, which has made the idea prevalent that you have only seventy years to live. It goes so deep in your consciousness that by the seventieth year you start thinking you are sinking, you are gone.

And anyway by the time you are retired at the age of sixty there is nothing to do. Death seems to be a relief, not a danger. We have not been capable enough and human enough to provide a situation where our old people can have some dignity, some self-respect, some pride. We have not been able to find dimensions where they can contribute to the world. And they are experienced and certainly capable of contributing enough -- enough for their self-respect, enough for them to live and not to feel like a burden.

When George Bernard Shaw became seventy years old, he started taking trips to small villages around London. His friends were surprised, "What are you doing? For days you disappear. In this old age you should rest."

He said, "I am searching for the place to rest in this old age."

They said, "What do you mean? You have a beautiful house, you have everything that you need."

He said, "You don't understand. I am going around all these villages looking in their cemeteries, at the gravestones, in search of a place where many people have lived at least a hundred years."

And finally he found a village where on a gravestone was the inscription, "This man died at the untimely age of one hundred and twenty." He said, "This is the village worth living in, where people think that at the age of one hundred and twenty it is an untimely death."

He lived in that village, and he lived beyond a hundred years.

Perhaps it has some significance... not just accidental. He was a man of tremendous wisdom; and if the villagers believe it then the atmosphere is bound to change his own conditioning.

In Pakistan there is a part of Kashmir which belonged to to India; Pakistan has occupied it for forty years. Perhaps that part, because of its secludedness, hidden behind the mountains, has not come in contact with people who die at the age of seventy. They are uneducated people; in fact they cannot count when they are seventy, so how to die at seventy? They don't have a calendar. They don't know when they were born; they don't know how old they are.

They are the most primitive people who have been found living behind the Himalayan peaks, in a valley -- in a beautiful valley, self-sufficient, and they have never gone out.

And there have been people found, according to the doctors, who are two hundred years old. And they are young; they are working in the fields, in the gardens, in the orchards, and when you ask them about their age they say, "We don't know. Nobody here knows; there is no school here."

And now Pakistan is opening schools and hospitals and you can be certain that soon people will start dying exactly at the age of seventy. Those people have just forgotten to die, because they don't remember when they were born, and they cannot count.

Scientists say that man's body has the capacity at least -- that is the minimum -- to live three hundred years. But why does man not live so long? Perhaps man does not know how to live; perhaps man does not know how to use his body, how to use his mind.

Sagarpriya, you have to understand two things very clearly: first, mind is a great miracle.

Existence has not been able to create anything higher than your mind. Its function is so complex that it baffles the greatest scientists. It manages your whole body, and it is such a complex system. Who manages that a certain part of your blood should go to the brain?

Who manages that only a certain amount of oxygen should reach to the brain? Who manages what part of your food should become bones, should become blood, should become skin? Who manages that part of your skin should become nails and part of your skin should become eyes and part of your skin should become ears?

Certainly you are not managing it, and I don't see any other manager around. So first you have to be grateful to the mind. That is a first step to go beyond mind, not as an enemy but as a friend. Listening to me continually saying that you have to go beyond mind, you can fall into a misunderstanding. I have tremendous respect for mind. We are obliged so much by the mind, there is no way to return our gratitude.

So the first thing is: meditation is not against mind, it is beyond mind. And beyond is not equivalent to against.

That misunderstanding spreads the more people talk about meditation, particularly people who don't understand meditation -- those who have read about it, those who have heard about it, those who know the techniques... And techniques are simple; they are available in many scriptures, you can read them. And now there are books on how to do anything --

car mechanics, electric engineering, anything -- you ask, and the bookseller is ready to give you a book about how to do it.

My people in Europe have been thinking to make a book with a cassette. The book will give all the background of the meditation and the cassette will give all the instructions, so you need not go anywhere. Just sitting in your room with your tape recorder and you have a master! Gautam Buddha is no longer needed....

A master will never become irrelevant for a simple reason: who will teach you to love the mind and yet go beyond it? to love your body, to respect your body? to have gratitude towards your mind, its tremendous, miraculous functioning? That will make a great friendship, a bridge between you and the mind.

With this friendship deepening, whenever you are meditating, the mind will not disturb because your meditation is not against it. It is in fact its own fulfillment, it is its own ultimate flowering. Going beyond it is not an antagonistic attitude, but a friendly evolution.

So this should be the background of all meditators: not to be a fighter. If you fight you may be able to make the mind quiet for some time, but it is not your victory. The mind will come back, you will need it. You cannot live without it; you cannot exist in the world without it.

And if you can create a friendly relationship with the mind, a loving bridge, rather than being a hindrance to meditation it starts becoming a help. It protects your silence because that silence is also its own treasure, it is not just yours. It becomes a soil in which the roses of meditation will blossom, and the soil will be as happy as the roses. When the roses will be dancing in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, the soil will also rejoice.

My approach is totally different from the approach that has been taken up to now. For thousands of years, all the religions have been teaching something against body, against mind.

And just today I came to know that there are even idiots who are teaching against meditation. The parliament of Israel has passed a law that meditation in private or in public is a criminal act. You cannot believe it!

And these politicians don't know even the ABC of the mind, what to say about meditation. But why are they so much worried? One of their worries is me, because out of my sannyasins fifty percent are Jews. Sooner or later I am going to take over Israel, there is no problem about it -- before the Palestinians take it over, I am going to take over.

Why should the politicians be concerned? And if they are concerned they should consult people who know what meditation is. To make it a criminal act is an unbelievable thing; nowhere ever...

Religions have taught against the body. That was so ridiculous -- you have to live in the body, you have to nourish the body; you have to keep it healthy, it is your home. They have been talking against mind. Now this is the latest thing -- Israel has done a pioneer work! The parliament of Israel seems to be consisting of really first-class idiots.

I don't think they know even anything about meditation, but the fear.... Jews are afraid, Mohammedans are afraid, Hindus are afraid, Jainas are afraid -- they are all afraid of meditation. Even though they talk about meditation they are afraid of it. They talk because without talking about meditation their religion seems to be incomplete, but they are basically against it because a man who becomes a meditator simply slips out of any organized religion. He is no more a Hindu and he is no more a Jew and he is no more a Mohammedan. He cannot go on believing in all kinds of superstitions and stupidities that every religion is full of.

Jews think that they are the chosen people of God. Now, no meditator can do that. To think that "Only we, the Jews, are the chosen people of God, and the whole humanity is in some way inferior to us"... But it was not only the Jews who have committed that sin.

They have suffered much for it; they are still suffering. They will continue to suffer, because the very idea is so stupid that it creates antagonism, particularly in a world where Nordic Germans think that they are the chosen people, where Hindus think that they are the chosen people, because their holy book is the most ancient and first God-written holy scripture. They cannot tolerate any ideas like Moses telling his people that "You are the chosen people of God; you have a basic right to be superior to everybody else." Who can tolerate it? Hindus think they are superior to everybody.

Jews and Hindus are the only two religions in the world which don't believe in conversion, because how to convert inferior people into a higher religion? And because they cannot convert, they are absolutely against Christianity, Mohammedanism, who are after converts continuously.

Now, because of the fear that the number of Mohammedans and Christians goes on growing and Jews and Hindus go on shrinking, there are small trends among Jews... and there is a small group of Hindus called the Arya Samaj, who have introduced conversion.

But it remains a very half-hearted thing. Deep down they know what they are doing: they are bringing inferior people into their fold. It is just out of sheer necessity; otherwise those inferior people will outnumber -- they have already -- the superior people.

Now Christians have the greatest numbers in the world; second are the Mohammedans --

and these two are the converting religions.

The fear of meditation has roots. In the law passed by the Israeli parliament it has become exposed, but it is there in every religious mind: if people start meditating, if people start loving their bodies, loving their minds, and out of love peacefully transcending towards a state of no-mind, they will not belong to any stupid ideology.

And all ideologies are so full of stupid things that it is almost impossible to count how many superstitions, and what a variety of superstitions. Some day when humanity has become one, we will need great museums to collect all the superstitions to remember our forefathers by. Just the way Darwin thought of monkeys as his forefathers, the coming generations of man will remember you and your forefathers in the same category.

I would like you to be reminded of a few superstitions... just samples, because the whole lot is too much.

Jainas think that unless your earlobes touch your shoulders you cannot become enlightened. Now I cannot see what the relationship can be between the earlobes, which are almost dead parts of your body... have you ever noticed? Can you do anything with your earlobes? Can you wave them? They are just hanging there, not doing anything. You cannot do anything with them because there is no nervous system; they are just pieces of flesh without nerves, pure flesh. And without nerves you cannot turn them up or down, here and there.

I have come across only one person -- and I have been around the world -- and strangely enough he was my classmate in first grade when I entered school. Now he is a doctor in the same town. He is the only man... some freak! He can make his earlobes move this way, that way, back, forward. He was a miracle; for some accidental reason his earlobes have grown nerves inside. Just as a few people are born with six fingers, a few people are born with three eyes, a few people are born with two heads -- just freaks -- he has really big earlobes.

I have been watching to see when he becomes enlightened. He is just a poor doctor -- he knows nothing about meditation, nothing about enlightenment. And because he is an ayurvedic doctor, patients don't come to him. Only his children go on growing, and he goes on growing poorer and poorer. Each time I have seen him I have seen him reduced, thinner, more worried. I said, "What is the matter? You are supposed to be enlightened!"

But stupid ideas... and it is not one religion but every religion. And they cannot tolerate each other.

Mohammed went to heaven sitting on his horse; the horse also went -- without wings.

Neither Mohammed had wings nor the horse, but they flew to heaven. This was happening for the first time. Jesus left his donkey here, Francis left his donkey here; only Mohammed was able to take his horse. Mohammedans think it was because he was the real prophet....

Now everybody is claiming -- Mohammedans claim that the KORAN, their holy book, is the only authentic, God-written book; all other books are man-written. And the KORAN

is not even worth being considered as literature; it is just third-class. Because Mohammed was uneducated, he did not write it; whatever he was saying has been collected by people, but every sentence shows his uneducatedness, his unculturedness.

But Mohammed claims to be the last prophet of God: after him there will be no prophet because God has sent his final message through him, and that is the KORAN. All old messages are canceled -- THE BIBLE, the VEDAS, are all canceled, because when the new message has arrived it cancels all the old. It is the most developed, the most evolved message; it is so perfect that there is no need of anybody else to bring a message to the world.

Now, all these religions are claiming such things. Mohammedans say that when Mohammed used to move in Arabia -- which is a desert and really becomes burning hot when the sun comes to the middle of the sky -- God used to send a beautiful white cloud which used to move just over Mohammed's head, keeping him under shadow... a divine umbrella!

If meditation becomes more prevalent, then you will get free from all these prejudices; hence no religion wants meditation, although they may talk about it.

To me, neither God is important nor heaven nor hell nor angels -- all those are just hypothetical. To me, meditation is the very soul of religion. But it can be attained only if you move rightly. Just a single step in a wrong direction... And you are always moving on a razor's edge!

Begin with love of the body, which is your outermost part. Start loving your mind -- and if you love your mind you will decorate it, just the way you decorate your body. You keep it clean, you keep it fresh; you don't want your body to smell horrible to people, you want your body to be loved and respected by others. Your presence should not be simply tolerated but welcomed.

You have to decorate your mind with poetry, with music, with art, with great literature.

Your trouble is, your mind is filled only with trivia. Such third-rate things go on through your mind that you cannot love it. You think of nothing which is great. Make it more in tune with the greatest poets; make it in tune with people like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Turgenev, Rabindranath, Kahlil Gibran, Mikhail Naimy; make it filled with the greatest heights that mind has reached.

Then you will not be unfriendly to the mind. Then you will rejoice in the mind; even if mind is there in your silence, it will have a poetry and a music of its own, and to transcend such a refined mind is very easy. It is a friendly step towards higher peaks: poetry turning into mysticism, great literature turning into great insights into existence, music turning into silence.

And as these things start turning into higher peaks, beyond mind, you will be discovering new worlds, new universes which we don't even have a name for. We can say blissfulness, ecstasy, enlightenment, but no word really describes it. It is simply outside the power of language to reduce it into explanations, into theories, into philosophies. It is simply beyond... but mind rejoices in its transcendence.

That's what my unique contribution is to you. With absolute humbleness I want to tell you that I am far ahead of even Gautam Buddha, for the simple reason that he is still fighting with the mind. I have loved my mind, and through love I have transcended it.

It is a totally new beginning. Naturally I have to be condemned; my people will be condemned. Many will come to me but will not be able to walk along with me even for a few steps, because soon they will find that their prejudices are preventing them from going with me.

Their prejudices are ancient, and naturally -- I can understand -- they cannot think that anybody can go beyond Gautam Buddha, just as the contemporaries of Gautam Buddha could not believe that he has gone beyond the VEDAS and beyond the seers of the UPANISHADS, just as contemporaries of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu could not believe that they have gone far beyond Confucius.

And if just out of humbleness I don't say the truth, I will be committing a crime against truth. I don't care about such humbleness; I want exactly what is the case to be explained to you.

My approach towards meditation is absolutely new, absolutely fresh, because it depends on love -- not on fight, not on war. Mahavira I have left twenty-five centuries behind. His name was not Mahavira -- mahavira means `the great warrior'. His name was Vardhamana, but people changed his name because he was a great warrior. A warrior against whom? -- against his body, against his mind. And I don't think that anybody who is against his body and against his mind is capable of reaching the beyond.

Only love is the path.

Sagarpriya, make your mind as beautiful as possible. Decorate it with flowers. I am really very sad when I see that people don't know THE BOOK OF MIRDAD, that they have never looked into the absurd stories of Chuang Tzu, that they have never bothered to understand the absolutely irrational stories of Zen.

I cannot conceive of how you can live beautifully if you don't know Dostoevsky's books... BROTHERS KARAMAZOV to me is more important than any BIBLE. It has such great insights, that THE BIBLE should not be counted at all, even for comparison.

But THE BIBLE will be read -- and who is going to bother about BROTHERS

KARAMAZOV, in which Dostoevsky has poured his whole soul? or ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy, or FATHERS AND SONS by Turgenev, or OFFERING

OF SONGS by Rabindranath?And these are only a few names; there are thousands who have reached the finest flowering of mind.

First let your mind be decorated. Only beyond this perfumed garden of the mind will you be able to go silently, without any fight; mind will be a help, not a hindrance. I have not found it to be a hindrance; hence I can say with absolute authority: it is not a hindrance.

You just don't know how to use it.

It is beautiful, Sagarpriya, that when you come here you feel meditative. At least these few gaps, these few days, will slowly start becoming stronger, deeper. One day you will be gone and these moments will be with you even in the marketplace, and that will be a day of great rejoicing.

But it takes time. I have to say to people that it can happen instantly. Not that it is untrue -

- it can happen instantly, but where to find the genius who can understand it instantly?

When I say it can happen instantly, people simply think, "This is impossible for us." If I say to them it can happen in a few lives' time, they feel, "That seems to be perfect,"

because that gives them the time to do all their stupid things meanwhile. It is a question of a few lives, so what is the hurry? First take care of your boyfriend, your girlfriend; first go to see all kinds of ruins in Rome, in Greece, in India; first do every foolish thing that is expected of you by the whole crowd. And as far as enlightenment is concerned it is not going to happen now, it will take many lives, so what is the hurry? You can go on postponing.

That's why people love all these religions which talk about many lives -- not because they understand the significance of it, but because they want to use that as an excuse.

It can happen this very moment, but it will not happen. The reason is not in its nature; the reason is you. It will not happen because you don't want it to happen right now.

Just think for a moment: if I were going to make you enlightened this very moment, you would start thinking, "But I have not asked my husband. What about my children? I have to get my daughter married. And I have just met my girlfriend, my god! and this is going to happen just now? he cannot wait? -- just let me finish my honeymoon." Thousands of thoughts will arise in your mind: "My god, I have started a new business, invested everything in it. If he had told me before, I would not have got involved in all this mess."

Everybody, without exception....

I have told you the story of a great Ceylonese master who had millions of disciples, and who had been telling them for nearabout fifty years only one thing: Meditate. The day of his death came and he announced, "After seven days I am going to leave my body, so let all my disciples gather so that I can see them one time more, because I will not be coming back again."

So all the disciples gathered; it was a great gathering. And before dying, the old man said,

"I have always told you to meditate, but you have not listened. I give you another chance.

This time you have not to do anything. I am going to die, I can take you with me. Is anybody ready to come with me?"

Everybody looked at each other: "You have been long enough with him, you can go."

People looked at each other, whispered, "What are you doing? All your children are married, everything is finished, nobody needs you...." But nobody was standing up.

He said, "Just stand up, and I will take you with me."

There was great silence and people were looking downwards -- how to face this old man?

It is so embarrassing. But they were all unmoving, because he may misunderstand even the movement -- he may see that somebody is moving and say, "Get up!"

Finally one man raised his hand. He said, "First please understand this: I am not standing, I am just raising my hand to ask you a question."

The old man said, "Fifty years I have been answering your questions and still you are asking questions? And this time I am giving you the opportunity to come with me."

He said, "I'm sorry. Some day I will come. Just tell me the secret of how to come and find you."

He said, "What have I been telling you for fifty years?"

The man said, "Just one time more..."

It is possible in this very moment to drop all your prejudices, cleanse your mind. It simply needs absolute decisiveness, ultimate trust, and a love that knows no bounds.

But if it cannot happen this moment, I don't want anybody to become sad and fall into a state of despair. It can happen tomorrow. You can relax, there is no hurry. But please understand the process clearly: Love your body -- against all the religions. Love your mind, refine your mind -- against all the religions.

And I say to you that fight is not the way; love is the way. Love your body, love your mind, and that very love will create the energy, the atmosphere to transcend the mind, to create what I call meditation or the state of no-mind. It will come. It has to come. Nobody has to go from this temple empty-handed.

But you will have to understand one thing: that I don't represent any old tradition, I don't represent any old religion; I don't represent any Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Mohammed or Jesus or Moses -- I simply represent myself.

And if you can love and trust a stranger who does not belong to any orthodox organization, then with me, meditation will be happening... and soon, without me also it will be happening. It will take a little time. It will take a little time because it needs to grow roots.

So, Sagarpriya, whenever you can find time, come. And don't be concerned with what happens outside; that is just rubbish. What happens here, count only that as your real life.

The moments that you are with me will be with you even after your death, and the moments you are wasting in the world are simply gone down the drain.

But there is no need to be worried. If even a few moments of meditation start becoming seeds in you, start growing roots in you, the day is not very far away when you will have the first flowers of your consciousness growing within you.

And I understand you, Sagarpriya; I understand you and your trust and your love. Very few people have that much love and that much trust.

But drop all antagonism towards the mind. There is some streak of fighting with the mind, maybe unconscious -- mind is just a poor and beautiful thing....

Modern police departments are beginning to use computers to help fight crime. One night a man telephoned the police and said, "Police, come quick! There is a burglar downstairs and he is putting all our valuables in a sack."

The voice on the other end said, "Keep calm. Keep calm, sir, hang up the phone, stay where you are and a police car will be right over... right over... right over...."

A computer can go wrong any moment. And mind is nothing but a computer, but created with such perfection by nature. But you have not valued it at all.

The enormous computer took up all of the huge room, completely dwarfing the two tiny mathematicians standing before it. A sliver of paper had emerged from the computer and one mathematician, after studying it gravely, turned to the other and said, "Do you realize that it would take four hundred ordinary mathematicians two hundred and fifty years to make a mistake this big?"

There are many people in the world who are becoming interested in meditation, but ninety-nine percent are in the wrong hands, and if you say this it hurts them.

Just today I have received a letter. The letter says, "The other night you spoke of Goenka's Vipassana. You blamed Goenka for being a businessman and professionalist of Vipassana. Osho, I have experienced Vipassana here at the Poona ashram, and also Goenka's Dhammpeeth at Igatpuri. I think your comment is wrong."

And this is from a man, Anand Piyoosh, who has just become a sannyasin two days ago.

In another letter before this, he says, "Due to uncertainty and indecisiveness of mind I have taken sannyas after twelve years. Due to this inability of mine I have suffered much.

How can I get freed from it permanently? -- Anand Piyoosh."

It took him twelve years to decide to take sannyas, and it took him only twelve hours to find that I am wrong in what I have said about Goenka -- no indecisiveness about this.

And if Goenka was right, then what is the need of coming here? If Goenka can teach you meditation, then why are you wasting your time here, and my time and my people's time?

And if you have such an understanding that you can simply call me wrong, then this is not the place for you.

What do you understand about meditation?

The difference between Goenka's meditation and the meditation that is happening here is immense, and for you it will take at least twelve lives to understand the difference!

Goenka is only a technician. I am not a technician. I have never followed anybody, I have simply searched on my own. It was difficult, it was dangerous, but I went on searching my path alone, finding my own ways to reach to my being.

Goenka is just a poor follower of a twenty-five hundred year old tradition of Gautam Buddha. In twenty-five hundred years -- carbon copies of carbon copies of carbon copies of carbon copies of carbon copies! Do you want to compare me with these carbon copies?

And if Goenka had understood meditation, he would have come here. His meditation would have shown him that something far higher than Gautam Buddha is in existence.

Igatpuri is not far away from here... but the coward has no guts.

And if you are so clear about my statement being wrong, then you don't understand anything of what is happening here.

Here, all the meditations are just preparing the ground, just taking out the weeds, the grass roots, the wild growth, the stones -- just cleaning the garden for me to sow the seeds. The people who are teaching meditation here, different kinds of meditation, are just preparing the ground. I am the gardener.

Goenka can prepare the ground, but from where is he going to find the rosebushes? He does not have the experience: he is not enlightened or awakened even in the ancient sense of Gautam Buddha. Just go to him and ask -- has he the courage to say that he has the same consciousness as Gautam Buddha? And I say to you that I have left Gautam Buddha twenty-five centuries back.

My therapists, my people who are preparing meditations for you, are just doing the primary groundwork. They are just preparing the ground. The ultimate and final touch I have to give.

I have my own ways to sow the seeds in you: through my words, through my silences, through my eyes, through my gestures -- just through my silence, just through my presence; it has a living field of energy.

And unless you have a living awakened being amongst you, all your therapies and all your meditations are just futile exercises; they won't help much.

For Piyoosh I would like to say, Go back to Goenka. This is not the place for you. And you have to leave right now. I am tired of idiots of all kinds. For thirty years I have suffered from idiots and I have tolerated them, but now I have decided no idiot will be allowed here.

You took twelve years to decide to take sannyas; I don't need even twelve seconds to take it away. You are no more a sannyasin. Return your sannyas papers, and you perfectly know the door. Just get out this very night, and never come here again. Go to hell -- with anybody, Goenka, or find some other idiot. There are many in India.

I exist only for those who can understand me and who can be totally with me. A man who knows nothing about me, who just within twelve hours of his sannyas starts finding that what I am saying is wrong, certainly cannot be allowed to be here. A single rotten fish can destroy the whole lake. So you will be very compassionate to all these people by leaving this place forever.

And I am always surprised... if you have found Goenka to be right, then why are you here? When somebody finds something that is helping his growth, he remains there. And if you have found Goenka to be right and still you have not remained with him, how are you going to remain with me, whom you find wrong just within twelve hours?

No, don't waste time. I am not interested in collecting crowds and retarded people. Just go to Goenka and tell him everything that I have said. And if he has guts, bring him here, so I can show you that he knows nothing about meditation as far as experience is concerned, that he knows nothing at all of what enlightenment is. All that he knows is a poor technique. But a technician is a totally different thing.

A technician can work with electricity, but that does not mean that he is Edison, that he has discovered electricity. Don't ask the poor technician about electricity -- don't ask any question about its intrinsic character; don't ask of what it consists -- he is not an Edison.

But he can do perfectly well: you don't need Edison when one of your bulbs goes out; just any idiot can do that.

The same is the situation about meditation. There are technicians and there are realized people. Unless you find a realized being, all your efforts are in vain.

Three French youngsters, respectively six, seven and eight years old, were skipping along the street.

The six year old who was in front, looked in through an open window he was passing, stopped, and waved excitedly to the others: "Come, come quickly," he said. "A man and a woman are fighting in there."

The seven year old, coming up, looked in and said, "No, you fool, they are making love."

The eight year old came up, looked in and said, "Yes, and what a terrible technique."

... Feel this peace, absorb that silence. And as you absorb it, it becomes deeper... it starts touching your heart.

There is no movement, but you will feel a dance.

There is no word, but you will feel a song.

It is as if there is nobody, but a tremendous oneness... all personalities gone and only one consciousness, throbbing in synchronicity with each other.

Just to end up this beautiful moment.... I always like to leave you laughing, singing, dancing. This is just an indication that the day when I ultimately leave you, I would like you to sing, dance and celebrate.

In fact, no man in the whole of history would have received such a celebration when he dies as I am going to receive. A few have received celebration only from enemies, because when one dies, enemies celebrate. The friends mourn.

I am the only person... in my death my friends will celebrate, my enemies will celebrate.

In my death they will come together in celebration. There has never been such a man before.

A black lady in New York received a phone call from the school that her little boy Leroy attended. The head teacher wanted to see her as soon as possible about her son's behavior.

"Your boy, Leroy," began the teacher, "is a disruptive influence."

"Just like his father," said the black lady.

"He steals from other children," continued the teacher.

"Just like his father," said the mother.

"He is always getting into fights," continued the teacher.

"Just like his father," replied the mother.

"He chases the little girls and makes them cry," said the teacher.

"Just like his father," said the black lady, "and, Lordy, am I glad I never married the man!"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #14

Chapter title: A very delicate and complex affair

13 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709130

ShortTitle:

PILGR14

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

89

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IS TAKING THE ROLE OF A THERAPIST DANGEROUS TO MY OWN

SPIRITUAL GROWTH?

IS IT POSSIBLE TO HELP PEOPLE AND STILL LET MY OWN EGO DISSOLVE

AT THE SAME TIME? I FEEL THAT A SUBTLE FIGHT GOES ON INSIDE ME

BETWEEN ONE PART THAT IS CLEAR AND ANOTHER PART THAT WANTS

NOTHING TO DO WITH CLARITY.

UNDER YOUR GUIDANCE I HAVE LEARNED NOT TO DOMINATE OTHERS

WHEN I USE MY CAPACITY TO SEE, BUT AM I STILL DOMINATING MYSELF?

Sagarpriya, the role of a therapist is a very delicate and complex affair.

First, the therapist himself suffers from the same problems that he is trying to help others with. The therapist is only a technician. He can manage to pretend and to deceive himself that he is a master -- that is the greatest danger in being a therapist. But just a little understanding, and things won't be the same.

First, don't think in terms of helping others. That gives you the idea of being a savior, of being a master -- and from the back door the ego enters again. You become important, you are the center of the group, everybody is looking up to you.

Drop the idea of help. Instead of `help' use the word `sharing'. You share your insight, whatsoever you have. The participant is not someone who is inferior to you. The therapist and the therapee are both in the same boat; the therapist is just a little more knowledgeable. Be conscious of the fact that your knowledge is borrowed. Never for a moment forget that whatever you know is still not your experience, and this will help the people who are participating in your group.

Man is a very subtle mechanism. It works on both sides: the therapist starts becoming the master, and rather than helping he is destroying something in the participant, because the participant will also learn only the technique. There will not be a loving, sharing friendliness, an atmosphere of trust, but "You know more, I know less... By participating in a few therapy groups I will also know as much as you know."

The participants slowly, slowly start becoming therapists themselves, because there is no degree required -- at least in many countries. In a few countries they have started to outlaw all kinds of unaccepted therapies; only a man who has a university qualification in therapeutics, in psychoanalysis, in psychotherapy will be able to help people in therapy groups.

This is going to happen in almost every country of the world, because therapy has become a business, and people who are unqualified are dominating it. They know the technique, because technique they can learn; by participating in a few groups they know all the techniques, then they can make a concoction of their own. But there is no way of controlling....

But remember: the moment you play the role of a helper, the helped is never going to forgive you. You have hurt his pride, you have hurt his ego. That was not your intention...

your intention was just to inflate your own ego, but this can happen only if you hurt other people's ego. You cannot inflate your ego without hurting others. Your bigger ego will need more space, and the others have to shrink their space and their personality to exist with you.

From the very beginning an authentic loving person... and I make it an absolutely necessary point that there is nothing more therapeutic than love. Technique can help, but the real miracle happens through love. Love the people who participate in therapy and be one amongst them, with no pretensions of being higher or holier.

Make it clear from the very beginning: "These are the techniques I have learned, and a little bit is my experience. I will give you the techniques, and I will share my experience.

But you are not my disciples; you are just friends in need. I have some understanding, not much, but I can share it with you. Perhaps many of you have their own understanding coming from different areas, different directions. They can also share their experience and make the group richer."

In other words, what I am saying is a totally new concept of therapy. The therapist is only a coordinator. He just tries to make the group more silent, serene; he keeps an eye that nothing goes wrong... more of a guardian than a master.

And you have also to make it clear: "I am also learning while I am trying to share my experience. When I am listening to you, it is not only your problems; they are my problems too. And when I am saying something, I am not only saying it, I am listening also."

Emphatically make it clear that you are nobody special. This has to be done in the beginning of the group, and this has to be carried on as the group goes deeper, exploring.

You just remain an elder, who has gone a few steps ahead; otherwise you will not be able to help people. They will learn the technique and they will become therapists on their own. And there are enough fools -- five billion fools -- on the earth; they will find their own followers.

It is a human weakness that when people start looking up to you, you start thinking,

"There must be something great in me if people are looking up to me." They are in trouble, they are suffering from human frailties. But you are also human, and to err is absolutely human. Without any condemnation, with great love, help them to open themselves -- and this is possible only if you open yourself.

I have come to know a strange fact: strangers tell each other things that they can never say to people they know. In a railway train you meet somebody; you don't know his name, you don't know where he is going, from where he is coming, and people start sharing. I have been traveling for twenty years non-stop in the whole country, watching a strange phenomenon: that people give their secrets to strangers, because the stranger is not going to exploit it. Just the next station comes, and the stranger is gone; perhaps you may never see him again. And he is not concerned to destroy your reputation or anything.

On the contrary, sharing your secrets, your weaknesses, your vulnerabilities makes others more confident and more loving and more trusting in you. Your trust provokes their trust in you, and when they see you are so innocent and so open and available, they start opening up: it is a chain reaction.

But if you become a master... a few idiot therapists from this commune have become masters. They know nothing about their own being, they know nothing about any mystery of existence; all that they know is a certain mind game. That mind game can be of help, if ultimately you are under the guidance of a man who has arrived. A little clarity, a little less confusion a therapy group certainly can create.

But a therapy group is not the end.

It is only the beginning.

It is a preparation for meditation, just as meditation is a preparation for enlightenment.

If you understand things in their simple arithmetic, you will not find it difficult -- and you will enjoy the group more, because the group will be able to go deeper with you. You will not be only a teacher in the group; you will be also a learner.

Kahlil Gibran's prophet Al-Mustafa has a beautiful statement. When somebody asks,

"Tell us something about learning..." he says, "Because you have asked I will speak. But remember -- I am speaking and I am also listening with you."

I am here on the podium and I am also sitting amongst you. I am not in any way special.

That brings people close. Any bragging of speciality creates distance, any ego fulfillment destroys the atmosphere of love. And I repeat again: There is no therapy which is greater than love.

Love the people who have become participants in your group. Love them as they are, not as they should be. They have suffered their whole life from all kinds of religious, political, social, theological, philosophical leaders who would love them if they follow, who would love them if they become just images according to their idea. They will love you only when they have killed you completely, demolished you and put you together according to their idea.

All the religions have done that to humanity.

Nobody is left undamaged.

And these people have been thinking that they are helping, consciously. They were giving you ideals, ideologies, principles, commandments with the certain fixed attitude that they want to help you; otherwise you will go astray. They cannot trust your freedom and they cannot respect your dignity; they have reduced you so badly -- and nobody even objects.

When Jesus told people, "You are the sheep and I am the shepherd..." certainly those people must have been sheep, because not a single one stood up and said to Jesus, "This is too much! You are putting yourself on such a high pedestal, and you are calling us sheep; you are degrading us even from human beings."

And Jesus said, "I am the savior, I will save the whole humanity. The only condition is that they should believe in me." But that condition destroys all that is beautiful in you, all that is your right to grow into a beautiful unique being.

I have had suspicions always that Jesus was not saying any revolutionary things, neither was he in revolt against Judaism. But the problem has haunted me: Then why was he crucified? His whole emphasis without exception was, "I am a Jewish prophet, son of a Jewish God" -- a prophet, a messiah for which the Jews have been waiting. Their scriptures were telling them: Soon the messiah will come, the last messiah who will save you all. And on your part only a very small thing has to be done: just believe in him.

My suspicions why Jesus was crucified are not just suspicions; they have enough evidence and proof and argument behind them. Socrates was certainly poisoned for his revolutionary thoughts, for his lifestyle which the Greeks could not allow him. Certainly his influence over the Greek youth was immense, and the older generation was absolutely afraid: soon they will be gone and the whole country will be under the influence of a man who is against tradition, who is against God, who is against heaven and hell and all other nonsense, who insists only on one thing: truth. And that truth is within you, not in the scriptures, not in any savior, not in any messenger.

Socrates was certainly poisoned by the society because he was a tremendous revolutionary -- a man in revolt. Of course, whatever he was saying was for the benefit of the whole of humanity, but it went against the past. Anything that is going to enhance your future, make it richer, more beautiful, more humane, is bound to be against the past.

The past is barbarous, ugly, condemnable. But Jesus was not doing any such thing. Why was he crucified? He was fully in agreement with the old past, he accepted all that Judaism proposed as fundamentals.

My understanding is: Jesus was crucified because people finally became fed up hearing that they are just sheep and he is the shepherd. He hurt so many people's egos, he destroyed so many people's self-respect, a certain dignity of being human beings. That was the reason of Jesus' crucifixion; otherwise he was utterly innocent. He had not committed any visible crime.

But this crime is far more murderous, although it is invisible, it does not appear on the surface, you cannot catch hold of it. But you can understand: you cannot forgive anybody who pretends to be higher than you, holier than you. He is the only begotten son of God and you are all orphans? -- bastards? What are you? If God is the father of all, then who is this man who pretends to be the only begotten son? The emphasis is on only; he takes away the whole humanity's right to nourish his own ego.

Otherwise whatever he was saying and doing would have been ignored. There was nothing special in it. He was simply repeating the old prophets of the Jews; he was quoting old prophets of the Jews -- and not even correctly, because he was not educated and he could not read. He had never been under a rabbi -- and the Jews had a long tradition of thousands of years of learning. They had a great university in Jerusalem, where people devoted their whole lives to studying. They were very rich as far as knowledgeability is concerned.

Jesus was not a man of knowledge, and certainly he was not a man of experience either, because a man of experience will not talk such nonsense as, "I am the only begotten son of God." God is simply a hypothesis, and I have never heard that hypotheses produce children. Only Indians do that, not hypotheses; hypotheses are absolutely barren.

The idea that somebody else has to save you, hurts you; he does not allow you even the freedom to save yourself. Jesus has to be understood very clearly: he is one of the men who is against all freedom for man. He talks sweetly, just like any salesman, but the intention is to take away your basic fundamental birthright of growing as an individual, unique -- not a carbon copy of somebody else, but just yourself.

He did not accept people as they are and insisted that they should be according to his teachings. He did not allow them even to doubt or argue; you cannot argue with the son of God -- what he says is truth. But it accumulated just in three years.... He was not a teacher in the world for more than three years. People could not tolerate him; it was becoming too insulting, too humiliating.

The reason for Jesus' crucifixion is not -- as Christians go on telling to the world -- that he was a great revolutionary. The reason is that he was one of the anti-humanitarians, and people crucified him as a revenge. It was becoming too heavy on their heads. Just an uneducated carpenter's son who has been cutting wood and dragging logs to his father's shop, suddenly becomes the savior... and savior of each and everyone with his simple cheap condition -- that you believe in him.

He does not give you even the freedom to think, the freedom to meditate, the freedom to search, the freedom to seek... no freedom at all. He has created the greatest slavery in the world -- Christianity. Now half of the world is Christian, and the responsibility for all these slaves -- Catholics or Protestants, it does not matter... he is responsible. But his slavery is very subtle and very psychological.

Now the reality is that he could not save himself, and he pretended to save the whole humanity. And when asked before his death, "How long will it take for you to come back and save humanity?" he said, "Don't be worried, I am coming soon." Two thousand years have passed. I don't think... I can also stretch `soon', but not that much! Two thousand years is just such an exaggeration.

And still there is no sign.... We don't see where there is a Virgin Mary; at least before he comes, a Virgin Mary should appear. The carpenter Joseph should appear; he should get married to Virgin Mary, and before he can consummate his marriage, the Holy Ghost should appear: it is a simple case of the rape of a virgin girl. Then with all these difficulties will come Jesus Christ -- and how can he save you?

I am reminded of one statement of a great doctor who is my friend. I don't know whether he is still alive or not, I have not heard anything about him for these last six years. He was the most prominent doctor in the city where I lived before I moved to Bombay and then to Poona.

He said to me, "My whole life's experience is that the function of the physician is not the cure of the patient. The patient cures himself; the physician simply gives a loving atmosphere, promising. The physician simply gives the confidence and revives the longing to live longer. All his medicines are of secondary help." But if the person has lost the desire to live, his whole life's experience was that no medicine, nothing, helps.

The same is the situation for the therapist. The therapist is not the person who is going to cure people's psychological troubles. He can only create a loving atmosphere, in which they can open up their repressed, unconscious imaginations, repressions, hallucinations, desires, without any fear that they will be laughed at, with absolute certainty that all will feel compassion and love for them. The whole group should function as a therapeutic situation.

The therapist is only a coordinator. He brings psychologically sick or disturbed people together, and just watches that nothing goes wrong. And if he can support them with some idea, some insight, some observation, he should always make it clear that "This is only my knowledge, not my experience" -- unless you have the experience.

If you are sincere and truthful and honest and authentic, you will never fall into the trap of becoming a master, a savior -- which is very simple to fall in. The moment you become a master and a savior... and you are not -- you are not even helping those people, you are simply exploiting those people, their weaknesses, their troubles.

The whole psychoanalysis movement around the world is the most exploitative experiment that is going on. Nobody is helped; everybody is exploited tremendously.

And nobody is helped because the psychoanalyst, psychotherapist.... Psychology has bifurcated in many branches, but they all do the same work: they reduce you into a patient and they are the physicians.

And the trouble is that they themselves are suffering from the same diseases. Each psychoanalyst goes to another psychoanalyst almost twice a year to be helped. It is a great conspiracy. Listening to all kinds of insanities, unless you are beyond mind and its problems, you are going to be insane yourself. You are going to start suffering from the same problems your patients are suffering from. Rather than making them cured, they are making you sick. But the responsibility is yours.

Bring love, openness, sincerity.... Before they start opening the doors of their heart -- they are keeping them tightly closed so that nobody knows their problems -- the first function of the psychotherapist is to open his heart and let them know that he is also as human as they are. He suffers from the same weaknesses, the same lust, the same desire for power, the same desire for money. He suffers from anguish and anxiety, suffers from the fear of death.

Open your heart totally.

That will help others to trust you -- that you are not a pretender. The days of saviors and prophets and messengers and tirthankaras and avataras are completely gone. None of them will be acceptable today. And this time, if any of them reappears, people are not even going to stone him to death. People are just going to make fun of him. People are simply going to tell him, "You are stupid. The very idea that you can save the whole humanity is mad. First save yourself, and we will see your light and we will see your grandeur and we will see your splendor."

And trust comes on its own accord.

It is not to be asked.

It comes just like a fresh breeze from the mountains, a tidal wave from the oceans. You have to do nothing for it. You have just to be available at the right time, in the right place.

Nobody can save you except yourself.

I say unto you: be a savior unto yourself.

But help is possible, with a condition: that it comes with love, that it comes with the gratitude that "you trusted me and opened your heart."

The function of a therapist, Sagarpriya is certainly very complex -- and idiots are doing it! The situation is almost as if butchers are doing surgery; they know how to cut, but that does not mean they can become brain surgeons. They can kill buffaloes and cows and all kinds of animals, but their function is in the service of death. The therapist is in the service of life. He has to create life-affirmative values by living them himself, by going to the silences of his heart.

The deeper you are within yourself, the deeper you can reach into the heart of the other. It is exactly the same... because your heart or the other's heart are not very different things.

If you understand your being, you understand everybody's being. And then you understand you have also been foolish, you have also been ignorant, you have also fallen many times, you have also committed crimes against yourself and against others, and if other people are still doing it there is no need of condemnation. They have to be made aware and left to themselves; you are not to mold them in a certain framework.

Then it is a joy to be a therapist, because you come to know the interiority of human beings -- which is one of the most secret hiding places of life. And by knowing others you know yourself more. It is a vicious circle; there is no other word -- otherwise I will not use the word `vicious'.

Allow me to coin a word: it is a virtuous circle. You open to your patients, participants, and they open themselves to you. That helps you to open more, and that helps them to open more. Soon there is no therapist and there is no patient, but simply a loving group helping each other.

Unless the therapist is lost in the group, he is not a successful therapist. That's my criterion.

Sagarpriya, you are saying, "Under your guidance I have learned not to dominate others when I use my capacity to see, but am I still dominating myself?" They are not two things. Domination is domination, whether you dominate others or you dominate yourself. If you are dominating yourself, then in some subtle way you will dominate others too. How can it be otherwise?

The first domination that you have to drop is not over others... because it is not certain that they will accept your domination. The first domination you have to drop is over yourself. Why become yourself a prisoner, with great effort create a prison around yourself, and then carry it wherever you go?

First learn the utter joy of freedom, of a bird on the wing in the vast sky. Your very freedom will become a transforming force for others.

Domination is so ugly.

Leave it to the politicians, who don't have any sense of shame at all. They live in the gutters and they think they are living in palaces. Their whole life is a life in the gutters --

they will live there and they will die there. They are prime ministers, they are presidents, they are kings, they are queens....

One of the most significant Egyptian poets was asked once, "How many kings are there in the world?" At that time... he said, "There are only five kings. One is in England, and four are in playing cards." Now it can be changed: there are five queens, one in England and four in playing cards.... But they don't have anything more. They are just trying to achieve more and more power simply to fill their inside which they feel is empty.

Looking from the outside, the inside is empty.

Looking from the inside, the whole world is empty.

Only your inside is overflowing, but the things that are overflowing are invisible: the fragrance of your being, the love, the blissfulness, the ecstasy, the silence, the compassion -- nothing can be seen with eyes. That's why if you look from the outside it seems everything is empty. And then a great urge arises... how to fill it? -- with money, with power, with prestige, by becoming a president or prime minister... do something and fill it! One cannot live with an emptiness inside, a hollowness inside.

But these people have not gone inside; they have looked from outside. And this is the problem: from the outside you can only see objects, and love is not an object, bliss is not an object, enlightenment is not an object, understanding is not an object, wisdom is not an object. All that is great in human existence and life is subjective, not objective. But from the outside you can see only objects.

That gives a tremendous urgency to fill your hollow inside with any rubbish. There are people who are filling it with borrowed knowledge; there are people who are filling it with self-imposed torture -- they become saints. There are people who are beggars to become the prime minister, to become the president. Everywhere the hollow people are in tremendous need to dominate others. That gives them the feeling that they are not hollow.

A sannyasin begins by enquiring into his subjectivity, from within, and he becomes aware of tremendous treasures, inexhaustible treasures. Only then do you stop dominating yourself, and you stop dominating others. There is no need at all. From that moment your whole effort is to make everybody aware of his individuality, of his freedom, of his immense, inexhaustible sources of bliss, contentment, peace.

To me, if therapy prepares the ground for meditation, therapy is going right... ground for the patients and ground for the therapist, both. Therapy should turn at a certain point into meditation. Meditation turns at a certain point into enlightenment. And to have such tremendous potential and just remain a beggar...

I feel so sad sometimes when I think of others. They are not beggars, but they are behaving like beggars, and they are not ready to drop their begging -- because they are afraid that is all they have got. And unless they drop their begging, they will never know that they are emperors and their empire is of the within.

Sagarpriya, if you have stopped dominating people but you are suspicious that perhaps you have started dominating yourself, then nothing has changed. You misunderstood the whole message.

Becky and Solly Feigenbaum are in bed. "Listen, Becky," says Solly, "do me a favor and close the window, it is cold outside."

"And if I close the window, will it be warm outside?" Becky asked.

Try to understand me correctly.

Little David, who was six years old, was beginning to ask embarrassing questions that his Mom and Dad could not get themselves to explain. So they asked their older boy, Martin, to explain to him about the birds and the bees.

That night in bed Martin gave David his first lesson. "Look, David, do you know what it is that Mom and Dad do at night in bed?"

"Sure, I do," said David.

"Well," said Martin, "it is just the same with the birds and the bees."

It is human to err, to misunderstand. But Sagarpriya is an intelligent woman and can manage the new idea of therapy. She can become a pioneer therapist. But there are so many idiots all around: you just start any stupid thing and you will find followers are coming.

Just a week before in Rajasthan an eighteen-year-old girl became a widow -- perhaps she may have been married six months before, or a year before -- and she jumped into the funeral pyre to perform the ancient Hindu ritual of being a sati. The word sati is beautiful; it means òne who can die for truth'. It comes from sat, and sat means truth. The connotation is that she loved the man so much that the man has become her god; without that man life is meaningless. But it is really committing suicide openly.

It is against the Indian constitution, it is against Indian law. But millions of people are going there, and already a big village has become established. Tens upon tens are coming to worship, because the woman has done a great spiritual act. And rather than creating some legal action against the family, the government is making arrangements for the millions of people that are pouring in. Shops have opened, restaurants have opened, hotels have opened, caravanserais have opened. Soon it will become a big city, a memorial city, because an uneducated, highly conditioned young girl committed suicide, following ideals which are simply stupid.

There is no spirituality in it. If there was spirituality in it, then why in ten thousand years has not one single man jumped into the funeral pyre of his wife? And these men are writing in the scriptures that this ritual is a great spiritual act -- but only for women?

It is not a spiritual act. It is a very cunning strategy to dominate. The man watches his wife continuously, keeps her a slave while he is alive. He is afraid... when he is dead, who knows? -- the wife may fall in love with somebody and he will not be able to do anything. It is better to create an ideology so that the wife also jumps in the funeral pyre; then that fool feels immensely contented because now there is no fear.

And I am surprised... newspapers report it, the government officials are making arrangements, and nobody is bothered that it is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is illogical.

It is male chauvinist ideology. It is a domination beyond conception. You even want to dominate when you are dead! But misunderstanding goes on and on....

A little girl was in the park crying when an old gentleman asked her why.

She said, "I want one of those things like my brother's got, that sticks out, then lays down and then sticks out again."

The old gentleman began to cry too.

One night a man is stopped on a dark street by a ragged looking figure, clutching something in his hand.

"Please sir," the figure mumbled, "please spare a few dollars for a poor man who has lost his job, his wife, his home, everything." Then lifting his hand he added, "And all I have got left is this gun."

Sagarpriya, try to understand yourself as deeply as possible. Therapy comes second. And unless you have refined your being through meditation and silences... I am not saying, stop the work; I am saying, transform its quality. Make it real work. Open your heart, tell them your weaknesses, tell them your problems, ask their advice -- can they help you?

And once the participants understand that the therapist is not an egoist, they will come with absolute humbleness, opening their hearts. Then you can help them.

But always and always remember: therapy in itself is incomplete. Even the perfect therapy is just the first step. Without the second step it is meaningless.

So leave the patients on the point from where they start moving towards meditation. Your therapy is complete only when your patients start enquiring about meditation. Create a great longing in their hearts for meditation, and tell them that meditation too is only a step -- the second step. In itself that too is not enough, unless it leads you to enlightenment; that is the culmination of the whole effort. And I trust in you, that you are capable of it.

A Jew from Odessa was sitting in the same compartment as a Czarist Russian officer who had a pig with him. To annoy the Jew, the officer kept calling the pig Moishe. "Moishe!

Keep still! Moishe! Come here! Moishe! Go there!"

This went on all the way to Kiev. Eventually the Jew got fed up and said, "You know, Captain, it is a great shame your pig has a Jewish name."

"Now why is that, Jew?" smirked the officer.

"Well, otherwise it could have become an officer in the Czar's army."

There is a limit to everything!

Make it a point that the limit of therapy is where meditation begins, and the limit of meditation is where enlightenment begins. Of course, enlightenment is not a step to anything: You simply disappear into the universal consciousness, you become just a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean. But it is the greatest experience.... It makes life finally meaningful, significant. It allows you to become part of the universe from which your ego has separated you. And it is so easy, as easy as this silence....

Nobody can think that there are thousands of people sitting here....

You just have to move in the right direction. A sense of right direction, and everything can become a steppingstone towards higher states of consciousness. I have been using everything, but the direction is the same. I have used many kinds of meditations. On the periphery they look different. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation.

They look very different from each other, and you may think, "How can all these different methods lead to meditation?"

But they lead... Just as a thread running through a garland of flowers is not seen, you see only the flowers, those one hundred and twelve flowers have a running thread: that thread is witnessing, watching, observation, awareness.

So help the patients as much as you can to understand their problems, but make them clear that even if these problems are solved, you are the same person. Tomorrow you will start creating the same problems again -- perhaps in a different way, with a different color.

So your therapy should become nothing but an opening for meditation. Then your therapy has a tremendous value. Otherwise it is just a mind game.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #15

Chapter title: Man is born to celebrate

13 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709135

ShortTitle:

PILGR15

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

103

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I AM VERY OUTRAGED THAT PEOPLE ARE GOSSIPING ABOUT ME.

Devageet, you need not be worried about the gossip. The difference between gospels and gossip is whether you are telling it or hearing it; it is not much... and whatever is gossip today will become gospel tomorrow.

Just thinking about your question, I remembered a report that has come to me today about a man I have always respected. He is a great scientific mind, a genius; he has worked his whole life with a total energy and intelligence. His name is John Lilly.

Just today in a press interview it was asked of him -- he is seventy-five years old -- he was asked that if he finds himself on a small island, nobody else is there, and for miles and miles there is no sign of human life, what he would like to have with him. And he said, "I would like the five most sexy women of the world." At the age of seventy-five...!

This man must be crazy.

So if people are gossiping about you, that you have become old, don't be worried about it.

Gossip has a way of functioning of its own....

... Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.

Gossip does not need thinking. It is a very strange fact that nobody ever doubts gossip; even the very skeptical minds simply believe in gossip. People have to be forced for centuries to believe in the gospel, but gossip... people are just waiting to hear something, something juicy. And you should be proud that you have become almost a hero; everybody is deep down jealous of you. Your old age is going to go down in history. It will be remembered for ages to come that "Once upon a time, Devageet became old --

and not only once, but twice within two days!"

Here is a commune of absolutely free people. The only difficulty is:

... When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Please, Devageet, don't feel in the gutter. Everyone is in the gutter. At least you are looking at the stars -- that's what is making people think you are becoming old, because only old people stare at the stars. At the age of seventy-five, John Lilly, a man of tremendous intelligence, is still in the gutter -- not looking at the stars.

Devageet, it is creditable that you have become old earlier than you should have; you have done a fast race from young age into old age. This is what I call a "quantum leap."

And remember:

... Those who try to serve both God and women soon discover there is no God.

And about your outrageousness... I am also outrageous, because the principle is:

... Whenever in doubt, be outrageous.

What else can you do?

Perhaps the gossip is right. I hope it is right! -- because to me, it is very creditable to become old so soon. It is the beginning of wisdom. I am waiting for the day when people start talking about you, saying that you have become ancient. Old age is nothing compared to being ancient.

... Truth is stranger than fiction, and also harder to make up.

So naturally people make up gossips; it is easier -- very easy!

Bernard Shaw used to say, "I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using this earth as their lunatic asylum." And I agree with that old man, George Bernard Shaw. He was, in this century, one of the men who had tremendous insight into human foolishness.

Once when he was in America for the first and last time -- because he never went again...

When the federal judge told me that I cannot enter America for five years, I said, "Why bother about years? I am not going back ever! One time is enough." And that's what happened with George Bernard Shaw.

He went once on invitation to America. In the first meeting he was addressing the people who had invited him -- very well known people, respectable people, rich people -- and he said, "Looking at you I can almost take it for granted that fifty percent of the people in America are idiots." Of course the whole gathering was outraged: "We are here to welcome you, we have invited you, you are our guest -- this is not the way to start!"

There was silence, but great anger in people's eyes. Bernard Shaw said, "Forgive me, I just said the opposite of what I was going to say."

People relaxed. He said, "I was going to say that fifty percent of people in America are very intelligent, but now I have to change my statement. That was my first impression.

And this is my last impression, it is final: one hundred percent of the people are idiots."

Bernard Shaw had a certain insight into our so-called sane humanity. He was not right only about America, he was right about the whole earth: it is a mental asylum.

But still... a few sutras will be good, either for now or tomorrow when you will be getting older again. Now it is very difficult to say when you will be young and when you will be old. It is going to be up and down, up and down... That's what some sannyasin was complaining about: "Whoever I meet and I ask how things are, they say ùp and down'...

everybody says the same thing: up and down!" But nobody is going up and down so much as Devageet.

... Old age is when a girl gets on your nerves rather than on your lap.

Just so you can figure out where you are:

... Middle age is when you can feel bad in the morning without having fun the night before.

... Intuition is what enables a woman to put two and two together and come up with an answer that suits her.

So beware of women's intuition -- particularly in old age!

... A really old man is a man who tries never to stand between a dog and a lamppost.

I am just giving you some hints. If you start behaving like that, you are old!

... An old man is a man who knows tomorrow why the things he said yesterday did not happen today.

His wisdom is as bogus, as hollow as his old age is.

Just to encourage you, Devageet... you are in the dumps:

... The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

Don't be worried! You have got a new idea that you are old. You will be thought a crank until you really succeed to be an old man. Then all this gossip will disappear.

I don't think you are that old, but I certainly think that you are old enough... But still you will see the time, if pollution continues, when walking on water will no longer be a miracle; anybody will be able to do it. And if you can see this happening, this miracle of everybody walking on water, what more do you want? Old age or young age, you have seen the last miracle on the earth.

But I hope that people will go on gossiping about you. They are finding... they are almost researching about you!

Devageet's old Jewish mama... I never knew that he is a Jew! People are really doing an in-depth search.... Devageet's old Jewish mama met an old friend who she had not seen for years. "And how is your son getting on?" asked the friend.

"Oy veh," said his mama, "don't ask. He has grown his hair down to his shoulders, he never shaves from one year to the next, he left the university and all day long he is doing nothing but transdental medication."

"Ah well," said her friend, "what is the use of worrying? Transdental medication is fine.

It is better than sitting around all day doing nothing."

And here is a question from Devageet:

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOUR CHEEKS GROW ROUND WITH LAUGHTER AND YOUR EYES

ARE BRIGHT WITH MISCHIEF, MY HEART TRIES TO BURST FREE FROM THIS

POOR CHEST. I USED TO WONDER AT THE AMAZING ACCURACY OF YOUR

ANSWERS, TREMBLING LIKE A VIRGIN AS YOUR SEEDS FELL INTO MY

WAITING HEART. NOW I TREMBLE EVEN MORE AWAITING YOUR

QUESTIONS TOO. SITTING SILENTLY, THE JOKE COMES AND MY NOODLE

VAPORIZES ALL BY ITSELF.

Devageet, this is the sign that you are passing old age and entering into ancient age. You have even forgotten poor Basho's haiku. You are saying, "Sitting silently, the joke comes and my noodle vaporizes all by itself."

If Basho hears it, he will hit you so hard that neither you nor the noodle will be ever able to rise again. You are not supposed, just in old age, to forget the haiku, one of the most famous and one of the most beautiful things ever uttered. In ancient age it is of course okay, because one goes senile.

Basho's haiku... I have to remind you again, because it is the very foundation of all meditation:

Sitting silently, doing nothing

The spring comes

And the grass grows by itself.

As far as I know, Basho may have never heard about the word `noodle'. These strange things are brought here by Sarjano. He is feeding people noodles, spaghetti and all kinds of creepy things.... Avoid that fellow! God never made -- as far as I know, in any description in the whole BIBLE -- noodles, spaghetti, pizza. It is absolutely the devil's invention.

Just come back down to where you really are; don't believe this gossip. And if the gossip continues, I will manage to bring you down again and again.

A beautiful woman and a young man both went for the same lion tamer's job at the zoo.

The manager said he would give them both a chance, and told the girl to go into the cage first.

The girl, wearing a long fur coat, did so. A huge lion immediately started to charge at her.

Suddenly, she opened her fur coat and stood there completely naked. The lion stopped dead, spun around, and went meekly back into the corner.

The manager was amazed. He turned to the young man and said, "Well friend, do you think you can do better than that?"

"I would like to try," the young man replied. "Just get that crazy lion out of there first."

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

THIS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT, THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL

QUESTION OF MY WHOLE LIFE. MY LONGING FOR FREEDOM IS SO DEEP, SO

STRONG, MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE I KNOW. IN FACT MY WHOLE LIFE

ENERGY IS GIVEN TO THIS MATTER. BUT SOMEHOW I'M NOT CLEAR IN IT.

DO I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING FOR FREEDOM? IS MY LONGING FOR

FREEDOM JUST A MIND GAME?

PLEASE, BELOVED OSHO, TELL ME WHAT FREEDOM IS.

Antar Dharmesh, it is certainly the most important and the most fundamental question one can ever ask. I have been talking to you about freedom continuously -- from every possible angle, every possible implication.... It seems you are hearing me but not listening to me.

You are saying, "My longing for freedom is so deep, so strong, more than anything else I know..." and I have been telling you, there are things which you cannot desire, which you cannot make an object of your longing.

Freedom is your intrinsic nature -- svabhav. It is your very nature; you don't have to attain it. You don't have to make any effort for it. You don't need even to desire or long for it -- it is already there.

You are born free, but you are living in chains. Those chains you have accepted, and you have accepted them very willingly, very joyously, because those chains are made of gold.

Those chains are made of power, prestige, respectability; they are covered with beautiful flowers. So not only have you accepted them, you go on desiring more and more because you think they are ornaments. You think they are the very aim of your life, the very meaning and significance.

This is the trouble: freedom is not a problem such that you have to achieve it; the problem is how to get rid of the chains. And the first thing you have to encounter is to recognize chains as chains not as ornaments, a prison as a prison not as a home, a marriage as a bondage and not love. And there are a thousand and one chains all around you.

You are dragging them; your life has become a drag, a burden, somehow hoping to reach to the graveyard. Each moment seems to be so long, one wants relief and rest. And it seems in this world you can find relief and rest only in the grave -- anywhere else you will find yourself again in the chains, in the prisons. The names will be different, the shape of the chains may be different, the forms may be different, almost opposite to what you used to have.... A Christian becomes a Hindu, a Hindu becomes a Christian; they only change jails -- nothing changes, no transformation in being and no freedom of the soul. They have only changed old chains for new chains.

And remember: new chains are more dangerous than the old, because the old can be broken more easily than the new. The new are more sophisticated, more technologically perfect. The old were not so perfect, they had loopholes; you could have easily slipped out of them. But the new, the imprisoners who are your parasites, have closed all possibilities, all windows, all doors. Even the small cracks from where you can see the open sky... everything seems to be absolutely closed. And you go on suffering.

It is so strange to think that man, who is born to celebrate, lives only to suffer. Even trees are more fortunate, wild animals are more blissful, birds in the sky are more ecstatic.

Only man goes on dragging his heavy chains, and every day the load goes on becoming more and more heavy.

Freedom is not the problem at all.

Don't ask how to attain freedom; that will give you a wrong direction. You will start thinking what efforts to make for freedom -- you are asking from a wrong direction. Ask how we have lost our freedom. You were born free -- then how did you become a slave?

You were born just as a human being -- then how did you become a Mohammedan or a Hindu or a Christian?

One of the most important novelists of America has asked me a question: "Osho, what do you think about the Jewish and Arab conflict in the Middle East? What is the solution, and what are the implications for the future?"

I had to write to him saying, "Before I can specifically answer your question, I would like to give you my bird's-eye view of the whole human situation, because what is happening in Israel between Jews and Arabs is nothing new. It is happening all over the world, in different names -- between Hindus and Mohammedans, between Christians and Jews...

just the names are different, but the same violence, the same murder, the same suffering.

And people are clinging to their suffering...."

So I told him a few significant points. First: as long as there is a God, man cannot be at peace. It is God who is dividing man. He is the ultimate enemy of humanity; otherwise what is the difference between a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Jew? --

just their idea of God. And that idea is nothing but an idea, just an empty hypothesis.

There is no God anywhere; there is no evidence anywhere, there is no proof. And if somebody says he has seen God, he is simply a madman. He is deluded; he has been hallucinating and he needs psychiatric treatment. If we had treated our saints through psychiatry, humanity would have been in a peaceful state.

Now God is your greatest chain. Are you ready to throw it away?

Your holy scriptures are dividing you, because every scripture demands that it be the only holy scripture. That necessarily creates conflict: Hindus cannot believe that THE BIBLE

is holy... great competition. The VEDAS are holy because they are the ancientmost scripture in the world; God himself wrote them. It is so stupid to talk this way.

I have talked with learned Hindu scholars and asked them, "Have you ever thought about your VEDAS, which you claim that God has written? Just look at the content... the very content shows that it cannot be written by God; there is an intrinsic impossibility." And I was surprised -- great scholars like Omkarnath Maharaj, who was thought to be the authority on the VEDAS, were shocked by my question. He said, "I have never thought about it."

I said, "You are the greatest authority. Open the VEDAS anywhere, at any page. I don't insist on a certain page -- open it at random and read the content. The content will give you the proof that it cannot be written by God."

He had a copy of RIG VEDA by his side. He opened it at random, and what was the content? He was so shocked. The content was: "A brahmin is praying to God..." Now, how can God write it? -- "A brahmin is praying to God, saying, Ì pray so much, but you don't listen; there is a limitation to patience. This year you have proved it: just let your clouds rain on my fields, and not on the fields of my enemies.'" This kind of rubbish is written by God? It is intrinsically an absolute proof that some stupid brahmin is writing it.

But even after that he continued. After two years I saw him again. I said, "You have not stopped."

He said, "To encounter you... I feel such a deep fear in me."

I said, "Why should you be afraid? Just because you have been preaching nonsense..."

THE BIBLE is full of pornography, five hundred pages of pornography. And when I said it, immediately ten Christian associations forced the magistrate of Kanpur to issue an unbailable arrest warrant. I have my people everywhere to fight for me; they immediately took a stay order from the Allahabad high court. It is absolute nonsense; the judge should first see THE BIBLE -- and I am ready to point out the exact five hundred pages which are pornographic.

But strangely, Christians and Jews both go on calling the Old Testament a holy scripture, written by God. It seems... is God just a pornographic writer, just on the board of editors of PLAYBOY?

These are the problems. Every prophet, every messiah, every avatara, every tirthankara is claiming that only he is the right one. You think only ordinary people are competing with each other? -- that is not true. Your so-called great men are so ugly in their competition, you cannot believe it.

In the times of Mahavira, twenty-five centuries ago... Mahavira and Buddha were both contemporaries, and there were six others; eight people were contending that they were the twenty-fourth tirthankara of Jainism. Even Gautam Buddha was one of the candidates. And because Mahavira proved to be more orthodox, more in tune with the Jaina ideology of self-torture and masochism, he won the battle. Even Buddha lost the election. Frustrated because he lost the election and Mahavira was accepted as the twenty-fourth tirthankara, he started a new religion.

If you look without prejudice, you cannot believe it -- why are there so many wars, why is there so much lunacy, why is there so much insanity? Even your great peaks, your highest suns behave like children.

Jesus goes on declaring that he is the only son of God. Naturally, he cannot accept Gautam Buddha or Confucius or Lao Tzu or Basho or Bodhidharma -- not even as cousins. The family is very closed, and a very strange family at that!There is no woman in the family. And in fact the woman is the very center of a family; without a woman you can have a house but not a home. Strange company: God the father, Jesus Christ the son, and a strange fellow -- nobody knows who he is, whether he is male or female -- the Holy Ghost. These three people go on dominating the whole world. This is their trinity.

For centuries intelligent Christians have been asking, "At least give one place to a woman," but such is the macho male mind that he will not allow it. Even the mother of Jesus is not allowed in the holy family. A woman cannot be accepted high on the ladder of hierarchy.

Christians cannot accept Mahavira or Buddha as people of real religious importance.

These are the problems that have been dominating humanity for centuries. In particular in Israel the problem has become a very burning issue, because the whole of the Middle East is Mohammedan. But Mohammedanism is only fourteen hundred years old, Christianity is two thousand years old. So before Mohammed was born, Jews had already entered the Arabic world, and they had their own settlements. Then Christians came and they started making their own settlements....

The problem is this special rock, which is said to be the central piece of the great Jewish Temple of Solomon, which was destroyed by the anti-Jewish elements long ago. Only the rock which was the central piece remains; it is called the "Rock of the Dome."

Now, Jews claim that it is their holy place, because it is the site of their great temple. And Christians claim that this is the place where Jesus was crucified, so it is their holy place --

not Jewish but Christian. And then comes another contender, and in a very strange way...

Six hundred years after Jesus, Mohammed established a new religion -- because the Arabs had no religion of their own. They were a nomadic race, wanderers; they had no organized religion. Mohammed collected those Arabs under the name of Mohammedanism. He himself was an Arab, and naturally had great influence. For his whole life he was fighting -- war and war, not a single day of rest -- and on his sword was his message: "My message is peace." It was written on his sword!

George Bernard Shaw is not wrong: this world seems to be dominated by lunatics of all kinds. If peace is your message... and certainly he believed that peace was his message, but it had to follow his conditions: if the whole world becomes Mohammedan there will be peace. But how is it possible? He has named his religion... Mohammedanism is not the name given by him to his religion; the name that he has given is Islam, and Islam simply means peace. A strange kind of peace! -- the prophet of peace fought his whole life, murdered and butchered.

And he left the ultimate problem behind him -- the story is really hilarious -- when he died. Many prophets, many saviors, many avataras, many tirthankaras, many buddhas have died before, but he found his own style. He died not in an ordinary way. In fact, he never died. He simply went to heaven alive -- and not alone, but sitting on his horse! And just as he was going towards heaven, sitting on his horse, just to take a little rest he descended on that rock. He could not find anywhere else to rest.

So now that rock has become the contention of three religions. Judaism claims it as theirs. Jews are ready to kill and die for it; millions of Jews have died for it. Christians have been sending crusades, having religious wars continually, to take possession of the Rock of the Dome. And the whole area is an ocean of Mohammedans, who claim that this is their holy rock because Mohammed stayed there to take some rest before he left finally, with his horse, towards heaven.

For these fourteen hundred years it has been war almost every day. And at the end of the first world war Britain and America, both Christian countries, played the most ugly game against the Jews.... Jews are one of the races which have suffered most. Of course, they have their part and their contribution in their suffering. They have suffered most because they were the first to claim, "We are the chosen people of God, and it is our basic right to rule over the world. Other human beings are inferior human beings."

Because this idea irritated everybody, without exception, Jews have been continually murdered, butchered. Adolf Hitler alone killed six million Jews, and it goes on.... But the ultimate meanness has been committed by America and England -- and even Jews could not understand the strategy.

After the second world war, the American and British forces were in control of Jerusalem, where the rock is, and the small country of Israel which had never before been in existence. For many centuries Mohammedans had lived there; it was part of the country of Palestine. But after the second world war, Jerusalem and Palestine were under the control of American and British forces, and America played the ugliest politics that you can conceive. It created, under an armed force, a new nation for the Jews. It called the new nation Israel, for the Jews.

It had not been in existence for many centuries. Once it had been a land for the Jews, in the days of Moses, then it was lost to Mohammedans for centuries. Christians had been trying to recover it but they could not, neither were the Jews successful -- they could not be! Only six percent of the land belonged to the Jews and ninety-four percent of the land belonged to the Mohammedans. How can you make Israel a sovereign nation? But under pressure of arms they managed to create a new land. It was great strategy, and perhaps nobody else has pointed it out....

I find myself standing alone in many situations; sometimes I think I should not unnecessarily bother about things when nobody is even thinking about them.

My understanding is that America and Britain conspired to create the Jewish state so that now Jews will be in trouble for eternity. This is a very sophisticated diplomacy. And the Jews were happy; they thought that America and England were helping them, that they were favorable to them, that they were giving them the homeland for which they had been hankering for centuries.

And America had killed two birds with one stone. In America, Jews are among the richest people, so they have great power over the American congress. They have a lobby of their own, and because politicians depend on contributions from rich people for their elections, they cannot avoid the Jews. They cannot ignore them; their presence is too important -- they have cash money. So this was a good chance to have their money contributed to American politicians.

The American politicians managed to create the state of Israel for the Jews, but the state was forcibly imposed on the Mohammedans. Now, they cannot tolerate it --

Mohammedans are very fascist, and this insult they cannot tolerate -- so there is continuous war.

Israel has to purchase war materials from America, and American Jews continuously have to send millions of dollars for the survival of Israel. In this way, America has destroyed more Jews than Adolf Hitler -- and has created not just a single-blow slaughter, but a continuous situation that will go on and on for centuries till not a single Jew is alive in Israel.

And any day the American politicians can pull out their support. They have done that in Taiwan. They were supporting Taiwan against China, and Taiwan depended absolutely on American support -- but for how long?

Taiwan is a small island. It was the private property of Chiang Kai-shek, who was the dictator before Mao and the communists took over China. The old name for Taiwan was Formosa; Chiang Kai-shek had made it his holiday resort, a private property. And as the communists took over China, Chiang Kai-shek, with his family and friends, escaped to Taiwan and changed its name from Formosa. They created a new nation with the help of America -- Taiwan. America helped, and with billions of dollars and new factories, it became a nation.

But how long can you manage against mainland China, the biggest country in the world?

Finally, you have to give up. America dropped Taiwan and joined hands with mainland China -- because that was China's condition: "Unless you stop supporting Taiwan, China is not going to support you." They needed China's support immensely -- because China and Russia together could become such a great force, it was a beautiful and necessary step for America to bring China towards them. But Taiwan was lost, and Taiwan is very angry.

But what can you do? Now China is making every effort to absorb Taiwan back into China, and Taiwan cannot fight, it has not the power. The same is going to happen to Israel, any day.

It has happened the same way in Iran: it was American support that kept the shah of Iran in power. He had no hold on the people; the people are fanatic Mohammedans under the control of Ayatollah Khomeini, but because of American support, American army bases...

Ayatollah Khomeini was living in France and directing his people in Iran to be ready any moment, because how long can America support the shah? Sooner or later it becomes a burden.

One day it did become a burden. And the moment America left Iran to itself, the shah of Iran had to run away, because he knew that he could not survive. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran with flags flying, and Iran is now in the hands of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Mohammedan priests. They have created in Israel a hell for the Jews, and with such beautiful tactics that even the greatest Jews like Martin Buber could not suspect it.

I am the one-person majority who wants to say to the world that this is cunning politics.

America and England are not favorable to the Jews, and the proof for it is that the Vatican pope has not accepted Israel as a sovereign nation; they have not given their recognition.

So on the one hand Christianity gives no recognition to the nation; on the other hand they created the nation in a place where they are surrounded from all sides by Mohammedans, and they will be killed and crushed.

Just for crucifying one man, Jesus, for two thousand years millions of innocent Jews have been crucified -- just as Jesus was innocent but killed by his contemporaries. Now these people, after two thousand years, have nothing to do with those people who crucified Jesus. But they are being tortured in Russia, they are being tortured in Germany; they have been tortured everywhere, wherever they have been. And now Israel is the ultimate strategy: they will keep being tortured for eternity until Israel disappears again.

So I have given my answer to Tom Robbins, because he is going to write a book and he wants my opinion. I know he must be surprised, because nobody has ever said this, that Israel is a strategy of Christian politics to destroy Jews -- not directly, but by creating a situation so that Mohammedans can do the job and Christians can keep their mask that they have been so helpful, even to the enemies. They have followed Jesus' philosophy: Love your enemies. They have been pouring money and help in the form of outdated arms -- armaments which are of no use, which have to be thrown out, either into the ocean, or in Israel.

And at the same time American Jews go on helping American politicians because they are helping Israel. So the American politicians exploit their money, they exploit their support.

Just by chance, yesterday when I dictated my letter to Tom Robbins, I received the message... We were fighting in the Supreme Court of Oregon to prove that our commune in Oregon had been destroyed absolutely illegally, and that the government had taken control of the land without any reason or rhyme. And we have won the case in the Supreme Court: the Supreme Court has specifically made it clear that the government has been absolutely illegal in restricting the use of the commune's land, its other properties.

So now it is again in our hands.

I have said to Tom Robbins that my suggestion is that if you want to help the Jews, Oregon should be given to them as a new Israel. Move the Jews from Israel and give Israel to the Mohammedans; it belongs to them, it is ugly to keep their land.

And as for me and my people, we offer our commune land as a beginning. It is enough for at least one hundred thousand people. We give all our assets -- all our houses, hotels, roads, dams, fields -- everything that we have in Rancho Rajneesh we give them as a friendly gesture, without taking any money for it, with the condition that Rancho Rajneesh should be the capital of the new Israel.

And let America show its real face. If they want to help them... half of the state of Oregon is already owned by the federal government, and it is very sparsely populated so there is no problem. Half the land already belongs to the federal government; give that land to the Jews.

And Jews are in a new trouble in Israel. There were a few Jews who have remained in Israel forever, since the days of Moses, so they are very orthodox -- utterly orthodox.

They have not seen the outside world, they are still four thousand years back; their mind is of that type. The second layer has come from European countries. That layer is a little different, because it is no longer so orthodox. It has seen the developed countries of the twentieth century; it has forgotten all the old traditional ways. And the third layer, which has completely forgotten what Judaism is, has come from America.

Now they are fighting amongst themselves. Full-scale riots are going on in Israel amongst the Jews themselves. Mohammedans are killing them from all around, and Jews are killing other Jews because the orthodox Jews say to the European and American Jews,

"Go back! You are no longer Jews."

For small reasons... for example, on the sabbath every week, the orthodox Jews stop working by the evening on Friday. They want the new Jews who have come from Europe and America to close their discos, their restaurants, their movie houses, on Friday night.

They cannot conceive it. I have heard:

Three rabbis were talking about whose synagogue was the most advanced. One rabbi said, "Of course it is my synagogue. We allow smoking inside the synagogue; we allow drinking, drugs, anything, in the name of God."

The second rabbi said, "That's nothing, forget all about it. You are still old-fashioned.

These things we have been allowing for centuries. We allow you even to bring your girlfriends; we don't even ask whether the woman is your wife or not. Bring your girlfriends; the synagogue is just a religious kind of movie theater where you will not find people with their wives. If they have to be with their wives, then what is wrong with their house?"

Those movie houses... and do you know why it becomes dark? It is not for the film, it is because so many stories go on inside the movie hall. All those stories are possible only in darkness.

So the second rabbi said, "We allow girlfriends and dancing, and if people want to make love, they can even make love. We ignore it, we don't create any interference."

The third rabbi said, "You are both idiots. You don't know. In our synagogue we are living in the twenty-first century."

They said, "What more can you do?"

He said, "What more? On our synagogue there is a signboard: Òn Jewish holidays the synagogue is closed.'"

This is the ultimate form of religiousness!

So those three layers of Jews are cutting each other's heads.

My suggestion is not just to make a joke of American help; I mean it! I am sending the message to Israel: "You enter into the commune; let that be your beginning. And tell the American government -- and you have every right to ask because you have been giving all those politicians money, they are all paid servants to you -- that you want a New Israel in the New World."

And why bother about a rock? Make a beautiful Temple of Solomon again! The new is always better than the old. Why should you bother? Do you think religion is like wine, that the old is better than the new? Don't condemn religion that way. Just fresh, new, with modern architecture -- make a great temple, the greatest in the world. Once it was the greatest temple in the world, but why unnecessarily get into trouble which cannot end? --

there is no possible way.

And then you will know America's real face. Then you will know how friendly they are to Israel and how friendly they are to the Jews. They are fundamentalist Christians.

Ronald Reagan is a fascist Christian; he will not allow it. This will be a good test of their friendship.

I don't believe in any religion, but I certainly believe that people should not be put into unnecessary misery, slaughter, massacre, every day trembling with fear. And now it has become much more dangerous, because Jews are fighting with Jews, and Mohammedans from all around have become terrorists; they are destroying in every possible way the very foundation of the Jewish state. And just see: the Vatican has not even given formal recognition to the sovereignty of the state of Israel; that shows the real Christian mind.

But this is our world. Perhaps my people are the only people who are free from chains.

God is your chain, religions are your chains; the idea of sin, the idea of virtue are your chains.

Freedom consists in a single thing, and that is your awareness. Act out of awareness and you will be acting out of freedom -- and without interfering in somebody else's freedom.

Freedom knows how to respect others' freedom.

You don't have to do anything, Dharmesh, to attain freedom. It is already there within you. Just drop the chains.

And those chains are such that you have started loving them; you have become accustomed to them. It will be a little painful to depart from your miseries, a little painful to depart from your old sufferings, familiar friends, and enter into a new area of freedom, awareness. But except that, there is no hope for humanity.

All that is needed is just a little intelligence. You have been deprived even of that.

And the pope is angry with me, the shankaracharyas are angry with me, the imams are angry with me, for the simple reason that I want you to be intelligent. They want you to be absolutely fools, idiots, retarded, so you can be enslaved, tortured, harassed, sacrificed, and you will not revolt against it.

Paddy goes into a pub one day and sees a very well-dressed man sitting in the corner. But what he notices most are his beautiful shoes. So he goes over and asks about them and the man tells him they are crocodile shoes.

But Paddy has never heard of a crocodile, so he goes over to his friends and asks them.

They tell him that it is a very dangerous animal that lives in the swamps of the Amazon jungle.

Paddy is determined to have a pair of these shoes, so he sells his house, his car and his wife, and sets off for South America. Once he is there he eventually finds a man with a boat, who is willing to take him up the Amazon.

After many weeks they reach the heart of the jungle and Paddy sees a crocodile, swimming around in the swamp. So he immediately dives in and has a terrific fight with the beast. They are thrashing about in the water for over an hour until, tired and bleeding, Paddy manages to haul the dead crocodile into the boat.

With his last strength, Paddy turns the crocodile over onto its back, takes one look at it and shrieks: "My God! It has got no shoes on!"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #16

Chapter title: Innocence regained

14 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709140

ShortTitle:

PILGR16

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

113

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

MANY TIMES SITTING IN YOUR PRESENCE I AM OVERWHELMED BY A VERY CHILDLIKE FEELING. IT SEEMS SO FAMILIAR, YET FROM A LONG

TIME AGO. IN THESE MOMENTS THERE FEELS NO GAP OF YOU AND ME. I AM LIKE A CHILD PLAYING IN YOUR BEAUTIFUL GARDEN.

BELOVED OSHO, IS THIS SIGNIFICANT OR AM I ALREADY MOVING INTO MY

SECOND CHILDHOOD AT THE RIPE OLD AGE OF THIRTY-FIVE?

P.S. YOU CAN SCARE ME ANY TIME.

Prem Yatra, this great experiment through which you all are passing is basically to achieve your lost childhood again.

When I say "your lost childhood," I mean your innocence, your eyes full of wonder, knowing nothing, having nothing, but yet feeling yourself at the top of the world. Those golden moments of wonder, joy, no tension, no worry, no anxiety, have to be regained, rediscovered. The sage is nothing but the circle that started in your birth coming full way, complete, back to the same point.

Of course the second childhood is far more valuable and significant than the first. In the first the innocence was there because of ignorance, so it was not pure and clear and in your possession; it was just a natural thing that happens to every childhood. The second childhood is your greatest achievement -- it does not happen to all. The second childhood makes you innocent without ignorance, the second childhood comes through all kinds of experiences. It is mature, centered, ripe.

You should be blessed that you are feeling like that. The second childhood is just exactly the existential meaning of meditation, and from there on is the great pilgrimage of coming back home -- which you have never really left, which is impossible to leave, because it is you. Wherever you will go, you will find yourself there.

It is not even a shadow which follows you because that will disappear if you are sitting in the shade. It will appear only when you are standing in the sunlight. Your shadow is not an eternal companion, and in times of darkness even your shadow itself leaves you. But in the times of light your shadow is back.

The same is the situation with friends, lovers: in the days of darkness they leave you just like the shadow; in the days of success, richness, they all come back. They are not really companions.

There is only one essential being in you which will be everywhere with you, without any condition. Even if you are in hell it doesn't matter, it will be with you; if you are in heaven it doesn't matter, it will be with you.

To find that essential core of your being is on the one hand utter innocence, and on the other hand is the greatest wisdom that has ever existed on the earth.

So your body may be becoming old, but if you are learning ways of being silent and peaceful and meditative and loving, you will not grow old. You will remain as young and as fresh as early morning dewdrops shining in the beautiful sunrise, looking far more precious than any pearls.

You should be happy and rejoice in your childhood. This is what Jesus meant when he said again and again, "Unless you are born again..." Even Christians have not got the meaning of his statement. They think literally that "unless you are born again" means that first you will have to die, and then you will be born, and on the judgment day Jesus will take you into paradise. That is not the meaning of the man.

What he is saying is: Unless you die right now as a personality and emerge as an innocent individuality, unscratched, unpolluted by the society and the people... This is your new birth, this is resurrection.

Enjoy your divine childhood, and when it is the right time I will scare you! You are too new; the childhood is not yet absolutely settled, and you can misunderstand if I scare you.

Just wait...! That moment will also come. Right now your whole concern should be getting deeper into childhood.

I don't scare anybody except Avirbhava, because she has a quality of a child. I don't know why. Perhaps her father is dead, her mother is dead... I feel a tremendous feeling for her -

- and she is utterly innocent. So once in a while -- not once in a while, almost every day --

whenever I have the chance and she is close by, I try to do my best.

"I don't want your son, Ernie, swimming in our pool anymore" says Mrs. Meyer to her neighbor, Mrs. Jones.

"But what has my poor little Ernie done?" asks Mrs. Jones.

"He is constantly peeing in the pool," says Mrs. Meyer angrily.

"Don't be so hard on him," says Mrs. Jones, "all children of his age do that!"

"Maybe they do," says Mrs. Meyer, "but not from the diving board."

Childhood has its beauties, because it does not know the etiquette, the manners, and all kinds of crap. It is so simple and so innocent and so spontaneous.

A man walked into a bar and was amazed to see a dog sitting at a table with three men playing poker. The man went over and asked, "Can that dog really read his cards?"

"Sure he can," said one of the men. "But he's not much of a player. Whenever he draws a good hand he wags his tail!"

That is absolutely innocent... the poor dog cannot contain his joy.

Two cockroaches were munching delicacies on top of a garbage pile when one of them began telling of some new tenants in the nearby apartments.

"I hear," he said, "that their refrigerator is spotless, their floors are gleaming, and there is not a speck of dust in the whole place."

"Please, please," said the other cockroach, "not while I'm eating!"

Such bad news...!

It will be a tremendous revolution the day we start learning the languages of birds, of bees, of cockroaches. They all have their ways of communicating. But then the heart feels a little sadness, because we have not been able to learn even to communicate with human beings, and we have been here for millions of years. What kind of stupidity is this, that we don't know the whole humanity as belonging to us and we belonging to it? All that man has done is simply butchering, murdering, war. The same energy, the same effort would have made this world the greatest miracle in the whole universe.

But we don't understand each other. We may even be speaking the same language, but understanding is not necessarily expected; what is expected is misunderstanding. So people are hiding themselves, hiding their childhood, hiding their innocence, protecting themselves from everybody with defense measures; otherwise you will see children young and old all playing in this garden of the earth, rejoicing, laughing, giggling. Why this seriousness? Man has not gained anything out of this seriousness; he has simply lost everything -- but he continues to be serious.

I am absolutely against seriousness.

I call it a psychological sickness.

Only a playful, childlike, innocent behavior is the right behavior, is what I would like to call virtuous behavior, religious, spiritual... not only human but divine.

The moment you are as innocent as a child you have transcended humanity, you have entered into the world of godliness.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

I LOVE THE WORDS YOU USE, "ONE'S ORIGINAL FACE," BUT I HAVE NO

EXISTENTIAL GLIMPSE OR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU MEAN BY

THEM. WOULD YOU CARE TO EXPLAIN FURTHER?

Veena, the original face is only a poetic expression for your absolute innocence, which is not damaged by your parents, by your teachers, by your society, by your culture and by yourself.

I can understand why you love those words... because you don't have the original face.

And the reason you don't have the original face is... You are trying hard for it, but whenever I look at you there is a certain pretension, a certain hypocrisy. There is no bad intention in your being, but you want to look the way you should look, and that is destroying the whole thing.

You should look the way you are.

Drop all nonsense that has been imposed on you with all those commandments that religions have been issuing, without any respect to the uniqueness of individuals.

Just be yourself.

That's the meaning of the original face.

It is just a poetic expression to say to you: Don't try in any way to look more beautiful, to look more meditative, to look more respectful. Those are deadly poisons... the very desire to look like somebody who you are not.

My whole teaching is: Just be what you are and don't care a bit about the world. Then you will feel a tremendous relaxation and a deep peace within your heart. That is your original face, relaxed, without tensions, without pretensions, without hypocrisies, without the so-called disciplines of how you should behave.

But all those poisons have gone deep in your blood, in your bones, in your marrow. What I am trying to do is to take out those poisons and give you back your naturalness. And there is nothing more beautiful than the natural, there is nothing more mysterious than the original; no etiquette, no mannerism can improve upon it.

But everybody is trying to improve upon himself. Then everything becomes false. Your smile is false, your hands raised together folded in reverence are just an exercise of the hands -- your heart is not with them. And unfortunately I have such eyes that I can see exactly where the trouble is; when everybody is laughing there are serious and sober people who are pretending to hold their laughter, because it doesn't look right.

Veena, you have been a long, long time with me, but I have never felt that you are relaxed, at ease, at home. Just being at ease, relaxed, at home, all these poor trees know what is the original face, these birds know what is the original face. Only man has forgotten, because he has found masks upon masks; he is lost in the jungle of masks, and now it is very difficult to find which is the original.

But a simple understanding... whenever you see yourself tense, remember that you are doing something against nature. Whenever you are doing something more special than others, remember that you are trying to be superior, behaving as a great meditator, behaving as a real English lady. English ladies don't have original faces!

Drop all this nonsense of being English and German and Indian. I see Indians here once in a while, and even in the tumultuous laughter of you all I can detect them; either they will laugh louder than anybody to show that they are not the Indians I condemn, or they will just look downwards to hide their face, because they have lost the intelligence to understand even a simple joke. And rather than enjoying the moment, they are judging continuously whether it is right to tell a joke in a religious discourse.... Who told you this is a religious discourse? I hate the very word! I just enjoy to be with you.

This very enjoyment is our religiousness.

We don't have anything except ourselves. And condemned by the whole world, which is a big world, still we have our simplicity, our innocence; we have got rid of all old garbage. Just allow yourself to come out of the cage that you yourself have been creating... and others have been helping.

The original face is a beautiful poetic expression, but it does not mean that you will have a different face. This same face will lose all its tensions, this same face will be relaxed, this same face will be nonjudgmental, this same face will not think of others as inferior.

This same face under these new values will be your original face.

There is an ancient proverb: Many a hero is a man who did not have the courage to be a coward. If you are a coward what is wrong in it? You are a coward -- it is perfectly good.

Cowards are also needed, otherwise from where will you get heroes? They are an absolute necessity to give the background to create heroes.

Just be yourself, whatever it is. The problem is that never before has anybody told you just to be yourself. Everybody is poking his nose in, saying that you should be this way, you should be that way -- even in ordinary matters.

In my school... I was just a small boy, but I hated to be told how I have to be. Teachers started bribing me -- "If you behave rightly, you can become a genius."

I said, "Hell with the genius -- I simply want to be myself."

I used to sit with my legs on the table, and every teacher was offended. They would say,

"What kind of behavior is this?"

I said, "The table is not saying anything to me. It is something between me and the table, so why are you looking so angry? I am not putting my legs on your head! You should relax just as I am relaxing. And this way I feel better able to understand what nonsense you are teaching."

Just beside the room was a beautiful window, and outside were trees and birds and cuckoos. Mostly I was looking out of the window, and the teacher would come and say,

"Why do you come to school at all?"

I said, "Because in my house there is no window like this which opens up to the whole sky, and around my house there are no cuckoos, no birds. The house is in the city, surrounded by other houses, so crowded that birds don't come there, cuckoos don't feel that these are the people to be blessed by their songs.

"Forget the idea that I come here to listen to you! I am paying my fee, you are simply a servant and you should remember that. If I fail I will not come to complain to you; if I fail I will not feel sad. But if for the whole year I have to pretend that I am listening to you, and I am listening to the cuckoos outside, that will be the beginning of a hypocritical life. And I don't want to be a hypocrite."

On every matter the teachers, the professors wanted you to do it in a certain way. In my school in those days, and perhaps even today, using a cap was necessary. I have nothing against caps; since I have left the university I have started using caps, but I never wore one until I left the university. The first teacher who was worried about me, said, "You are disturbing the discipline of the school. Where is your cap?"

I said, "Bring the school code of behavior. Is there any mention that every boy should use a cap? And if there is not, you are imposing something against the school code."

He took me to the principal of the school and I told the principal, "I am absolutely ready, just show me where it is written that a cap is compulsory. If it is compulsory, I may even leave the school, but first let me see where it is written."

There was no written code and I said, "Can you give me any other reasonable arguments for using the cap? Will it increase my intelligence? Will it increase my life? Will it give me better health, more understanding?" I said, "As far as I know, Bengal is the only province in India where caps are not used, and that is the most intelligent part of the country. Punjab is just the opposite. There for a cap, people use turbans -- such big turbans, as if their intelligence is escaping so they are keeping it. And that is the most unintelligent part of the country."

The principal said, "There seems to be some sense in what you are saying, but it is a school discipline. If you stop using caps, then others will stop."

I said, "Then what is the fear? Just drop the whole old convention."

Nobody wants to allow you to be yourself on matters which are absolutely insignificant.

I used to have long hair in my childhood. And I used to come in and out of my father's shop, because the shop and the home were connected. The home was behind the shop and it was absolutely necessary to pass through the shop. People would ask, "Whose girl is this?" -- because my hair was so long, they could not think that a boy should be having such long hair.

My father felt very ashamed and embarrassed to say, "He is a boy."

But they said, "Then why all this hair?"

One day -- it was not his normal nature -- he became so embarrassed and angry that he came and cut my hair with his own hands. Bringing the scissors with which he used to cut cloth in his shop, he cut my hair. I didn't say anything to him -- he was surprised. He said,

"You don't have anything to say?"

I said, "I will say it in my own way."

"So what do you mean?"

I said, "You will see." And I went to the opium-addict barber who used to have a shop just in front of our house. He was the only man I had a respect for. There were a row of barber shops, but I loved that old man. He was a rare variety, and he loved me; for hours we used to talk to each other. What he was saying was all nonsense! One day he was saying to me, "If all the opium addicts can be organized into a political party, we can take over this country!"

I said, "It is a good idea."

But he said, "Because we are all opium addicts, I myself forget my own idea."

I said, "You don't be worried. I am here and I will remember. You just tell me what changes you want to have in the country, what kind of political ideology you want, and I will manage it."

He said, "That's good."

So I went to him and I told him, "Just shave my whole head completely." In India the head is shaved completely only when your father dies.

For a moment even that opium addict came to his senses. He said, "What has happened?

Has your father died?"

I said, "Don't bother about these things. You do what I am saying; it is none of your concern! You just cut my hair completely, shave it completely."

He said, "Done! That is the easiest job. So many times I get into trouble. People say to me, `Shave the beard,' and I forget and I shave their heads. They say, `What have you done?' And I say, Àt the most I can say to you don't pay for it -- what is the problem?'"

I used to sit in his shop, because there was always something so ridiculous happening. He would cut half the mustache of somebody and would say, "Wait, I have remembered some urgent work." And the man would say, "But I am caught here in your chair and half the mustache is gone. I cannot go out of the shop!" He would say, "Simply wait there."

And then hours will pass and that man is sitting there..."What kind of idiot is this man?"

At one time I had to help by cutting the half mustache of a man. I said, "Now you are free. Just never come back here again... because that man has not done much harm to you, he just forgets."

So the barber said, "That's right. It is none of my concern. If he has died, he has died."

He shaved my head completely, and I went home. I passed through the shop. My father looked and all his customers looked. They said, "What happened? Whose boy is this? His father has died."

My father said, "He is my boy and I am alive! But I knew he was going to do something.

He has answered me well."

Wherever I went people would ask, "What happened? He was perfectly healthy."

I said, "People die at any age. You are worried about him, you are not worried about my hairs."

That was the last thing my father ever did to me, because he knew that the answer could be more dangerous! On the contrary, he brought a certain oil that is used for growing hair. It is a very costly oil, comes from Bengal out of a certain flower, javakusum. It is very costly, rare, used only by the richest people -- and not by men but by women -- to keep the hair as long as possible. In Bengal I have come across women whose hair touched the earth -- five feet long, six feet long. That oil simply functions powerfully on the hairs.

I said, "Now you understand."

He said, "I have understood. You use this oil quickly; in a few months your hair will be back."

I said, "You created the whole mess. What was there to be embarrassed about? You could have said, `She is my girl.' I don't have any objection about that. But you should not have interfered with me the way you did. It was violent, barbarous. Rather than saying anything to me, you simply started cutting my hair."

Nobody allows anybody to be just himself. And you have learned all those ideas so deeply that it seems they are your ideas. Just relax. Forget all those conditionings, drop them like dry leaves falling from the trees. It is better to be a naked tree without any leaves than to have plastic leaves and plastic foliage and plastic flowers; that is ugly.

The original face simply means that you are not being dominated by any kind of morality, religion, society, parents, teachers, priests, not being dominated by anyone. Just living your life according to your own inner sense -- you have a sensibility -- and you will have the original face.

The young teacher wrote on the blackboard, "I ain't had no fun all summer." Then she asked the children, "What is wrong with that sentence and what do I do to correct it?"

Little Ernie shouted from the back, "Get a boyfriend."

The sentence will be corrected by itself -- just get a boyfriend!

This is the simple original face; it doesn't bother about consequences. But England is perhaps the most attached to false personalities....

Elizabeth and Philip had been married for a considerable time, and it became particularly apparent to Philip that Elizabeth had lost all enthusiasm for their lovemaking.

On a recent occasion, Philip was making love to his wife when he suddenly said, "Is something the matter? Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm all right," answered Elizabeth. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh," said Philip, "for a moment there, I thought you moved."

People have become absolutely dead. And Veena comes from that same lot of lunatics!

Just enjoy and be at ease with yourself and with the world, and the original face starts shining by itself.

When the doctor had finished his examination of the woman, he looked up and said brightly, "Mrs. Brown, I have good news for you."

"I'm glad of that, doctor," said the woman, "But I am MISS Brown."

"Miss Brown," said the doctor, without changing expression, "I have bad news for you."

There are many people whose expressions will not change. Now such a great change --

from Mrs. Brown to Miss Brown -- but the doctor is keeping his personality, his face, absolutely without change.

Whenever I look at Veena I feel very sad for her... no expression, sits just like a marble statue. She is beautiful. She will make a good model if you want to make a marble statue.

But it seems she is holding back from life; she is not allowing the playfulness and the joy that are our birthright. That is why the words òriginal face' strike her. It looks immensely intriguing -- but she cannot understand what it means. It does not mean another face; it simply means no face imposed upon that which you have got from nature itself.

One needs a little courage, a little daring, just to be himself whatever the circumstances.

And on the whole, every circumstance and every consequence -- even if you have to suffer -- will enrich your individuality, will make your intelligence sharper, will give you a sense of direction which comes from your own inner being and is not given by some guide from outside.

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

EVERY TIME I MANAGE TO CLUTCH A STRAW YOU STEP ON MY FINGERS.

MY BRAIN IS TOTALLY SCRAMBLED. MY WHOLE WORLD SEEMS UNREAL.

YOU GOT ME INTO THIS MESS -- ARE YOU GOING TO GET ME OUT, OR IS

THAT UP TO ME?

Prem Nayana, the first thing is: I am going to get you into a deeper mess, because unless you touch the rock bottom of your mess, it is very difficult to get out of it.

Do you know how to swim? Have you ever drowned in a river? -- and what happens?

You have to go first to the bottom and then at the bottom you are thrown up. That is why dead people know the secret but the living people don't. You will not see any dead person drowning -- he simply floats, and living people get drowned. They say they don't know swimming, but dead people are swimming perfectly well!

So as far as I am concerned I am not going to get you out of the mess. I will manage every way to take you to the rock bottom, then you will pop up on your own.

And what do you mean, "Every time I manage to clutch a straw you step on my fingers"?

Just don't clutch at any straw. It is so easy...! And you know me perfectly well. I will not let you clutch at any straw, because those straws are not going to save you; I will step on your fingers. You cannot make me stop, but you can do one thing: stop clutching at straws.

She is speaking in a very poetic way. To translate it into pragmatic language, she is saying that whenever she starts believing in some principle, I demolish it. Whenever she starts creating a system of beliefs and finds a consolation in that belief system, I destroy it.

My way of creating goes through a long passage of destroying, because the real work is to destroy -- and then you will come out of it. You don't have to be created. You are there already, dumped with so much garbage that I have to take that garbage away. And you are clutching...!

Never try to make a system of beliefs out of what I am saying. If you understand me well, I am not a system maker and I don't want believers, I don't want followers. I don't want anybody to think that I am the savior.

I don't even shave my own beard! Nirvano goes on saying to me, "I can trim it a little."

I say, "No, absolutely no! These are my original hairs. I have never shaved my beard.

They are the same original hairs as when they first had started growing in my youth, and I am going to keep them to the very last."

She feels worried that they will become thinner, that this beard will become too long. I said, "Don't be worried. Even if it starts touching the ground, I am always in favor of the original."

One very essential thing which I have been telling you, but I have to repeat it, is: Feel me more than my words, feel my presence more than my presentation. I am not a philosopher. I am incurably a mystic. There is no medicine which can cure me.

But if you go on... and this has happened with thousands of people; in these thirty years I must have come across millions of people, but they were all seeking some savior -- and I walked on their fingers. They were all seeking somebody to take away their responsibility, without knowing that the moment your responsibility is gone, your freedom is also gone. They exist together; they are inseparable.

If you want freedom, you have to accept every responsibility. If you want freedom, you don't have to clutch with your hands onto any belief, philosophy, religion. You just be yourself. Why can't you enjoy yourself consciously? There is no intrinsic necessity for having a belief.

Thousands of people have come to me and gone. There was a time I was surrounded by Jainas. Unfortunately I was born in a Jaina family, so naturally my first audience was of Jainas. They were immensely happy because I was saying things which they had never thought about, I was interpreting their scriptures in a totally new way. They had great hope in me. They thought that...

Their religion has remained very small; it is the smallest religion in India. And it is the ancientmost religion -- it is more ancient than Hinduism. But what calamity has happened? Even today there are not more than thirty-five lakhs of Jainas in a country of nine hundred million people. What has happened? Jainism is at least seven thousand years old -- that is at least. It can be more, older, because in Harrappur and in Mohanjodro two ancient cities have been excavated, and Jaina statues have been found in those cities.

Now it is a scientific fact that those cities were destroyed somewhere between seven thousand and ten thousand years ago, and that is a very conservative estimate. But even if we take that estimate, in ten thousand years the population of the Jainas has remained negligible -- thirty-five lakhs. That is not worth any consideration! That is why in the great religions of the world Jainism is never counted -- never counted with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. They are great religions, and they are all very new as far as Jainism is concerned.

Because of my interpretations they had a tremendous hope in me, that perhaps I may spread their religion to the whole world, take the message to the whole world. But they were unaware -- they were my first audience -- they were not aware what kind of man I am: I cannot support anything which my heart is not ready to support.

So a few things I have supported in Jainism -- people were very happy. But the moment I started telling about things which I cannot support, they were shocked. I have walked on their fingers. Just a small thing -- which is so rational -- and the Jaina community... their supreme command decided to expel me. I wrote a letter to them saying, "Don't be stupid.

I expel you all from my life. You don't have to expel me; you cannot. I am no more part of you."

And what was the reason? I addressed a Jaina conference and told them, "You are the oldest vegetarians of the world. You eat the purest food, but you have not produced a single Nobel prize winner. What is your contribution to art, to music, to science, to mathematics, to painting, to poetry? What is your contribution to the world? There are the Jews who get forty percent of all the Nobel prizes, and the rest of the world has to live only on sixty percent."

And I told them, "The reason is -- I have deeply enquired into the matter -- that in vegetarian food something is missing which is necessary for intelligence. That is why you have remained retarded."

Vegetarian food is not complete, and particularly for intelligence certain vitamins are missing. Those vitamins can be found in meat. Certainly I cannot support non-vegetarian food. Even though it gives you better intelligence, it destroys your very soul; it makes you cruel, violent, inhuman.

So I suggested to them, "I have found something which should be immediately accepted if any intelligence is left in you, and that is eating eggs which are not fertilized, non-fertilized eggs. They are not living, there is no life. If you leave them they will simply rot and disappear. There is no life in them because the male sperm has not entered into the mother's egg; the mother has grown the egg without the male sperm. It is not alive, so there is no harm in eating it. It is vegetarian."

Suddenly they were very angry. I am suggesting for them to eat eggs, and they are afraid even to eat tomatoes, because tomatoes look like meat -- just the color, poor tomatoes...

How can they conceive of themselves eating non-fertilized eggs? Somebody stood up and said, "Maybe that is right that they are not living, but they are coming from animals."

I said, "So is milk; what is the difference? If you are avoiding anything that is coming from any living being, your children are from the very beginning against Jainism; they are drinking their mother's milk. And you are drinking milk" -- and Jainas drink milk and milk-made products more than anybody. They cannot enjoy meat and non-vegetarian foods, so to substitute they have invented thousands of ways of delicacies made of milk products.

But the very word ègg' was enough for them to leave me completely; the Jainas disappeared. I was dangerous! I was teaching something that they have never done in ten thousand years. No scripture of theirs suggests anything about it. But they were absolutely unable to answer my questions -- "If you are eating the purest food, your intelligence should have been the purest flame, the sharpest genius, the most creative, but it has not been so." And immediately -- they had come to me because they thought I was supporting their system, but I am not supporting anybody's system -- they disappeared.

Then the second gang was of Gandhians. For a little while it was okay, but the moment I criticized Mahatma Gandhi... nobody had any answer for it, but the Gandhians disappeared. I had stepped on their fingers! And as the Gandhians disappeared, immediately socialists, communists gathered around me, not knowing that the same is going to be their fate.

Of course, from each group a few courageous people have remained. A few Jains have remained, a few Gandhians have remained, who had the intelligence to understand that I am not against anybody, but I cannot support anything which is fundamentally wrong, and is harmful to human life.

The communists were very happy, because they were in search of a man... The only calamity for the communists in India is that they don't have a saintly figure. They don't attract the masses, and the masses will never be attracted to communists, because they cannot think that someone who is speaking to them and also smoking a cigarette and putting it in the ashtray in between can be a leader. This is impossible for the Indian masses. And because communists don't believe in God, are against all religions, Indians cannot have any communion with them.

You will be surprised that in the Russian revolution there was one Indian as important as Lenin himself. His name was Edmund Roy; he was an international figure in the communist movement. Thinking that he was so much respected internationally by the communists, he came to India, back to his home, and here he came in conflict with Mahatma Gandhi immediately. He was right on many more points than Mahatma Gandhi, but that is not how the masses decide. He smoked cigarettes, he drank vodka, he has lived in Russia, he believed in violence: he is intolerable!

So when the communists saw that the Gandhians were angry with me, they thought it was an opportunity. If I can be their representative, it will be an immense help for them to gain power in India, because they have heard that I don't believe in any religions; they have heard there is no God, no heaven, no hell. They felt, "This seems to be perfectly agreeing with us."

In fact, my emphasis was far deeper than their own philosophy. So when I said that there are no religions, but there is something higher than religion and that is religiousness; there is no God as a person, but as a presence, and the whole universe is full of godliness... I walked on their fingers! Immediately all communists disappeared from my audience. But a few courageous souls have remained, and have become accustomed to my stepping on their fingers. And they have learned one secret: With me it is not ideas that matter.

With me it is your transformation that matters.

And your transformation is possible only if your mind slowly, slowly becomes calm and quiet.

So now I have my own people. But once in a while a stranger accidentally gets caught.

Now I have been enquiring about that sannyasin Piyoosh, whether he has reached Igatpuri and Goenka or not; otherwise he should be loaded in a truck and sent to Igatpuri.

This is not his place. But he is hiding. He has not approached the office. He has not approached Swami Dhyan Yogi, who initiates sannyasins, to return his papers. So once in a while somebody who does not understand my way of working, gets into unnecessary trouble.

I am not interested in how many people are meditating; it is not my responsibility. I am fulfilled and absolutely content. If death comes this moment I will not even tell death,

"Wait a few minutes more; let me finish my speech." What is the point? I am always ready; in the middle of the sentence I can stop. I have no desires, no longings, no stupid superiority complex of being a prophet or a messiah or a messenger of God. That is why I can speak to you now heart to heart.

When I call you my people, it simply means you are no longer Hindus, no longer Christians, no longer Jews, that you have dropped all that rubbish away, that you have come to me as an individual on your own authority. And I will not give you new chains to console you.

You are saying to me, "You got me into this mess." You are wrong, Prem Nayana, you got into this mess on your own accord. I never go and knock on people's doors -- but it is so easy to throw away the responsibility, without knowing you are throwing away your freedom too. I cannot accept the responsibility because I cannot destroy your freedom. I love you too much.

And now you are saying, "You got me into this mess -- are you going to get me out, or is it up to me?" It has been always up to you whether to get into the mess or get out of it. It is none of my business. I have never bothered.... Millions of people have passed by my side, people who were ready to die for me, or were ready to kill me just if I said something that went against their prejudices -- the same people.

It has been a tremendously rich life of experiences, but now I am absolutely finished with taking anybody's responsibility, destroying anybody's freedom. You are here on your own accord. Whatever happens to you, you are responsible; it is happening out of your freedom. I respect your freedom so much that I cannot take the responsibility.

Just meditate over the whole matter, and you will see this is not a place where one gets into a mess; this is a place where we dry-clean you! All the mess that you bring with you, we take it away... slowly, so it does not hurt you too much. But one has to be very alert and very intelligent if he wants to remain with me. I am not here for retarded idiots.

The worried wife came to the doctor and said, "Doctor, I don't know what is wrong with my husband. He has sudden changes. Monday he liked milk-pudding, Tuesday he liked milk-pudding, Wednesday he liked milk-pudding, Thursday he liked milk-pudding, and all of a sudden, today he does not like milk-pudding."

This is not the place for such idiots, who can't understand simple things.

Moishe Finkelstein met his old friend Sam Feigenbaum on the street in Moscow.

"Did you hear," said Moishe, "that old Yossel Mosovith has died?"

"No," said Sam, "I did not even hear that he had been arrested."

A man was having his fiftieth birthday and his wife wanted to give him something really special. They had been married for twenty-five years and had the perfect marriage.

"What's something you have never had on your birthday?" she asked.

He looked coy and she said, "Come on, it is okay -- anything you want."

"Well," he said, "I have never had a whore."

"Okay," she said, "I will get you the best."

So she booked him a very classy whore for the whole night. When he came home the next day she asked, "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Yes," he said shyly.

"Well, did she do anything I don't do?"

"Yes," he said modestly.

"Well, what was it?" she said.

"She moaned," said the husband.

So the next time they were making love, the wife kept saying, "Shall I moan yet?"

"Not yet," he would say.

Then finally he was about to climax and he said, "Okay start moaning, start moaning!"

So the wife said, "Oh my God! I have had a terrible day, your mother came, the vacuum cleaner broke, my hair is a mess...."

Prem Nayana, this is a place of laughter and love, of joy and celebration. According to me it is the only holy place in the world. Just be careful not to clutch any straw, because then I cannot resist the temptation of stepping on your fingers. The responsibility is yours.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #17

Chapter title: On the master's operating table

14 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709145

ShortTitle:

PILGR17

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

83

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY WHEN YOU SAID THAT I WAS "COMING ALONG FINE, SLOW BUT STEADY." FOR ME, IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL STATEMENT. BUT IT

TOUCHED AN OLD WOUND THAT I WAS HARDLY AWARE OF.

THE WOUND COMES FROM SCHOOL AND BEING OFTEN TOLD THAT I WAS

SLOW, A BIT DIM, NOT VERY INTELLIGENT AND DEFINITELY NEEDED TO

TRY HARDER.

AND LISTENING TO YOU I HAD THE FEELING THAT MAYBE ALL THIS WAS

TRUE. IS IT?

Vimal, it is of great understanding on your part that you have not blamed me because I have touched your old wound. It hurts. But unless all the wounds are opened to the sun, to the wind, they will go on growing underneath; they can become cancerous.

Many people, many more than the people who are suffering from physical cancer, are suffering from psychological cancer. And the only way to remove a psychological cancer is to expose it. If there is love and trust, then you will not start getting angry or hurt, because I am nothing but your physician. And just out of my love I have to hit you --

sometimes very hard, because the crust that is covering your wound has become very thick.

Your question reminded me of Veena. She had asked a question this morning. I had looked all around -- she was not here. Although I knew why she was not here, I have also enquired. And the reason she has given is that she woke up with a stiff neck. That need not prevent you from coming here. You have a stiff neck anyway! Then she has not turned up to work the whole day, and her boyfriend has been saying that she is very upset.

First you ask a question, without ever thinking that you are putting me into a situation: either I have to lie just to console you, just to inflate your ego... but that way I am not your friend; that way I am your greatest enemy. That is what all the priests, all the religions, all your leaders have been doing for thousands of years, and I don't want to do it. But I can see why they were doing it: you were very happy with them. They were giving you more and more doses of opium to keep you fast asleep and consoled.

Because I have to say the truth, it is bound to hurt you, sometimes very deeply. And I can understand; the pain that has been repressed suddenly uncoils within you. But if rather than bringing understanding it brings an upset, then it was better you had not asked the question. You cannot expect from me that I am going to nourish your ego, protect your wounds, console you in your misery, suffering, insincerity, helping you to be a beautiful hypocrite.

She is again not here; I have looked around.... And it is not that she is not hearing what I am saying; her room is just close by. She has heard in the morning -- the stiff neck came later on -- and she is hearing right now.

But you cannot understand my difficulty. If I don't care about you, then I can simply say things which console you but don't transform you. If I love you, then I have to be a surgeon and I have sometimes to operate on you.

You laugh so beautifully when you hear of Zen masters hitting their disciples, and if Veena goes on like this she will have unnecessarily forced me to carry a staff too. I have never carried anything in my hand in my whole life, but a friend has sent a beautiful staff, which is waiting. Either Veena gets okay by tomorrow morning, or I will have to use for the first time a very gross and primitive method.

I hit you as sophisticatedly as possible, as playfully as possible. But if you are here not to be transformed, but are just hanging around unconsciously, not even aware why you are here, not being aware of the pilgrimage, then your being here or not being here is almost the same. One thing you should remember: by your being upset you cannot change me.

You can simply force me to use primitive methods that Zen masters used. Please don't force me! And the only way is that whenever I say to you... even if it hurts, my purpose is not to hurt you. When I hurt you it is almost a necessity.

Vimal has shown immense understanding. He is not complaining that I have touched his wound. That should be the attitude of everyone who has come to be part of this caravan, who has accepted a totally new way which has never existed before, and a totally new style of life, of utter freedom and love.

But you have to be reminded continuously that even love is not just simply a bed of roses.

And the more you love me, the more I am going to be hard with you. The more you understand me, the more I can operate on you. You should remember that all my sannyasins are just on the operating table twenty-four hours a day. If you have a stiff neck, good; it will be operated on!

Vimal, whatever your teacher said to you is almost a universal problem. Teachers hurt their students, not out of love, not to help them, but to feel a certain power.

There is a very beautiful historical incident in the life of one of the great emperors of India. He had captured his own father, imprisoned him, because the father was living too long. And he could not wait anymore; he himself was getting old. By the time his father dies he will not be able to live longer himself to dominate the whole kingdom. The father has to be removed.

Politics knows nothing about love.

The father was imprisoned by his own son in jail. And strangely enough, the next day the father simply sent a message, "There is no problem; I have ruled enough. You need not have taken so much trouble to arrest me. You could have simply said it to me. But now what has happened has happened. I would just like you to send thirty students, small boys, whom I can teach the holy KORAN" -- their religious book.

When the message reached the court of his son, who had now become the emperor of the whole of India... The son, despite being a ruthless, violent, ugly man, still seems to have had tremendous insight into the psychology of man -- and that is almost fifteen hundred years before Sigmund Freud.

He said to the court, "Do you see this letter from my father? For what does he want these thirty children? He cannot live without dominating somebody, and the best way is to dominate small children because they are so helpless."

After fifteen hundred years Sigmund Freud came to the same conclusion -- he had no idea of this incident -- that the people who teach in the schools, who choose the profession of teaching, somehow are people who don't have the courage to go into politics but still want to dominate. That is one thing to remember about teachers. In my vision not everybody should be allowed to be a teacher. It is one of the most fundamental things in life. Only people who have a meditative understanding and no desire to dominate should be allowed to be teachers. Then they will not hurt others, just to feel powerful themselves.

I had graduated from the university, I had topped the whole university. I simply went directly to the education minister and I told him, "I need to be appointed as a professor in a certain university."

He said, "You are strange. You should have applied."

I said, "Applications cannot represent me. I have come myself."

But he said, "You need qualifications."

I said, "I have all the qualifications that you need, and I have much more."

He said, "What is much more?"

I said, "Look into my eyes. I have no desire to dominate the way you have the desire to dominate. I am not a politician. And just because I don't have any desire to dominate, I am qualified to be a teacher."

He said, "Strange argument. No application, no certificates, no moral certificates..."

I placed my certificates before him and I said, "These are the certificates. But if you cannot see me, what will you be able to see in these certificates? And I am saying to you that I simply qualify on a ground which will be absolutely necessary in the future for every teacher."

He looked into my certificates and he said to me, "Speak quietly! There are clerks and typists and other departments by the side."

I said, "I don't care about anybody. You just give me the appointment in the university I want; otherwise I am going to give a press conference and you will be unnecessarily embarrassed, because as far as educational qualifications are concerned they are amply fulfilled. What more do you want than a man who has topped the whole university? What more do you want than a man who has received as many marks as nobody else before?

What do you want from a man who has this certificate from one of his examiners?" It was just a letter written to me saying, "For my whole life I have been waiting just to see something like the way you have answered the questions. In my whole life I have never given the first class award to anybody."

He was well known all over the country, particularly in this part, because I think he belonged to Poona or nearby, Professor Ranade. He was at that time the greatest professor of philosophy in India. In his letter he said, "I wanted to give you one hundred percent marks, but I hesitated because people may think that I am somehow favoring you.

So please forgive me, I am giving you only ninety-nine percent. And the reason I am so impressed by your answers is that they are not from the textbooks. It seems you have never read your textbooks; it seems that you are the only person I have come across" --

and he was an old man, a retired professor -- "who has responded to the questions spontaneously."

I said to the education minister, "What more do you want?"

He became so afraid when I told him about the press conference that he immediately wrote the order. He said, "It will reach."

I said, "I want it to be given to me to take with me when I go myself. What is the need to waste money in postage? You give it to me."

And he became so freaked out! He said, "You don't understand the bureaucratic way. It has to go through the post."

I said, "I don't want to support any bureaucracy. You give me the order, and you can send another copy of the order through your bureaucratic channel."

Just out of fear he gave it to me with trembling hands. I laughed saying, "It is strange.

Are you taking my interview or am I taking your interview?"

And he was right. I reached before the order came through the mail, and when I gave the order to the vice-chancellor of the university he said, "But I have not received anything."

I said, "This is the original. You will receive the true copy."

He said, "This is just absolutely absurd. The original has to come to me."

I said, "It has come."

He became afraid that there may be some trouble later on for him. He immediately told me, "I have to phone to the education minister."

I said, "You can phone."

And he phoned. He said, "This is a strange case, unprecedented. The order, the original order, has been brought by the person himself, and he says the true copy is coming through the bureaucracy -- whenever it comes it will come. What should I do?"

The education minister said, "Exactly what I have done! Simply do what he says; otherwise, from the very first day you will be creating trouble for yourself. So just do whatsoever he says. The true copy is coming by the bureaucracy."

It came after seven days.

Teachers are psychologically attracted towards the profession for the simple desire of dominating, insulting, humiliating -- not out of love, not out of respect, not out of concern for your growth.

So it is good that you got your wound opened up. It has been created in your school, where they were telling you that you were "slow, a bit dim, not very intelligent and definitely needed to try harder." Now you are saying, "And listening to you I had the feeling that maybe all this was true. Is it?"

No. Something of it was true and something of it was not true. I will have to separate the truth from the untruth.

You are not unintelligent, you are not dim; these statements are ugly from any teacher towards any student. These are the statements which make people dim and unintelligent, because repeated often in every class, again and again, they become a kind of hypnosis.

They start believing in them. And once a person starts believing that he is unintelligent, dim, he starts acting also in an unintelligent way, because he has to prove the idea that he has been given.

But as far as your being slow is concerned, they were absolutely right. You are slow, you are lazy. And your laziness is not bone lazy; otherwise I will forgive it. You are just lazy by habit. Bone lazy is someone who cannot help himself; from his very bones he is lazy.

I am bone lazy, so I know perfectly well what bone lazy means. I have never done anything. How I have managed my life I sometimes wonder. People have been doing so much, and still they cannot manage their lives. It is just a miracle; I have simply not done anything.

One of my friends came from the Soviet Union to see me. He shook hands and he told me, "You should never go to the Soviet Union."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "Your hands! Anybody shaking hands with you will immediately say that you don't belong to the proletariat, you are a capitalist, because you have never done anything

-- no sign on your hands that you have even carried a bucket of water." And that's true!

You are in a far better position, Vimal. I cannot help it, so I have not tried at all; I have simply relaxed in my laziness. People have understood that if somebody is bone lazy and you love him, what to do? -- prepare food for him, prepare clothes for him, prepare his bed, prepare his bathroom, do everything.

You are just habitually lazy. You can drop it, you are more fortunate than me. But that does not mean that you have to work harder. You have just to understand that laziness is your habit, and to be enslaved by any habit is against your own growth. I am not interested that you should work more or less -- what does it matter? At least to me it matters nothing whether anybody works or not.

This much is certain: that if for fifty-seven years I could manage without moving from my bed, moving from my chair... that is the only movement I do. I am the only man who enjoys freedom of movement -- no obstacles, no problem.

But it will go against your own growth if you don't drop the habit. And you have such a beautiful soul that it will be a great misfortune not to attain to the ultimate illumination I have been talking about. Your laziness may become a hindrance; it is just against your own growth.

So you can think: if you want to remain the same, I have no objection; if you want to grow, then just see that your laziness is not something natural to you. You have learned it just by your teachers telling you that you are unintelligent, you are dim. You accepted their ideas -- and the natural effect of those ideas is laziness.

You are neither unintelligent nor dim. Drop that laziness which is hanging around like darkness. By dropping it you will find your intelligence becoming sharper, better, your understanding more clear, more deep, your love gaining new flowers and new foliage.

A few sutras for you to contemplate, just lying down in your bed underneath the blanket, in utter laziness.

A small town is one where there is no place to go that you should not.

The only thing which cannot be misquoted is silence.

No matter what goes wrong, there is always somebody who knew it would.

An optimist sees a doughnut -- a pessimist sees a hole.

The best way to succeed in the world is to find a crowd that is going somewhere and get in front of them.

After man came woman, and she has been after him ever since.

Opposites attract -- like sloe gin and fast women.

You don't get it? Neither do I! I will also think over it, because my understanding about gin or any other kind of alcoholic drugs is nil. I thought you may understand it!

There is a crack in everything God has made.

Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.

Whenever truth is injured, defend it. But if the truth goes against you, accept it. It is better to be defeated than to reject the truth.

A start is like a love affair... any fool can start it, but to end it requires considerable skill.

So be alert! Before starting any love affair, be prepared how you will end it. That is called homework.

An Englishman thinks seated, a Frenchman standing, an American pacing, and an Irishman afterwards.

To keep an idea secret is to tell it to only one person at a time.

Old age is when it is harder to find temptation than to resist it.

Old men are not really old men, they are just twice boys.

If everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane.

A fool and his money are soon elected. Drop the old proverb which used to say: A fool and his money are soon parted, that does not happen anymore. A fool and his money are soon elected.

If the facts are against you, argue the law.

If the law is against you, argue the facts.

If the facts and the law are against you, shout like hell.

If worry makes you so nervous that your hand shakes, learn to play the guitar.

The reason there are so few women after dinner speakers is because few can wait that long.

A woman is able to forgive and forget, except she will never forget what she forgave.

That is one of the mysteries of women.

If you have half a mind to watch TV, that's enough.

Vimal, just give it a try. I have nothing against laziness. It is not a sin, it is not a crime; it is only a hindrance to your own spiritual growth. But if you find it impossible and if you find that it is your very nature, then relax in it, it is perfectly good. But first give it a try, because my understanding is that bone lazy people are very rare in the world, they cannot survive.

How have I survived? Later on when you start writing about me, make it a miracle!

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

NOTHING TO HOLD ON TO

NOWHERE TO BELONG TO

NOWHERE TO GO

BELOVED OSHO, WHY IS IT PAINFUL TO FEEL MY ALONENESS?

Dhyan Parijato, "Nothing to hold on to, nowhere to belong to, nowhere to go -- why is it painful to feel my aloneness?"

What am I here for? For the time being hang around me, hold on to me. Go with me wherever I am going. Belong to this caravan which is simply enjoying, not going anywhere.

It is not the Jewish caravan that Moses was leading continuously for forty years. And just now they have discovered the reason was they had lost a quarter. They searched the whole Middle East -- it took forty years, and still they could not get it!

This caravan is not searching for anything.

This caravan is just remaining herenow.

And I am allowing you to hold on to me, belong to me, just as a device because you are feeling so alone. Just the idea that you belong to me, that you can hold on to me, that you go with me, and your painfulness and your feeling of aloneness will disappear. Once it has disappeared you will see that what I have given to you was only teddy bears just for the time being; temporary arrangements to keep you alive to the point where you can live in your aloneness, because aloneness is the most beautiful space there is.

But you are in a deep misunderstanding. You are mixed up because of the language and the dictionaries and the so-called learned people who use the word àloneness'

synonymously with `loneliness'. Aloneness is experienced only at the very height of consciousness, loneliness in the very dark ditches and valleys. Loneliness is a desire to be with someone, and aloneness is the joy of being oneself. They are not synonymous; they are absolutely opposite.

If you are feeling painful, it is loneliness. So just for the time being you need a few teddy bears. All through history those teddy bears have been used. What is your God? --

nothing but a big teddy bear. What are all your theological systems? -- just teddy bears made out of logical, rational argumentation, to help you and to give you the sense that you are not lonely.

But they have all proved dangerous, because if you go on carrying your teddy bear your whole life... It is okay up to a certain age. On railway stations, on airports you will see little boys, little girls carrying their teddy bears, which look absolutely Italian, so greasy, so dirty. But without them they cannot live, they are absolutely lonely. They sleep with them, they wake up with them, they go on carrying them everywhere.

But a moment comes when they have grown up and they see that what they have been carrying is just stupidity. Then the teddy bear remains in the corner of the room for a few days, and then nobody knows where it has gone. The corporation truck has taken it away.

So will go your God: the corporation truck will take it away with all the rubbish.

You don't know anything, Dhyan Parijato, about what aloneness is. Aloneness is that beautiful space where you feel yourself so contented with yourself that you don't need anybody else -- no God, no master, no friend, no lover.

That does not mean that you cannot relate. You can relate with a master, but for the first time the relatedness will be of a totally different quality. You can relate in love, but your relatedness will not become a relationship. You can have friends, but they will not be filling any gap inside you. You are so full, there is no gap. You can enjoy their company -

- and you will enjoy when they are gone even more, because they are a kind of disturbance. Once in a while just for the change of taste you can enjoy people. But mostly you will enjoy yourself.

I am reminded of one of Walt Whitman's most beautiful songs: "I celebrate myself." You should look into that song and meditate upon it. Unless the moment comes when you start celebrating yourself for no reason at all, you have not known what religiousness is, you have not known for what this whole existence exists, you have not known anything of beauty, of truth, of divineness. Your life has been nothing but a long, dark night of the soul.

Your meditation will help you to make the distinction between aloneness and loneliness.

Your meditation will make you absolutely clear about the beauty and the light and the blissfulness of aloneness. Then what is the need to hold on to something? You are enough unto yourself. What is the need to belong to someone or to something? You are complete, entire: the circle has come to its completion. Nothing is missing, and what is the need to go anywhere?

The most funny people in the world are the tourists, who are always going somewhere for no reason at all. Whenever I see tourists, I have such a hard time to keep myself silent.

They are such a temptation to laugh: carrying two cameras, telescopes, thermos flasks, all kinds of junk and strange things; loaded with all that and running from one place to another. And they do all that running; they go on taking pictures!

Back at home, relaxed, they will see the album and will say, "My god, what a beautiful Taj Mahal." And they could have purchased that photograph in their own town without going anywhere else.

All this tourism has given them amoebas, all kinds of diseases. What they think is beautiful, to me has always looked ugly. It has given them a tan, it has destroyed their original color, just burned their skin. But idiots are idiots. You can see them lying down -

- suffering, for a distortion of their faces, of their bodies -- on all the beaches of the world.

If you want to know how many authentic idiots there are, you just go on counting the number of people who are getting a tan on the sea beaches, and you will come almost very close to the right number. Whenever I see somebody with a tan I cannot practice what I preach. I simply cannot like that stupid act that they have done. And they waste so much money on it: there are tan oils and tan creams and tan powders, and all the five-star hotels are full of these people. A strange kind of mania -- tan mania!

There is nowhere to go.

Just meditate silently here and avoid these kinds of madnesses. They go on spreading like wildfire, and just because others are doing it you get caught into it.

Just meditation is enough for you.

Go in, and you will find all the answers for all your questions, and more.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN I FIRST CAME TO YOU, YOU TOLD ME TO MAKE WORK MY

MEDITATION AND TO STOP ALL FORMAL MEDITATIONS. EVER SINCE, I HAVE BEEN GOING FOR IT... AND I LOVE IT!

LATELY I'VE BEEN WONDERING IF MAYBE I SHOULD SLOW DOWN. YOU

HAVE BEEN TALKING SO MUCH ABOUT MEDITATION. CAN WORK STILL BE

OUR MEDITATION? I LOVE WORKING, BUT I GET TEASED A LOT ABOUT

BEING A WORKAHOLIC.

Vedaprem, condensed to your very essentials the question means: I should slow down talking about meditation. You are doing perfectly well -- and you love it.

If people tease you and call you a workaholic, it is a compliment. These people must be lazy people like Vimal! All the people here are meditating, and if you are enjoying the meditation that I have given to you -- that work is your meditation -- and you are enjoying it and you love it, then why bother about others? Perhaps they are feeling jealous of you. Perhaps they want to destroy your joy.

This is a strange world. Here anybody who succeeds in any sphere is going to be teased, dragged down, bullied by the people saying, "You are doing something wrong." And all that they want is that you should be a part of the crowd of failures.

As far as I can see you are doing perfectly well. Perhaps I may have done too much talking about meditation. I will try to slow down.

A traveling salesman was stuck in a small town and went to the only available farmhouse for a place to sleep.

"Can you put me up for the night?" he asked the farmer.

"I guess I can," he answered, "if you don't mind sharing a room with my young son."

"My God," said the salesman, "I'm in the wrong joke."

This is your situation; you are in a wrong crowd. But don't look around at anybody; just concentrate, contemplate, meditate on your work. Everything has to be poured into work.

Yes, be a workaholic.

Be utterly drunk with the joy of creativity.

I have not said it in vain, that work is your meditation. Apparently I am bone lazy, but just apparently; otherwise, who is harassing you all, day in, day out? By the time somehow you have got rested I am again back in the morning to torture you for the whole day. By the time you have slowed down a little -- I am back!

A young swami on his way to M.G. Road fell out of his rickshaw. And as luck would have it, he landed in heaven.

After a few days' rest, he asked for some work. Finally he was given a position in the

"Religious Statistics Department."

Here they had a clock for every religious leader on the earth, and any sins committed by them would be recorded by a slight movement forward.

The pope's clock had moved only two minutes in sixty-seven years. Mother Teresa's only one minute, and so on.

The swami enquired to the angel in charge, "What about Osho's clock?"

"Oh," said the angel, "we use his as a desk fan!"

Just to avoid talking about meditation...

There was a German, a Frenchman and an Englishman staying with their new brides at a famous honeymoon hotel. As they retired to bed they agreed that they would get together the next day and exchange experiences over some drinks.

The next day the German was asked, "How did you get on last night?"

"Ach, vunce to begin wid, then vunce one hour later, und every time the clock struck, vunce again, vich vass eight times in eight hours."

"And what did your wife say?"

"Wunderbar, wunderbar!!"

The Frenchman told them, "I am straight away on the work. Zen I am on the work again when I get back my breath. Zen I sleep and start again, and sleep and start again, and sleep and start again, twenty times. Then I am halted, finis."

"What did your wife say?"

"Magnifique, encore, magnifique!!"

The Englishman had been very quiet. "Come tell us, how many?"

"Once," he said.

"Once! -- what did your wife say at dawn?"

"Get off, we need some sleep."

I am in a difficulty -- how to avoid meditation? Only today I will avoid, not tomorrow, because I don't want difficult tasks.

Just for your sake...

Devageet falls in love with an eighteen-year-old girl and they go off to Goa for a honeymoon. When they get back, a friend says to him, "Do tell me, how was it?"

"It was beautiful," says Devageet. "The sun, the sea... we made love almost every night."

"Wait a minute," says his friend. "A man of your age -- how did you manage that?"

"Well," says Devageet. "We almost made love on Monday, almost on Tuesday..."

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #18

Chapter title: The alphabet of rejoicing

15 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709150

ShortTitle:

PILGR18

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

121

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN MY EYES NOW, AFTER YOU HIT MY HEAD SO HARD?

OH BELOVED MASTER, THE BLESSING OF YOUR SWORD HAS LEFT ONLY

ONE WOUND, THAT EVEN THE SILENCE BLOSSOMED OUT OF THIS

MEDITATION HASN'T HEALED: HAVE I really BEEN DISRESPECTFUL IN MY

UNAWARENESS? FOR I WILL RATHER CUT MY TONGUE BEFORE SAYING

ANYTHING AGAINST YOU, AND I WILL KILL MYSELF WITH JOY RATHER

THAN BE UNLOVING TO YOU.

Sarjano, I know your heart. I know your love. I know your deep gratitude and respect --

but it is human, once in a while to slip from the path. And it happens from a necessary psychological principle: you start taking me for granted. This is one of the ancientmost diseases of the mind. Once you start taking me for granted, then you are bound to behave unconsciously.

Never take me for granted.

I am simply alive just for you.

My work is finished and my boat has been waiting for long to take me to the other shore, but your love and the fear that without me, you may be lost... and you are coming so close, that if I can manage to wait a little longer on this shore, I can give all of my people what I have received from existence. But the moment you take me for granted, immediately you forget, become unconscious, create distance.

I don't want to hit anybody, but except hitting you I cannot wake you up when you have fallen asleep. Consciously, whatever you say is absolutely right, that you would rather cut your tongue than say a word against me, that you would rather die than offend me. These are not just poetic assertions. I understand you perfectly, but you still have the unconscious mind and that unconscious mind manages to sabotage whatever you are gaining in your consciousness.

In mythological terms, it is a conflict between good and evil. In a more contemporary psychological way, it is the conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious is afraid -- and its fear is real. If your whole being becomes conscious, it will be the death of the unconsciousness in you, and the death of mortality in you, and the opening of eternal life.

Your unconscious mind does not want to commit suicide. It will give you every resistance; hence once in a while it will catch you unawares, and something will come out of you that you had never meant. But if I let it go without hitting you, then your unconscious will be gaining more and more power over your conscious. Hitting you is simply a loving way to put the unconscious back and to help your consciousness to be stronger, more powerful, more capable to understand what comes from your unconscious and what comes from your conscious.

The unconscious is not your friend.

The unconscious is all the past centuries, it is carrying the whole evolution of man. It is barbarous, it is animal. Only a small part of your being has become conscious, but that small being can manage to dispel the whole unconsciousness if you don't become a victim of it again and again.

Now Veena is sitting in her perfect beauty, relaxed, but she does not know: the whole night I have had to sharpen my sword for her! The closer you come to me, the more you love me, the more you should remember that at any time I can hit you.

I have told you the most beautiful story in Zen, about a master thief. He was no ordinary thief, because in his whole life nobody had been able to catch him red-handed. Even the emperor was amazed at his craftsmanship, his art in stealing. The man was so perfect...

but he was getting old. The situation had come to the point in Tokyo that whosoever's house was visited by the master thief, bragged about it. It was a great honor, because it was not that he would go just to anybody, but only to the super-rich. It was a certificate that the master thief had stolen things from some family, that they bragged about it.

But as he was getting old, his son said, "I don't know anything of your art, your fame --

and you have the strangest fame. Before you leave the world, please let me understand the secret of your greatness. Your stealing is not just for money; your stealing is simply to keep your mastery sharpened so you don't forget the art."

It is almost like a musician. Once Yehudi Menuhin was asked, "If you don't practice one day, what happens?"

He said, "Only I understand that the thing is not as perfect as it would have been; nobody else will find any difference. If I don't practice for two days, then the critics will become aware that something is missing. If I don't practice for three days then everybody will be able to hear that something is wrong, the master is not at his height."

Every musician practices for hours, sometimes eight hours per day. Even the most famous musician practices for hours, because the art is so subtle and so delicate that it can slip out of your hands if you miss just a few days' practice.

So the boy said, "Before you leave the world, help me to know the secret so that I can practice in front of you, and you can correct where I am going wrong."

The father said, "Tonight you come with me."

They went to a very rich house, and the young man was trembling with fear and the old man was going as if he were going for a morning walk -- so at ease, with such tremendous confidence. The old man made a hole in a wall to enter into the house... the young man was perspiring, and it was a cold night. But the old man was doing his job so silently that although he was making a hole in the wall, there was no noise. When the hole was ready, the old man slipped in, and signaled the boy to come in.

His heart was throbbing, naturally, but he was wondering... his old father is going as if it is their own house! He had the master key that can open all the doors.

He opened door upon door, and the boy became more and more afraid, he started cursing himself: Why have I asked him to teach me? This is not for me. If I can manage to survive tonight, finished -- I don't want to learn this art. It is beyond my capacity.

The man was doing things, so at home, and he took the boy into the innermost part of the house, opened a big cupboard and there were very costly things inside, valuable diamonds, very costly, and rare clothes. Everything was dazzling. The boy could not believe his eyes, that people have so much money.

The old man said, "Get in!" He got in and the old man went out and -- it was such a great surprise -- closed the door, locked it with the boy inside, and shouted "Thief! Thief!" and ran out!

The boy said, "Is this my father, or my murderer? And what kind of teaching is this? I was wondering if I could survive -- now there is no possibility." The whole house was awake. The servants were awake. People were searching every nook and corner, and a maidservant came into the room where he was inside the cupboard. He knew nothing of what to do, but spontaneously he started scratching on the cupboard... as if there are rats inside.

This was not a calculated act, it was absolutely spontaneous. Even he could not believe what he was doing. And the maidservant, just to look for the rats, because there were valuable clothes, opened the door. She had a candle in her hand, and the boy blew out the candle, and rushed out. But he was seen, so the whole family and the whole neighborhood followed him. He had never run so fast in his whole life -- he could have become an Olympic champion the way he was going! -- just like the wind.

It was a question of life and death, and he was praying to God, "This is the first and last time, just save me!"

Then suddenly he came across a well. He took up a big rock and threw it in the well -- the whole crowd that was following him stopped. They thought he had jumped in the well: they had heard the sound, so they stopped there, and they said, "Now there is no worry.

Either he will be dead, or in the morning we will pull him out and shoot him."

And the young man reached his house, and again a great surprise: the old man is fast asleep, snoring! He could not believe that this man was his father! He shook him, and the father said, "Don't disturb me. You have come back, that's enough. I know the conclusion; the rest of the story you can tell me in the morning. There is nothing else to learn, I have given you my whole art.

"I am not acting out of mind. I am acting out of no-mind, in utter silence. It is my meditation. Just go to sleep."

The boy was amazed that he did not even want to know through what difficulties he had passed. He had been almost on the verge of being caught! He could not sleep the whole night: his heart was throbbing, and again and again as he would close his eyes, he would see the nightmare that those people had caught him, and he would wake up again. In the morning the father did not say anything, he was just sitting, with his tea. The boy said,

"But at least ask me what happened!"

He said, "You have come home; everything has gone right. You could not have come back if you had acted out of your mind, so you don't need to learn anything more. All that you need to learn is how to act out of no-mind."

"Still," the boy said, "please listen to my story."

He said, "Okay, if you want you can tell it. But I am not interested. All my interest was in whether you came back or not."

He told his whole story, and the old man asked, "Scratching like the rats were destroying the clothes -- was it your thought?"

He said, "I had never thought about scratching the cupboard like rats destroying the clothes... I don't know how it came to me."

His father said, "That's the way -- you don't come in. Let your no-mind take possession of the whole situation. How did you figure out that to throw the rock in the well would stop them?"

He said, "I don't know... just the rock was there, the well was there, and the people were just on my heels. Suddenly a flash... and I took the rock and threw it in the well. It was not my act."

The old man said, "This is what the ancient masters have said -- action without action. I am not a thief, I have just chosen stealing as a way of enlightenment."

You cannot believe it; anything can become a way to enlightenment, even stealing. But it has to be not your action, it has to come from your no-mind.

So now there are three things, Sarjano: the conscious mind, which you know and out of which whatever you have written to me has come. Behind and below is the unconscious mind, from where all kinds of sabotage will come, disruptions, to destroy the whole possibility of consciousness.

Without your knowing, you have been disrespectful. I know that with your knowing, you will be the last person to be disrespectful, and it does not matter to me whether you are disrespectful to me or not. The point is, I don't want your unconscious mind to sabotage the beauty that has arisen in your consciousness.

Below is unconscious, above is no-mind, or super-conscious. I will hit you if I see that the unconscious is pulling you down, and I will hit you if I see that you are not moving fast enough from the conscious to the super-conscious. Those are the two times when I will hit you.

It does not matter... I have not hit you because you were disrespectful. Remember it --

because I have been condemned my whole life: from my very childhood I don't know a day when I was not condemned for doing things not in the way people wanted. I have become so accustomed and at ease with condemnation, disrespect, notoriousness --

everything -- so that is not the question. Just Sarjano's disrespect will not add anything; it will be just a dewdrop in an ocean, so that is not the problem. The problem is that it will disrupt your consciousness, your love, your peace that is growing, your meditativeness that is growing, and I cannot see that happening.

And this is to be understood by all, because today it is Sarjano's case; tomorrow it can be your case. These hits are out of sheer love. If I don't care about you, why should I bother?

The whole night I could not sleep... because I have not used the sword for many years, but just to prepare it for Veena -- and she is sitting just here, laughing. If she had laughed before, I could have slept at ease.

I don't want to cut your heads, but if you insist I will have to do it -- reluctantly, but there is no other way. If you only understand the language of the sword, then I will have to speak that language. I am not using it; I am using only words.

So be careful. Whenever you start getting angry at me, remember: it is your unconscious that is disrupting your love, it has nothing to do with me. When you start thinking something against me, remember it is your unconscious that is feeding the idea to you.

Otherwise, whatever you said is so beautiful, Sarjano, I would like to read it again so that everybody understands clearly. It is not only a question, it is a statement from the very deepest core of his heart.

"BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN MY EYES NOW, AFTER YOU HIT MY HEAD SO

HARD?"

I see your eyes. I see you -- the same as you were before the hit, after the hit. But if you were not hit you would not have been so full of love, with tears of joy in your eyes.

"WHAT DO YOU SEE IN MY EYES NOW, AFTER YOU HIT MY HEAD SO

HARD? OH BELOVED MASTER, THE BLESSING OF YOUR SWORD HAS LEFT

ONLY ONE WOUND, THAT EVEN THE SILENCE BLOSSOMED OUT OF THIS

MEDITATION HAS NOT HEALED: HAVE I REALLY BEEN DISRESPECTFUL...?"

No, you have not been disrespectful. But you don't know: there are so many dark sides of you which you don't identify with -- they were disrespectful.

"... IN MY UNAWARENESS? FOR I WILL RATHER CUT MY TONGUE BEFORE

SAYING ANYTHING AGAINST YOU."

No, that won't help. You can cut my tongue, your tongue; we both can sit in silence because we cannot speak -- but I will go on doing what I am doing without the tongue, and you will go on once in a while being disrespectful, without the tongue. The tongue is not needed, just your face can show it, your eyes can show it. Just the smallest gesture can show it.

Don't think in terms of cutting your tongue. Think in terms of from where within you any ugly thing crept into your conscious... and destroy that unconscious. The tongue has nothing to do with it; it is only a means, which the conscious mind can use, the unconscious mind can use, the super-conscious mind can use. I am using it; it is a perfect mechanism to convey things which cannot be conveyed. And finally, you say, "And I will kill myself with joy, rather than be unloving to You."

That is easier, to die for someone.

The real difficulty is to live for someone.

Many have died in the name of love, because death is a single-blow thing; but living for someone because of your love is a long time process. I don't want you to make this commune a Jim Jonestown -- that is the Christian stupidity. I want this place to be the place of life and love and rejoicing.

If you love me, rejoice. If you love me, sing. If you love me, dance. I don't ask you for death. Death will not prove anything, it will simply prove your incapacity to live for my love. But that has been taught for as long as we can go backwards, that dying for love is a great martyrdom. It is sheer stupidity.

I am not here to teach you all these stupid things that have happened in the past. People have died for Christ, people have died for Mohammed, people have died for Buddha. But that does not show their love, it simply shows their unconsciousness. The unconsciousness was destroying their love, now it has destroyed even themselves.

Here you have to learn a totally new alphabet, the alphabet of rejoicing. If you love me, rejoice. In spite of everything, rejoice. The more blissful you are, the more you are laughing, the more you are dancing, the more I know you have given me, offered me your flowers of love.

This is a temple of love and laughter.

Never forget it for a single moment.

As the boat was sinking, the skipper called out, "Does anyone know how to pray?"

"I do," replied pope the polack, who was on board the ship.

"Okay, go ahead and pray," said the captain. "The rest of us will put on life jackets; we're one short."

An old English gentleman was on trial before the high court of Australia, for the crime of making sexual advances to an ostrich.

"Before passing sentence," announced the judge, "do you have anything to say?"

"Your honor," said the Englishman, "if I had known you were going to make such a fuss about it, I would not have married the bloody bird!"

Here we are not masochists or sadists. This is not a sick psychological place -- as all the churches are -- belonging to any religion. This is a pagan, natural, simple, playful place.

If you can laugh heartily, this is your prayer. If you can dance with abandon, if you can sway with the music, that is the only yoga I teach.

I don't believe in distorting your bodies.

I believe in transforming your souls.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WOULD YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR STATEMENT FROM THE OTHER

MORNING OF HOW MUSIC CAN BE NEXT TO SILENCE?

Milarepa, I don't know what I said the other morning -- I don't carry unnecessarily luggage from the past. But I will explain it to you this morning, in spite of the fact that I don't know whether I made the statement or not.

Music is certainly next to silence.

There is a certain thing to be understood: Music does not consist, in the first place, of words, language. It consists of pure sounds, and it consists of pure sounds only to those who don't know anything beyond sound. Those who know silence -- for them, the whole gestalt changes.

You see my five fingers, but somebody can see the five gaps between my fingers.

Ordinarily you will not see the gaps, you will see five fingers. But the gaps are more real: fingers may come and go, gaps will remain.

Between sounds of music there are gaps of silence. The authentic music consists not of sounds, but of the gaps. Sounds come and go; those gaps remain. And music can make you aware of those gaps more beautifully than anything else; hence I have to say that music comes next to silence. But it is possible even the musician may not be aware of it, unless his music is his meditation too. Then, soon, the shift from sounds to silence.

The ancient Chinese story is that whenever a musician becomes perfect, he throws away his instruments; whenever a swordsman becomes perfect, he throws away his sword.

It is a very strange saying and goes back almost five thousand years, because it has been quoted by Lao Tzu as an ancient saying. What does it mean? Chuang Tzu was asked,

"This seems to be a very strange kind of proverb. When the musician becomes perfect we should have thought that he would have purchased perfect musical instruments, and the saying says he throws away his instruments."

Chuang Tzu told a very beautiful story to explain it. There are things which cannot be explained without beautiful stories, because stories give you enough space and freedom, enough gaps for you to fill with your own being. Prose is too tight and too mundane, so either poetry has to be used or a story has to be used. These stories are such that even a small child may be able to understand, or even an old man may not be able to understand; the question is whether he gets the undercurrent of the story.

The story is: A man reached to the emperor of China and said, "I am the greatest master of the art of arrows, targets, archery, and I have come to ask you to declare in the whole empire that if anybody wants to compete with me, he should come forward; otherwise give time, and if nobody comes, then declare me the champion archer of your empire."

The king knew that man. He never missed a target. As far as human understanding is concerned, he was perfect. What more can you expect? One hundred percent success --

success cannot be more than that. The king said, "I know about you. And I know that there is nobody who can compete with you."

When he was saying this, the servant of the king, who had raised him from his childhood... he was not just a servant but almost a father to him. The emperor's father had died, and he had given the responsibility to his servant to take care of the child till he is of age, and see that no trouble arises and that he succeeds to the throne. So the emperor respected the servant as much as perhaps he would have respected his own father. The servant had done immense service to him; he had taken care of the whole empire till he was of age.

The servant said, "Before you say anything to this man, I would like to interrupt. First listen to me. I know a man far in the hills who is really the champion. Compared to him, this man is just a child. He is a giant!"

The king said, "How do you know he is a giant?"

And the servant said, "He is so perfect in archery that he has thrown away his arrows, his bow -- and you know the ancient proverb.... Send this man to that old man in the hills."

The archer could not believe it. What kind of perfection is this, when you throw away your arrows and your bow? But the emperor said, "You will have to go. I cannot deny anything to the man you have seen. Although he is my servant, deep down in my heart he is as great as my father. So you will have to go to that man, and if he recommends it, you will be declared the champion."

The man had to go, although feeling a little weird and awkward: What kind of a stupid thing...? The hills were great and very steep and it was a long journey, but he managed.

Slowly, slowly he also became interested -- what kind of perfection...? He reached finally to a small cave. He met an old man and asked him, "Are you the famous archer?"

He said, "Archery? I remember, I have heard the word. It must be fifty years ago."

The archer said, "How old are you?"

The old man said, "I am not capable of saying, because here there is no calendar, one does not know how time passes, but maybe one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and thirty."

The man said, "I am the greatest archer in the empire and by a stupid servant's advice the emperor has sent me to you. Unless you give me a certificate, I cannot be accepted as the champion."

The old man said, "Champion? -- so you have been learning archery to be a champion?

Then you don't love archery -- it is motivated, it is goal-oriented. You can never be perfect because you are not directly related to archery. Archery is only a means; the end is championhood. But don't be worried. You will have to pass just a little test, and I will give you the certificate -- although as long as I am alive, remember that you are just a so-called champion. But because I am not a competitor, you can enjoy being the champion.

Just come out with me."

The old man was so old... his back was bent, he had become hunch-backed. He took the young man, who was in the prime of his youth, to a cliff. The rock of the cliff, a small rock, hung high over a valley, thousands of feet below. And the old man went on that small rock -- just a little missed step and nobody would be able to find you, not even your pieces could be gathered. He went to the very end of the cliff and stood with his feet on the edge of the cliff, just on his toes. He was standing there unwavering, as if he was standing on solid ground, and he said to the young man, "Come."

The young man took the first step and started trembling. "My god, what kind of test is this? and what has it to do with archery?" But he has to do it because the championship is in his hands. After the first step he fell down on the cliff, holding the cliff and saying,

"Please forgive me, I cannot come that far. And I cannot stand with half my feet over the edge and just my toes on the rock. And I can see -- I have never seen such a deep valley.

It must be the very hell! Forgive me...."

The old man said, "Then what kind of archer are you? The real archery is not to hit the target; the real archery is that you should be unwavering. Your unwavering is the real qualification of being an archer. Then your target cannot be missed."

The old man came back, helped the young man to stand up -- he was perspiring, trembling, almost half dead -- and the old man said, "Why are you carrying this bow and these arrows? A perfect archer throws them away."

The young man said, "Again the same thing! I don't understand why a perfect archer should throw them away."

The old man said, "Look!" And he pointed towards the sky, where seven cranes were flying. The old man simply looked at those seven cranes, and they all fell on the ground.

He said, "If you are absolutely stable, absolutely unmovable, you become such a magnet that your eyes are enough; no arrows are needed. How many cranes could you have brought to the earth?"

The young man said, "Of course by one arrow, one. And by that time the others would have gone far away."

The old man said, "You are just a learner. You have not even found a master who can initiate you. So my suggestion is, go back, and unless and until you have forgotten what archery is... I will send my son to check you and if he can certify you, you can go to the emperor."

He said, "Strange, I have got into such a mess! With great effort I have learnt archery --

but certainly I am not that kind of archer whose eyes become arrows, whose absolute immobility becomes a magnet." But he touched the feet of the old man. He was certainly unique. He knew he was no comparison to him.

He went back. The man had said, "Try to remain unmoving..." That's a way of meditation: no movement of thoughts... utter stillness.

After twelve years the old man's son came. He said, "My father is dead, but he has left this message with me. I waited for twelve years before I came, because to be perfect in anything is not easy." And then he suddenly said, "What is that thing that is hanging on your wall?" It was his bow.

He said, "I somehow remember, it was something known to me. But these twelve years, just meditating, just remaining unmoving... You have to forgive me, I have forgotten what it is."

The young man said, "That's enough! This is the certificate the old man has left for you.

Now you can go to the emperor and be the champion."

But he said, "Now who wants to be the champion?" He tore up the certificate and threw it away.

Chuang Tzu has told many beautiful stories unparalleled in the whole world, stories not without great spiritual significance.

When a musician, Milarepa, starts shifting his attention from sounds to silence, his music becomes almost perfect; when he starts listening only to the silence and forgets all about sounds, his music is perfect. And to show the perfection he throws away his instruments; they are a kind of disturbance... the most beautiful disturbance in silence -- but a disturbance is a disturbance.

Music comes next to silence, but the difference is very big. And it is not that all music necessarily comes close to it. In the name of music, contemporary idiots are doing something which goes even farther away from silence -- from Beatles to jazz to Talking Heads. It is not music; it is simply making noise! It is simply disturbing the silence.

In the East, music has been always accepted as a spiritual phenomenon. If your music cannot create silence in the people who are listening, it is not music. If your music does not become an unmoving no-mind in the people of your audience, it is not music. It is just making noise.

It happened in Lucknow, in the time of one of the very colorful kings of Lucknow, Nawab Vazid Ali Shah. He was really a very incomparable man. When the British armies were entering to capture Lucknow, he was listening to music. Somebody told him that the enemies had entered Lucknow, and he said, "Welcome them. They are guests, we are the host. Make places for them. We have so many places... make arrangements for them."

The servant said, "But they have come to conquer."

He said, "There is no problem. They can conquer, but first let them rest. What is the hurry? Conquering is not going to be a difficult problem because we are not going to fight. We are human beings, and it does not matter... if they enjoy ruling, they can rule."

And he told the musicians, "Go on!"

This was the kind of man who was interested in a musician in Varanasi. He was thought to be the greatest musician of those days, but his conditions were so strange that nobody would even invite him to play his music. Vajid Ali Shah invited him.

People tried to prevent him. Friends, courtiers, wives, everybody said, "What are you doing? That man is mad. He is a great musician, but he is certainly mad."

He said, "It does not matter. If music cannot cure madness, then he is not a musician; and if music cannot create a divine madness, then too he is not a musician. Let him come."

The musician came and said, "My condition is that while I am playing nobody should move. If anybody moves his head, or anything, his head has to be cut immediately. All around the listeners swordsmen with naked swords should be standing watching, and if anybody moves -- finish!"

Lucknow was one of the most juicy places in India in those days. It has still some remnants of that juice.... Knowing the conditions -- because the conditions were also declared to the whole town -- ten thousand people came to listen. Even the musician could not believe that ten thousand people are ready to risk their life to listen to the music. When the music ended in the middle of the night the officers had noted down almost two dozen people who had moved their head in appreciation, despite knowing the condition. Vajid Ali Shah said, "What do you say, should we behead them?"

He said, "No! Everybody now should be allowed to go, and I will sing for those twenty-four -- they are the real lovers. They moved their heads, they could not help it. They started swaying with the music, they became one with it. All the others were cowards, sitting like statues."

Those twenty-four people were retained, and everybody was allowed to go. People were afraid -- perhaps they would be murdered. But in the morning they found them coming back home. They said, "What happened?"

Those people said, "That musician knows how to find the right audience. The real music began when you had all left. He is certainly the greatest musician. We are feeling so pure and so fresh and so clean as we have never felt in our life. He has managed to initiate us into meditation."

Milarepa, music is certainly next to meditation. But not the modern music, which is ugly, which is sexual, which draws you lower rather than taking you upwards. It does not give you more consciousness, higher skies to fly in; it brings you down, back to deeper gutters.

The real musicians will not accept this nonsense that goes on in the name of music. But young people who know nothing about music, who know nothing about meditation, who know nothing about silence, become fans, and they are mad about these idiots who think they are playing music. In any other wiser generation they would have been kept in psychiatric hospitals to be cured. They have gone berserk!

A violinist was convinced he could use his art in music to tame wild animals. So, violin in hand, he traveled to the heart of the African jungle to prove it. He had no sooner begun to play than the jungle clearing was filled with animals of all kinds. Birds, lions, hippos, elephants all stood round, entranced by his beautiful music.

Just then a crocodile crawled out of the nearby river and into the clearing and -- snap! --

gobbled up the violinist. The other animals were extremely angry. "You idiot! What on earth did you do that for?" they demanded. "We were enjoying that."

The crocodile put his hand on his ear and said, "What?"

Music can be understood only by those who have a musical ear. And those who have a musical ear should think themselves fortunate because beyond music, just one step more, they enter the world of meditation, silence.

Silence is the ultimate music.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN I SEE YOU HERE WITH US, MY HEART MELTS, AND YOUR SILENCE

BECKONS ME FROM OUT ACROSS THE SEA. WHEN YOU SPEAK, MY

THIRSTY BEING DRINKS DEEPLY OF YOUR COOL DRAUGHT, THEN RESTS

ITS DRUNKEN HEAD AT YOUR FEET. WHEN I REMEMBER YOU, I FLY LIKE A BIRD IN THE OPEN SKY.

BUT WHEN YOU DANCE WITH US BELOVED MASTER, IT FEELS AS IF ALL

THINGS ARE SET RIGHT WITH THE UNIVERSE, AND THE INCREDIBLE SENSE

OF HARMONY VIBRATES SKYWARD FROM THIS TEMPLE OF LIFE. EVEN MY

GUITAR CLOSES ITS EYES AND SHEDS A TEAR OF CONTENTMENT.

Milarepa, this is the moment I have been living for: to share with you the miracle that has happened to me. I try in every possible way to make a way towards your heart. Slowly, slowly people are getting the clarity and the insight and the heartfulness.

Temples are not made of bricks and stones.

Temples are made of dancing hearts -- I mean real temples.

I know this is not only your situation. There are many who will share your question as their own. But living in this insane world... You can understand my difficulty.

I wanted it to happen all over the world, but those insane people are against themselves; they are completely closed. They are open to any kind of stupidity, but they are not open to sanity. They are ready to do everything for destruction, but they are not ready to make this small life a life of pure joy and dance -- and that was my whole effort.

But the people for whom I wanted it to happen and for whom I worked my whole life are the people who would like to kill me. Now twenty-one countries are closed for me. It has never happened before. It is unprecedented that without any reason...

I have never been in those countries, I have not even applied for a visa to enter in those countries. But they have taken precautions. Their parliaments have passed laws that not only can I not enter in their countries, even my jet-plane cannot land on their airports, just for fueling, because my presence can create immorality, anti-traditional revolution, unorthodox ideas.

In short, every country's parliament has said that I can corrupt the young people of their country; hence, as a precaution, the law was passed -- unanimously. Have I corrupted you? Have I destroyed your consciousness? Have I destroyed your love? Have I destroyed your gratitude towards existence?

But it seems idiots have always been in power. And those idiots are almost the same as the "deaf crocodile": they can't understand music, they can't understand love, they can't understand beauty, they can't understand art, they can't understand meditation -- but they pretend that they are the most intelligent people in the world because they have the power.

Power does not make you intelligent. In fact, it is absolutely wrong that I can corrupt people. It is a well known fact that power corrupts people -- and I don't have any power.

They have all the power. The people in all these parliaments are already corrupted, and they are going beyond the limits of any conceivable intelligence.

How can I corrupt just in fifteen minutes re-fueling my airplane on their so-called international airports? These are not international airports...! And if I can corrupt their country sitting in my airplane, I can corrupt from here perfectly well! And I will do everything I can to corrupt, because my corruption is against all that is ugly, all that is brutal, all that is violent, all that is oriented towards war.

I will corrupt these people, and their minds.

I would like them to be more loving, to be more friendly, to be more open, to be more available, to be more sharing of their joy and song and dance.

It is a strange world. German sannyasins had applied just for a three-week visa for me.

Germany has the greatest number of sannyasins in the world, the most flourishing discos, restaurants, meditation centers -- and the government is simply being cowardly, impotent.

And these are the descendants of Adolf Hitler! Even in his grave he will be feeling ashamed of these idiots.

The same day that I was refused and the parliament passed an order that I cannot enter, they allowed a terrorist conference, an international conference in Berlin. These people are murderers. These people are doing all kinds of harassment -- destroying property, hijacking airplanes, throwing bombs on innocent people. But their international conference is not a problem at all, because they fit with the politicians.

I am a trouble -- a single individual, with no weapons -- because I don't fit with their insane ideologies. And they are aware that if people try to understand me, they are going to leave their fold.

But it is your responsibility now. You are here from all over the world. When you go back... they cannot prevent you in your own country. You have to spread the silence, the music, the beautitude of meditation, with all your heart in it, because now that seems to be the only way for me.

Governments are ordering newspapers, news media, that even my name should not be mentioned. And I can see... Just the last days the international exhibition of books in Moscow ended. We received information from Lani that our meditation has been the greatest success; no stall was so overcrowded. We could not manage: we had the biggest stall, but an average of one hundred people were continuously there the whole day, thousands came and went -- and other stalls were empty. But the newspapers have reported about all the stalls except ours: my name should not be mentioned.

The government officials have come to visit all the stalls except our stall, but the opinion of the people was totally different. An old man used to come every day in the morning; because he had no money, he would sit there and read as much as he could manage until closing time. And he said to Lani -- obviously asking her not to mention his name -- that Russia needs Rajneesh, not vodka!

Because people don't have private money they started stealing books, and I informed Lani to encourage them to steal! Three KGB agents were continuously present on the stall, watching carefully the people who are coming, and by the second day, even the KGB agents had become immensely polite and interested. They said, "This is a strange place. You people are allowing anybody to take anything."

I had told them, "Ignore it if you see somebody stealing because it hurts the person's dignity. Just don't see -- let him take! Let the books reach to the people. Just tell them to read it and pass it on; that is the price!

They confiscated all our tapes and videos, because first they must see what is in them.

After two days they released them and thousands of people had tears in their eyes: "We have been living for seventy years in absolute darkness; we don't know what is happening outside."

When Lani comes she is going to bring many beautiful stories. Even the president of the exhibition took her aside and asked her, looking at my beard and my pictures, "Is this man something like Leo Tolstoy in India? We have never heard about him."

The whole country has been kept under such concentration camp conditions that they don't know what has happened in the world since 1917, and now it is 1987... seventy years. Russia has lived in darkness -- utter darkness. Whatever the government wants them to know, they know.

It is now your responsibility, because they will not allow me anyway. And what they call their tradition, their religion, their ideology, is so hilarious....

Just a few months before I had been thrown out, deported from Greece, without being given any reason. They just told the Greek sannyasins, "The archbishop of the Greek orthodox church does not want him in the country, because he can destroy young people's minds. We cannot help. He has to leave, although his visa is still valid for fifteen days, and we don't have any legal right to cancel it unless he has committed some murder or some heinous crime. He has not even come out of the room...."

And just a few days before, one archbishop of the same orthodox church of Greece had been caught on the airport of Paris, hiding heroin in his religious paraphernalia -- a large amount of heroin. This is their religion...!

The pope runs a bank in the Vatican. The Vatican is an independent sovereign state --

although it is only eight square miles -- and the Italian government has issued a warrant against the manager of the bank, because the bank is doing only one thing: it is turning all Italian mafia money into white money. That is its only source of income. Otherwise from where...?

The pope goes on getting the money and wasting it. Now he is going for a tour to America; estimated expenses will be twenty million dollars. When he went to Australia his expenses were more than Queen Elizabeth, who had visited just before him. All this money is heroin money.

Now rather than allowing the Italian government to arrest the man... they cannot enter into another country; they have to wait for whenever the manager comes out. The manager was only a bishop, but the pope has raised him into an archbishop, because he has been doing such good work!

These people have to be fought by you.

You have to take my heart with you.

You are not to be a missionary.

You have to be a message.

We don't convert anybody. We simply want everybody to be himself, and we want to destroy all life-negative attitudes imposed on man, so all chains fall down -- and the dance will come on its own.

I preach life, I preach love. I preach music, I preach silence. To me these are the constituents of an authentic religiousness. All else is simply bullshit, holy bullshit!

Just to listen to your laughter...!

A magician performed brilliantly in the saloon of an ocean liner. On this ship there was a parrot who hated the magician. Every time the magician did a trick, the parrot would scream: "Phony, phony, take him away!"

One day the ship sank and both the parrot and the magician ended up on a life raft together. The first day passed; they said nothing. Two days passed; still they said nothing.

Finally the parrot could bear it no longer. He glared suspiciously at the magician and squawked: "Okay, wise guy, you and your tricks... what did you do with the ship?"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #19

Chapter title: Cowards cannot enter here

15 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709155

ShortTitle:

PILGR19

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

94

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IT IS NOW BECOMING TOO MUCH. THE GOSSIPS ARE GOING RIGHT AND

LEFT. EVEN I HAVE STARTED SUSPECTING WHETHER I AM OLD OR JUST A WOMAN. PLEASE SAY SOME WORDS OF COMFORT.

Devageet, it is true; now it is becoming too much. I have just seen you five minutes ago: neither are you old nor are you a woman. But gossips can affect.... If everybody is talking about it, even if it is a lie, it starts looking like a truth. So obviously you need some words of comfort.

First: a gossip is a gossip. It is not even a yawn, because:

... A yawn is at least an honest opinion. And if you start listening to all these gossips, there is a great danger.

... We can easily forget ourselves when no one knows who we are -- and you are included in those who do not know. In fact, whatever you think you are is nothing but a collective gossip called your personality. Because everyone agrees upon it, it becomes a truth.

Adolf Hitler based his whole philosophy on this simple maxim, that a lie repeated often is truth, and a truth not repeated often is forgotten. And the trouble is, the lie is going to be repeated often because it is consoling; it hurts nobody. It is at the cost of others, it costs you nothing. And truth is not even mentioned; it is one of the most unmentionable things in the world for the simple reason that it will disturb too many people.

It is not coincidence that many mystics became silent and remained silent -- because there were only two alternatives: either to say the truth and be crucified, or to tell a lie, which is consoling, comfortable, respectable. Certainly a mystic does not bother about respectability -- who cares to be respected by people who are absolutely unconscious and asleep? What they think is their problem.

But the trouble is, if we are also asleep, then who knows? -- they may be right. Because we don't know what we are, who we are, we are nothing but the public opinion... and then gossip becomes a very significant factor. The only way to get rid of it is to know yourself on your own. Then you are neither old nor young, neither man nor woman. You are simply a pure consciousness which has no age because it is eternal. And it has no genital differences; a woman does not have a different consciousness from a man.

At the height of consciousness all duality disappears.

So the best thing that I can say to you is, Discover yourself; otherwise you have to depend on other people's opinions who don't know themselves.

And you want a few words of comfort....

In Germany there is a proverb: Many a good tune is played on an old violin. So don't be worried; just being old is not a condemnation. Many a good tune is played on an old violin. And there are things which become more precious as they become old. Just like wine or holy scriptures, they become holier as they become older.

You just wait. These gossipers are going to run to the logical conclusion. Soon they will say, "Devageet is ancient." But it may be that not many people are gossiping about you, just the few -- and mind has a tendency to exaggerate, to make everything big.

... Just because you are paranoid, it does not mean that you are not being followed. I am not saying that.

I am not saying that nobody is gossiping, but the number may not be so great. Because everybody is so concerned with himself, nobody has time for anybody else -- except people like me, who have nothing to do in the world.

From my very childhood my father used to remind me again and again, "Stop the way you are behaving, stop the way you are growing, because in the end you will become good for nothing." And he was right: I have become good for nothing.

I don't have a single thing to do in the world. And because I am not going to live in this world forever, why should I care? Sitting in a waiting room in an airport, who cares what people think about you? You should keep your ears alert when your airplane is leaving.

All these idiots will be left behind.

And as far as the question of being a woman is concerned, Socrates has tremendously solacing words for you -- and Socrates is a man of tremendous experience as far as women are concerned. He had the worst woman in the whole history of man. Her name was also as terrible as she was: Xanthippe.

Socrates says, "Once made equal to man, woman becomes immediately superior." Not to let her become superior, there is only one way: to keep her down, inferior. Equality is not possible at all; the moment the woman becomes equal, she is already superior. The reality is that even in her being inferior, she knows perfectly who is superior.

In a small school a teacher asked the little kids, "Do you know of any animal who when he goes out of the house he goes like a lion, and when he comes back into the house he comes like a mouse?"

Little Ernie raised his hand. He was the last person to do something like that. The teacher said, "Good, Ernie. Do you know the animal?"

He said, "I know perfectly. He is my dad. When he goes out, then you see he looks like a lion, and when he comes in, then you see he looks like a mouse."

Every child knows it.

I have come across a tremendous statement:

... Man will be the last thing civilized by a woman.

The woman goes on civilizing from childhood; she tries to civilize the children, then she tries to civilize the husband, and this goes on. But man will be the last thing; he is almost impossible. Civilization does not suit his taste.

In case you are worried about what is going to become of you, you are going to become old and almost a woman. But I am saying, almost a woman.... So never worry about the future, it is certain. You are going to become old, and you are going to become almost like a woman: suspicious, jealous, irritable, annoyed for no reason at all.

Even the most beautiful woman turns out to be terrible -- terrific! It is a miracle of nature.

Just keep away! From the distance the woman looks divine, and as you come closer and open your eyes, you say, "My god, here is the devil!"

... Women are dressed but very few are clothed.

The case with men is just the opposite: men are clothed, but very rarely dressed. Simple differences, but of great psychological importance.

Devageet, there is nothing to be worried about, because love is as blind in old age as ever, but the neighbors are never blind -- so beware of the neighbors. Old age cannot disturb your blind love.

You have asked for some consoling advice... but

... A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.

... Advice is the only thing everybody gives and nobody takes.

In old age, Devageet, the past always looks better than it was. It is only pleasant because it is not there now; that is the beauty of old age. Youth looks golden; childhood looks almost diamond. Everything that is no longer there becomes a long history of beautiful experiences. When you were a child, you never enjoyed it. Every child wants to grow up as soon and as quickly as possible, because he can see that people who are grown up are powerful, are capable of doing anything they want to do, have all the money. Naturally every child wants to grow up faster. No child enjoys his childhood.

If a child can enjoy his childhood, he will be able to enjoy his youth and he will be able to enjoy his old age, and he will be able finally to enjoy even his death. Everything begins from the beginning.

But I have never come across a child who enjoys it. He is waiting for youth to come, when he will enjoy. And youth is a time of great turmoil: up and down... it is troublesome, no rest. Either chasing or being chased; either fighting or just preparing for fight... you cannot even sit silently.

Mulla Nasruddin was asking me, just as Devageet is asking, "What to do? The moment I utter any single word, my wife just grabs me and the fight starts."

So I said, "Why don't you sit silently? Why do you start even a single word?"

He said, "I have tried that. She grabbed that too, she immediately said, `Why are you sitting silently? What is the meaning of it? Are you trying to ignore me? I am here and you are sitting silent.'"

I said, "Then it is very difficult. You can only do two things: either you can be silent or you can speak. Then do one thing: agree with your wife -- just to avoid confrontation, whatever she says, agree."

He said, "Osho, you are unmarried, you don't know. The moment you agree with a woman she changes the subject. And if you go on agreeing with her, bankruptcy is not far away."

... When a man gets up to speak, people listen, then look. When a woman gets up, people look. Then, if they like what they see, they listen.

It is impossible to create an equality between men and women. The whole women's liberation movement is an utter absurdity. It is a futile exercise which is not going to lead anywhere for the simple reason that they are unique, they are not equal. Nobody is superior; nobody is inferior. They are just two different species accidentally living together: they speak different languages, they belong to different kinds of minds. I have never seen a man and a woman having a nice conversation -- never!

If you want to have a nice conversation with a woman, there are a few requirements.

First, she must not be your wife. Secondly, she must be the wife of your neighbor. And thirdly, the conversation cannot be too long -- just a few minutes is perfectly good. The longer you stay together, the more difficult it becomes to have a nice conversation.

Women know only nice conflicts. In their own way they are warriors. They fight with different kinds of weapons; their strategy is different; their diplomacy is different. And man is always at a loss what to do, because he cannot understand the diplomacy.

Homosexuals all over the world are called gay people -- not without any reason, but because they understand each other, they are both happy, have nice conversations. In fact there is nothing else to do than have nice conversations. They enjoy each other's company

-- same mind, same species, same language.

It happened in the second world war....

For five years Adolf Hitler went on winning for the very strange reason that he never listened to his generals. He had brought astrologers from Tibet, and they decided the whole strategy of his war fronts. The generals were beating their heads, "These idiots don't know anything about military science, and stars are no more interested in who wins or who is defeated."

But they themselves were amazed because Hitler went on winning. In the beginning they were shaky, but soon they understood that perhaps they are wrong, he is right. Perhaps stars have something to do with it, because he is winning, and nothing is a greater proof of being true than winning. And you will be surprised that all the generals of different countries who were fighting against Adolf Hitler were at a loss -- because whatever they expected, Hitler never did that, and what they never expected, he always did that. They were not aware that he was not functioning through military science.

And all those generals knew, from this side to the other side, the same science. They knew what any general is going to do: he is going to attack the weakest point of the enemy. So naturally the enemy will gather all his forces at the weakest point.... But Hitler was not being directed by generals. And he would direct, "Attack where the enemy is the strongest. If you can defeat him there it is finished. Then everything else can be defeated very easily." The argument was correct. He attacked the strongest points, but they had become weakest because of the military science. All the armies had been moved to the weaker points.

Finally, Churchill got the idea what was happening. And then from India astrologers were taken to England and told, "Now it is a question of a war amongst the stars. You decide; it is whatever you say." And the moment Indian astrologers started deciding, ordering the generals, that was the beginning of Adolf Hitler's fall, because Tibetan astrology is only a by-product of Indian astrology. It knows much less than Indian astrology knows.

Now it was a question between Indian astrology and Tibetan astrology, not a question between Germans and English and Americans and French. They were out of the game.

The game was being played by two different kinds of astrologies. But Tibetan astrology is simply a by-product of Indian astrology, just as Tibetan religion is a by-product of Indian religion. Tibet has nothing original to it; everything is borrowed from India. So the Indian astrologers were in a higher position.

Man always finds it difficult to understand women, and even the greatest poets have been writing poetry and saying that the woman is a mystery. It is not a mystery; it is a question of two different species accidentally falling together. They don't understand each other's diplomacy, each other's tactics, each other's way of understanding. The husband thinks he is continuously misunderstood; the wife thinks she is continuously misunderstood.

It is a great chance for you, Devageet: you have been a man for so many years; now be a woman, so that you can know both the territories. Your experience will be far richer. And in fact, many people actually are changing their sex through plastic surgery.

Just today I was informed by Anando that billions of dollars are spent in America on plastic surgery alone. Almost half a million people every year are going through plastic surgery. In the beginning the age group that used to go through plastic surgery was when a woman... and it was confined only to women. When a woman started feeling old, she used to go through plastic surgery to remain a little younger, a few days more attractive.

But the recent development is that the majority of people in America who are going for plastic surgery are men, not women, because now they want to be young a little longer.

Deep down they will become older, but their skin will show the tightness of a young man.

And the most surprising thing in the report was that even a twenty-three year old boy has gone through plastic surgery to look younger.

America is certainly the land of the lunatics. Now if a twenty-three year old boy thinks that he needs to look younger, what about Devageet?

It is so ugly to go against nature.

It is so beautiful to go in tune with nature and whatever gifts it brings, childhood or youth or old age. If your acceptance and your welcoming heart is ready, everything that nature brings has a beauty of its own.

And according to my understanding -- and the whole of the Eastern seers are behind me, in support -- man becomes really beautiful and graceful at the highest point of his age, when all foolishnesses of youth are gone; when all ignorance of childhood has disappeared; when one has transcended the whole world of mundane experiences and has reached to a point where he can be a witness on the hills and the rest of the world is moving down in the dark dismal valleys, blindly groping.

The idea of remaining continuously young is so ugly that the whole world should be made aware of it. By forcing yourself to be young, you simply become more tense. You will never become relaxed.

And if plastic surgery is going to succeed -- and it is going to become a bigger and bigger profession in the world -- then you will find a strange thing happening. Everybody starts looking alike: everybody has the same size of nose, which is decided by computers; everybody has the same kind of face, the same cut. It will not be a beautiful world. It will lose all its variety; it will lose all its beautiful differences.

People will become almost like machines -- all alike, coming from the assembly line like Ford cars one by one. They say every minute one car comes out of the Ford factory, similar to another following it -- in one hour, sixty cars... twenty-four hours it goes on.

Shifts of workers go on changing, but the assembly line goes on producing the same cars.

Do you want humanity also to be streamlined, assembled in a factory exactly like everybody else, that wherever you go you meet Sophia Loren? It will be very boring.

... The way to fight a woman, Devageet, is with your head: grab it and run.

... All would like to live long, but none would like to be old.

Why? -- because of the next stage. Nobody is really afraid of old age, but after old age is death and nothing else. So everybody would like to live as long as possible, but never to become old, because to become old means you have entered into the area of death. Deep down the fear of becoming old is a fear of death. And only those who don't know how to live are afraid of death.

Devageet, don't be afraid of anything. You have been with me... one of the most beautiful persons with a great sense of humor. I have loved Devageet so much that just to be with him I have allowed him to drill all my teeth.

I am rare in many ways -- I have told you. One of our sannyasins from England has just come, because my arm was hurting very much, and he is an expert. And his finding was that something, not exactly in the arm but somewhere else, is causing the trouble. So he asked me about my teeth.

I said, "About my teeth you meet Devageet." And when Devageet told him that I have gone through eight root canals, he freaked out! He said, "I have never seen a man with more than three root canals. Eight root canals? You have drilled all the teeth!"

I had to console him, "It is not his fault; it is my fault. I love his company; it is worth having one tooth drilled. Anyway one is going to lose all the teeth. These root canals are not his responsibility, it is my responsibility."

I like his dental chair and doing nothing in comfort. He has to do everything. And I must be the most difficult patient because I talk continuously while he is drilling. So something that can be done within fifteen minutes takes two hours! He has to stop again and again to listen to me, and then the work starts again.

"He is not at fault, don't be angry with him," I had to tell him. "He is also my sannyasin."

The English sannyasin said, "But this is too much."

I said, "Don't be worried; it is nothing, because there are still a few teeth left."

So whenever I feel in a good mood I will call Devageet. It is not for the pain in the teeth that I call him... when I am in a good mood! Then I say, "Now, let him drill."

... Youth is a malady of which one becomes cured a little every day. Old age is the cure.

You have passed through the whole fire test of life, and you have come to the point where you can be utterly detached, aloof, indifferent.

But the West has never understood the beauty of old age. I can understand, but I cannot agree. In the West the idea is:

... The trouble with life is that there are so many beautiful women, and so little time.

That's why nobody wants to become old, just to stretch the time a little more.

But I say unto you: the trouble would be even worse if there was so much time and so few women. As it is, it is the perfect world.

Devageet, a very special advice for you:

... A man is known by the company he avoids.

So just you figure out where you are. If you avoid women, that will be decisive; if you avoid men, that will be decisive.

The old saying is:

A man is known by the company he keeps. The days of that proverb are gone. Now it is the company that he avoids. This is a little more subtle, and you will have to figure it out

-- whom you are avoiding and why.

... Women have a lot of faults. Men have only two -- everything they say, and everything they do.

... A man who expects comfort in this life must be born deaf, dumb and blind. Then there is no discomfort at all.

And the last gossip that I have heard -- and perhaps Devageet has not heard -- is that Devageet's underpants are now regarded as a noodle-free zone!

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU WERE BEING SO BEAUTIFUL IN YOUR REPLY TO MILAREPA THIS MORNING I LONGED FOR YOU TO SAY THOSE SAME WORDS TO ME. I FELT THAT I CAN NEVER BE ONE OF YOUR MOST BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE.

SUDDENLY, I CAUGHT IT AT WORK: THIS JUDGING MIND. I SAW THE FACE

OF MY UNCONSCIOUSNESS IN ALL ITS UGLINESS, AND I ALSO REALIZED

THAT THE PART OF ME THAT WAS WATCHING WAS SHINING WITH ITS

OWN UNIQUE BEAUTY.

UNCONSCIOUS, I CAN NEVER BE BEAUTIFUL; CONSCIOUS, I AM A BEAUTY

UNTO MYSELF.

My God, Devageet! Just now I have been saying that you are the most beautiful person and you ask me again the same thing. I will not say anything, but will tell you a beautiful joke.

The teacher of the six-year-olds in first grade was annoyed to find water on the floor in front of her desk, but chose to ignore it. When the same thing happened the next day, she asked the children about it, but nobody said a word.

On the third day it happened again. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, she said, "I know whoever did this must be feeling very shy about their little accident. So I have an idea! We will all close our eyes while the child who did this comes and writes his name on this piece of paper on my desk. Then we will forget all about it."

Everyone closed their eyes. After a couple of minutes a chair squeaked, footsteps were heard coming and going, and the chair squeaked again.

Delighted, the teacher told everyone to open their eyes. A second puddle of water could be seen on the floor and on the paper was scrawled: "The phantom pisser strikes again!"

Devageet, not only you, but anybody who has fallen in love with me is beautiful, is intelligent, is rebellious, is a hope for the future. Ugly people cannot be here with me, because ugly people are always moralists. What they are missing in beauty they try to substitute by morality.

Ugly women cannot come here. They will condemn everybody, "This is not what religion should be." Your so-called saints cannot come here for the simple reason that our fundamental approach to life is of love, is of understanding, is of not dominating anyone, and not allowing anyone to dominate you -- it is a teaching in absolute freedom and individuality.

Respectable people cannot come here. Just to be known that they have been here, they will lose all their respect in the outside insane asylum.

Cowards cannot enter this door. Only people who have guts to stand against the whole world can be here. And these are the most beautiful products of existence.

I told that one young man, Piyoosh, "You took twelve years to decide to become a sannyasin, and you took only twelve hours to start judging me, whether I am right or wrong." I have wasted my time on such idiots for so long that I am really tired of them, and I told him to leave the ashram. And I enquired whether he has left or not. He left, but two or three other Indians approached the office....

There are a few Indian sannyasins here who have become sannyasins while I was not here. They don't know me, and they don't understand me. They entered the ashram and became sannyasins simply for free lodging, free boarding and they have done nothing.

Now they are in a trouble. Now I am here and I must be saying a thousand and one things against their prejudices. And my people have come, and will be coming more and more, and they all show their love by working, by being creative, by doing something. So the Indians are feeling inferior, because they have learned in these years while I was not here just to rest and enjoy.

Now it is work, enjoy and rest -- but first comes work. Work in both the senses: working in the outside, being a creative contributor to the commune, and work on yourself, because unless you are working on yourself, you are not a sannyasin.

Two or three Indians of that group reached the office saying, "This is not right what Osho did, that he told that man to go away."

Now those three people have to leave tomorrow morning. I don't want any kind of rotten apples here. They don't understand me. But Indians think they are born spiritual, they are all born enlightened, they know everything.

So tomorrow morning, remember: pack up your things, not other people's... and the gate you know perfectly... and anybody else who wants to go with them is welcome. Here will be only people who are in absolute tune with me. And to be in tune with me will confer all beauty and grace and blissfulness on you. You will not need anything more.

It is good that you leave on your own accord, because I have been enquiring who are the people who are simply trying to waste their time and other people's time, and you don't know any ABC of my approach. It is better they should go to their home, study my books, meditate, and if they feel that now they are ready and ripe, they will be accepted back. But they cannot be tolerated here.

It is so ugly that the people who are our guests are working, and the people who belong to this country are the hosts, and they are simply dodging, trying to escape from work. That Indian habit cannot be allowed in this place. That Indian habit has been the cause of two thousand years' slavery. And this is not an Indian commune, it is an international commune. So unless you can raise yourself to the standard of international consciousness, international creativity, international intelligence, it is better simply to leave this place.

Because of you the whole of India is condemned.

Every day reports come to me that Indians are not working: somebody has a headache; somebody has a stomach ache. Indians suffer from headaches for a simple reason: their spiritual halo is too tight. And they are continuously judging everybody, that they are not moral, that they are not religious -- and the definitions are their own. By religion they mean you should go every day to the monkey god, Hanuman's temple....

My people are not such idiots.

If Charles Darwin had come to India, he would have been immensely happy. Seeing the monkey god he would have included it as a proof that man is born of monkeys: they are still worshiping their forefathers in India! Fortunately he never came; otherwise we would have been condemned forever. But he could have found the most coherent, rational argument. Everything that he has is guesswork, but this monkey god would have proved all his guesswork. Why should people worship a monkey unless monkeys are their forefathers? Somewhere, far away in the distant past, they departed from their fathers. And naturally, they are still remembering them respectfully; that is their religion.

They can't understand that these people here are religious. They are not Hindus; they are not Christians; they are not Mohammedans. They cannot believe that nobody seems to be praying.

These people are not here to pray.

These are not beggars before a hypothetical God.

These are people who are trying to raise their consciousness to a point where they are themselves gods. Everybody's ultimate birthright is to be a god. Less than that means you have failed in your life.

Gautam Buddha is right that he will not allow any buddha to worship another buddha.

You are all potentially the highest peak that has ever been touched by humanity, and perhaps you may have a higher possibility in future. Perhaps past buddhas may become pigmies if you rise to your full height.

But that is not in their minds.

And because they have not been initiated by me, they have not lived these years with me, they have to do some homework. They have to try to understand what is happening here.

And if they feel judgmental, if they feel condemnatory, then I am not interested in converting them. They should go to their monkey gods, to their elephant gods -- they have thousands of gods. In India in all there are thirty-three million gods. So they can go anywhere... and there are hundreds of Goenkas all around.

Just leave me alone with my people.

This is a Noah's Ark.

Everybody is not needed here, nor have we the space for five billion people.

But these people have entered into the ashram without exactly knowing me, because I was not here. And they have not even tried to understand what they have got involved in.

They were simply interested in having free lodging, free boarding.

When I came to India, the first thing one of my old sannyasins said was, "We are tired now. Unnecessarily we are collecting money to feed people in the ashram. The ashram is absolutely unproductive. It needs fifty, sixty thousand rupees per month just to keep those people living comfortably, feeding them enough."

I said, "You need not be worried now. When I am here my people will be coming from all over the world. Then fifty, sixty thousand rupees don't matter at all. Then think in millions of dollars -- not less than that."

I am never interested in small things. Millions of dollars will be coming -- they have started coming. Millions of people will be coming, and those who want to be here have to remember it: this is not a free house. In India that is the idea, that in an ashram people should be given food free, shelter free, and beads, so they can sit silently and repeat the name of Rama to save the whole world. We don't want any kind of nonsense here.

Our work is our prayer.

Our meditation is our religion.

Our declaration of freedom is our fundamental manifesto. We don't belong to any nation and we don't belong to any religion. We belong to the whole existence. That's why I say I am not interested in small things.

Just the other day I was informed that in Delhi the government is worried that we are going to take over Koregaon Park. In America they were worried we were going to take over Oregon, Wasco County. I am not interested in taking small things... Koregaon Park!

-- if I was interested to take over I would have taken over the whole world. I am not interested in taking over. But political idiots are a very special kind of idiots: India has so many problems... but their only problem is Koregaon Park.

The day I came here, within two hours I was given a notice that I should leave immediately: I cannot stay here because my stay here is, "dangerous for the peace of the city." Now I have been here almost one year. Now that police commissioner should come and apologize. What peace has been disturbed by me? But they don't even have shame.

He should at least get transferred from here, seeing that what he did was absolutely under pressure of the government.

I have been here before -- we have never disturbed the peace. We are not interested at all what goes on in Poona. We are interested in a spiritual experiment on ourselves. And just because I refused to move unless they show me the cause, and unless they prove that before.... I have lived here six, seven years -- have there been any reports against me that I have disturbed the peace? I don't even go into this dirty town!

In the seven years before, I had only gone into the town three times, because three sannyasins have been in the hospital and dying. And this time I have gone only once, because my arm was in trouble. Otherwise, who cares?

We are enough unto ourselves.

We are an island in this world.

But the next day the corporation passed a resolution -- because they were afraid that now we will make Buddha Hall again -- that no building can be longer than one hundred feet.

Now, in the whole of Koregaon Park there is no building which is one hundred feet long, except this Buddha Hall. Anybody of a little intelligence can understand who they are preventing by passing a law in the corporation. What will a residential place like Koregaon Park do with a one-hundred-foot-long hall? This ashram needs not only a one-hundred-foot-long hall, we are going to make two halls. This hall will be there, and we are going to make another hall of the same size as in the commune in America, where twenty thousand people can sit. And I will see who can prevent it.

We don't want to create any trouble for anybody, but we don't want anybody to interfere with us! There must be informers of the police here now. They should take the information back!

Devageet, the last joke for your consolation:

A man woke up one morning and saw that his male member was covered in purple stripes. He rushed to see his doctor who told him that immediate amputation was vital.

The distracted man rushed out of the door muttering that he wanted another opinion. The second doctor took one look at the candy-striped organ and told the man the same thing, It has to be amputated."

The poor man, not knowing what to do, went to seek the advice of a Chinese master of healing. The wrinkled old man said, "No need for surgery. In two weeks the problem will be solved."

The man said, "You mean I will be cured?"

"No," said the Chinese sage. "It will drop off by itself."

So don't be worried about all these gossips; they will drop off by themselves. You just remain silent, watching, enjoying. If people feel you are getting disturbed, then more and more gossips will come to your door. Don't be disturbed. On the contrary, enjoy and ask people, "Have you any gossip against me?"

Collect all the gossips, and it will become a beautiful collection -- far more beautiful than the gospel in THE BIBLE.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #20

Chapter title: A graceful old age is your birthright

29 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709295

ShortTitle:

PILGR20

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

100

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU HAVE NOT BEEN COMING FOR SO LONG THAT NOW THE GOSSIP HAS

CHANGED ABOUT ME: THAT I AM NO MORE OLD, I AM REALLY ANCIENT.

WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?

Devageet, all these days that I have not been coming, I have been watching. An ancient tree, just by the side of my house, has been dancing in the rain, and its old leaves are falling with such grace and such beauty. Not only is the tree dancing in the rain and the wind, the old leaves leaving the tree are also dancing; there is celebration.

Except man, in the whole existence nobody suffers from old age; in fact, existence knows nothing about old age. It knows about ripening; it knows about maturing. It knows that there is a time to dance, to live as intensely and as totally as possible, and there is a time to rest.

Those old leaves of the almond tree by the side of my house are not dying; they are simply going to rest, melting and merging into the same earth from which they have arisen. There is no sadness, no mourning, but an immense peace in falling to rest into eternity. Perhaps another day, another time they may be back again, in some other form, on some other tree. They will dance again; they will sing again; they will rejoice the moment.

Existence knows only a circular change from birth to death, from death to birth, and it is an eternal process. Every birth implies death and every death implies birth. Every birth is preceded by a death and every death is succeeded by a birth. Hence existence is not afraid. There is no fear anywhere except in the mind of man.

Man seems to be the only sick species in the whole cosmos. Where is this sickness? It should really have been otherwise... man should have enjoyed more, loved more, lived more each moment. Whether it is of childhood or of youth or of old age, whether it is of birth or of death, it does not matter at all. You are transcendental to all these small episodes.

Thousands of births have happened to you, and thousands of deaths. And those who can see clearly can understand it even more deeply, as if it is happening every moment.

Something in you dies every moment and something in you is born anew. Life and death are not so separate, not separated by seventy years.

Life and death are just like two wings of a bird, simultaneously happening. Neither can life exist without death, nor can death exist without life. Obviously they are not opposites; obviously they are complementaries. They need each other for their existence; they are interdependent. They are part of one cosmic whole.

But because man is so unaware, so asleep, he is incapable of seeing a simple and obvious fact. Just a little awareness, not much, and you can see you are changing every moment.

And change means something is dying -- something is being reborn. Then birth and death become one; then childhood and its innocence become one with old age and its innocence.

There is a difference, yet there is no opposition. The child's innocence is really poor, because it is almost synonymous with ignorance. The old man, ripe in age, who has passed through all the experiences of darkness and light, of love and hate, of joy and misery, who has been matured through life in different situations, has come to a point where he is no more a participant in any experience. Misery comes... he watches.

Happiness comes and he watches. He has become a watcher on the hill. Everything passes down in the dark valleys, but he remains on the sunlit peak of the mountain, simply watching in utter silence.

The innocence of old age is rich. It is rich from experience; it is rich from failures, from successes; it is rich from right actions, from wrong actions; it is rich from all the failures, from all the successes; it is rich multidimensionally. Its innocence cannot be synonymous with ignorance. Its innocence can only be synonymous with wisdom.

Both are innocent, the child and the old man. But their innocences have a qualitative change, a qualitative difference. The child is innocent because he has not entered yet into the dark night of the soul; the old man is innocent -- he has come out of the tunnel. One is entering into the tunnel; the other is getting out of the tunnel. One is going to suffer much; one has already suffered enough. One cannot avoid the hell that is ahead of him; the other has left the hell behind him.

Devageet, your question is the question of almost every human being. Knowingly or unknowingly, there is a trembling in the heart that you are becoming old, that after old age the deluge -- after old age, death. And for centuries you have been made so much afraid of death that the very idea has become deep-rooted in your unconscious; it has gone deep in your blood, in your bones, in your marrow. The very word frightens you --

not that you know what death is, but just because of thousands of years of conditioning that death is the end of your life, you are afraid.

I want you to be absolutely aware that death is not the end. In existence, nothing begins and nothing ends. Just look all around... the evening is not the end, nor is the morning the beginning. The morning is moving towards the evening and the evening is moving towards the morning. Everything is simply moving into different forms.

There is no beginning and there is no end.

Why should it be otherwise with man? -- man is not an exception. In this idea of being exceptional, in being more special than the other animals and the trees and the birds, man has created his own hell, his paranoia. The idea that we are exceptional beings, we are human beings, has created a rift between you and existence. That rift causes all your fears and your misery, causes unnecessary anguish and angst in you.

And all your so-called leaders, whether religious or political or social, have emphasized the rift; they have widened it. There has not been a single effort in the whole history of man to bridge the rift, to bring man back to the earth, to bring man back with the animals and with the birds and with the trees, and to declare an absolute unity with existence.

That is the truth of our being. Once it is understood, you are neither worried about old age nor worried about death, because looking around you, you can be absolutely satisfied that nothing ever begins, it has been always there; nothing ever ends, it will remain always there.

The idea of being old fills you with great anxiety. It means now your days of life, of love, of rejoicings are over, that now you will exist only in name. It will not be a rejoicing, but only a dragging towards the grave. Obviously you cannot enjoy the idea that you are just a burden in existence, just standing in a queue which is moving every moment towards the graveyard.

It is one of the greatest failures of all cultures and all civilizations in the world that they have not been able to provide a meaningful life, a creative existence for their old; that they have not been able to provide a subtle beauty and grace, not only to old age, but to death itself.

And the problem becomes more complicated because the more you are afraid of death, the more you will be afraid of life too. Each moment lived, death comes closer.... A man who is afraid of death cannot be in love with life, because it is life finally that takes you to the doors of death. How can you love life? It was for this reason that all the religions started renouncing life: renounce life because that is the only way to renounce death. If you don't live life, if you are already finished with the job of living, loving, dancing, singing, then naturally you need not be afraid of death; you have died already.

We have called these dead people saints; we have worshiped them. We have worshiped them because we knew we would also like to be like them, although we don't have that much courage. At least we can worship and show our intentions. If we had courage or one day if we gather courage, we would also like to live like you: utterly dead. The saint cannot die because he has already died. He has renounced all the pleasures, all the joys; all that life offers he has rejected. He has returned the ticket to existence saying, "I am no more part of the show." He has closed his eyes.

It happened once that a so-called saint was visiting me. I took him into the garden -- there were so many beautiful dahlias, and I showed him those beautiful flowers in the morning sun. He looked very strangely at me, a little annoyed, irritated, and he could not resist the temptation to condemn me, saying, "I thought you were a religious person... and you are still enjoying the beauty of the flowers?"

On one point he is right, that if you are enjoying the beauty of the flowers, you cannot avoid enjoying the beauty of human beings; you cannot avoid enjoying the beauty of women; you cannot avoid enjoying the beauty of music and dance. If you are interested in the beauty of the flowers, you have shown that you are still interested in life, that you cannot yet renounce love. If you are aware of beauty, how can you avoid love?

Beauty provokes love; love imparts beauty.

I said, "On this point you are right, but on the second point you are wrong. Who ever told you that I am a religious person? I am not yet dead! -- to be religious the basic requirement is to be dead. If you are alive you can only be a hypocrite, you cannot be really religious."

When you will see a bird on the wing, it is impossible not to rejoice in its freedom. And when you will see the sunset with all the colors spread on the horizon -- even if you close your eyes, your very effort of closing the eyes will show your interest. You have been overwhelmed by the beauty of it.

Life is another name of love.

And love is nothing but being sensitive to beauty.

I said to that so-called saint, "I can renounce religion but I cannot renounce life, because life has been given to me by existence itself, and religion is just man-made, manufactured by the priests and the politicians; manufactured to deprive man of his joy, to deprive man of his dignity, to deprive man of his humanity itself.

"I am not a religious person in your sense. I have a totally different definition of being religious. To me the religious person is one who is totally alive, intensely alive, aflame with love, aware of tremendous beauty all around; has the courage to rejoice each moment of life and death together. Only a man who is so capable of rejoicing in life and death -- his song continues. It does not matter whether life is happening or death is happening, his song is not disturbed, his dance does not waver?"

Only such an adventurous soul, only such a pilgrim of existence is religious. But in the name of religion man has been given poor substitutes, false, phony, meaningless, just toys to play with. Worshiping statues, chanting man-made mantras, paying tributes to those who have been cowards and escapists and who were not able to live life because they were so afraid of death, and calling them saints, religion has distracted man from true and authentic religiousness.

Devageet, you need not be worried about old age. And it is even more beautiful that people have starting thinking about you as ancient. That means you have attained to the real transcendence, you have lived everything. Now it is your maturity. You have not renounced anything, but you have simply passed through every experience. You have grown so experienced that now you need not repeat those experiences again and again.

This is transcendence.

You should rejoice, and I would like the whole world to understand the rejoicing that is our birthright in accepting with deep gratitude the old age and the final consummation of old age into death.

If you are not graceful about it, if you cannot laugh at it, if you cannot disappear into the eternal leaving a laughter behind, you have not lived rightly. You have been dominated and directed by wrong people. They may have been your prophets, your messiahs, your saviors, your tirthankaras; they may have been your incarnations of gods, but they have all been criminals in the sense that they have deprived you of life and they have filled your hearts with fear.

My effort here is to fill your heart with laughter. Your every fiber of being should love to dance in every situation, whether it is day or night, whether you are down or up.

Irrespective of the situation, an undercurrent of cheerfulness should continue. That is authentic religiousness to me.

A few sutras for you, Devageet...

An ancient man is one who wears his glasses in bed so he can get a better look at the girls he dreams about.

An ancient man is one who only flirts with young girls at parties so his wife will take him home.

The beauty of being ancient is that since you are too old to set a bad example, you can start giving good advice.

Only a really old man, well-versed in the wisdom of life, can say, "Puppy love is lots of fun but few men realize it is the beginning of a dog's life."

Women like the simple things in life -- for example, the old men. Once the women start liking you, it means you are finished. They are no longer afraid of you; you are perfectly acceptable.

Women have their own reasons, although women's reason is like eternity: it passeth all understanding.

Devageet, if you have really become old, then you are in a wrong place. The right place for you will only be a Catholic monastery, because a Catholic monastery is a home for unmarried fathers.

Devageet, if you are really old, start loving your enemies; it makes them so angry.

An old married man's best friend is his wife's husband.

Get it? ... No. I have to give you some explanation.

A man was sitting with his best friend and told him, "My wife has escaped with my best friend."

The friend said, "What are you talking about? I'M your best friend."

The man said, "No, no more."

For ancient ones there is a new thing in the world to do; its name is punk yoga. Punk yoga is where you stand on someone else's head.

Inside every older person there is a younger person wondering what happened.

And remember, Devageet, if you are not going all the way, why go at all? And don't be worried at all about your old age, your ancientness. At least as far as enlightenment is concerned, it does not care how you get there: young, old, ancient; man, woman, all are accepted without any exception, because the ultimate experience is welcoming everybody from every direction. One need not be concerned about these small matters; moreover, they are not facts. You are simply getting paranoid about gossips.

Naturally, here there are so many beautiful people, gossips are bound to happen. And what else will meditators do? -- you cannot meditate for twenty-four hours. Just to relax, just for a change... the best relaxation for a meditator is gossip. It hurts nobody and it gives you free entertainment.

The truckdriver pulled into the truck stop, went inside, and ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. Sitting next to him was a member of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, who looked at him and said, "Hey man, I don't like you sitting next to me. Move over!"

The truckdriver did not say a word, so the Hell's Angel reached over and put his cigarette out in the driver's coffee. But still the truckdriver was silent and continued eating his cake. When he had finished he got up, paid his bill and left.

When he had gone, the Hell's Angel said to the waiter, "Man, that guy was a pushover.

Did you see what a coward he was?"

"Yes," said the waiter, looking out of the window, "a real coward. And a terrible driver too. He just drove over some poor guy's motorcycle."

The English couple had not made love for years. The wife was very suspicious: What is the matter? Is he having an affair with somebody? The lady was surprised to see the maid very happy that day, wearing a beautiful new dress and preparing her bedroom as if she was expecting someone to come in the night.

So that evening she sent the maid to her mother's for the night and then climbed into the maid's bed herself and switched off the light. Soon a shadowy figure climbed in through the window, slipped into bed and made passionate love to the lady.

When he had finished she felt satisfied like never before, but still wanting revenge she snapped on the bedside light. "I will bet you are surprised to see me," she said triumphantly.

"I sure am," said the chauffeur.

It is perfectly okay for meditators -- they are involved in such a serious research -- to relax once in a while, gossip, joke, laugh. It is not contrary to their meditations; it is immensely helpful. It takes away your seriousness, it gives you back your innocence, simplicity, relaxedness. It helps you to go back into the deeper realms of meditations.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

HOW DID YOU KNOW WHEN YOU SAID THE QUESTION WAS FROM AN

INDIAN?

Arup Krishna, it is very simple. The question does not arise out of the blue; the question arises in the heart of the questioner.

The question says so much about the questioner that if you don't start immediately figuring out the answer... which is done all over the world; people start searching in their memory for the answer.

I don't have any ready-made answers. When I listen to your question, I have to go deeper into the question to find you first, because unless I know the questioner, I cannot respond.

I am not a holy book; I am a living being. I am not a computer that you ask the question and the answer comes irrespective of who is asking the question.

I can answer you, not your question. Your question is secondary. So when I hear your question, my first search is for the person who has asked it. Without knowing the person who has asked it my answer is going to be irrelevant. It will answer the question, but it will not answer the questioner, who is the real problem.

I have to go to the very roots. And it is not very difficult to know whether the question has come from a German or from a Jew or from an Indian or from an American; whether the question has come from a Jaina or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian. It is very simple because the question contains the questioner. It has come with all the colors and all the conditionings of the questioner contained in it. It is absolutely indicative about the personality.

You are wondering, "How did you know when you said the question was from an Indian?" That kind of question cannot be asked by anyone else.

I will give you a few examples. For example, if somebody asks, "What is NIGOD?" that question can come only from someone who belongs to Jainism, because even the word

`nigod' will not be known to anybody else. It is part of the Jaina philosophy and it is not part of any other philosophy in the world. In fact nothing parallel to it exists anywhere. It is almost impossible to translate the word `nigod' into any other language because no parallel words exist. The idea has never existed anywhere else; hence, there cannot be any word for it. I will have to explain to you what nigod is.

For Jainism it has been a problem, but for no other religion, because Jainism does not believe in God the creator. Then the problem arises: from where do souls go on coming?

The population goes on increasing... in Mahavira's time the population of India was only two million; today it is nine hundred million. If there is nobody manufacturing souls, from where do these souls go on coming? God is out of the question.

Other religions can answer, "God goes on creating..." Jainism cannot answer it that way, because there is no God in its philosophical framework and there is no creation; hence, it has to create another hypothesis like God. That hypothesis is nigod. Nigod means there is an infinite number of souls dormant in existence. Out of that immense, infinite number of sleeping souls a few go on waking up. That is from where people continuously go on coming, and they will go on coming. And the source of their coming is inexhaustible. The name of that source is nigod.

If somebody asks a question about nigod, I can easily know the question can come only from a follower of Mahavira. It cannot come from anybody else -- the followers of Moses may not even have heard the word.

Nigod does not explain anything; it is as stupid as the idea of God. This is something to be understood, because you will come across such things again and again. Jainas refuse the hypothesis of God because it does not answer the question. The question is: Who created the existence? -- because without creating, how can the existence come into being?

All the religions have agreed on the hypothesis of a God as the creator except Jainism, because they say that if we accept God as the creator, then the question again comes up: Who created God? God cannot be the answer, because the question still remains relevant: Who created God? And if you say that God is not created by anyone -- he is self-sufficient, he is eternal, not created by anyone else -- then Jainism laughs and says that if God can be without any creator, why cannot the whole existence be without any creator?

What is the problem? Why unnecessarily create a hypothesis? And on that point they are right.

This is the scientific approach. Never accept any unnecessary hypothesis unless it explains something. Why go on burdening yourself with hypotheses?

So Jainism rejected the idea of God because it does not answer the question. Then they were in the same trouble. People started asking, "From where do the new souls go on coming?" The doors of God were closed; they had to find a new hypothesis, but it is as stupid as the hypothesis of God. That's the beauty -- that nobody sees his own stupidity, but everybody is capable of seeing the stupidity of anybody else. Jainism says, "Souls go on coming from a dormant, infinite source, where billions and billions of souls are asleep.

As they go on waking up they start moving, finding wombs."

But no Jaina thinker asks, "Who created this nigod? From where came this infinite source of sleeping souls?" It raises as many questions as Jainism raises about God, but it never raises questions about nigod... from where did it come?

Secondly, if these souls are asleep, were they awake before or have they always been asleep from eternity? If they were awake before, then it is very dangerous, because those who are awake can fall asleep and get into nigod, for infinity. Nobody knows whether they will be awake again or not.

If you say that they have always been asleep from the very beginning, then what made them asleep? People need sleep when they have worked hard in the day; they are tired, and they go to sleep. Eternal sleep... Even to sleep twenty-four hours is very difficult --

after six, eight hours you start thinking about tea or coffee or some breakfast. These people have not taken even breakfast for infinity, and you still call them alive?

Even more important, the question arises: Why have a few of them suddenly become awake? What happens? Some mosquitoes disturb their sleep? Because millions of others are fast asleep, and suddenly one becomes awake -- you have to provide some reason why particularly this person and not somebody else. You cannot say that he was having a nightmare. He has never been awake, he knows nothing, he cannot dream. For dreaming you need some experiences of waking. About what will these people be dreaming?

People dream about things because those are the things they have missed when they were awake. People dream of beautiful women because when they are awake they have only their wife. It is the wife which is the cause of many saints: they renounce the world, because without renouncing the world they could not renounce the wife! The poor fellows had to renounce everything, just to escape from the wife.

Perhaps the proverb is true, that every great man has a wife behind him. Because she goes on nagging and harassing him and finding no other way he goes on succeeding, becoming richer, climbing ladders. The wife goes on hitting: "Go on!"... she never allows any rest for the poor fellow.

What can they dream about? They have never been hungry, they have never eaten anything; they cannot dream about ice cream. And certainly they cannot have nightmares which can awaken them.

Aesop has a beautiful parable. A cat is sitting on a tree, giggling and smiling. And a dog looks up and asks, "What is the matter, you idiot?"

And the cat says, "I was just having a beautiful afternoon nap and I dreamed that it is raining, very fast, strong rain, and the most amazing part is, it is not water that is raining, it is mice."

The dog was very angry. He said, "You idiot. You will never grow out of your retardedness. In my holy scriptures there are instances when it has rained, but it has rained always cats, never rats!"

Obviously, a cat cannot think the way a dog can think, and they cannot agree. But if somebody is seeing rats and mice raining you can know that the person who is seeing the dream is a cat. There is not much logic involved in it.

An Indian went to Singapore to buy a video. He went into a shop and asked, "What is the price of this video near the window?"

The seller answered, "Sorry sir, we don't sell to Indians."

The Indian went back to his hotel and dressed in his best clothes. Back at the shop, again he asked, "What is the price of this video near the window?"

To his dismay, the seller replied, "Sorry sir, we don't sell to Indians."

The Indian went back to his hotel and dressed in Western-style clothes -- shorts, T-shirt, sunglasses. Returning again to the shop, the Indian was most upset to receive the same answer to his enquiry. In exasperation he asked, "How do you know that I'm an Indian?"

"Oh," said the seller, "that's easy. The machine near the window is not a video, it is a washing machine."

Paddy was convinced he was a cannibal. His wife finally persuaded him to visit a psychiatrist.

When Paddy returned home after his first visit, his wife asked, "So tell me, what is a fancy psychiatrist like?"

"Delicious," beamed Paddy.

If the man thinks himself to be a cannibal, then you can expect the answer that he has given.

You can expect the question, you can expect the answer. And from the question or from the answer, from both the sides, you can find out whose is the mind, of what kind of conditioning.

The Indian always asks questions about his repressed sexuality -- not directly that he is suffering from repressed sexuality, but in a very indirect way. He does not even think that in his question he is showing himself. He asks questions about other people who are not completely dressed; other people who are hugging each other in public; other people who are holding the hands of their girlfriends. He never thinks that all these questions show only one thing, that he is sexually repressed. These are not questions about other people; these are questions about his own unconscious.

Now, no American will ask that question. That is absolutely out of the question. People ask about things which they are missing.

Just a few days ago a therapist enquired of me, "I am at a loss, because so many Japanese sannyasins are coming to the groups, and it is absolutely impossible to work with them.

And the impossibility is that psychoanalysis and other sister systems of therapies have been evolved in the West. They are not applicable to the Far Eastern people. These people have a different conditioning, centuries old."

The therapist became afraid because Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis says that every child, if the child is a boy, wants to make love to his mother. And because the father goes on making love to his mother and he is not allowed, he hates the father. He is jealous of the father; he thinks and dreams of killing him. If the baby is a girl she wants to make love to her father, and obviously the mother is the enemy, because the mother goes on making love to the father and the girl is never allowed -- not even allowed to think about it.

Sigmund Freud was very much condemned for his ideas, but there is some truth in them.

And after a struggle of one century, slowly, slowly Western society has accepted the idea.

Now there is no resistance against it. If you say to someone that you hate your father, that you wanted to make love to your mother, he will accept it.

But if you say that to a Japanese, either he will kill himself or he will kill you -- those are the only two alternatives. He will immediately challenge you to a fight because it is absolutely inconceivable to a Japanese that he has even dreamt of making love to his mother or he was jealous of his father; that he was antagonistic and hated his father, that he wanted to kill his father. Because the Japanese conditioning is that the very idea, even the idea of being disrespectful to your father is enough to feel so ashamed that you don't have any worth even to live a single moment more. Hara-kiri, suicide is the only way.

In Japan millions of people down the ages have committed suicide over such small matters that you cannot conceive. Rarely, once in a while, somebody commits suicide, but you can see that he has reasons: his business went bankrupt, his wife eloped, he was the richest man and now he has to live like a beggar on the street. It is so against his ego that he would rather kill himself.

But hara-kiri, suicide in Japan is inconceivable to anybody else in the whole world. You misbehaved, you were disrespectful towards your father; when it was expected of you to bow down to your father you did not. That's enough. Now if you have any dignity, you should commit hara-kiri -- nothing less than that!

So the therapists are in a difficulty because those poor fellows are talking whatever they have learned from Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung and Alfred Adler. And they think they are talking very sensible things, but to the Japanese... He immediately stands up saying, "Take your words back! What do you think of me?... I wanted to make love to my mother? I will kill myself, even if the idea happens to me. Even if I dream it in the night, in the morning I will finish myself. What nonsense are you talking?" Now the therapist does not know what to do.

In the beginning, when Japanese sannyasins started to come, I was at a loss, because they have a different symbology, different gestures, different from anybody else in the world.

Everywhere nodding your head up and down means yes. In Japan it means no. Nodding your head side to side everywhere in the world means no. In Japan it means yes.

So when I used to ask, I was at a loss. The person has come to be initiated into sannyas, and when I asked him, "Have you really thought about it? Do you really want to take sannyas?" he would say no. He was saying yes -- I was thinking he was saying no. He looked amazed -- I looked amazed. Finally, I had to make one Japanese sannyasin sit near me. I said, "You translate all these strange gestures because I cannot figure them out."

Conditions all over the world are different.

Your question comes from your conditionings.

If somebody has a clarity and transparency of eyes, he can see from where the question has arisen. It is not difficult to know, Arup Krishna, that the question is from an Indian.

The Indian court was in session and the attractive blond took the stand. As the prosecuting attorney approached the girl he coughed nervously, and while fixing his tie asked, "Where were you on the night before last?"

"I was with a gentleman friend," she answered, looking down shyly.

"And where were you last night?" continued the attorney.

"I was with another gentleman friend," she answered coyly.

Then, his voice very gentle and low, he asked, "Where are you going tonight?"

The defense attorney jumped to his feet and shouted, "Objection! I asked her first."

It is not difficult to know that you are in an Indian court where everybody is sexually starved.

Questions coming out of sexual starvation will indicate the religious conditioning against life. And India has suffered most; it has the deepest conditioning against life, that's why it also has the biggest ego of being spiritual. And it is sheer nonsense, because having such a deeply repressed sexuality and then the claim for being spiritual is just a contradiction.

You can be spiritual only when all sex is transformed, not repressed -- understood, transmuted. When there is no sex lurking in your mind somewhere, when the whole energy involved in sex has become luminous, only then can you be spiritual, because sex at the lowest point when it becomes aflame is the same energy as enlightenment at the ultimate point. At the alpha point it is sex; at the omega point it is samadhi, it is superconsciousness.

So whatever you ask, you show without knowing your unconscious. I have to look into your unconscious and only then I can answer you relevantly. Then my answer is no more academic, then my answer becomes intimate: the answer out of love and compassion, not out of knowledge and ready-made wisdom.

A pair of good friends, Frenchmen... Now even if the mention of Frenchmen is not made, looking at the whole episode you can conclude it is about Frenchmen.

A pair of good friends were strolling down the street in Paris one day when they spied two women approaching.

"Sacre bleu, Pierre," cried one. "There comes my wife and mistress walking towards us arm in arm!"

"Mon Dieu, Henri," cried the second, "I was about to say the same thing!"

But that can happen only in Paris, and that can happen only about the Frenchman. You cannot expect this happening in Poona.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #21

Chapter title: Philosia... the path of the mystic

30 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709300

ShortTitle:

PILGR21

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

95

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

AM I A PHILOSOPHER?

Milarepa, philosophy is not the real thing, and to be a philosopher is just to go astray.

Philosophy only thinks but never experiences, and there are things which cannot be thought about: either you experience them or you don't. How can you think about truth, of which you have no experience? How can a blind man think about light and colors and rainbows and flowers and butterflies? Whatever he is going to think is going to be wrong.

To know the colors, to know the light, to know the stars one needs eyes; not thinking.

And to have eyes is a totally different phenomenon than thinking. In fact, only blind people think. Those who have eyes see, experience.

Philosophy is a non-existential approach to existence; hence it never comes to any conclusion. It goes round and round but remains stuck in the same groove. One of the oldest professions of man is to be a philosopher, and it has always been praised very highly. But the reason for the praise was that the philosopher is thinking about ultimate values, while the whole world is concerned with the mundane. It is a world of blind people. And if one blind man starts thinking about light, other blind people are going to worship him. But there is no way to think about light.

There is no way to think about truth.

There is no way to think about love.

There is no way to think about beauty.

In fact, the moment you pinpoint some ultimate value for thinking, you immediately feel uneasy. For example, if somebody asks you, pointing to a beautiful sunset, "What do you think about it?" or to a beautiful rainbow, "What do you think about it?" obviously you are going to say, "It is beautiful," because you have never thought about whether you know beauty or not.

You have simply accepted others' opinions, and that accumulation of others' opinions is all that you have -- nothing of your own, everything borrowed. If it is insisted upon,

"What do you mean when you say a sunset is beautiful? What is beauty?", you will immediately feel caught in a difficulty. There is no way to define what beauty is. There is no way to define what good is. There is no way to define what love is.

You can love but you cannot define it.

You can be overwhelmed by love, you can be transformed by love, but still you will never be able to think about it. Thinking is a very low category, in fact the very bottom; you cannot go lower than that.

Being a philosopher is not something great, Milarepa. I hate the very word because it helps people to hide their ignorance. It never gives them a breakthrough into light, into life, into love, into existence. It blocks their path. It becomes a China Wall.

Thoughts can create such a barrier that even if you are standing before a beautiful flower, you will not be able to see it. Your eyes are covered with layers of thought. To experience the beauty of the flower you have to be in a state of meditation, not in a state of mentation. You have to be silent, utterly silent -- not even a flicker of thought -- and the beauty explodes, reaches to you from all directions. You are drowned in the beauty of a sunrise, of a starry night, of beautiful trees.

Last night it rained again very hard. It was so silent -- everybody must have been fast asleep. It was past midnight, but in the darkness of the night, in the serenity of the night, the dance of the rain was immensely beautiful. But you have to be receptive to it.

Philosophy is an aggression, and through an aggressive attitude you may become a scientist, but you will never go beyond matter. You can dissect matter, you can think about its constituents, you can put it together, you can even produce it, but matter is something outside you.

Beauty is something within you.

To see the beauty of a rose you need a beautiful heart.

Light is not just outside. To see the light you need receptive eyes. You may never have wondered that if the whole world suddenly goes blind would the sun still shine with its light? Ordinary logic will say yes, it does not matter; whether you are blind or whether you have eyes, the sun will rise. But those who have penetrated deeply into all these problems have come across very different conclusions. If everybody on the earth goes blind, there will be no light at all. The sun is only half of the phenomenon. Unless you have receiving eyes, there cannot be any light, nor can there be any darkness.

The moment you leave your room, lock the room, you are performing a miracle of which you are not aware. All the photographs in the room, all the clothes in the room, all the paintings, everything disappears. No color can exist without an eye to see it. The color is a response of an eye, so the moment you have locked your room, your room becomes colorless -- everything. The green is no longer green; the red is no longer red. But if you just look through the keyhole all the colors simply jump back in their place. Once the eye is there the missing link is no longer missing.

One cannot think about anything which is valuable.

This is the basic difference between the whole heritage of philosophy and my approach.

With great humbleness I want to say that all great philosophers are great blind men --

certainly great, because what they cannot see they manage to think about, what they cannot touch they manage to figure things about.

In the fables of Aesop you must have heard the most famous fable. Five blind men go to see an elephant. All five are philosophers, Milarepa, and naturally they start touching the elephant. Somebody touches the legs of the elephant and he says, "My god, the elephant is just like the pillars in a temple."

The other one who is touching the big ears of the elephant... Certainly the story must have been born in India because the African elephant does not have big ears. That's how you can find from where a story is coming. The Indian elephant has really big ears. The blind man who was touching the ears said, "You idiot! Stop all that nonsense about pillars in a temple. The elephant is like a big fan." Before electricity came into being, rich people used to have very big fans, and two servants standing by their sides were continuously moving the fans over them. Those fans are almost like the big ears of the elephant.

And so on and so forth; all the five blind philosophers argued and argued. One man was watching. Just a simple and ordinary man, not a philosopher but a man with eyes. He could not believe how these people are going to come to a conclusion. They are fighting, quarreling, arguing. He said to them, "You are all in a tremendously great difficulty.

Your arguments are not going to help. What you need are eyes, not arguments. Once you see the elephant, there is no question of thinking about it."

The word `philosophy' comes from two words: `philo' and `sophia'. Philo means love, and sophia means wisdom or knowledge -- love of knowledge. In the East we have nothing parallel to philosophy. In the East we have a totally different approach. It is not the approach of the philosopher; it is the approach of the mystic.

We don't have any system parallel to philosophy in the East. What we have is totally different. But continuously there has been a misunderstanding between the scholars from the West, from the East. They have all started calling it Eastern philosophy. There is no such thing in existence.

In the East we have a word `darshan', which means seeing not thinking; it means simply seeing. Darshan cannot be translated as philosophy. I have coined a word for it. I don't care about languages and I don't care about grammar, and I don't care about dictionaries and encyclopedias. My concern is existential not linguistic. I have coined my own word and that is philosia: love of seeing, not love of knowledge.

Milarepa, if you have decided to be something, be a lover of seeing the truth. Be a lover of experiencing the truth. Become part of the vast experience I am calling philosia.

Trust more in your eyes than in your mind.

Trust more in your heart than your thoughts. Trust more in your being, because it is the being which is going to experience the very center of the cosmos.

Avoid philosophy; it is a sickness of the soul. The moment you see the distinction between philosophy and philosia, you will be amazed that that small difference between two words takes you on different routes. Philosophy takes you deeper into the mind; it refines your mind. It gives you more systematic arguments. It can help you to make a perfect system of thought but it will be only hot air; it will not correspond to the reality.

Philosia will take you on a different path, the path of the mystic, whose whole search is to find a new way of looking at things. His search is for eyes. His search is for an open heart

-- to be receptive. His ultimate search is to come in tune with his being, with the existential heartbeat. When your heart is beating in synchronicity with the universal heart, you know without knowledge, you are wise without wisdom, because you experience without any explanation.

If you want to understand me, then you have to understand the distinction between these two words. Philosophy leads deeper into mind and that means deeper into mess. Philosia leads you beyond mind into a state of no-mind. Philosia is basically meditation. It is an opening of a third eye within you, as if... The third eye is only a new way of receiving the gifts of existence. I am using only a parable. Don't take it literally.

Philosophy is bound to be aggressive. One of the books of the great philosopher of the modern age, Bertrand Russell, is entitled, CONQUEST OF NATURE. That indicates the hidden aggressiveness of philosophy.

Philosia is not a conquest of nature, but on the contrary is a willingness to be conquered by nature. It is a deep trustfulness, openness, receptivity. The philosopher is bound to become serious. The deeper he moves into the paths of philosophy, the more serious he will become, because the farther away he is going from life, love, the farther away he is going from beauty, from celebration, from festivity, from laughter.

Just the opposite happens to the mystic. He comes closer and closer to a childlike innocence. He is full of smiles, bursting out into laughter looking at the miracle of existence all around. We are so blind that we never see the wonder anywhere. You sow a seed and the rains come, the seed disappears and dies in the soil, and two green leaves start sprouting -- and you don't see any wonder? You don't see the magic? Out of that small seed will grow a big huge tree with thousands of flowers and thousands of fruits.

Out of one seed the tree will give millions of seeds every year.

It is said by a scientist that just a single seed can make the whole earth green in time. So much miracle in a small seed! But we live in an attitude of "taking for granted." That is our blindness. Don't take anything for granted, and then you will be encountering on every step, every moment, miracles upon miracles.

The mystic becomes so overwhelmed by the majesty and the miraculousness of existence that he knows, but he does not reduce his knowing into knowledge. He never becomes a philosopher. He always remains a seer.

Milarepa, you are a musician. That is far better and far higher than being a philosopher.

Perhaps you have not thought about it....

Music consists of sound and silences. Philosophy is only so much prose, just words and words and words. The word is a secondary phenomenon. Sound is a primary phenomenon. You can listen to the music of a waterfall, you can listen to the music of wind passing through the pine trees... nothing is said, but much is understood. The wind passing through the pine trees has no words, but it has a sound.

In the fall when all the paths become full of falling leaves... have you walked in a forest?

Just by your walking you create sound, because the paths are full of old leaves. Just a little breeze comes and those old leaves start dancing and moving. Existence is full of sounds, but it never speaks a single word. The birds are singing but they are only making sounds. They are not saying anything, but their songs are immensely beautiful. They touch the very core of your heart.

Music is a higher system than philosophy, because music is something in between philosophy and philosia; in other words it is something between words and silence, perhaps just a midway overnight stay. If you fall back, you can become a philosopher. If you go ahead, you can become a mystic. Falling back means losing sounds and catching hold of words. Going forward means losing even sounds and just entering into silence because music consists of both the sound and silence. It is a rhythm, a dance, hand in hand between sound and silence.

A musician can easily become a meditator, he is very close. There is nothing closer to meditation than music -- wordless, meaningless, but tremendously significant. It says nothing but shows much, expresses nothing but brings to you a great splendor. From musician move towards the mystic. The day your music consists only of silence, you have arrived home.

This will not make you sad. Music is not serious; it is playfulness, it is song, it is dance. It has an immense beauty. It can move peoples' hearts. Entering into music, don't remain stuck there. That's where modern music has got stuck. It has become too much sound and it has forgotten the silences in between. You have to change the gestalt.

If you know about gestalt psychology... it is a very specialized approach. The word

`gestalt' is worth understanding. In any book on gestalt psychology you will find a picture inside, just a sketch, a line sketch of a woman. If you look at it and go on staring, a moment comes... the woman becomes old. If you go on staring, again a moment comes...

the woman becomes young, very beautiful.

In those lines both are hidden; just your gestalt changes, your emphasis changes. You are looking at the lines in one way; it looks like an old woman. But because your mind cannot stay long with any experience -- it is continuously moving -- soon it changes its gestalt, and the same lines which were making an old woman suddenly create a beautiful young woman.

The strangest part is that you cannot see both together. You cannot see because obviously the same lines have to be used. Either you can see the old woman or you can see the young woman, but you cannot see them simultaneously, together, because there are not two.

The word `gestalt' means change of emphasis.

There is a great Sufi book -- I would like to call it the greatest book in the world because nothing is written in it; it is absolutely empty. It is almost twelve hundred years old, and the first man who purchased it was Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.

His disciples were very intrigued, very curious, because he never read that book in front of anybody. When all are gone he would close the door and pull out the book, which he used to keep under his pillow, and then he would read it. Naturally it was creating much curiosity, "What kind of mysterious book is it?" People tried in every possible way.

Sometimes a few disciples were found on the roof, removing tiles and looking underneath to see what Jalaluddin Rumi is reading, but they could not figure it out.

The day Jalaluddin Rumi died, they were more concerned with the book than Jalaluddin Rumi... and they loved the man. They loved him as Sufis have never loved any other master. Mevlana means beloved master. That word is used only for Jalaluddin Rumi and for nobody else. In twelve hundred years in the world of the Sufis there has never been a more charming, more beautiful, more loving, more human being than Jalaluddin Rumi.

But even the disciples forgot that their master had died. They rushed and pulled out the book from underneath the pillow and they looked, and they were amazed -- the book was absolutely empty! There was nothing to read. But those who were very close and intimate devotees, they understood the meaning.

Words have to be dropped.

Only then can you have silence.

The whole teaching of the book is be silent. First let the words go, then the sounds, and there remains an emptiness, nothingness, just a pure space. That purity is what meditation is all about. For twelve hundred years the book has not been published because no publisher was ready to publish it. Obviously the publisher asked... there is nothing to publish in it. Finally one Sufi master published it himself. Now it is available -- but it is just empty pages. It is called THE BOOK OF BOOKS.

Move from sound to silence.

This way you will not become serious and dead like your saints. I have heard, Milarepa: A man once said to Doctor Johnson, "You are a philosopher, Doctor Johnson. I have tried too, in my time, to be a philosopher, but I don't know how to be one. You see, cheerfulness was always breaking in."

You cannot be a philosopher and retain your cheerfulness. It is better to drop all philosophizing and open all the buds of your cheerfulness. Sing just like the birds. Play on your guitars, but remember the gestalt should be on the silences. Dance to abandon, and you may be coming closer and closer to the reality because the reality is so festive. It is a festival of lights, day in, day out.

Just watch existence and you will be surprised. What do these poor trees have? -- no bank account, no houses to live in, no clothes to hide their nakedness. But just watch their cheerfulness; just watch their flowers, their fragrance. They don't have anything as possessions, but they have themselves. You may have many possessions, but you don't have yourself.

You are a house full of things, but the master is missing. Awaken the master. Be more alert, aware, receptive, and you will come to know immense mysteries surrounding you.

When one feels surrounded by mysteries, a deep gratefulness arises in the heart. That gratefulness is the only authentic prayer. All other prayers are false, manufactured by man. Only gratefulness that arises spontaneously is not manufactured by you. It is a happening just like love.

And once it starts happening, it starts growing wider, bigger. Soon it starts reaching to the faraway stars. Your whole life becomes nothing but a prayer. Your actions become prayer, your rest becomes prayer, your work becomes prayer, your sleep becomes prayer, you become a prayer. It is not something to do in a church or in a temple. It is something to be, wherever you are.

Milarepa, no one has ever heard of any philosopher coming to a conclusion. No one has ever heard about any philosopher becoming enlightened, becoming self-realized. It is as unheard of as anyone ever complaining of a parachute not opening. Philosophers are the most misguided people on the earth, and to follow them is to follow blind people.

Find someone who sees, who is a seer, who experiences... whose heart dances with the wind, the rain, the sun, whose innermost being has achieved a synchronicity with all that surrounds you, from the lowest grass leaf to the biggest star in the world. He is in tune with everything. He is no longer an outsider; he is an insider. The philosopher is an outsider. He stands away and thinks about things. The mystic takes a jump into existence, becomes an insider, has no need to think. He tastes, he smells, he sees, he loves, he lives.

Truth has to be lived, not known.

Life has to be squeezed to the last drop of juice. It is not something to be contemplated upon -- drink it.

The last words of Jesus to his disciples are significant. The last supper, the last time when Jesus ate and drank with his disciples before being caught and taken to prison... He was aware that he is going to be caught; the rumor was all around. He was aware that it is possible he may be crucified. So after supper he spoke a few words to the disciples:

"Perhaps I may not be able to see you again. Just remember one thing: You have not been with me to listen to what I say; you have been with me to eat me, to drink me, to live me.

I may be gone, but you can continue to drink me."

Once you have known the secret of drinking and eating and absorbing, then the whole existence is available.

The master is only a small window into the universe. Once you have come to the master, the window disappears and you are facing the whole existence. The frame of the window should not become important. That's what has happened to millions of people: the frame of the window is being worshiped; nobody is looking through the window to the beyond.

The window is only an invitation to see to the beyond, but people are worshiping the windows: somebody worshiping Buddha, somebody worshiping Jesus, somebody worshiping Ramakrishna. These are all windows, but they are not for worshiping; they are to be transcended. They give you the vision, the philosia. Then leave them behind and go on moving into existence as deeply as possible. And that is possible only in silence.

Let your music slowly become more and more close to meditation. Philosophy is a kind of disease -- very dangerous, almost incurable. I would like you not to be a philosopher but just a dancer, a singer, a flute player, because they are very close to my world of meditation.

My emphasis is to increase your cheerfulness, your laughter, because this world is not for the miserable. This world is not for the people who have become too accustomed to anxiety, anguish. This world belongs to those who live moment to moment in utter ecstasy. Cheerfulness, nonseriousness, a sense of humor to me are very fundamental qualities of a religious being.

Solomon Rabinowitz went to his doctor to have a checkup. The doctor said, "For a man of eighty-seven you are doing well. Why a checkup?"

Solly explained that he was going to marry a girl of twenty. He would not be dissuaded, so the doctor's final advice was, "Then if you hope for a fruitful marriage, take a lodger as well."

When they met again after eight months the old man said, "Congratulate me, Doctor, my wife is pregnant."

The doctor paused for a moment, and then said, "Ah yes, so you took my advice and had a lodger as well?"

"Of course," grinned Solly through his toothless gums. "She is pregnant too."

Just remain cheerful.

Existence loves nothing more than cheerfulness.

Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan are traveling in a plane together when Reagan says, "If I throw a one dollar bill out of the plane, I will make someone happy."

"Okay," says Gorbachev, "but if I throw out a one hundred ruble note I will make one hundred people happy."

"In that case," says Reagan, "I will throw out a million dollars and make a million people happy."

"Go ahead," says Gorbachev, "and then I will throw you out and make the whole world happy."

It was in the divorce court and the judge asked the husband, "So you have not spoken to your wife for three years -- why?"

The husband replied, "I did not want to interrupt her."

The priest was visiting the young widow who had just moved to his parish. After talking with her for a while he raised a questioning eyebrow and said, "Now let me get this straight. You say you have a child of two and another three years old, and yet you say that your husband has been dead for seven years."

"Yes," said the woman, "but I'm not."

A philosopher becomes enclosed within himself. He loses contact with the birds. Do you hear them? -- for no purpose, just out of sheer joy, just for being in existence.... Nobody has asked them to sing. The song is coming from an inner source of cheerfulness.

Nobody has asked the trees to give flowers so colorful and so fragrant. But the tree, just out of gratitude towards existence, brings all those beautiful flowers -- a silent prayer and a beautiful offering.

A man remains miserable if he becomes closed within his own mind and goes on and on just making sand castles -- words, theories, hypotheses. He loses contact with existence.

And to lose contact with existence is to be almost dead before death comes.

It is almost the average case that people die at the age of thirty and are buried at the age of seventy. For forty years what have they been doing here? -- just dragging themselves, and dragging towards the graveyard. These people go to the churches, go to the temples, go to the mosques, go to the synagogues, and because of these corpses, all synagogues, all churches, all temples have become utterly sad, serious.

In Israel just now there are riots among Jews themselves. They had to fight with the Mohammedans, who are surrounding them like a vast ocean, and Israel is just a small island surrounded by millions of Mohammedans; that fight continues. But a new fight has started which is more dangerous; it is coming from inside. Now Jews are divided into three sections in Israel.

The people who have been living there for centuries think they are the real Jews. They follow everything as traditionally as it has been followed since Moses, four thousand years ago. The second group has come from European countries. They are a little more progressive; they cannot follow dead routines. They have lived in a different atmosphere, in different cultures.

The worst problem is with the Jews who have come from America. And you will be surprised to know that on the Sabbath, on Friday evening, the orthodox Jews stop working -- everything. The American Jews have never thought that driving their car home from the office is work. The American Jews are being stoned; their cars are being damaged. They are beaten because they are driving cars. No work is allowed.

Now Israel is really in a terrible mess. Orthodox Jews are telling the European and the American Jews to go back, "You are destroying our religion, our culture, our tradition."

And naturally, the American Jew is a totally different species; just in name is he a Jew.

I have told you one story befor....

Three American rabbis were bragging about their synagogue's progressiveness. The first rabbi said, "Nobody can beat me. In my synagogue people are allowed to smoke."

The second rabbi laughed and said, "That's nothing. In my synagogue we are really progressive. People are allowed to drink, bring their girlfriends, dance, are even allowed to make love."

The third rabbi said, "Drop all this crap. We are the most avant garde, most progressive people in the world. In my synagogue there is a board hanging on the door saying that on Jewish holidays the synagogue will remain closed."

This is real progress! Naturally the orthodox Jews in Israel who have always lived there and have not known anything about the world, are still with their conditionings from the past. They are serious people. They cannot conceive that in a synagogue you should laugh. In a synagogue even a smile is not allowed. You have to be serious; it is serious business.

But the whole existence is nonserious.

To me the only authentic temple is existence.

Learn from it. You don't have to become a philosopher, you don't have to become a saint, you don't have to become a wise man. Milarepa, it is perfectly good to remain OTHERwise. The so-called wise have tortured humanity so much that now my preference is for the OTHERwise.

Be more human. Don't betray the earth. Be more in love with the earth and with all the treasures that that the earth provides you with. It is our home. We are not renouncers, we are rejoicers. We want to participate in the dance of existence.

My people are not anti-life.

My people are life affirmative.

Except life there is no God.

And life is not something to be thought about, it is something to be danced, to be loved, to be celebrated.

A Frenchman staying at an English country house for the weekend was attracted to a beautiful society girl, and without much difficulty seduced her. Several months later they met by chance at a very select society ball. He stepped forward with outstretched hand, but she walked straight past him without acknowledgment. As soon as he could, the Frenchman cornered her and said, "Surely you remember me?"

"Of course I do, young man, but you are not to assume that in England a one-night frolic means that we have been introduced."

Life is so hilarious that to be serious is to be sick unnecessarily. A psychological health, a spiritual sanity, a possibility to remember that here you are not to be dead, that you have to live life in its totality, with intensity, to burn your torch of life from both ends together.

That is the only authentic philosia.

But don't be a philosopher; that is the original sin of man. I stand against all philosophies because all philosophies are poisonous. They poison your possibilities of humor, of playfulness, of cheerfulness. They destroy your songs. They make you crippled and stop you from dancing. All these philosophers with long faces have dominated humanity too long. It is time that their domination be completely eradicated.

A new era of the mystics is knocking on your door. Listen carefully and open your doors.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #22

Chapter title: The sweetness of silence on your tongue

30 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8709305

ShortTitle:

PILGR22

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

68

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE OVERCOME THE GOSSIPS, PLEASE JUST GIVE ME SOME SUTRAS TO

MEDITATE UPON.

Devageet, it is next to impossible to overcome gossips, particularly in such a juicy, holy place! Gossips are so intrinsic to a cheerful life that they need not be overcome. They should be enjoyed. They also contain a certain fragment of truth. That should be discovered. No gossip is just a lie. It is a strange phenomenon that all gospels are simply lies; and no gossip is just a lie, there is some element, some fragment of truth in it.

The serious people are addicted to gospels. And if nonserious people start overcoming gossips, what will be left for you? Gospels you have overcome already; now all that remains for you is gossiping. Life has always been taken seriously, and that has produced a miserable mankind. Life should be taken as fun! Only then can we create a paradise on the earth.

Life is neither profane nor sacred; those are words used by the serious people. Either they condemn it, or they make it divine; either this extreme or that extreme -- but the truth is always in the middle, in the exact middle you are standing on the truth. Life is neither profane nor divine. It is simply a tremendous opportunity to rejoice. The moment you call it profane, you start feeling guilty. You become crippled on your own, you cannot dance -

- dance becomes profane and condemned -- you cannot sing, you cannot celebrate.

One Zen master, Ta-Kuan, was on his deathbed. He asked for some paper and his calligraphic brush. It has been a longstanding tradition in the world of Zen that masters when departing from life give their last statement, written. Ta-Kuan wrote on the paper a Japanese word which means dream. He laughed, closed his eyes, the brush dropped from his hand.

But before writing this last statement he had instructed his disciples, "Bury me just in the mud behind the temple, because I am part of the earth and the earth wants to reclaim me, to rejuvenate, to create me anew. I am tired and it wants to take me to rest. And don't mourn when I die, but celebrate. Don't make a monument on my grave, because I am going home. It is not a grave to me, it is only entering into eternal rest. So rejoice, sing, dance, celebrate and carry on your daily work as if nothing has happened."

People like Ta-Kuan understand that life, although it is a dream, does not need to be condemned. It is a beautiful dream. You can sing it, you can dance it, you can make it more beautiful, you can decorate it.

To call it a dream is not a condemnation. He has instructed that they should celebrate and they should continue their daily work as if nothing has happened. The people who know never feel guilty about life and never put life on a high pedestal beyond their reach, so that they can only kneel down, lose their dignity, their pride and their self-respect and pray to a hypothetical divine life -- to someone who does not exist, far away in the stars.

All the religions have done both these things. On the one hand they have condemned your ordinary life, and they have created a tremendous sickness of guilt all over the world. For centuries man has been drowning in guilt. All his pleasures are poisoned. The condemnation goes so long and so deep that you cannot enjoy your food, you cannot enjoy your love, you cannot enjoy your clothes, you cannot enjoy at all. Something inside you goes on condemning: you are doing something wrong.

A small boy in the school was saying, "It took me twelve years to understand that `don't'

is not my name! Whatever I was doing -- `Don't do it!' Everything that I was doing was wrong, and everything that I had no interest in was right."

The impossible is made right and the possible and the real is made a sin. Between these two -- the sin and the virtue -- every man is crushed, sandwiched between two rocks. You don't see the naturalness, acceptability of whatever you are, without any ideals.

Devageet, nothing is wrong in gossiping; just gossip in an enlightened way. Beautify your gossips; let your gossips also be part of your understanding, of your love, of your compassion. Even your gossips will show who you are. They are your signatures.

Gossiping becomes evil when it is out of jealousy, meanness, violence, when it is just to pull somebody down, when it comes out of a revengeful mind -- but it is not the fault of gossiping. Gossiping can come out of a meditative mind. Gossiping can come out of love, out of peace. Gossiping is an art in itself. Everybody is not capable of gossiping. There are born gossipers!

Devageet, you cannot overcome it; it is intrinsic to your nature. You are a born gossiper.

You gossip against yourself.

You are asking me for some sutras to meditate upon. Before I give you some sutras, it has to be understood that you can contemplate on them, but you cannot meditate on them.

That is the difference between contemplation and meditation. That is the difference between mind and no-mind. That is the difference between philosophy and philosia.

Contemplation needs an object. Without an object to contemplate on, you cannot contemplate -- contemplate on what? Some content, some object is needed for your mind to focus upon it; hence, contemplation never goes beyond mind.

Philosophy is contemplation.

Science is concentration.

Religion is meditation.

But meditation means you don't have anything, any object to think about. You are just in a state of absolute aloneness. You don't have anything on which you can focus yourself --

not a sutra, not a mantra, not any great value of life, just pure space all around you. Then you are in meditation.

Meditation is never about something.

Meditation is a state.

You can be in it; it is not something that you have to do -- not even thinking, not even contemplating.

There are beautiful ways of contemplation, and I will give you sutras to contemplate. But it has to be made absolutely clear that there is nothing in the world that you can meditate upon.

Meditation is simply going beyond mind, beyond the functioning of the mind, beyond all the fetters of the mind, and just entering into this silence, unmoving, unwavering -- just a pure awareness, a silent flame, a great joy... but nothing to see. A great clarity of seeing, a vast openness... the whole sky is yours, but nothing objects to you, nothing prevents you.

For the first time the nothingness has opened its doors to you. You simply are, utterly centered, without even a single thought flying across your mind. Then you are in meditation.

There are many moments here when you are in meditation in spite of yourself. I am not an orator, I speak only to create silence for you. I speak only so that between two words you can feel the gap... that between two words you can fall into the silence. The speaker, the orator, the philosopher, the teacher, they emphasize the words; I emphasize the silences between the words. They emphasize the lines; I emphasize between the gap between two lines. It is a change of gestalt from word to wordlessness.

If you make an effort, you miss the whole point, because making an effort your mind comes in. Perhaps nobody has ever spoken the way I am speaking to you. They had a message to give to you; I have an experience to share. They had a certain philosophy to convince you, to convert you; I don't have any philosophy, any nonsense. I have simply a device: I am not saying anything to you, I am just giving you chances of being in silence without any effort on your part. Once you have learned these moments and their beauty, and their benediction and their blessing, it will not be difficult to find the same spaces anywhere. Just the first experience is the most difficult.

An ancient Chinese proverb says, The first step is the only problem, because the whole journey is complete in the first step. You don't have to take another step.

For thousands of years there have been masters telling people to be silent, to go beyond mind. People have listened to them and they have tried also -- but they go on failing again and again, because effort will not lead you to it. The master's function is not to give you a certain technique. The master's function is to give you a glimpse, just a little taste: the sweetness of silence on your tongue. Then you will be able to find it on your own.

Meditation cannot be taught, it can only be caught.

I am meditation.

If you are available you can catch it.

It is just as contagious as any disease -- it is not a disease, it is a cure of all diseases; it is the ultimate health. But nobody has thought that health can also be contagious. The whole of medical science goes on thinking about infections, about diseases. Nobody bothers to make health infectious, to create healthy people who move anywhere and make other people healthy, just by their presence.

My own experience is -- I am not a physician, the body is not my world -- that spirituality, religiousness, is certainly contagious. I give you moments to feel the presence, to feel the nothingness surrounding you. This is meditation; it does not need any object.

But for your contemplation I can give you a few sutras....

... An atomic war will not determine who is right, but who is left.

... A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right.

... Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get.

... Say it with flowers, say it with sweets. Say it with kisses, say it with eats. Say it with jewelry, say it with drink. But always be careful not to say it with ink.

... Philosophy is the discovery that you might be worse off than you are.

... If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs... maybe you have not heard the gossip!

... Keep quiet and people will think you to be a great philosopher.

... A reformed politician is one who did not get enough votes.

... A neurotic is a person who worries about things that did not happen in the past, instead of worrying about something that won't happen in the future, like normal people.

... The difference between capitalism and communism: in capitalism, man exploits man; in communism it is vice-versa.

... Women are the kind of problem most men like to wrestle with.

... To have the last word with a woman -- apologize.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU ARE TALKING EVERYTHING FEELS FINE, BUT WHEN YOU STOP, IT FEELS LIKE THE CARPET HAS BEEN PULLED FROM UNDER MY FEET.

PLEASE COMMENT.

Dhyan Anekant, that's the very purpose of my stopping: to pull the carpet from under your feet, to give you a chance to become aware what you are without me. So once in a while, I pretend to be sick. I have to; otherwise you start forgetting your reality. You start becoming more and more my music, my poetry, my painting, and I don't want that. You have to be your own music and you have to be your own poetry.

You have to be just yourself.

What happens when I stop speaking? You are saying, "Everything feels fine when you are talking, but when you stop it feels like the carpet has been pulled from under my feet." Suddenly you become aware of all the garbage that you had forgotten you are carrying within you. All that crap -- centuries old -- starts rising within your mind; it is really stinking. You forget all the fragrance I was talking about; you don't see any flowers anywhere. You don't see the beautiful sunrises, the beautiful sunsets; you don't hear anymore the songs of the birds. You are so full of your own garbage, you become completely closed to the world.

I open you, your windows, your doors, your eyes, your ears. I give you a chance to be unafraid, fearless, and open your doors.

The unknown is not your enemy.

The unknown is your friend.

The stranger is your guest.

Allow the strange, allow the unfamiliar.

With me you gather courage, you open up; you start listening to the silences, you start seeing the beauties of existence. But left alone you immediately rush to close your doors and windows, and start hiding in your dark hole which you think is your security and safety.

It is not safety, it is not security, it is your grave -- although the grave has a certain kind of security. For example, you cannot die again. You can rest at ease, no death is ever going to disturb you -- but do you want that kind of security? The dead are so safe, they will not even fall sick, not even the common cold -- no problems, no anxieties, no responsibilities.

While you are alive, don't create a grave for yourself. As I see it, everybody is a gravedigger; he digs his own grave continuously, in search of security, safety, protecting himself from the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange -- who knows what it is. It is better to live with your known sadness, misery, darkness -- but at least you know them, you have been with them long enough, you are acquainted.

So the moment you are not listening to me, you start listening to yourself. That is the problem. You have to come to a point when you don't have anything to say. Then without me you will have even greater experiences, even greater ecstasies, even greater moments of splendor.

I am simply showing you the path.

It leads to faraway stars.

But when I am not with you, you have to understand that what starts surfacing in you is your reality -- and you have to get beyond it.

Two martians crash land their flying saucer in a piano shop. Dusting themselves off they approach a grand piano. Says one, "Take me to your dentist."

The other commands, "Wipe that grin off your face."

Now the Martians have their own understanding of things. They don't belong to your world. They are coming from a different world, different language, different ways of seeing things.

The little boy comes back from his first day at school.

His mother greets him and says, "Well, Tommy, did you learn much on your first day?"

"Not enough I guess," said Tommy sadly, "I have to go back again tomorrow."

Children have their own understanding. When you are alone, you speak your language; you speak from the space where you are, and you become frightened -- what happened to great ecstasies? Only agonies are arising in you, miserable, tidal waves. What happened to all that was so beautiful? What happened to that music? You hear only noises --

maddening.

It was the first day of the factory football match and the polacks were playing the Italians.

Nobody managed to score, and at five o'clock the factory siren blew, so the Italians left the field and went home. Half an hour later, the polacks scored a goal.

Now, nothing can be done about it! You have to face your reality. Only by facing it and remembering those glimpses that you had with me, in communion, in a deep harmony with me, you have now a certainty that your reality is not the whole reality, that there is much more, that the real richness is missing. You are living at the minimum -- a poor life, spiritually. I drag you to the very sunlit peaks. But when I leave you, you immediately start rolling down, back into the valley in search of your security, because on the hilltop you feel so alone. In the valley is the whole crowd, all your friends, all your enemies....

After two years in a salt mine in Siberia, Ivan was unburdening himself to his sweetheart.

"Oh, darling, how I have suffered without you these past two years!" he babbled.

"Nothing to do all day except dig salt... salt... salt. In all that time what do you think was on my mind?"

"Tell me, dearest," she breathed as she snuggled closer.

"Pepper!" he answered.

Salt and salt and salt -- naturally, only one thing was in his mind, pepper.

You have to face your mind.

You cannot just avoid it and escape from it. Wherever you go, you will find it; it is within you. It is you.

So this is my way of working. I will be with you and I will take you to unknown spaces.

But once in a while I will disappear, just to give you a sense of where you are and where you ought to be, and to know the distance.

And it is not difficult to bridge the gap, but you have to be aware. Once you know the gap, the bridge is not difficult. But people are not even aware of the gap; they think this is all that life is meant to be. It is not all.

Life is infinite.

Life is beyond your wildest dreams.

It is an eternal romance, a great love affair which begins but never ends.

A suave executive seemed disappointed after lunching with a gorgeous blonde.

When his friend asked what went wrong, he replied, "She said yes."

"Yes sounds good to me!"

"Not," the other said, "when the question is, Àre you married?'"

When you are alone, watch what kind of questions are arising in you, and what kind of answers you are capable of giving to those questions -- because every question that arises in you has an answer somewhere within you. Without an answer no question arises. So just watch. Dig deeper into every question and you will find your answer. It will be ordinary, mundane and you will feel hurt, wounded. But I want you to know where you are, because the journey begins from where you are.

I can give you glimpses of the faraway experiences, but you have to move from the space where you are. You have to go on a pilgrimage. Being with me you can either use this opportunity for your growth, or you can misuse it. If you are simply being entertained, you are misusing the opportunity. Unless you are becoming enlightened -- even if slowly and gradually but steadily -- then you are not using the opportunity to its fullest.

I am not here to entertain you. Other than your enlightenment, nothing will make me celebrate you. I would like to celebrate for all of you, but you have to blossom to your uttermost potentiality.

One evening in a bar in New York, a woman with a nasal, raspy voice was singing, "My Old Virginia Home."

An old man in the corner bowed his head and wept quietly. A lady leaned over to him and whispered, "Excuse me, but are you a Virginian?"

"No, lady," said the man, "I am a musician."

Jake Lavinsky decided to return to Russia, the land of his birth, after living in America for thirty-five years. "I want to help make a success of the workers' paradise," he gave as his excuse.

But he was back in the States three months later. "In the Soviet Union it is just impossible to do anything right," he complained. "If you arrive for work five minutes early, you are betraying your fellow workers. If you are five minutes late, you are betraying socialism.

And if you arrive on time -- God forbid -- the commissar calls you into his office and shouts, "So where did you get the watch?"

Here, it is a totally different situation: everything is right. Five minutes earlier, five minutes late, or at the right time -- nothing is wrong if you are just alert.

If you are going deeper in your alertness, if you are aware, and your awareness is becoming more and more crystallized, everything will go on becoming more and more right. A moment comes when you cannot conceive how to commit a mistake; you cannot conceive how to be cruel, how to be unkind, how to be violent, how to be inhuman.

The day you cannot conceive all that is animal in you... then from your very mud the lotus has grown, has gone beyond the waters, has reached and opened its petals to the sun. The day of dance has arrived -- the moment of celebration.

We are all born in the mud, but there is no need to remain there. This place is not to condemn you for being born in the mud, but to provoke you, to challenge you, to invite you, to welcome you.Although you were born in the mud -- all lotuses are born in the mud -- you have the potential of becoming a lotus, the most beautiful flower in existence.

With me, drink your future as deeply as possible. I am your future. When you are alone, watch quietly and silently your present. From your present, from your muddy mess, will arise a flower. Where you are today, I was exactly there yesterday, so I know what a great future you have. Where I am today, you are going to be there tomorrow -- or at the most the day after tomorrow.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #23

Chapter title: Knowledge is the corpse of knowing

1 October 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8710010

ShortTitle:

PILGR23

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

93

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE FALLEN SO MUCH IN LOVE WITH THIS GESTURE OF YOURS OF

SHAKING YOUR HEAD AT PEOPLE'S FOOLISH QUESTIONS THAT I AM

TRYING HARD TO WRITE ONE TO PROVOKE YOU TO DO SO AGAIN. BUT

THE PROBLEM IS THAT THIS DOES NOT SUIT A SERIOUS GERMAN DISCIPLE

LIKE ME.

ANYWAY, DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ONLY THE MOST

BEAUTIFUL AND GORGEOUS MASTER, BUT ALSO THE MOST IRRESISTIBLY

CHARMING BEING MY EYES HAVE EVER SEEN?

Haridevi, it seemed difficult for you to ask a foolish question but you have managed. One need not make much effort to ask foolish questions; in fact, all questions are foolish! A mind that questions does not know how to live, does not know how to love; otherwise life itself brings all the answers, love fulfills all the questions.

The people who have been talking about God, about heaven and hell, about faraway things, are the people who cannot live herenow. Their questions show that their present is empty. They want to have contentment and fulfillment, but in the present they are almost incapable -- and the present is the only time that exists. There is no other time.

These are ways of postponing. Talking about God, nobody will think it is a foolish question; but it is, it is a way of avoiding life. It is a way to take yourself away from the present moment. All questions take you away from yourself. There is not a single question that brings you home. To be at home you will find no questions, no answers, but an eternal peace. In that peace you don't become knowledgeable, but in that peace your ignorance is transmuted into innocence. In that peace your questions go through a metamorphosis. They become your wonders. Your questions become your mysteries.

I say all questions are foolish because their basic root is... perhaps you are not aware of it, the basic root of all questions is that we want to demystify life. What are all questions for? You want to become knowledgeable, and the more knowledgeable you become, the less mysterious life becomes. You start thinking as if you know. And even your greatest knowledgeable learned people know nothing. What do you know about even yourself? --

which is the closest thing to begin with. What do you know about your own consciousness?

You are it, but absolutely unaware of it. And if you cannot know such a close phenomenon, how do you think you can know the farthest star? But the farthest star serves a particular purpose. Your eyes become focused on faraway things and you can avoid the present moment. And to avoid the present moment is to avoid life itself.

Great philosophies have arisen, great theologies based on faraway questions, without your being aware that every question is a strategy of the mind to take away from this small moment... from this silence, from this heartbeat. The next moment is not certain, and all questions are postponement. Looked at exactly, all questions are escapist. And there have been people who are giving you answers and making you feel great because you have so much rubbish, you know so much. And you start thinking that just knowing so much, being so much informed, is a revolution.

Remember, information is never a transformation. On the contrary, all information that you collect becomes a barrier for your transformation. And all our universities and colleges and educational systems are simply doing the most harmful thing to you: they are giving you a false notion of knowing.

Knowing comes through living, not through books, not through teachers, not through saviors. It comes through your own intensity, aliveness -- and you cannot be alive tomorrow, you have to be alive this moment. You don't need questions and you don't need any answer, because no answer is going to satisfy your quest. You are thirsty... you need water, living water, to quench your thirst. You don't need the answer that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. The formula H2O* is not going to quench your thirst.

This is my existential approach.

Man has lived too long under the shadow of intellectual efforts to demystify existence.

Fortunately, he has not been able. The existence is as mysterious as ever, but unfortunately he has become burdened with great knowledge and a false feeling that he knows. This is the greatest danger -- to be addicted with a false notion of knowing.

Socrates, in his last days of life made one of the most significant statements ever made.

He said, "When I was a child I used to think I know everything. When I became a young man I became aware that the more I know, the more there is to know. My knowledge is not dispelling ignorance, but only making me aware of my ignorance, how little I know, and the immense and infinite that is waiting to be known.

"And now at a ripe age I can gather courage to say that which I could not say when I was young, that I know nothing. And this experience that I know nothing has unburdened me completely of all the knowledge that I have accumulated; it has fallen away. I am standing utterly naked, just as I was born. The same innocence has come with tremendous beauty, with great rejoicing."

There are only two men in the whole history of man -- Socrates is one -- who said, "I know nothing." The second man is Bodhidharma, who said it in a more dramatic way. He had a unique personality of his own. He was born in India, but was sent by his master to China to inform the people about Gautam Buddha. He went there, and nine years he lived there; and before leaving China he had thousands of disciples. But he chose four disciples and told them, "Before I leave, I want somebody to be my successor. Amongst you four is the one who will succeed me. I will ask you a simple thing, and whoever answers rightly will be the successor."

Naturally, it was a great moment of suspicion. Time suspended... thousands of disciples waiting... those four disciples standing... and Bodhidharma asked, "In a very simple statement, telegraphic, don't use a single word that is not necessary, state what was my purpose in coming to China from India."

The first one said, "You had come here to spread the transcendental wisdom of Gautam Buddha."

Bodhidharma looked with compassion and said, "You are right, but not enough. You have my skin."

And he moved towards the next, who said, "You have come here to give an experience of silence, of truth, of beauty, of blissfulness."

Bodhidharma again looked with deep compassion and said, "A little better -- you have my bones."

And he turned to the third disciple who said, "Your coming has been the greatest phenomenon in the history of China. Your purpose was to impart meditation."

Bodhidharma said, "You are not wrong, but not right either."

He turned towards the fourth. And the fourth started crying with tears flowing down, not out of any misery but out of tremendous joy. And he collapsed at the feet of Bodhidharma without saying a single word. Bodhidharma took him up, hugged him, and said to him, "You have said it. I don't know; you don't know either. You are going to be my successor. Spread this luminous ignorance as far and as wide as possible."

Luminous ignorance -- yes, that is the ultimate state of silence. That is the only living water which can quench your thirst. Questions won't do it. I allow you to ask questions --

it is just an indirect way of taking away all your foolishness. I don't answer your questions, I simply destroy them. If I can succeed in taking away all your questions my purpose is fulfilled and your destiny too. It is not that my answers are needed, it is that your questions have to be utterly, mercilessly destroyed. You are to be left without questions, and that is the answer.

Haridevi, you are saying, "Anyway, did you know that you are not only the most beautiful and gorgeous master...?" I don't even know that I am a master.

Just yesterday I saw your question, and for the first time in my whole life I looked seriously into the mirror. Because if Haridevi thinks that I am the most beautiful and gorgeous master, there is bound to be something wrong. I tried hard but I could not find anyone there in the mirror. I have been absent for almost thirty-five years.

Once I used to be... but for thirty-five years I have been just empty, a hollow bamboo. In the right hands that hollow bamboo can become a flute. I have allowed my hollow bamboo to bring to you any music, any song, any ecstasy that existence wants to share with you. But on your part, perhaps listening to a beautiful flute player, you start looking at the flute, thinking perhaps the music is of the flute. The music is not of the flute. I am singing songs of existence. My gestures are not my gestures.

I am no longer a person, but only a presence. But perhaps that presence is giving you the idea of beauty. In fact you yourself have said, "I have fallen so much in love with you."

Love imparts beauty to anything. It is not my fault. If you have fallen in love with me, to you I will look as gorgeous as your love is deep. But that shows the heart of a disciple.

That shows the eyes of a devotee; that shows the feeling of a lover. It has nothing to do with me; it is all your experience. It is your own inner beauty projected on me. It is your own feeling projected on the screen which is empty.

You are also saying, "Not only you are the most beautiful and gorgeous master, but also the most irresistibly charming being my eyes have ever seen." Your eyes have remained closed to the whole existence. You have not fallen in love with trees and birds and animals. You have not fallen in love with the ocean and the mountains; otherwise you would have seen the same beauty millionfold. Let this be the beginning of a long pilgrimage. Don't stop at me.

The master has to be only a beginning, just a push on the way. But remember that these are your eyes full of love which are projecting. These eyes can make this whole existence beautiful. And the moment you can start seeing into rocks and into flowers and into stars, you will be amazed, overwhelmed what a great existence you have been missing. If the master can give you just a glimpse, that's enough; then you can go on your way.

Gautam Buddha is reported to have said, "If you meet me on the way again, cut my head immediately. "No authentic master would like you to become addicted to him. He would like you to move on. If you have seen the beauty in me, you are capable of seeing beauty.

Just here, you have opened your eyes in trust, in love. To the whole existence you remain closed in distrust, in doubt, in uncertainty; otherwise, this is the most perfect existence possible. And anyway, there is no other existence.

If the master can become your window and you can see through the window to the open sky, to the vast spaces, you will remain grateful to the master, but not addicted to him.

The fear of addiction is not unfounded: there are millions of people who are addicted to Gautam Buddha, millions of others who are addicted to Jesus Christ, millions of others addicted to Mohammed. They have forgotten that a master is only a window frame, and if you start becoming addicted to the frame of the window, you will never look through it.

Then the window becomes your worship, the object of your worship. Windows are not to be worshiped; windows are to be opened so that you can see beyond.

You are on the right track, Haridevi -- just don't go astray.

Once there were three men traveling in an airplane. Unfortunately, one fell out; but fortunately there was a haystack below him. Unfortunately there was a pitchfork in the haystack; fortunately he missed the pitchfork. Unfortunately he missed the haystack too!

So there will come moments when you are fortunate, when you are unfortunate. Life is not a straight line; it is very zigzag. The path goes in a zigzag way. It is a mountainous path and to go astray is very simple, because your mind is all for going astray. You have to be very alert that your mind cannot take you away from the reality, that your mind does not succeed in taking you astray.

Your mind is your most unfortunate thing.

"My wife is always asking for money, money, money," complained Hymie Goldberg to a friend. "Last week she wanted two hundred dollars. The day before yesterday she asked me for one hundred and fifty. And this morning she wanted one hundred dollars."

"That's crazy," said his friend. "What does she do with all that money?"

"I don't know," said Hymie, "I never give her any."

Your mind will demand continuously: Do this, go this way. Don't listen to it. The moment a person stops listening to his own mind, he starts listening to the universal mind. He has come in the open. Your mind is an enclosure, very tiny, and mind cannot help you on the way. It is your greatest enemy. All your questions come from the mind, and all the answers that have been given down the ages go into the mind.

I repeat again, I am not answering your questions. I love you enough... I am not your enemy and I cannot give you answers. I simply want to take away your questions.

Slowly, slowly you forget asking questions, you start just being here, enjoying. Nothing is to be asked. Nothing has to be enquired, but one has just to be. To be or not to be is the only significant decision. Be here and you will find that you are the answer.

Mind is full of questions and full of borrowed answers. You are the authentic answer, but then there is no question -- it is a very strange phenomenon. When you have questions, you don't have the answer. And when you come across the answer you don't have the questions.

Gertrude Stein was dying. She was a great poetess, perhaps the greatest woman poet who has existed on this planet. Her friends had gathered, and just before she died, she opened her eyes and asked, "What is the answer?" The friends were stunned. Has she gone mad?

-- nobody asks what is the answer. First you have to ask the question; otherwise how can it be answered? But they were in deep love and gratefulness to the woman who has ignited the flame in many of those who were present.

One friend asked her, "This is absurd. You are asking, `What is the answer?' but we don't know what the question is."

Gertrude Stein opened her eyes again and said, "Okay, then tell me, what is the question?" And she died.

There is no question and then suddenly you are the answer. Not that it comes from anywhere else... your answer is covered with your questions. Take away all the questions, and in that state when all questions have fallen down like dry leaves falling from the tree, and you are standing like naked branches against the evening sky, you will know. But it will be more a knowing than knowledge.

Knowledge is the corpse of knowing.

Knowing is alive; knowledge is dead.

In that moment when there is no question around you, there is an innocent opening to all the mystery of existence. Here, my effort is to make you somehow ignorant.

Socrates has divided man into two categories. The first category is of those who can be called "knowledgeable ignorant," and the second is of those who can be called "ignorant knowers." Certainly ignorance is being used by Socrates in the second category, and by me, as synonymous with innocence. Just don't be concerned with questions. Let them by and by disappear... and a moment certainly comes when you don't have any question.

At that moment is the explosion. You become luminous. Suddenly you don't know, and you know for the first time as an experience, the ultimate that quenches all your thirst.

The quest is over. You have come full circle back to your innocent childhood. It is going to happen to you, because there is no other way for man to know the ecstasies which are his birthright.

You are not born here to be miserable.

You are not born here to fulfill the requirements of the so-called contemporary existentialists -- meaninglessness, boredom, misery, anguish, anxiety, angst, agony. The whole existentialist philosophy of the contemporaries is so sick. And even those philosophers don't believe in it; otherwise they should have committed suicide. What is the point of living a meaningless life? What is the point of living an accidental life? What is the point of living in anguish which leads nowhere? What is the point... if death is going to be the end, then why go on unnecessarily torturing yourself?

I have asked this to many professors of philosophy in the universities who have become influenced with existentialism. I said, "Then you have to give a proof."

They said, "What proof?"

I said, "You have to commit suicide, because there seems to be no reason.... You should return the ticket and get down from the train."

But these existentialists go on living to the very ripe age of eighty, ninety -- and this is not new.

In Greece, Zeno lived ninety years, and his whole life he was preaching exactly in different terms what existentialism is preaching now. It is said that thousands of his disciples committed suicide. He was a very convincing man, but he himself lived for ninety years. When he was dying one follower asked, "This seems to be very unbelievable. Thousands of people have committed suicide, convinced by your philosophy. Why did you go on living?"

He said, "I had just to convince people." He was saying that he is a martyr. He has sacrificed himself for ninety years -- continuously he has lived in misery, just to teach people and to help them to commit suicide.

I am not here to help you to commit suicide. I am here to help you to know the great splendor of life, the benediction of existence. Each moment is so full of joy and blessings that if you start living moment-to-moment, your life will be a constant dance.

I am really an authentic existentialist. I don't think that Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Soren*

Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Marshall and their whole company is truly existentialist.

They have not known even a single moment with their totality; otherwise, all boredom disappears, all meaninglessness disappears.

Life is so juicy, so full of flowers with so much fragrance.

Just don't miss the moment.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NO-MIND AND MY-MIND?

Milarepa, the difference between no-mind and my-mind is the difference between your mind and my mind.

Just drop the "my" and there is no difference between no-mind and mind. "My" mind creates the boundary. Take the boundary away, and mind becomes no-mind, infinite, unbounded. You are an imprisoned splendor. Just take the prison away... And the prison is not much; it is of I, my, mine. Just be without these words surrounding you, and no-mind will give you the whole existence as an inheritance. Mind has poisoned you, but it has been able to poison you because you have become identified with it. You start calling it my-mind. Drop the my and you are separate from the mind -- that was the bridge.

Separate who you are from the mind -- just a pure presence, an utter silence, unmoving stillness... and in this space happens all that deep down you are all looking for, knowingly or unknowingly.

Three mice walked into a bar, sat down and began some serious drinking. All three became thoroughly drunk and in due course, each began to boast about how brave he was.

"I'm going to tell that dumb Ronald Reagan in the White House about some of his policies," said the first mouse.

"That's nothing," sneered the second mouse. "I'm going over to the Kremlin and tell them just what I think about them."

They both turned to the third mouse who was sitting there dreaming.

"Well, what are you going to do?" they demanded.

"Me, I'm going to screw the cat."

This is your mind. Just drop the identity with the mind and you will be surprised beyond your wildest expectations what a tremendous treasure you have, inexhaustible. And when I am saying this, I am not saying it within quotation marks. When I am saying this, I am saying this on my own authority.

I am not authoritative, remember -- one can get confused. The authoritative person is a person who wants to dominate. I am not an authoritative person, I have no desire to dominate; but what I am saying is with absolute authority. I am not quoting any scriptures; I am saying only what I have encountered within myself. The day I dropped the identity with the mind I became the no-mind. No-mind is the highest state of your consciousness.

Paddy and Sean were sitting in the bar when Paddy said, "You know, Sean, I have read so much lately about how smoking can ruin your health that I have finally decided to do something about it."

"So, you are going to give up smoking?" asked Sean.

"Heavens no," cried Paddy, "I am going to give up reading."

So just be very alert. I am saying to drop the idea of my, mine -- the identity. But you can misunderstand me, because misunderstanding does not need much intelligence. You can go on being identified with the mind. Your mind is capable of giving you the sense that you have arrived, that this is no-mind. It is so easy to deceive yourself that you have to be alerted again and again not to deceive yourself.

Just the other day I have received again a letter from a German sannyasin. Now he is asking for my blessings because he has become enlightened. Germans are very strong people, and once they get an idea, it is very difficult to change them. And this is not the first case!

It has happened before with another German sannyasin, Gunakar. He became at least six times enlightened and finally he dropped it. Whenever he would go to Germany he would become enlightened and from there -- and he was rich, he had a beautiful castle in the mountains -- he would write letters to all the presidents, to all the prime ministers of the world, to all the members of the U.N., "I have become enlightened. If you need any advice I am available."

His letter would come to me also, "Osho, I thank you, you were right that enlightenment is our nature. I have become enlightened. I just need a recognition from you because nobody else believes in me."

So I had to call him again and again. And when he would come and sit in front of me, and I would say, "Gunakar, are you really enlightened?" he would say, "No." He would say,

"It is strange. When I come to you I become unenlightened, and when I go back to Germany I become enlightened again!"

This happened six times. Gautam Buddha became enlightened only once. In fact, people have never become enlightened even twice -- once is more than enough. But mind is very cunning, it can give you all kinds of ideas.

Beware of your own mind.

If you can remain alert and not allow the mind to disturb your silence, your peace, slowly, slowly the mind stops bothering you. And the day the mind feels completely frustrated that you are no more listening to it, it evaporates. Its whole life is the life of a parasite. If you get identified with it, you are giving life to it, you are giving nourishment to it.

Just get unidentified. Let the mind be there, but remember, you are not it. Just this simple remembrance: I am not the mind. Not that you have to repeat it -- because repetition will be done by the mind, that is the problem. Just a wordless awareness, I am not the mind...

and no-mind will start opening its doors to you. And that is the beginning of the transformation.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT WORD IN OUR LANGUAGE?

TENNIS, MEDITATION, CHI-CHI, MANGOES, SUNTAN, WOMEN, PHILOSOPHY, EXOTIC BEACHES, CRICKET, INSTANT COFFEE, JAZZ MUSIC AND

SKINHEADS.

Milarepa, I know you are crazy, but if I answer your question truthfully it will also drive the police commissioner of Pune crazy, because none of these words you are mentioning have any importance.

In the past, before that German guy Friedrich Nietzsche declared that God is dead, God used to be the most important word in our language. But when a German says something, you have to listen to it; otherwise there is trouble. Germans are like your wives: you have to listen to them, otherwise there is trouble. Nobody has ever heard such a thing, that God is dead, but by and by people started believing it. If it comes from a German guy it cannot be wrong -- at least you cannot dare to say it is wrong, otherwise you are bound for great trouble.

In his statement there was something more. When Nietzsche said, "God is dead," he also said, "Now man is absolutely free." God has certainly disappeared. It has become a phony word without any content, but the other thing has not appeared, the other part of the statement that man has become free. Freedom has not arrived.

On the contrary, a kind of licentiousness which looks like freedom has possessed the whole humanity. Perhaps Friedrich Nietzsche was not alive to what he was doing, not aware. Perhaps he was talking in his dreams and finally he had to enter into a madhouse.

He himself could not live without God. God was the hope, ancient hope. God was the opium, the consolation of all those who are in despair.

When Friedrich Nietzsche declared, "God is dead," he himself became utterly helpless --

no consolation, no hope, no meaning. He had to go through a long process of insanity.

Nietzsche seems to me to be the most important figure that has dominated the world in this century. Without any argument his statement has infiltrated into every mind. But he was not aware of the implications. I have no problem if God is dead. There is no need to mourn his death. The problem is that if God is dead, then you lose the most important word in your language and you will need a substitute. God was one end, one extreme, and when one extreme disappears from your mental vision, the necessary and inevitable is that you will fall to the other extreme.

And that's what has happened, Milarepa. Instead of God, `fuck' has become the most important word in our language. Even if Friedrich Nietzsche comes back, he will be surprised and he will try to resurrect somehow the dead God, because this is stupid. But you will need a whole report on it, a whole research.

One of the most interesting words in the English language today is the word `fuck'. It is a magical word. Just by its sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love. In language it falls into many grammatical categories. It can be used as a verb, both transitive, "John fucked Mary," and intransitive, "Mary was fucked by John", and as a noun, "Mary is a fine fuck." It can be used as an adjective, "Mary is fucking beautiful."

As you can see, there are not many words with the versatility of fuck. Besides the sexual meaning, there are also the following uses:

Ignorance: Fucked if I know.

Trouble: I guess I am fucked now!

Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot.

Aggression: Fuck you!

Displeasure: What the fuck is going on here?

Difficulty: I can't understand this fucking job.

Incompetence: He is a fuck-off.

Suspicion: What the fuck are you doing?

Enjoyment: I had a fucking good time.

Request: Get the fuck out of here.

Hostility: I'm going to knock your fucking head off.

Greeting: How the fuck are you?

Apathy: Who gives a fuck?

Innovation: Get a bigger fucking hammer.

Surprise: Fuck! You scared the shit out of me!

Anxiety: Today is really fucked.

And it is very healthy if every morning you do it as a transcendental meditation -- just when you get up, first thing, repeat the mantra "fuck you" five times; it clears your throat too!

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #24

Chapter title: The only way to be is not to be

1 October 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

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8710015

ShortTitle:

PILGR24

Audio:

Yes

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Length:

94

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Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

IN HAMLET'S FAMOUS SOLILOQUY HIS ULTIMATE QUESTION IS: TO BE OR

NOT TO BE?

BELOVED MASTER, MY ULTIMATE QUESTION IS: TO BE AND NOT TO BE?

Milarepa, Shakespeare is a great poet, but not a mystic. He has an intuition into the reality of things, but that is only a glimpse, very vague as if seen in a dream, not clear.

His question in Hamlet shows that unclarity. "To be or not to be?" can never be asked by a man who knows, because there is no question of choice. You cannot choose between

"to be" or "not to be."

In existential terms, not to be is the only way to be. Unless you disappear you are not really there. It looks a little difficult to understand, because basically it is irrational. But reason is not the way of existence; existence is as irrational as you can conceive.

Here those who think they are, are not. And those who think and realize they are not --

they are.

The idea that "I am" is just an idea, a projection of the mind. But the realization that "I am not" comes only as a flowering of meditation. When you realize, "I am not," only the I disappears and there remains behind a pure existence, undefined, unbounded, unfettered, just a pure space.

I is a great prison.

It is your slavery and bondage to the mind.

The moment you enter beyond the mind, you are -- but you don't have any notion of being an ego, of being an I. In other words: the more you think you are, the less you are; the more you experience that you are not... the more you are.

The moment the soap bubble of your ego pops, you have become the whole existence.

Yes, something has disappeared... before you were just a dewdrop, now you are the whole ocean! You are not a loser. You were encaged in a very small, limited space, and that imprisonment is our misery, our pain, our anguish. From every side we are enclosed, from every side we are encountered by a thick wall -- we cannot move.

Have you ever experienced in a nightmare, in a dream... you know perfectly well that your eyes are open, but you want to move your hands and you cannot; you want to get up, but you cannot. A tremendous fear grips you as if you are paralyzed for the moment. That experience will explain to you our whole life as a dewdrop. Our intrinsic nature is to be oceanic and to force an ocean into a dewdrop is certainly to create anxiety, anguish, misery, agony.

Shakespeare's question, To be or not to be? is only intellectual -- and it is bound to be intellectual, because he was not a man of realization. He was very talented, perhaps there have been only a few poets of his caliber. But to be a poet is one thing -- and to know existence from inside, not from outside, is another.

The poet looks at the beauty of the flower, at the beauty of the sunset, at the beauty of the starry night, but he is always on the outside, an observer, a spectator; he is never an insider. That is the difference between a poet and a mystic. When the poet sees the rose, the rose is there outside the poet, and the poet is there outside the rose.

When the mystic sees the rose, he is the rose.

All differences, all distinctions, all distances have disappeared.

In such moments the seers of the UPANISHADS have declared: Aham brahmasmi -- I am God. It is not a declaration of ego; it is simply a declaration of the mystical experience of being one with the ultimate reality. But it is true on smaller scales too.

The mystic can say:

I am the rose, I am the stars, I am the ocean.

The poet cannot say that. He can say that the rose is beautiful, he can make an observation and a judgment about the rose, but he cannot melt and merge into the reality of the rose. He cannot get lost into it, he cannot become one, he cannot drop the duality.

Howsoever great his insight as a poet may be, it will remain based in duality. Certainly the poet sees more beauty than you see. He has clearer eyes, he has a more loving heart and he has a different approach than the scientist.

The scientist looks at the roseflower from intellect, from mind. The poet looks from the heart, from intuition. He is certainly deeper than the scientist. The scientist in fact cannot see the beauty of the rose; all that he can do is dissect the rose to find out where the beauty is. And the moment the rose is dissected, all beauty disappears... hence for the scientist there is no beauty, because the beauty cannot survive the dissection; hence for the scientist there is no life, because the moment you dissect a living being what you find are dead parts, you never find life.

The mystic is just the very opposite of the scientist. The scientist tries to know things by dissecting them, and the mystic tries to know things by dropping the distance, the gap between himself and reality. His approach is of the being. These are the three approaches.

The approach of the mind -- that is what the scientist is doing. The approach of the heart -

- that is what the poet, the painter, the artist is doing. And the approach of the being --

that is the world of the mystic.

Shakespeare is great in his poetic compositions, his intuition is deep. But he is not a mystic; otherwise he could not have made the statement: To be or not to be?

There is no choice; they are not two.

The only way to be is not to be.

Disappear if you want real existence, authentic existence; merge into reality, dissolve your ice-cube in the ocean and become one with it. Of course you will get lost as a separate entity, but you will become the whole. It is not a loss; it is a tremendous gain.

Milarepa, you are asking, "My ultimate question is: To be and not to be?" That is not a question. That is the only way you can find yourself. But first comes "not to be," and second comes "to be." That is the only change I would like to make in your question. You say, "To be and not to be?" -- "not to be" has to be first, then "to be" follows. You have just to give space. Throw out all the furniture that is filling your space. And the greatest block is the ego -- throw it out!

Let the temple of your being be utterly empty.

That is the state of "not to be."

And you will be surprised... here you are trying "not to be," and from the back door comes a new realization of being, of "to be." But your effort should not be based in this order -- first to be and then not to be. That is against the natural process of enlightenment.

You have to attain nothingness first, nobodiness first.

This is the price you have to pay for attaining to the experience of authentic being. This is the sacrifice you have to make. This is what Jesus means when he says, "Unless you are born again, you will not enter into the kingdom of God." What does he mean when he says, "Unless you are born again"? He means, first you have to die, and after death is resurrection.

As the ego dies it allows space for your authentic being to blossom. On the grave of your ego blossoms the lotus of your being. But remember, you have to change your statement because in this statement your ego lingers. "To be" is your first desire. But if that is your first desire, then it will be very difficult, almost impossible, to allow "not to be." You will cling to your ego.

You are saying, "To be and not to be." One thing is certainly right, that both have to exist together... but which is to be the first? You cannot start from the wrong end. You have to start by being nobody, by simply being spacious. In that spaciousness the guest arrives.

But it is natural... the way you have put your question is natural to the mind. It happened... A man came to Gautam Buddha with almost the same question that you have raised here. Gautam Buddha said to him, "First you have to drop your ego and then you need not worry; everything happens on its own accord, spontaneously."

The man said, "If that is the way to realize myself, then I will make every effort to drop the ego."

Buddha said, "You have not understood me. You are still trying to realize yourself. You are even ready to drop the ego, but the desire deep down is to find a truer ego, a more eternal ego; that's what you are calling the self. Forget about the self. There is nothing to be achieved! You have simply to drop your ego and wait."

There is no question of any effort to be made; no achievement is going to be there. What happens, happens on its own accord. You cannot claim that it is your realization. That's why Gautam Buddha is the first person in the history of man who has not used the word

`self-realization'. He came to know... so many people, under the disguise of the word

`self', are simply protecting their ego. They are calling it self-realization, but they really mean ego-realization. They have a disguised desire to make their ego permanent and eternal.

Seeing this cunningness of the human mind, Buddha simply dropped the words `self',

`self-realization'. He stopped talking about what will happen when your ego is dropped.

He said, "That is not my business and that is not your business either. You simply drop the ego and wait and see what happens, but don't conceive it from the very beginning.

Don't make it a goal, an ambition. The moment you make it an ambition, the ego has come back from the hidden, secret door of your being."

Buddha was very much misunderstood. It was obvious, particularly in this land where for thousands of years before him the religious people have been talking about self-realization. But Gautam Buddha had a far deeper and clearer insight than anyone who has preceded him. He saw behind this self-realization nothing but a deep ego.

He changed the whole language of spirituality. In the language he used to speak -- Pali is its name -- the self is called atta. Buddha dropped the word completely and he started using a negative word, anatta. Atta means self; anatta means no-self. It was against the whole tradition, not only of this country but of all the countries. Nobody had ever heard about no-self, no-mind, no-realization.

Then people started asking him, "What is the point of all this effort, meditation, disciplines, fastings, austerities...? What is the point if finally we are going to be nobody?

-- it is a strange effort! Such a long journey, so arduous, just to find in the end that you are not."

They were logical. But whenever you encounter a man like Gautam Buddha, his love is far stronger than your logic can ever be. His presence is far stronger than your reason, your mind, your personality, your ambitions, your desires. His very presence is so powerful, so magnetic that people start -- against themselves, in spite of themselves -- on a journey which ends in no-self.

Just the other day I came to know about a child who was born in France. The mother had been working in an atomic research center. While she was pregnant she continued to work, so the radiation of atomic energy was surrounding her continually while she was pregnant. Just three or four days ago she gave birth to a child. The doctors were very interested to see what had happened to the child, because he had been exposed to radiation for nine months continually -- he may be blind, he may be crippled... is there going to be something strange?

The whole medical staff, all the surgeons and doctors were watching breathlessly as the child came out of the womb and the doctor put the child on the table. He was perfectly healthy -- not blind, not crippled. All their fears were negated. But something they never expected happened. On the table all the instruments of the surgeon and the doctor started moving towards the child. The child had become magnetic! The child will have to live a very strange life. Wherever he will go things will start moving towards him.

Now they are trying hard to de-electrify the child. They cannot even bring their instruments close to him; those instruments slip from their hands, because the child is such a magnetic force. The child is very healthy, very radiant -- they have never seen such a child -- but to touch the child is to get a shock. The nurses who are taking care of the child have to wear shockproof dresses because they are playing with a danger.

A man like Gautam Buddha has a certain magnetic attraction, very subtle. Things don't move toward him but souls move, consciousnesses move, life forces move. It is his presence that gives you the proof that not-being is not death, not-being is the ultimate in life.

But remember, Milarepa, not-being is the first thing; that is your meditation, that is your death. Out of this meditation, out of this death, out of this nothingness will arise your original face, your original being. So you will have to change just a little bit. Put not-being first. That has to be the priority. You need not be concerned about being, it comes.

It comes absolutely without any exception.

I am saying it on my own experience too. I had to disappear into nothingness -- and out of that nothingness a totally new, an utterly fresh, an eternal presence has arisen. It is not my doing. I cannot take any credit for it. At the most I allowed it to happen, because I was not there to disturb. Your not-being is necessary first so that you don't disturb when your being starts arising... just a little change.

Old Hymie Goldberg returned to the doctor to express his delight over the invisible hearing aid that his doctor had fitted for him.

"I bet your family likes it, too," said the doctor.

"Ah no," said old Hymie, "they don't know about it yet and I am having a great time. In the past two days, I have changed my will twice!"

Everybody thinks he cannot hear... and he can hear, so he is having a great time changing his will.

You also have to change your will. What you have put as secondary has to be primary, and what you have put as primary is not your concern. It will come, just as when spring comes, flowers come on their own accord.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

RECENTLY RUDOLPH HESS, ONE TO THE LAST NAZI BIG SHOTS, DIED. HE

COMMITTED SUICIDE IN JAIL IN BERLIN, WHERE HE WAS IMPRISONED FOR

FORTY-SIX YEARS. HE WAS THE RIGHT HAND MAN OF ADOLF HITLER.

"I DON'T REPENT ANYTHING," HE SAID BEFORE THE COURT IN

NUREMBURG, "AND IF I COULD START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, I WOULD DO THE SAME THING AGAIN."

BELOVED MASTER, CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT FORGIVENESS, EVEN FOR PEOPLE WHO SEEM TO BE UNWORTHY OF IT.

Deva Shanta, it is one of the most fundamental things to understand. People ordinarily think that forgiveness is for those who are worthy of it, who deserve it. But if somebody deserves, is worthy of forgiveness, it is not much of a forgiveness. You are not doing anything on your part; he deserves it. You are not really being love and compassion.

Your forgiveness will be authentic only when even those who don't deserve it receive it.

It is not a question of whether a person is worthy or not. The question is whether your heart is ready or not.

I am reminded of one of the most significant woman mystics, Rabiya al-Adabiya, a Sufi woman who was known for her very eccentric behavior. But in all her eccentric behavior there was a great insight. Once, another Sufi mystic Hasan was staying with Rabiya.

Because he was going to stay with Rabiya, he had not brought his own holy KORAN, which he used to read every morning as part of his discipline. He thought he could borrow Rabiya's holy KORAN, so he had not brought his own copy with him.

In the morning he asked Rabiya, and she gave him her copy. He could not believe his eyes. When he opened the KORAN he saw something which no Mohammedan could believe: in many places Rabiya had corrected it. It is the greatest sin as far as Mohammedans are concerned; the KORAN is the word of God according to them. How can you change it? How can you even think that you can make something better? Not only has she changed it, she has simply cut out a few words, a few lines -- removed them.

Hasan said to her, "Rabiya, somebody has destroyed your KORAN!"

Rabiya said, "Don't be stupid, nobody can touch my KORAN. What you are looking at is my doing."

Hasan said, "But how could you do such a thing?"

She said, "I had to do it, there was no way out. For example, look here: the KORAN says,

`When you see the devil, hate him.' Since I have become awakened I cannot find any hate within me. Even if the devil stands in front of me I can only shower him with my love, because I don't have anything else left. It does not matter whether God stands in front of me, or the devil; both will receive the same love. All that I have is love; hate has disappeared. The moment hate disappeared from me I had to make changes in my book of the holy KORAN. If you have not changed it, that simply means you have not arrived to the space where only love remains."

I will say to you, Deva Shanta, the people who don't deserve, the people who are unworthy, don't make any difference to the man who has come to the space of forgiveness. He will forgive, irrespective of who receives it. He cannot be so miserly that only the worthy should receive it. And from where is he going to find UNforgiveness?

This is a totally different perspective. It does not concern itself with the other. Who are you to make the judgment whether the other is worthy or unworthy? The very judgment is ugly and mean.

I know Rudolph Hess is certainly one of the greatest criminals. And his crime becomes even a millionfold bigger, because in the Nuremburg trial with the remaining companions of Adolf Hitler -- who killed almost eight million people in the second world war -- he said in front of the court, "I don't repent anything!" Not only that, he also said, "And if I could start from the very beginning, I would do the same thing again." It is very natural to think this man is not worthy of forgiveness; that will be the common understanding.

Everybody will agree with you.

But I cannot agree with you. It does not matter what Rudolf Hess has done, what he is saying. What matters is that you are capable of forgiving even him. That will raise your consciousness to the ultimate heights. If you cannot forgive Rudolf Hess you will remain just an ordinary human being, with all kinds of judgments of worthiness, of unworthiness.

But basically you cannot forgive him because your forgiveness is not big enough.

I can forgive the whole world for the simple reason that my forgiveness is absolute; it is nonjudgmental. I will tell you a small Tibetan story which will make the point absolutely clear to you.

A great old master, worshiped by millions of people, refused to initiate anyone into disciplehood. His whole life, consistently, he was asked by kings, he was asked by very rich people, he was asked by great ascetics, saints, to be initiated as his disciples, and he went on refusing. He would always say, "Unless I find a man who deserves it, unless I find a man who is worthy of it... I am not going to initiate any Tom, Dick, Harry."

He had a small young boy who used to cook food for him, wash his clothes, fetch vegetables from the market. The boy himself had become slowly, slowly old and for his whole life he had been listening to the old man, who had lived almost one hundred years, and without exception the denial: nobody is worthy! "I will die," he said, "without initiating anyone, but I will not initiate anyone who is nondeserving."

People became tired, frustrated. They loved the man, the man had immense qualities, but they could not understand his very stubborn attitude -- no kindness, no compassion.

But one morning the old man woke up his companion, who himself had become old, and said to him, "Run immediately down the hills to the marketplace and tell everybody that whoever wants to be initiated must come soon, because this evening as the sun sets I am going to die."

His companion said, "But what about worthiness?... I don't know who is worthy and who is not worthy. Who have I to bring?"

The old man said, "Don't worry at all. It was only a device, because I myself was not worthy to initiate anyone, but it was against my dignity to say so. So I chose the other way round. I was saying, Ùnless I find somebody worthy enough, deserving enough, I am not going to initiate.' The truth is, I was not worthy to be a master. Now I am, but the time is very short. Only this morning as the sun was rising, my own consciousness has also risen to the ultimate peak. Now I am ready. Now it does not matter who is worthy and who is unworthy. What matters now is that I am worthy. Just go and fetch anybody!

Just go and make the whole village aware that this is the last day of my life, and anybody who wants to be initiated should come immediately. Bring as many people as you can."

The companion of the old man was at a loss, but there was no time to argue. He ran down the hill, reached the marketplace and shouted all over the village, "Anybody who wants to become a disciple, the old man is ready now."

People could not believe it. But out of curiosity a few thought, "There is no harm at least to see what is going on." The man had refused his whole life, and on the last day of his life suddenly such a great change. Somebody's wife had died and he was feeling very lonely, so he thought, "It is good. If he is going to initiate everybody, no question of worthiness..." Somebody was released from jail just the night before; he thought,

"Nobody is going to give me employment; this is a good chance to become a saint."

All kinds of strange people went to the cave of the old man, and his companion was feeling so embarrassed at the kind of people he had brought: one is a criminal, one's wife is dead, that's why he thinks, "It is better... now, what else to do?" Somebody has gone bankrupt and was thinking to commit suicide; now he thinks that this is better than suicide.

A few had come just out of curiosity. They had no other work; they were playing jazz and they thought, "We can play jazz tomorrow, but today there is no harm, let us see what this initiation is. Anyway, that man is going to die by the evening so we will be free to remain disciples or not. We can play jazz tomorrow -- there is no harm."

The companion of the old man was feeling very embarrassed, "How will I present this strange lot when that old man has refused kings, saints, sages, who have come with deep earnestness to be initiated? And now he is going to initiate this gang!" He was even feeling ashamed, but he entered and asked, "Should I call the people? -- eleven have come."

The old man said, "Call them quickly, because it is already afternoon. You took so much time and you could fetch just eleven people?"

His companion said, "What can I do? It is a working day; it is not a holiday. I could only get these. All are absolutely useless; even I could not initiate them. Not only that they are not worthy -- they are absolutely UNworthy. But you insisted to bring somebody; nobody else was available."

The old man said, "There is no problem. Just bring them in." And he initiated them all.

Even they were shocked. And they said to the old man, "This is strange behavior. All your life you have insisted that one has to deserve to be a disciple. What happened to your principle?"

The old man laughed. He said, "That was not a principle, that was only to hide my own unworthiness. I was not yet in the position to be a master. And I cannot cheat anyone, I cannot deceive anyone; hence I have taken shelter behind a judgmental attitude, that unless you are worthy, you will not get initiation."

Obviously nobody is worthy.

Everybody has his own flaws, weaknesses; everybody has done things that he never wanted to do. Everybody has gone astray. Nobody can say that he is absolutely pure; everybody is polluted. So when the old man insisted, "Unless you are worthy don't come back to me," nobody argued with him; he was right. First they have to be worthy!

On the last day, he said to those eleven disciples, "I bless you and initiate you. It doesn't matter whether you are worthy or not, but for the first time I am worthy. And if I am really worthy, just my presence is going to purify you. My worthiness of being a master is going to make you a worthy disciple. Now I don't have to depend on your worthiness.

My worthiness is enough.

"I am just like a rain cloud; I will shower all over the place -- on the mountains, on the streets, on the houses, in the farms, in the gardens. I will shower everywhere, because I am too burdened with my rainwater. It does not matter whether the garden deserves... I don't even make any distinction between the garden and the rocks. I will simply shower out of my abundance."

If your meditations bring you to the state of a rain cloud, you will forgive without any judgment out of your abundance, out of your love, out of your compassion.

In fact I would like to make the statement that the man who is unworthy deserves more than the man who is worthy. The man who does not deserve, deserves more, because he is so poor; don't be hard upon him. Life has been hard upon him. He has gone astray; he has suffered because of his wrong doings. Now don't you be hard on him. He needs more love than those who are deserving; he needs more forgiveness than those who are worthy.

This should be the only approach of a religious heart.

Your question was raised before Gautam Buddha, because he was going to initiate a murderer into sannyas -- and the murderer was no ordinary murderer. Rudolf Hess is nothing compared to him. His name was Angulimal. Angulimal means a man who wears a garland of human fingers.

He had taken a vow that he would kill one thousand people; from each single person he would take one finger so that he could remember how many he had killed and he will make a garland of all those fingers. In his garland of fingers he had nine hundred and ninety-nine fingers -- only one was missing. And that one was missing because his road was closed; nobody was coming that way. But Gautam Buddha entered that closed road.

The king had put guards on the road to prevent people, particularly strangers who didn't know that a dangerous man lived behind the hills. The guards told Gautam Buddha, "That is not the road to be used. You will have to take a little longer route, but it is better to go a little longer than to go into the mouth of death itself. This is the place where Angulimal lives. Even the king has not the guts to go on this road. That man is simply mad.

"His mother used to go to him. She was the only person who used to go, once in a while, to see him, but even she stopped. The last time she went there he told her, `Now only one finger is missing, and just because you happen to be my mother... I want to warn you that if you come another time you will not go back. I need one finger desperately. Up to now I have not killed you because other people were available, but now nobody passes on this road except you. So I want to make you aware that next time if you come it will be your responsibility, not mine.' Since that time his mother has not come."

The guards said to Buddha, "Don't unnecessarily take the risk."

And do you know what Buddha said to them? Buddha said, "If I don't go then who will go? Only two things are possible: either I will change him, and I cannot miss this challenge; or I will provide him with one finger so that his desire is fulfilled. Anyway I am going to die one day. Giving my head to Angulimal will be at least of some use; otherwise one day I will die and you will put me on the funeral pyre. I think that it is better to fulfill somebody's desire and give him peace of mind. Either he will kill me or I will kill him, but this encounter is going to happen; you just lead the way."

The people who used to follow Gautam Buddha, his close companions who were always in competition to be closer to him, started slowing down. Soon there were miles between Gautam Buddha and his disciples. They all wanted to see what happened, but they didn't want to be too close.

Angulimal was sitting on his rock watching. He could not believe his eyes. A very beautiful man of such immense charisma was coming towards him. Who could this man be? He had never heard of Gautam Buddha, but even this hard heart of Angulimal started feeling a certain softness towards the man. He was looking so beautiful, coming towards him. It was early morning... a cool breeze, and the sun was rising... and the birds were singing and the flowers had opened; and Buddha was coming closer and closer.

Finally Angulimal, with his naked sword in his hand, shouted, "Stop!" Gautam Buddha was just a few feet away, and Angulimal said, "Don't take another step because then the responsibility will not be mine. Perhaps you don't know who I am!"

Buddha said, "Do you know who you are?"

Angulimal said, "This is not the point. Neither is it the place nor the time to discuss such things. Your life is in danger!"

Buddha said, "I think otherwise -- your life is in danger."

That man said, "I used to think I was mad -- you are simply mad. And you go on moving closer. Then don't say that I killed an innocent man. You look so innocent and so beautiful that I want you to go back. I will find somebody else. I can wait; there is no hurry. If I can manage nine hundred and ninety-nine... it is only a question of one more, but don't force me to kill YOU."

Buddha said, "You are absolutely blind. You can't see a simple thing: I am not moving towards you, you are moving towards me."

Angulimal said, "This is sheer craziness! Anybody can see that you are moving and I am standing on my rock. I have not moved a single inch."

Buddha said, "Nonsense! The truth is, since the day I became enlightened I have not moved a single inch. I am centered, utterly centered, no movement. And your mind is continuously moving round and round in circles... and you have the guts to tell to me to stop. You stop! I have stopped long ago."

Angulimal said, "It seems you are impossible, you are incurable. You are bound to be killed. I will feel sorry, but what can I do? I have never seen such a mad man."

Buddha came very close, and Angulimal's hands were trembling. The man was so beautiful, so innocent, so childlike. He had already fallen in love. He had killed so many people... He had never felt this weakness; he had never known what love is. For the first time he was full of love. So there was a contradiction: the hand was holding the sword to kill the person, and his heart was saying, "Put the sword back in the sheath."

Buddha said, "I am ready, but why is your hand shaking? -- you are such a great warrior, even kings are afraid of you, and I am just a poor beggar. Except the begging bowl, I don't have anything. You can kill me, and I will feel immensely satisfied that at least my death fulfills somebody's desire; my life has been useful, my death has also been useful.

But before you cut my head I have a small desire, and I think you will grant me a small desire before killing me."

Before death even the hardest enemy is willing to fulfill any desire.

Angulimal said, "What do you want?"

Buddha said, "I want you just to cut from the tree a branch which is full of flowers. I will never see these flowers again; I want to see those flowers closely, feel their fragrance and their beauty in this morning sun, their glory."

So Angulimal cut with his sword a whole branch full of flowers. And before he could give it to Buddha, Buddha said, "This was only half the desire; the other half is, please put the branch back on the tree."

Angulimal said, "I was thinking from the very beginning that you are crazy. Now this is the craziest desire. How can I put this branch back?"

Buddha said, "If you cannot create, you have no right to destroy. If you cannot give life, you don't have the right to give death to any living thing."

A moment of silence and a moment of transformation... the sword fell down from his hands. Angulimal fell down at the feet of Gautam Buddha, and he said, "I don't know who you are, but whoever you are, take me to the same space in which you are; initiate me."

By that time the followers of Gautam Buddha had come closer and closer. Seeing that now Gautam Buddha was standing in front of Angulimal, there was no problem, no fear, although he needed only one finger. They were all around and when he fell at Buddha's feet they immediately came close. Somebody raised the question, "Don't initiate this man, he is a murderer. And he is not an ordinary murderer; he has murdered nine hundred and ninety-nine people, all innocent, all strangers. They have not done any wrong to him. He had not even seen them before!"

Buddha said again, "If I don't initiate him, who will initiate him? And I love the man, I love his courage. And I can see tremendous possibility in him: a single man fighting against the whole world. I want this kind of people, who can stand against the whole world. Up to now he was standing against the world with a sword; now he will stand against the world with a consciousness which is far sharper than any sword. I told you that murder was going to happen, but it was not certain who was going to be murdered --

either I was going to be murdered, or Angulimal. Now you can see Angulimal is murdered. And who I am to judge?"

He initiated Angulimal.

The question is not whether anybody is worthy or not. The question is whether you have the consciousness, the abundance of love -- then forgiveness will come out of it spontaneously. It is not a calculation, it is not arithmetic.

Life is love, and living a life of love is the only religious life, the only life of prayer, peace, the only life of gratitude, grandeur, splendor.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #25

Chapter title: Don't renounce the world, renounce the rubbish!

2 October 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8710020

ShortTitle:

PILGR25

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

117

mins

Question 1

BELOVED MASTER,

AS I LOOK AROUND ME, AT THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE ANSWERED YOUR

CALL, MY SPIRIT FLIES WITH JOY WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THESE, MY

BROTHERS AND SISTERS, ARE SOME OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY

PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. SEEING THEM WITH THIS AWARENESS MAKES ME

DROP FROM MY HEAD TO MY HEART. FOR IN THE HEAT OF DEALING WITH

MY OWN STUFF I FORGET TO SEE THEM AS THEY ARE, AND NOT HOW I PERCEIVE THEM.

PLEASE COMMENT.

Michael Scott, it is one of the basics of human understanding that if you want to see the others as they are you have to be utterly empty, without any prejudices, without any preconceived ideas, without any judgmental attitudes.

Nobody ordinarily sees people as they are. They see them as they can. They see them through a thick barrier of their own mind, of their own conditionings. Unless you are capable of seeing... In pure seeing, philosia, you don't have anything to project from your side, you don't have any color to give to the object of your observation. Then only are you capable of seeing things, people, as they are in themselves.

One of the great German philosophers, Immanuel Kant, even dropped the idea that you can see things as they are in themselves, because he had no way of knowing meditatively.

He was a great mind -- but the greater the mind, the greater the difficulty of seeing clearly. Your mind grabs every information that reaches to you, screens it, sorts out whatever is adjustable with your existing knowledge, allows it, and whatever is going to disturb your mind -- anything new, unfamiliar, a stranger -- it rejects.

Science has discovered a surprising fact. Our mind used to be thought of in the past as a receiver of information from the world, and our eyes, our ears, our noses, all our senses as doors from where the existence can enter into us. This has been an ancient understanding prevailing for thousands of years. But just within these five years, science has become aware of a totally different situation. Your senses are not simple windows; your mind allows only two percent of information and discards ninety-eight percent of information. It is continuously on guard for what enters you. It should be in tune with your concepts, superstitions, ideologies, and if it is not, the mind is not going to get disturbed, to get in a chaos, by allowing a new idea which will not be fitting with you.

This makes things very different. It means your mind is not a vehicle of knowing, but a vehicle for preventing ninety-eight percent of the knowledge that was available to you.

And the two percent that is allowed in is worth nothing, because it adjusts to you; it means it is the same stuff of which you already have enough.

Only a meditator can know people, can know things, can experience beauty as it is in itself, because he does not interfere, he does not censor, he is not on guard, he has nothing to lose. He has already dropped all that could have been the cause of fear. It is utterly empty.

Once in a while you are empty. In this moment you can see things with a clarity, with transparency. But when your mind starts, covered with your own thoughts, they protect you: they protect the dead against the living, they protect the static against the dynamic, they protect what has been given to you as knowledge against existential experience.

You are right when you say, "As I look around me, at the people that have answered your call, my spirit flies with joy with the knowledge that these, my brothers and sisters, are some of the most extraordinary people on the planet."

If you are silent and your eyes are without any dust and your heart is just a pure mirror, this will be the experience of everyone. These people are certainly extraordinary! I am against the whole past, I am against all conditionings, I am against all ideologies, all organized religions. So only very few people, who have the courage to drop the whole past in its entirety, can have the opportunity to be with me.

To be with me is risky. It is dangerous -- dangerous to your mind. To be with me finally means you will have to lose your mind. Of course it will not be a loss because you will be attaining something greater, something vaster, something unbounded. You will be attaining a state of no-mind.

Only a state of no-mind is an open door; without any judgment it allows you to see things as they are, not as they should be, not as you would like them to be, not to fit with you.

Existence has no obligation to fit with your mind. But every mind is struggling somehow to make the existence fit with it. It is impossible; hence the misery, the frustration, the deep despair, the feeling of failure.

The great philosophers of the contemporary world, the existentialists, have lost all courage. They have lost their very nerve for the simple reason that they are the most refined, cultured, educated, rational minds. From their minds they cannot see any beauty anywhere, they cannot see any joy anywhere, they cannot see any hope anywhere. They are utterly in deep anguish.

But existence is celebrating. It goes on bringing new flowers, it goes on bringing new stars, it goes on bringing every moment something new. It is continuously renewing itself, and there is a song that surrounds the whole existence and there is a dance that you can see in the trees, in the birds, in the animals, in the children, in the sages. But to see this you have to put your mind aside.

Sometimes it happens on its own. Listening to me, if you become too attentive, you slip out of your mind. Those few moments when you slip out of your mind, you will become aware of this extraordinary gathering of brothers and sisters.

These people have taken a tremendous step. They have risked their established mind to enquire into the unfamiliar and the unknown -- and ultimately, the unknowable. They have put aside all their explanations in favor of the miracle and the mystery of existence.

They have dropped their ambitions, their desires for money, power, prestige, respectability. Now their whole concern is simple and single: how to know, Who am I?

Without knowing yourself, all knowledge is futile; and if you know yourself, you need not know anything that is unnecessary. Knowing oneself, one comes to know the very innermost core of existence, the very center. Experiencing that center is so blissful, so ecstatic that there is no need.... You are no longer a beggar; suddenly you have become an emperor. The whole kingdom of God has become yours.

These people have taken a courageous stand against the whole world. It is not ordinary, it is absolutely extraordinary. To stand alone like a lion, and not to be a sheep in the crowd, is the greatest courage in existence. Very few people are able to get out of the mass psychology, of the collective mind. The collective mind gives a certain sense of false security. Naturally it gives you the idea that so many people -- there are five billion people on the planet -- cannot be wrong. Naturally there is no need for you to search for the truth individually. All these people have discovered it; it is easier and cheaper just to follow them... just to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a communist. It is very easy when a crowd surrounds you to feel warm and cozy.

Standing alone like a tall Lebanon cedar, utterly alone in the sky, far away from the earth, almost reaching to the stars... But the beauty of the cedars of Lebanon -- their courage to go beyond the crowd, their courage to be alone...

Gautam Buddha used to call sannyas a lion's roar. So whenever I am in a gap, if you are in tune with me, you are in a gap. Then you will become aware that you are surrounded by a strange crowd. It is not the ordinary crowd of the marketplace -- these are seekers, these are enquirers. These are people who are ready to sacrifice everything for the truth.

These are the people who have renounced all borrowed knowledge and are in search of something of their own, because that which is not yours, is not right. It may have been right for Gautam Buddha, it may have been right for Jesus Christ, but it is not right for you.

You are a unique individual in your own right.

You have to find the truth alone, not by following somebody else's footsteps. The world of truth is something like the sky where birds fly but don't leave any footprints. The world of truth also has no footprints of Jesus or Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu. It is the world of consciousness: where can you leave the footprints?

All followers, without exception, are wrong. They are following someone because they are not courageous enough to seek and search on their own. They are afraid that alone, "I may not be able to find anything. And what is the need when Gautam Buddha has found?"

But you never think that when Gautam Buddha drinks, his thirst is quenched -- but that will not help your thirst. Jesus eats, his hunger is gone, but that will not make you nourished. You have to eat, you have to drink; you cannot simply depend. So many great people have loved, what is the need for you to love? -- you can simply follow them. But that will not be love; that will be only a carbon copy. And to be a carbon copy in this world is the ugliest way of being.

The only authentic man is always original.

He is not a replica, not a repetition. He is a new song, a new dance, a new beginning, always and always.

But you are right, Michael Scott, that "seeing these extraordinary people on the planet, seeing them with this awareness makes me drop from my head to my heart."

That's a beautiful symbol. That is a great indication. If you can move from the head to the heart, you have attained something which society has been preventing. Society does not want you to be a man of heart. Society needs heads, not hearts.

I have never been anywhere... and I have been through many universities. I was visiting India's greatest university, in Varanasi, and one of the most famous scholars, Doctor Hajari Prasad Dwivedi, was presiding at the meeting I was going to address. He was the head and the dean of the faculty of arts. I asked him, "Have you ever wondered why you are called the head, and not the heart?"

He said, "You always ask strange questions" -- he was an old man, and now he is dead.

He said, "In my whole life nobody ever asked, `Why are you called the head and not the heart?'" But he considered that although the question is very strange, "you have something significant in your question. You make me also wonder why people are not called the heart of the philosophy department -- that will be more authentic, more essential -- but they are called the head of the department of philosophy."

Society is divided between head and hands. Have you noticed that laborers are called hands? Poor people working with their hands, manual workers, are called hands... and there are people above them who are called heads. But the heart is completely missing; nobody is called the heart.

It is immensely significant that you start feeling a stirring in your heart, because your heart is far more valuable than your head. Your head is all borrowed... it has nothing of its own. But your heart is still yours. Your heart is not Christian, your heart is not Hindu, your heart is still existential. It has not been corrupted and polluted. Your heart is still original, and it is a tremendously great quantum leap from the head to the heart.

Now one step more -- from the heart to being -- and you have arrived home, the pilgrimage is over. Nobody can come directly from the head to the being. They are strangers; they are not at all connected with each other. They are not even introduced.

Neither your being knows anything about the head, nor your head knows anything about the being. They live in the same house but they are absolute strangers. Because their functioning is so different they never come across each other, they never encounter each other.

Heart is the bridge. Part of the heart knows the head, and part of the heart knows the being. The heart is a midway station. When you are moving towards your being, the heart is going to be an overnight stay. From the heart you will be able to see something of the being, but not from the head; hence, philosophers never turn into mystics. Poets turn, transform... painters, sculptors, dancers, musicians, singers are closer to the being.

But our whole society is dominated by the head, because the head is capable of earning money. It is very efficient -- machines are always more efficient -- it is capable of fulfilling all your ambitions. The head is being created by your educational systems, and your whole energy starts moving... bypassing the heart.

The heart is the most significant thing because it is the gateway to your being, to your eternal life source. I would like all the universities of the world to make people aware of the heart, to make them more esthetic, more sensitive... sensitive of all that surrounds us, the immense beauty, the immense joy.

But the heart cannot fulfill your egoist desires, that is the problem. It can give you a tremendous experience of love, an alchemical change. It can bring the best in you to its clearest and purest form, but it will not create money, power, prestige. And they have become the goals.

It is very significant that you go on slipping from your head to the heart. Just take a little more risk: slip from the heart to the being. That is the rock bottom of your life. But what happens to you? You are saying, "For in the heat of dealing with my own stuff, I forget to see them as they are, and not how I perceive them."

What is your own stuff? In the first place it is not yours. Just look at the stuff: it is all kinds of junk fed in by people, your parents, your society, your teachers, your leaders, your saints; nothing of it belongs to you. Your head has been used almost like a wastepaper basket -- anybody goes on dropping anything in. Your stuff is not yours: that is the first thing to be remembered, because it will change your vision. And the stuff is just an unnecessary burden, a luggage that you are carrying and are being crushed under it.

One sannyasin from Africa, Bhavani Dayal, had come for a pilgrimage of the Himalayas.

As he was climbing in the hot sun -- he was perspiring, his breathing was becoming difficult and he was carrying a bag on his shoulder -- just ahead of him he saw a girl not more than ten years old carrying perhaps her brother, a small boy, but very fat, on her shoulders. She was also perspiring, and as Bhavani Dayal came close to the girl, just out of compassion he said, "My daughter, your burden must be killing you."

The young girl was furious at the sannyasin. She said, "You are carrying the burden --

this is my brother, it is not a burden." On the weighing scale both will prove to be burdens, both will have weight, but on the scales of the heart the small girl was right, and the old sannyasin was wrong. He himself has written in his autobiography, "I have never come across such a situation in which a small girl pointed to a fact which I had never thought about."

The head can think only of burden, responsibility, duty. The heart knows nothing of responsibility, although it responds spontaneously. The heart knows nothing of burden because it knows love. Love makes everything weightless. Love is the only force which is not under the control of gravitation. It does not pull you down. It gives you wings and takes you to the beyond.

Your stuff, Michael Scott, is nothing special; everybody is full of the same bullshit. We have to cleanse this whole stuff. Make your mind without any stuff... and with the stuff disappearing, the mind also disappears. The mind is nothing but a collective name for your stuff.

The teacher asked her little pupils to tell about their acts of kindness to poor animals.

After several of the children had told heart-stirring stories of kindness, the teacher asked little Ernie if he had anything to tell.

"Well," said Ernie proudly, "I once kicked a boy for kicking his dog."

What is your stuff? Just observe.... We get lost into the jungle of it. Stand aside and see.

The local ladies group had invited their new neighbor to lunch. After she had left, the other ladies sat around discussing her.

"Well," said Mrs. Finkelstein, "she seems very sweet, but, my god! -- yakkety yakkety yak -- I thought she would never stop."

"Do you suppose," asked Mrs. Rosenbaum, "that everything she says is true?"

"I should say not," snorted Becky Goldberg, "there just is not that much truth."

Just watch your stuff. It is our unawareness that goes on collecting all kinds of rubbish.

This rubbish becomes so thick that it does not allow you to see things as they are; neither does it allow you to enter into your own innermost subjectivity.

The religions of the world have been telling people to renounce the world. I say, Don't renounce the world. The world has not done any wrong to you. Renounce this rubbish, this stuff that you are are carrying within you.

But people have, for centuries, renounced the world but carried the stuff. Wherever you will be -- in the Himalayas, in the monasteries -- your stuff will be there. You can renounce the world because the world is not in any way preventing you, but how are you going to renounce your mind? And if the mind has to be renounced, there is no need to go to a monastery, there is no need to go to the Himalayas; then wherever you are, you can renounce it. There is no need for all kinds of austerities that people have to force upon themselves.

I have heard about a Trappist monastery. The rule of the monastery was that you can speak only once in seven years. A young man entered, and the abbot of the monastery asked him, "Are you aware that it is a very austere life, and particularly that you cannot speak for seven years? In seven years only one chance is given to speak; then again for seven years you have to be silent. So are you ready? -- because that is the most difficult part."

But the young man was determined, fanatically determined. He accepted the rule and was initiated into the monastery. He got a cell and he saw the situation.... The bed, the mattress, was so dirty -- it may have been used for centuries -- it was stinking. And for seven years he cannot even say to the abbot or anybody, "Please remove this mattress. It will kill me...." But there was no way to say, so he had to suffer that stinking stuff for seven years.

As the seven years were complete, he rushed to the abbot and said, "You have almost killed me. Remove that mattress immediately. It is so dirty it seems Adam and Eve have used it!"

The abbot ordered a new mattress. The new mattress came, but it was a little big for the small cell. So the workers somehow forced it in, and by forcing it in they broke one of the glasses of the window. But he could not say anything -- and now from that broken glass water started coming, rain would come, and on cold nights, ice would come in the cell.

He was in a more dangerous situation than he had been before. He had already become accustomed to that stinking mattress, but this was a more difficult situation. So much cold... he was shivering and it was always wet and no sun was reaching in the cell. He said, "My God, seven years... I hope that somehow things will become right. They have become even worse."

After seven years he again went to the abbot, and he said, "What kind of mattress have you sent? Those idiots have broken the window, and for seven years I have been suffering from cold, shivering day in day out, waiting just for when these seven years will end. It looked almost like eternity."

The abbot said, "Okay, the window should be mended." The window was mended, but in seven years of rain, snow, the mattress had become so rotten... but now there were again seven years to wait. That young man thought, "Now I cannot survive. Fourteen years have passed. I have come here to find truth, and what have I found? I had never dreamt about it. It is a nightmare." But finally all those seven years also passed. Now it was twenty-one years that he had suffered.

He went to the abbot and said, "This is a strange place. Twenty-one years and I am suffering the same thing in different forms."

The abbot was very angry. He said, "Since you have come, complaints, complaints, complaints... never a single word of appreciation! You are not worthy to be a monk. Get out of the monastery."

He said, "My God, twenty-one years unnecessarily suffering, and now you are throwing me out."

The abbot said, "We cannot allow such negative characters."

Just look at your stuff. It is absolutely unnecessary to suffer it, it can be thrown out. You should cleanse your mind. Why go on piling up garbage upon garbage? But because you call it "my" stuff, there has arisen an identity; it has become your treasure. So the first thing is: don't call it "my" stuff. It is stuff which has been forced into you by all kinds of stupid people around you.

My father had a friend who was thought to be the wisest man around that area, and he used to take me to him just so that I could also learn some wisdom. I used to sit there with my fingers in my ears. My father said, "I have brought you to understand something and you are sitting with your fingers in your ears. Are you mad?"

I said, "I am not mad, you are mad. This guy is throwing all kinds of rubbish, and I am not ready to allow it in my head. It will be unnecessary trouble: first gather it, then clean it -- what is the point? I am perfectly clean."

That old wise man was very angry. He said, "You have to take care of this boy. He has to be controlled and disciplined. This is very disrespectful towards me. Never in my life has anybody done such a thing."

I said, "Never in your life have you come across anybody who had guts; otherwise, what you are doing is collecting garbage from the scriptures" -- his house was full of ancient scriptures -- "and then throwing all that stuff into other peoples' heads. You should be taken to the court. You need to be put in a jail, because you are the greatest criminal in this area. You have destroyed so many people's minds, and their whole lives they will suffer and they will think this is their stuff."

If you can keep a clear distinction what is your own experience and what is enforced on you, then whatever is enforced, borrowed, has to be discarded. That is the only thing to be renounced.

The world is perfectly beautiful. Just your mind has to be silent, empty, open, and you will have the clarity to see people as they are... not only to see people, but to see yourself as you are. This understanding brings a transformation in your being. The world becomes a totally different place -- from despair to dance, from darkness to light, from death to eternal life.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEXUAL POWER AND SEXUAL

ENERGY?

Deva Agni, sexual energy is another name for your life force. The word sex has become condemned by the religions; otherwise there is nothing wrong in it. It is your very life.

Sexual energy is a natural energy: you are born out of it. It is your creative energy. When the painter paints or the poet composes or the musician plays or the dancer dances, these are all expressions of your life force.

Not only are children born out of your sexual energy, but everything that man has created on the earth has come out of sexual energy. Sexual energy can have many transformations: at the lowest it is biological; at the highest it is spiritual. It has to be understood that all creative people are highly sexual. You can see the poets, you can see the painters, you can see the dancers. All creative people are highly sexual, and the same is true about the people whom I call the mystics. Perhaps they are the most sexual people on the earth, because they are so full of life energy, abundant, overflowing....

But sexual power is a totally different thing. Sexual power is politics. It is using your sex to dominate people. Domination can be done in many ways: somebody dominates because he has money, somebody dominates because he has more physical strength, somebody dominates because he has more knowledge, somebody dominates because he is clever enough to befool people and collect their votes, somebody can dominate through her or his sexual power. More often it is the woman's way to dominate.

The woman can dominate because of her sexual appeal, but it is ugly and mean. It is selling your body just to dominate.

One of the most beautiful women in the world was Cleopatra. She was a queen in Egypt.

Her country never went into war; whenever there was an attack, she herself would go and offer her body to the invader, to the leader of the armies -- and she had such beauty that she easily persuaded the general of the army. She seduced the general by giving her body.

She was using her power -- her sex, her beauty, her charm -- and she remained the queen of Egypt without ever taking her armies to fight with anybody. A very strange woman...

But all women in different degrees dominate through their sex. They use it as a power. To use sex as a power is to degrade oneself, is to lose one's dignity and self-respect. It is pure prostitution.

The difference between British and French girls is this: they both know what men like, but the French girl does not mind.

Business was brisk for the pretty young prostitute in the bar.

"Bill," she said, "you can come over about seven-ish, and you, George around eight-ish, and Frank, I will have time for you about nine-ish." She then looked around the crowded bar and called out, "Anyone for tennish?"

Using your sexual energy as a profession, selling it as a commodity may give you a certain feeling of power, but you are destroying yourself by your own hands. Sexual energy is not to be used as a political means. Sexual energy is your potentiality for spiritual growth. You can become enlightened only because of your sexual energy.

I have been searching for almost thirty-five years, in all kinds of books, strange scriptures from Tibet and Ladakh and China and Japan -- India has the greatest number of scriptures in the world -- and I have been looking for one thing: has there ever been an enlightened impotent person? There is no incidence recorded anywhere. An impotent person has never been a great poet either, or a great singer, or a great sculptor, or a great scientist.

What is the problem with the impotent person? He has no life force; he is hollow. He cannot create anything -- and to create oneself as an enlightened being needs tremendous energy.

Never use your sex as a commodity, as a strategy to dominate, because you are committing suicide. You are destroying the power that can take you to the highest peak of consciousness.

Robert, an American, had been in Italy during the war and had made friends with Giovanni. A few years later he went back to Rome to visit his friend. As soon as Giovanni saw Bob, he could not do enough for him. He showed him the sights and then took him out for a beautiful meal of finest spaghetti. After the meal, Giovanni insisted that Bob meet his sister.

"Is she pretty?" asked Bob.

"Bella! Bella!" cried Giovanni.

"Is she young?" continued Bob.

"Si! Si!" cried Giovanni.

"And is she pure?" asked Bob.

"My god!" said Giovanni, "you Americans really are crazy!"

Sex has become a thing of the marketplace. On the one hand, religions have been repressing sexual energy and creating perversions which have culminated in the dangerous disease AIDS, which has no cure. The whole credit goes to religions, and if they have any sense of being human, then all the churches and all the monasteries and the Vatican itself should be turned into hospitals for the people suffering from AIDS, because these are the people who have created them. Theirs is the responsibility. They have forced men to live separately from women; they have insisted that celibacy is the very foundation of a religious life. But celibacy is unnatural, and anything unnatural cannot be the foundation of a religious life.

Because celibacy is unnatural, and religions have divided men and women into different monasteries, they have created the situation for homosexuality. They are the pioneers of homosexuality, and homosexuality has led to AIDS, which cannot be called simply a disease because it does not come in the category of diseases. It is death itself.

So on the one hand religions have created perversions; on the other hand they insisted on monogamy, which in fact means monotony. That has created the profession of the prostitute. The priest is responsible for the prostitute. It is so ugly and sick that we have created objects, commodities, things to be exploited out of so many beautiful women.

Even today, it is not understood exactly what sex is. It need not be repressed, because it is your very energy. It has to be transformed certainly; it has to be raised to its highest purity.

And as you start moving upwards... the name of the ladder is meditation... sex becomes love, sex becomes compassion, and ultimately sex becomes the explosion of your inner being, the illumination, the awakening, the enlightenment. But it is sexual energy... it can rot, it can go into perversions. But if it is to be understood naturally and helped through meditation to move upwards towards silent spaces, to pass through your heart and reach to the seventh center at the highest point in your body... you will feel grateful towards the energy. Right now you feel only ashamed.

This shame and guilt is created by the religious organizations, founders of religion.

Naturally the question arises, Why did they make sex a mess? And through making a mess of sex they have messed up the whole world and its mind and its growth. Why? --

because this was the simplest way to keep humanity in slavery. This was the simplest way to keep people guilty, and anybody who feels guilty can never raise his head in revolt. So all the vested interests wanted man to lose his dignity, self-respect, to feel guilty, ashamed. They have been condemning sex continuously, and their condemnation has lead the whole world into a very miserable, psychologically abnormal state. And they are still doing their work....

Just the other day, one shankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswati, has given a statement that no religious man can support family planning -- and all religions will agree with the Hindu shankaracharya. But I am puzzled. The Christian God has only one begotten son: if that is not family planning, then what is it? The Hindu God Shiva has only two sons: if that is not family planning, then what is it?

To say that no religious person can support family planning is simply madness. The world has already become overpopulated because of these religious people. By the end of this century almost half of humanity will have to die through starvation -- and who will be responsible for it? These religious people who are not in favor of family planning.

I would like to contradict Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati: without any exception, absolutely anyone who is religious is bound to support family planning. And those who don't support it are not religious; they are cunning politicians. They want the world to remain poor, they want the world to be always in a state of begging, so rich people can enjoy donations and can make reservations in paradise by those donations. If there is nobody poor in the world, who is going to accept their donations?

The politicians want people to remain starving because starving people are very obedient; they don't have the energy to revolt, to be disobedient. Nobody is concerned with humanity; everybody is concerned with his own power. And still in this century, when things are coming to such a great crisis, a shankaracharya -- who is the equivalent of a pope to the Hindus -- declares that family planning is against religion. Then starvation and millions of people dying through hunger seems to be religious, seems to be the will of God, who is called love, who is called compassionate.

What kind of compassion is this? But these religious people are more interested in the numbers; Jayendra Saraswati is interested in numbers. Hindu society should not follow any birth control methods, because if they follow birth control methods then their number will shrink -- and Christians will go on growing bigger and bigger. It is politics of numbers.

Mohammedans insist that they should be allowed to have four wives, without any consideration that in existence there is a certain balance, an equal number of women and men. If a man is allowed to have four wives, what about the three men who will be deprived of women? They are bound to go to the prostitutes, they are bound to become homosexuals, they are bound to practice sodomy.

All these crimes are perpetuated by your so-called virtuous leaders, religious saints. But they have been doing this harm for thousands of years. Rather than helping man to sublimate his energies, to make them creative, they have only been able to force man to repress his energies. And repressed energies become a cancer, repressed energies create all kinds of perversions.

The teacher asked her children's art class to draw on the blackboard their impressions of the most exciting thing they could think of.

Little Hymie got up and drew a long jagged line.

"What is that?" asked the teacher.

"Lightning," said Hymie. "Every time I see lightning I get so excited, I scream."

"Very good," said the teacher.

Next, little Sally drew a long wavy line. She explained that it was the sea which always excited her. The teacher thought that was excellent too.

Then little Ernie came up to the blackboard, made a single dot and sat down.

"What is that?" asked the puzzled teacher.

"It is a period," said Ernie.

"Well," said the teacher, "what is so exciting about a period?"

"I don't know," said Ernie to the teacher, "but my sister has missed two of them and my whole family is excited."

This excitement has made the whole world a mad asylum, and it goes on growing so fast that it always defeats all scientific calculations.

Just forty years ago, when India became free, it had four hundred million people. Now, after only forty years, it has nine hundred million people. Five hundred million people have been produced in forty years; and by the end of this century, the calculations of the scientists are that it will be the biggest nation in the world for the first time -- up to now China has been the first -- it will go beyond one billion people. And Jayendra Saraswati is talking about no family planning, no birth control....

Is this country capable of managing one billion people? -- their food, their clothes, their education, their medicine? It will not be even able to provide them with drinking water.

Food is impossible; even today, half the population of India sleeps hungry in the night because they cannot afford more than one meal a day.

I have seen people who have not been able to find even one meal a day. Then sleep is very difficult: your stomach is turning, asking for food, it is aching, it is painful. With my own eyes I have seen people putting a brick on their stomach and tying it around the waist, just to feel some weight, because inside the stomach there is nothing. These people suffering in misery are the responsibility of people like Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati -- these are the criminals.

When one thousand people were dying per day in Ethiopia, even then the pope was continuously talking about no birth control, Mother Teresa was talking about no birth control. You have to see the implications: Mother Teresa needs orphans; without orphans she does not have any qualifications to have a Nobel prize. But from where can you get orphans if birth control methods are applied? And strangely enough, they condemn birth control methods because they are not God's creation, but they don't condemn medicine, which is also not God's creation. At least there is no mention of medicine in those six days when he made the world.

Medicine has given man longer life. There are people in the Soviet Union who have passed their one hundred and eightieth year, and they are still young; there is every possibility that they will pass their second century. There are thousands who have passed beyond one hundred and fifty... and no religious leader condemns it, saying that medicine should be stopped from giving people health and longevity. No religious leader goes on saying that diseases should be allowed because they are God-created.

Medicine can be used; people can be made more healthy... and naturally when they are more healthy they are more sexually powerful. But birth control methods cannot be used because they will reduce the numbers of their congregations. It is a competition of numbers.

Catholics are six hundred million in number. It is the greatest religion in the world -- only because of the numbers; otherwise it is the most third-rate religion in the world, there is nothing much in it which can be called religious. But it is the biggest religion, the greatest religion, only on the strength of numbers. It cannot allow numbers to decline -- even if these numbers are going to kill the whole of humanity.

I am in absolute favor of birth control methods for two reasons: birth control methods will keep the world healthy, nourished; secondly, once birth control methods are used, sex loses its profanity -- or its sacredness. It becomes simple fun, it becomes just a joyful exchange of energies. According to me, the birth control pill is the greatest invention that man has made. It is the greatest revolution because it can make man and woman equal, liberated. Otherwise the woman is constantly pregnant, and because of her pregnancy she cannot be independent financially, she cannot be independent educationally, she cannot be independent from man's domination.

Once she is free from being pregnant compulsorily she will have as much time, as much energy to be creative. Until now half of humanity has remained uncreative... no great poets, no great saints, no great musicians, no great artists. Women have had no time. I was surprised to know that even the books on cookery are written by men, not by women.

And the best cooks are men, not women: in all the great five-star hotels you will find great cooks, always men. Strange... That has been the domain of the woman forever, but she has no energy left. Because of these religious people, she will never be liberated.

Sex energy has to be welcomed and transformed through the alchemy of meditation into higher states of being, into creativity in different dimensions, not only creating more and more children. Life has to be planned, it should not be accidental.

I have heard that when God was making the world, he called man aside and gave him twenty years of normal sex life. Man was horrified: "Only twenty years?!" he cried. But God would not budge. That was all he would give him.

Then God called the monkey and gave him twenty years. "But, God! I don't need that much," said the monkey, "ten is enough."

Man spoke up and said, "Can I have the other ten?" -- and the monkey agreed.

Then God called the lion and gave him twenty years. The lion, too, only wanted ten.

Again the man said, "Can I have the other ten?"

The lion roared, "Of course!"

Then came the donkey. He was given twenty years, but he also only wanted ten. Man asked for the extra ten, and got them.

This explains why man has twenty years of a normal sex life, then ten years of monkeying around, ten years of lion about it, and ten years of making an ass of himself.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #26

Chapter title: A glimpse of your own future

2 October 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8710025

ShortTitle:

PILGR26

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

81

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I HEARD YOU SAY THAT SOMEONE WHO IS NOT YET PREPARED FOR

ENLIGHTENMENT MIGHT DIE FROM THE EXPERIENCE. I BELIEVE IT IS

ALSO POSSIBLE THAT THE EXPERIENCE REMAINS A SHORT SATORI AND

THE PERSON COMES BACK TO HIS NORMAL STATE. THIS IS MY OWN

EXPERIENCE. I WAS IN A STATE OF EXTREME HAPPINESS AND

PROBLEMLESSNESS, AND HAD A STRONG FEELING OF "I AM LOVE," AND

THEN I CAME BACK AFTER MAYBE HALF AN HOUR. CAN YOU PLEASE

COMMENT?

Veet Diti, you came quite soon! It is really unique -- just in half an hour! You made a great comeback. You had gone through the experience of problemlessness, of extreme happiness and of the feeling of "I am love." But what happened after half an hour? The problems must have come back, and the misery may have deepened. And what to say about the experience of "I am love"? Now who are you? -- I mean after half an hour.

You really did a great job! I am at a loss what to say to you, from where to begin? --

before half an hour or after?

Satori is not such a thing. Satori is a miniature experience of samadhi, but once you get into it, you cannot get out of it. That's the real test and the criterion. Anything that comes and goes is of the mind; it is imagination. Anything that comes and remains, even in spite of you, even if you want it to go it is impossible to get out of it... Satori is forever.

Samadhi is just like the total opening of the lotus, and satori is the beginning of the opening of the petals. Satori is the beginning, samadhi is the climax. But you don't get out of it. It is one-way traffic; nobody has come out of it.

But mind is capable of imagining anything. It can imagine that there are no problems, but if you look deep down you will feel that you are uneasy about "no problems." Deep down you will find absolutely a feeling..."What has happened to me?" You will not feel blissful because there are no problems. You will feel very lonely because all your friends are gone, all your relatives... the whole family has disappeared, leaving you alone in darkness. You will make a problem out of this situation. This situation will not be a blissful state, but a state of deep anguish, anxiety, loneliness and a deep longing to be somehow out of it.

What you think is happiness is just a dream of your mind. Your mind is inherently capable of dreaming about everything. It can dream about satori, it can dream about samadhi, in a dream it can become the Buddha -- but the dream cannot last long. Even half an hour is too much!

But you seem to have fallen into the trap of the mind. You say, "I have heard you say that someone who is not yet prepared for enlightenment might die from the experience." You have heard it, but you have not understood it. You have not explored all the implications of it.

What I am saying is: Enlightenment can happen this very moment, even in your unpreparedness, because it does not depend on your preparedness. It is not something that depends on your efforts, readiness. It is a happening beyond you, beyond your reach. It can happen this very moment. It is not happening because this will be dangerous to your very life.

The experience of enlightenment is such a great shock to your body, to your mind, to your very system. It is exactly a lightning experience. Everything that you have been is simply shattered. The shock is so much you may forget breathing, you may forget that your heart has stopped.

Preparedness is needed not for enlightenment, but to absorb it. Preparedness is needed not to achieve enlightenment, but so that when it comes, you don't fall apart but you remain centered and silent and peaceful and let the great experience happen. But it does not destroy you. Your preparedness is necessary to save your life from the great experience, which is almost like fire.

Unless you are prepared, enlightenment and death are almost simultaneous. Many people have died because of sudden enlightenment. They were not ready for it, it was too much.

Their body, their whole system, was too fragile for the experience. They were too small and the experience was too big.

So when people say to you, "Prepare for enlightenment," they really mean, "Prepare... not for enlightenment, it will not come by your preparedness; prepare so that you can welcome it without being shattered, without being killed by the great joy." Have you not heard of many people dying out of great excitement?

I have heard... a man was continuously purchasing every month a ticket for a million dollar lottery. He had been purchasing it for years, and all his friends and his family had become tired of telling him, "What is the point, why do you go on wasting money in purchasing the ticket? We have seen: almost thirty years have passed, nothing comes."

But the man had become so accustomed to the habit. The day he got his salary, the first thing he did was to purchase a ticket for the coming lottery. Then one day a telegram came. He was in the office, his wife received the telegram -- he has won the lottery, and by the evening the money will be delivered.

His wife became very much worried. They had been poor, they had lived in poverty; she knew that it will be too much for her poor husband -- one million dollars out of the blue!

He was not even expecting... Thirty years have passed; he had even forgotten why he goes on purchasing the ticket. He knew perfectly well that it was not going to happen to him. It is not his fate.

The wife suddenly remembered the Catholic priest -- they were Catholics -- "This is the moment I should run to the priest and ask his advice... `What to do? Because the moment he will hear it -- one million dollars -- I am afraid he will have a heart attack. You are a wise man and this is the time we need your help.'"

The priest said, "Don't be worried. I am coming with you. You need not convey the message; I will convey the message, and I will convey it in installments, so he does not get the shock so suddenly -- one million dollars! First I will say, `You have got fifty thousand dollars.' When he has absorbed it I will say, `No, you have got really one hundred thousand dollars.' When he has absorbed that, and I am certain that he is still alive, I will go on. This way by a slow process he will be able to come to the point where he can accept one million dollars."

The wife said, "You are really great! You are certainly the wisest man around and if you can save my husband's life I will donate fifty thousand dollars to the church."

The priest said, "What? Fifty thousand dollars?" -- and he fell down then and there. He never came back after half an hour! Fifty thousand dollars so suddenly... the poor priest, and he was not expecting it at all.

Enlightenment is the greatest experience in life. You cannot even conceive what it is -- no conceptualization is possible. You can think of pleasure, great pleasure; you can think of happiness, because you have known something of it -- a little bit. You can think,

"Perhaps there will be no problems." But these are not the real contents of enlightenment.

Because here you are constantly living in the atmosphere full of longings for enlightenment, your mind can start weaving, spinning dreams. But don't take those dreams seriously. You have done that. You say, "I believe it is also possible that the experience remains a short satori and the person comes back to his normal state." You don't understand what is your normal state.

Enlightenment is your normal state!

The state in which you are is abnormal! Coming back from satori to your so-called normal state is coming back from satori into insanity. It is simply not possible. Once you have seen the light you cannot become blind again. Once you have known love, hate cannot raise its head in your being. Once all problems are dissolved, from where can they come back again?

Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. He was getting tired of lying on his back, so he rolled over and sat on the edge of the scaffold. Looking down he noticed a little old lady praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary. Wanting to have some fun, he shouted down in a deep voice, "I am Jesus Christ, I am Jesus Christ! Listen to me and I will do miracles."

The old lady looked up, clasping her rosary, and shouted back, "You shut-up-a your mouth! I am-a talking to your mother!"

"The last time I met you," said the priest, "you made me very happy because you were sober. Today you have made me unhappy because you are drunk."

"True," said the drunk with a smile, "but today is my turn to be happy."

Beware of your mind -- it can deceive you!

There is not anything in life which mind cannot hallucinate about, and when you are living in a special atmosphere like this, where meditation, enlightenment, blissfulness, ecstasy are in the very air, where everybody is thinking about these extraordinary experiences... This is not a common place. In the market people are thinking about money, about power, about respectability.

This is not a marketplace.

This is a temple of silence.

Here everything is vibrating, and it is very easy to get caught into imagination. And particularly a woman is more capable of imagination than a man.

Veet Diti -- a man thinks, a woman feels. Feeling is irrational. A man finds it hard to imagine. A woman is very easily capable of imagining anything. Her center of functioning is feeling, emotion, sentiments; her eyes are continuously filled with dreams.

These dreams can be useful in poetry, in drama, but these dreams cannot be of any help --

on the contrary they are great hindrances -- on the path of truth.

Truth is not your imagination, it is not your feeling.

Truth is your being.

But the woman is very easily persuaded... it is not her fault, it is her nature. These are the differences between man and woman. Men are basically skeptical, doubtful about everything, suspicious; hence they are more capable of scientific research.

For a woman it is difficult to be a scientist, very rare. But as far as imagination is concerned, if she is allowed -- but she has not been allowed for centuries -- then no painter can compete with her, no poet can compete with her, no musician can go higher than she can go, no dancer can come even close to her. She can prove of tremendous help in creating a beautiful planet. She can fill it with songs, dances and love.

But unfortunately man has not allowed her freedom to stand on her own and to contribute to life. Half of humanity has been deprived of contributing, and perhaps... it is my understanding that this has been done out of fear.

Man is afraid of woman's imagination. He is afraid because once she is allowed freedom to be creative, man will not be able to compete with her. His superiority, his ego, is in danger. Because of this fear that his superiority will be destroyed, that all his great poets will look like pigmies, and all his great painters will look amateur, it is better not to allow the woman education, the opportunity to express her feelings and her heart.

But as far as enlightenment is concerned, man's problem is his reason and woman's problem is her feeling. Both are barriers to enlightenment. Man has to drop his reasoning, the woman has to drop her feeling. Both are at equal distance from enlightenment. Man's distance is of reasoning, of mind; woman's distance is of feeling, of heart -- but the distance is equal. Man has to drop his logic and woman has to drop her emotions. Both have to drop something which is hindering the path.

In various stages of her life a woman resembles the continents of the world. As a child she is like Africa, virgin territory, unexplored. In her youth she is like Asia, hot and exotic. In her prime she is like America, fully explored and free with her resources. In middle age she is like Europe, exhausted, but not without places of interest. And after that she is like Australia -- everyone knows it is down there, but nobody much cares.

Man has to drop his approach towards reality; he is always thinking and the woman is always feeling. Both are equally incapable of experiencing enlightenment, because one is filled with thoughts, the other is filled with feelings.

Enlightenment is possible only when you are utterly empty -- no thought, no feeling, just utter silence. Then what happens remains. It never goes away.

So the question is significant for all. In your longing, in your desire, in your passion you are vulnerable to hallucinate, to start thinking or feeling that which you would like to experience. But this is dangerous because it will become your final block. You will never be able to reach beyond this barrier.

It is good to be alert from the very beginning. Never imagine! Remember all that you can do for enlightenment is a preparedness, a silent being, a serenity. Enlightenment will come at the right moment, whenever you are absolutely silent.

You don't have to imagine it, you don't have to even worry about what it is like. You don't have to find the definition of it, you don't have to be concerned about the description -- what qualities, what experiences are going to happen through it -- because all that is dangerous. All that can give your mind beautiful opportunities to imagine, to think and to believe... and Diti has even mentioned the word, saying that she believes: "I believe it is also possible..."

The world of experience is not the world of belief: either you know or you don't know.

Belief is deceptive. An authentic religious person has nothing to do with belief. It is the unauthentic, the false, the phony who lives in systems of beliefs. These systems of beliefs make you Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans... they don't allow you to become simply and purely religious. And remember that unless you are simply religious, you are not religious at all.

It is not a question of your believing.

It is a question of your experiencing.

And for the experience, get prepared! Become the right receptive host... the guest comes.

I am reminded of a beautiful story. Rabindranath has made a poem based on the story; his poem is named, "The King of the Night." There is a great temple, perhaps the greatest because there are one thousand priests in the temple. It is vast and has thousands of statues, and millions of people pass through the temple every day.

The high priest one night dreams that God has come into his dream. God says to him,

"You have been preparing the temple every day for thousands of years with flowers, with fragrance and you are waiting for me. I am sorry that I could not come before, but tomorrow I am coming."

Just the idea that God is coming tomorrow... in the middle of the night the priest woke up. He was in a very great dilemma -- whether to tell the other priests or not, because nobody is going to believe it. They will laugh, they will say, "You have got old and senile. God has never come. It was only a dream after all, and dreams don't come true.

Dreams are dreams! So don't be worried about it, nobody is going to come."

But then he was also afraid. If it turns out to be true and God comes, then the temple will not be perfectly ready for him. So much work has to be done -- the garden has to be cleaned, the path has to be made clean, the whole temple has to be washed, delicious food has to be made -- the great guest is going to come. He thought, "It is better to be thought to be mad, senile, but it is dangerous to take the risk of not telling others." Alone he cannot do it -- the work is vast and the time is short. Tomorrow -- who knows at what time -- maybe in the morning, maybe in the afternoon, or by the evening certainly he will be coming.

So he woke up all the priests, one thousand priests. They were all angry that he is talking nonsense in the middle of the night. They said, "You just go to sleep. You have become too old. Thinking and thinking continuously for your whole life that God will come one day, now you have convinced yourself. This is just a dream managed by your own unconscious. You simply go to sleep!"

He said, "I will go to sleep, but I don't want to take any chance. What is the harm if we clean the whole temple? It is good -- it has not been cleaned thoroughly for centuries.

There is no harm; even if God does not come it is good to clean the temple, to clean the garden, to clean the road as if he is coming. And who knows, he may come!"

The other priests also thought that it was not good to take a chance, so the whole garden was cleaned, the whole temple was washed, all the statues were washed and so much incense, so much fragrance, so many flowers... The whole day they were waiting with delicious food prepared, but they could not eat unless the guest had come. And when it was afternoon and he had not come, doubt started arising and a few priests started saying,

"It is all nonsense! We have been unnecessarily tortured the whole day; now it is afternoon and he has not come."

Slowly, slowly, more and more skepticism, more and more doubt, and by the evening almost everybody -- except the high priest -- was against waiting any longer. They said,

"You simply managed to torture us. We have been starving the whole day; now it is enough. The sun is setting and the day is complete. Now we should eat, we should be allowed to eat. And we want to go to sleep early; we are tired." Unwillingly the high priest agreed; they ate and they went to sleep.

In the middle of the night a golden chariot comes to the doors of the temple. The noise that the wheels of the chariot make reaches the priests in their sleep.

One priest says, "It seems he has come, because I can hear a strange noise which can only come from the great wheels of a chariot."

Others say, "Shut up and go to sleep! There is no chariot, nothing; it is just the clouds in the sky...." (A SUDDEN BURST OF FIRECRACKERS) You listen to the clouds -- it feels like he is coming!

And finally the chariot stops at the gate. He steps down; he climbs the marble steps up to the main gate. Somebody says, "I hear his steps, he has come. I have even heard a knock on the doors."

But many others shout, "You idiots, will you allow us to sleep or not? We are tired, the whole day waiting and cleaning and working, and now somebody hears the chariot, somebody is hearing the footsteps. Nobody has come, it is just the wind that is knocking on the doors. Just go to sleep!"

In the morning when they opened the door, they were shocked: the chariot had come, because there were, on the dirt road coming to the temple, the marks of a chariot. They could see on the steps some footprints.

They were all silent. Their eyes were full of tears and the high priest said, "You did not listen to me! For centuries this temple has been waiting, and now the King of the Night has come. And we forgot completely that the temple was known as the temple of the King of the Night. Naturally the King of the Night will come in the night, not in the day.

We waited in the day, and we went to sleep when it was time to be awake and alert and to watch and to wait. We missed the opportunity."

All that you need is a waiting consciousness.

In absolute silence -- aware, conscious -- God, enlightenment, truth, whatever you name it, comes.

It has always come, whenever somebody was ready; it has never been otherwise. In your readiness is the guarantee, the promise, that the ultimate is going to happen to you. You are not to think about it; you have to drop all thinking. You are not to have any feeling about it; you have to forget all feeling.

You have to be just a silent waiting with deep trust, with great love, with infinite gratitude.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

DURING THE DAYS YOU WERE NOT SPEAKING, I WAS IN A TOTAL

EMOTIONAL AND MIND CRISIS. I GOT SO MUCH LOVE, JUICE AND ENERGY

FROM SITTING TWO TIMES A DAY IN DISCOURSE -- AND AFTER YOU

STOPPED SPEAKING MY ENERGY BROKE DOWN. IT SEEMED THAT ALL THE

DIRT AND MIND CAME OUT EVEN STRONGER THAN BEFORE. PLEASE

COMMENT.

Deva Shikha, it is going to happen to you -- it is natural. But you have to learn to transcend it. I cannot be always with you. I would love to, but existence does not allow it.

Existence gives only so much rope, and it is good; otherwise you will start taking me for granted.

One day I will not be amongst you. It is good that once in a while I am absent, so you can start learning that what happens in my absence is your reality. When I am with you, you become overwhelmed with me. You forget yourself.

And you have not to forget yourself!

You have to remember yourself, because only through remembrance you will be able to transform yourself.

It is natural; hence I am not condemning it. But you are in search of something beyond --

beyond the normal, the natural -- something transcendental. You have to learn the way, and the way has to be traveled alone.

I cannot come with you. I can show you the way, I can show you the moon. But my fingers are not the moon, and I cannot continue to show you the moon. Sooner or later you have to forget my fingers and you have to look at the moon yourself. You have to follow the path alone.

Naturally when I was not coming daily, morning and evening, to be with you, you started feeling a kind of breakdown. It was not a breakdown; it was simply that your reality was surfacing. It had not been getting the opportunity to surface. I was so much with you that you had gone into the shadow, into the background. I had become more real to you than yourself.

When I was not coming, in my absence your reality was exposed to you. It is good, because unless you know what you are, where you are, your pilgrimage cannot begin. So those days were of great importance.

Remember: whatever you find within yourself, however much rubbish it may be, it is your reality. It can be cleaned, it can be dropped; you can move away from it. But before anything can be done about it, you have to know it. That is the first and the most significant thing.

A farmer, plowing with one ox, kept crying out: "Giddup, Joe! Giddup, Alexander!

Giddup, Henry! Giddup, Ronnie!"

A man passing by asked him, "How many names does that ox have, anyway?"

"Only one," the farmer replied. "His name is Pete, but he does not know his own strength.

So I put blinkers on him, yell a lot of names, and he thinks there are half a dozen other oxen helping him."

That's what I have been doing with you. You are alone, but I go on shouting, "Giddup, Joe! Giddup Alexander! Giddup, Henry! Giddup, Ronnie!" And you feel relaxed... you are not alone, so many people are on the path.

But the truth is that everybody is alone. And it is good to understand that you are alone. It will make you aware of your own strength. You have enough strength to complete the pilgrimage; in fact you have more strength than any pilgrimage needs. You are just not aware of it.

When you are with me, you are not with yourself -- it is perfectly right. But once in a while you have to be with yourself too, just to get the comparison -- the comparison between what you are and what you can be. Otherwise you don't have any sense of direction, you don't know where to move, what is the right dimension for you. You don't know your potential.

If my presence can make you aware of your potential, your possibilities, your blossomings, then I have done my work. I have given you a glimpse of your own future.

But remember, it is your future not your present.

Once in a while you have to be reminded of your present too; otherwise you will start living in a euphoria of the future and you will forget all about your reality in the present.

That reality in the present has to be changed: you have to go beyond it. You have to attain that euphoria and make it real. But it has to be your own -- not mine, not anybody else's.

The false teacher is one who never gives you a chance to know that his euphoria has become slowly, slowly your euphoria, that his experience and his presence has become a kind of drug. You feel good, but a drug cannot be the source of ultimate transformation.

The authentic master goes on continuously giving you glimpses of the beyond, but always reminds you about the earth you are standing upon. He goes on telling you about the flowers and the spring that is going to come, but he never allows you to forget your roots and your reality. Your spring has not come yet. It is possible to experience my fragrance and get into a delusion that it is your fragrance, your peace, your silence, your love.

I am not your enemy and I will never do such a thing. I am your friend, and I would like you always to remember your reality -- side by side with remembering your ultimate potential. What you are and what you can be, both have to be remembered. Then, and only then, the transformation.

The understanding between me and you is not always exactly the way I would like it to be. But I never expect anything impossible from you; in fact I don't expect anything from you. I share my experience, knowing perfectly well all the possibilities of misunderstanding. So I go on making you alert about the misunderstandings that are possible. They can be avoided if you are alert.

All communication is a difficult process, because I want to say something which cannot be said, and yet I have to say it -- and I have to say it in words which are absolutely impotent to convey it. I say something, you hear something else. But I know this is natural, and particularly in those sannyasins who are new, who will only listen to my words and interpret those words according to their own prejudices. Those who are old enough, who have lived long enough with me, know perfectly well my ways of working.

A girl said to her date, "You remind me of the sea."

"You mean," he said, "because I am so wild, magnificent, and romantic?"

"No," she said, "because you make me sick."

Human communication is a difficult problem!

Walking down the street in New York, Hymie Goldberg said to his wife Becky, "Hey, did you see that pretty girl smiling at me?"

"That's nothing," said Becky. "The first time I saw you I laughed out loud."

Paddy complained to his friend Sean, that he had seen his wife going into a movie with a strange man.

"Did you follow them inside?" asked Sean.

"No way," replied Paddy, "I had already seen the movie."

A hotel night clerk was surprised to see a guest walking through the lobby in his pink pajamas.

"Hey there," he shouted, "what do you think you are doing?"

The guest woke up and apologized. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I am a somnambulist."

"Well," said the clerk, "you can't walk around here like that, no matter what religion you belong to."

Farmer Jenkins had two cows, Daisy and Tinkerbell. One day he borrowed the bull from the next farm and instructed his farmhand, Jake, to watch and make sure that the bull did his job properly.

That afternoon the local priest came round for tea and just as the farmer's wife was pouring it, Jake came rushing into the room and shouted, "Mister Jenkins, the bull just screwed the hell out of Daisy."

Jake's face fell when he saw the priest, and the farmer was furious. He took Jake into the other room and said, "Look, I want to be kept informed of the bull's progress, but this is too much. Next time use the word `surprised', not `screwed'."

Twenty minutes later Jake came running in again and said, "Boss! Boss! The bull just...

the bull..." but seeing the priest he could not say another word. The farmer got up and said, "Jake, did the bull surprise Tinkerbell this time?"

"Surprise Tinkerbell? I will say he did," cried Jake enthusiastically. "He screwed the hell out of Daisy again!"

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #27

Chapter title: Become the mystery

3 October 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8710030

ShortTitle:

PILGR27

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

123

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE MYSTERY OF WOMEN?

Devageet, it is one of the ancientmost questions. Man has always puzzled about women, and the real problem is neither man nor woman. Reduced to the factual, to the existential, the problem is between the head and the heart.

The head cannot understand the mystery of the heart. The head is logical, rational, mathematical, scientific; the heart knows nothing of reason, nothing of logic. The heart functions in a totally different way. Its functioning creates in the head the idea of the mystery. It is not a question about women; it is a question that arises because women function through the heart and man functions through the head. Have you ever heard any women asking, "What is the mystery of man?" They simply know it.

The problem arises out of logical reasoning. It is a very superficial phenomenon. It is good with objects, with dead things; it deals with them perfectly because a dead thing has no interiority, a dead thing has no inner being, it has no life. The scientist is perfectly right about objects, but the moment he comes to think about subjectivity -- the interiority

-- he is baffled, because reason cannot function there.

The heart knows without any process of knowing, without any syllogism, without any argument. How do you know that the rose is beautiful? Is it a rational conclusion? If you bring reason in, you will not be able to prove that the rose is beautiful, because reason cannot fathom the phenomenon of beauty.

When you say the rose is beautiful, you are functioning from the heart. When you say the starry night overwhelms you, it is not a rational statement; if you are forced to prove it rationally, you will be at a loss. Then suddenly you will become aware that it was the heart that has spoken, and the head is absolutely incapable of figuring out how the heart functions.

But the heart is not in the same difficulty about the head, because the head is superficial and the heart is deep down within you. The lower cannot understand the higher. The higher simply understands the lower, there is no need of any reasoning. Your heart is both higher than your head and deeper than your head. The woman can be a poet, but cannot really be a mathematician. Mathematics is purely a game of the mind. Poetry is a totally different phenomenon.

I am reminded of Frau Einstein, Albert Einstein's wife. She was a poet, and Albert Einstein was perhaps the greatest scientific thinker of all the ages. Naturally Frau Einstein wanted her husband to know about her poetry. Einstein tried to avoid the subject as much as he could, but finally one night, the full moon in the sky, Frau Einstein could not resist the temptation. She had composed a beautiful poem about the full moon, and she recited the poem.

Albert Einstein looked at her with great surprise, almost shocked. She could not understand, "Why is he looking at me in this weird manner? At the most he can say that the poetry is not great... but he is looking at me as if I am insane!" After the recital of the poem she asked Albert Einstein, "What do you think?"

He said, "I had never thought that you are so crazy. You talk about the moon as beautiful, you talk about the moon reminding you of your beloved. It is sheer nonsense! The moon is too big, it cannot be substituted for your beloved. And the moon is not at all beautiful!

It is just as ordinary as the earth, even more ordinary because there is no greenery, no water, just barren land. And the light that you see reflected from the moon is not its own.

That light is borrowed from the sun, it is not coming from the moon. The sunlight falls on the moon and the rays are reflected back, and those reflected rays are coming to your eyes;the moon is not the source of them. I had always thought that you are well educated, but you don't know even the ABC of physics!"

Now was the chance for Frau Einstein to look at him as if he is insane, because for centuries poets have sung songs about the moon -- its beauty, its tremendous magnetic force, its cool light. It has a certain hypnotic spell on the heart... and it is now also proved by facts that it has a certain hypnotic spell.

More people -- in fact all except Mahavira -- have become enlightened on a full-moon night. Mahavira is the only exception; he became enlightened on a no-moon night.

Gautam Buddha was born on a full-moon night, became enlightened on a full-moon night, died on a full-moon night. He is a perfect example of the hypnotic spell of the moon. Many more people go mad on the full-moon night -- these are approved statistics -

- and more people commit suicide on full-moon nights.

The full moon somehow drives man's mind into dimensions beyond reasoning. And it is not only man that is affected by the full moon; even the ocean is affected. But a physicist, a mathematician will not be able to understand it -- and Frau Einstein never again mentioned poetry to Albert Einstein in her whole life. Although she went on composing, she was not publishing them. It was decided on the first recital that that kind of dialogue is not possible between her and her husband -- but it is not any exceptional case.

No husband and no wife are in the situation of understanding each other.

Misunderstanding is the natural situation. The man says something, the woman immediately understands something else. The man cannot believe how she has come to this conclusion -- and to the woman that conclusion is absolutely clear, there is no doubt about it. And whatever she says, the man is at a loss to figure it out.

Psychologists have started calling couples intimate enemies. They are... because no one understands each other. But the reason is not the woman and the man. The reason is far deeper. It is the head and the heart.

So I would like to emphasize the point, Devageet, that the question from the very beginning has been formed in a wrong way. It is not the mystery of women, it is the mystery of the heart -- which the head is incapable of figuring out. The heart has no problem about the head;it is a lower, more superficial layer, and the heart understands it.

So when men say that women are mysteries, women simply smile amongst themselves:Look at these idiots! Have you ever heard any woman saying that women are mysteries? They know each other perfectly well. There is no mystery.

It will be better to understand in a different dimension too. Forget about man and woman; just think about your own head and your own heart. Do they have a communion? Are they capable of understanding each other? I have not met Albert Einstein, but I would have loved to meet him for the simple reason that I wanted to ask him how he fell in love with Frau Einstein. What physics, what mathematics, what science is behind the experience of falling in love?

But perhaps he never thought about it. Love is coming from the heart; it cannot come from the head. Even the greatest scientist once in a while goes astray from the head. One beautiful sunset and he is overwhelmed. He forgets that he is a scientist and he is not allowed to do such things, feminine things; he is a male mind. And every scientist falls in love with a woman without ever thinking what love is. It is a mystery... even your own heart is a mystery to you.

My own understanding is that Mahavira at first denied any women to be initiated into sannyas. The same was the case with Gautam Buddha;he denied women to be initiated into sannyas. And the same is the case with other religions; they have all put woman in a secondary place. And the reason, according to me, is that all our so-called religions are head-oriented... too much head. Their God is not their love, their God is their idea. It is a hypothesis. They have created a system -- rational, logical, flawless -- but it is their own mind which is creating the system. It is not a discovery. It is not unveiling the mystery of existence.

And why have all these religions been so afraid of women? There were other reasons, but the most fundamental reason is that all the founders of religions were male, and their theologies were from the head. To allow women among their fellow travelers was to create unnecessary trouble, because they speak different languages, they understand different languages. They are coming from different spaces. At the most, they can tolerate each other.

That is what is happening between every wife and every husband: they are just tolerating each other. There seems to be no possibility of a sane conversation. Any conversation between a wife and husband immediately leads to conflict, and the woman starts behaving, according to man, in such a crazy way... throwing things, breaking things. He cannot understand -- what argument is this? But the woman knows perfectly well that only this argument will decide the thing -- and it decides! The man simply agrees, "You are right, but just don't destroy more things!" In every argument with a woman, the woman is the winner, although she knows nothing about argumentation.

The day he initiated the first woman into sannyas, Gautam Buddha said, "My religion was going to last for five thousand years. Now it will last only five hundred years" -- not a great welcome to the poor woman!

Asked why he was saying so, he said, "It is impossible to include both women and men without them coming into conflict. The religion will destroy itself from within. If it had remained just confined to males there was a possibility for it to continue at least for five thousand years, because they can understand each other."

You have to be very alert about it.... I am the first man who makes no difference between initiating men and women, and my feeling is -- if I were to reply to Gautam Buddha, I would say, "If it was only males it would last for only five hundred years. Now it is men and women together it can last for eternity."

When heart and head are together, you are more complete and more whole. Heart is a part, head is a part, but together... if a communion is possible, your strength is not doubled, it is multiplied. How can the head and the heart come to a point of meeting?

And it is a multidimensional question:

It is between the woman and the man.

It is between the heart and the head.

It is between the East and the West.

One of the royal poets of England, Rudyard Kipling, has written two famous lines which have become better known than anything else that he wrote. Those lines are, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." Nobody has argued against it... and he was the royal poet of the British Empire.

But I disagree absolutely, without any conditions and reservations, because wherever you are standing East and West are meeting. Bombay is West to Calcutta, Calcutta is East to Bombay;Tokyo is East to Calcutta, and Calcutta is West to Tokyo. Wherever you are, you cannot say you are in the East or in the West. They are relative terms;they are not fixed territories. Wherever you are, in every man, in every tree, in every bird, East and West are meeting.

Rudyard Kipling is simply talking nonsense! But he has a point in his ridiculous statement -- and the point is the same. The West is head-oriented and the East is heart-oriented. It is the same question in different directions: How can they meet? How can there be an intimate love between the head and the heart, not intimate enmity? -- it is a contradiction in terms.

They meet in meditation, because in meditation the head is empty and the heart is empty: the head is empty of thoughts and the heart is empty of feelings. When there are two emptinesses you cannot keep them separate, because there is nothing between them to keep them separate. Two zeros become one zero... Two nothingnesses cannot exist separately; they are bound to become one because there is not even a fence between them.

But Rudyard Kipling, although he lived in India almost his whole life, has never heard about meditation. It is meditation in which the head and heart lose each other, melt into each other. It is meditation in which man and woman melt into each other.

In India we have an ancient, very ancient statue -- one of the most beautiful pieces of art -

- a statue of Ardhanarishwar. The statue is half man and half woman. It is the statue of Shiva, the Hindu God, and half of the body is of the woman and the other half of the body is of the man. Up to the time of Carl Gustav Jung it was thought that it is only a mythology, metaphor, poetry -- but this cannot be true. The whole credit goes to Carl Gustav Jung for introducing to the world that this is not a metaphor, this is a reality.

Every man and every woman are both, because every child is born of a father and a mother. So something of the mother and something of the father is present in every child, whether the child is a girl or the child is a boy. The only difference can be that the man is a little more man, perhaps fifty-one percent man and forty-nine percent woman, and the woman is fifty-one percent woman and forty-nine percent man. But the difference is not much.

That's why it has become scientifically possible to change the sexes -- because the other sex is also present, just the percentage of hormones has to be changed. What was fifty-one percent has to be made forty-nine, or what was forty-nine has to be made fifty-one...

then the man becomes woman and the woman becomes man.

But even within you, you are not at ease. There is a conflict, continuous conflict between the head and the heart, between the man and the woman. This conflict can be dissolved only if the head drops its thinking and the heart drops its feeling and both are just pure empty spaces. In that emptiness there is a great meeting and a great understanding.

I don't see any woman as a mystery. I have looked hard, and perhaps there will not be another man in the whole world who has come in contact with so many men and so many women. But neither the man seems to be a mystery nor the woman seems to be a mystery, because within myself the head and heart have melted into each other, and that has given me a new perspective and has changed the whole vision around me.

Devageet, if you really want to understand the mystery of women you will have to understand the art of melting your head into your heart. That will not only help you to know the mystery of women, it will also help you to know the mystery of men. Not only that, it will help you to know the mystery of the whole existence.

A shy young girl was about to get married, so she went to see her very experienced friend for some advice.

"Doris," she began, "it may sound silly, but there are a few things I just have to ask you."

"That's okay," said Doris. "Just go ahead."

"Okay," said the shy girl, "is it all right to talk to your husband while making love?"

"Well," said Doris, "I must admit that I have never done that, but I suppose there is nothing wrong in it -- as long as there is a telephone within reach."

There is mystery but it is not confined only to women. The whole existence is mysterious. This beautiful rain... this music of the falling rain... the joy of the trees. Don't you think there is great mystery?

There was a hill station in the state where I was a professor for many years, and on that hill station was a resthouse far away deep in the hills, absolutely lonely. For miles there was nobody... even the servant who used to take care of the resthouse used to leave by the evening for his own home. I used to go to that resthouse whenever I could find time and sometimes it used to rain just like this... and I was alone in that resthouse and for miles there was nobody. Just the music of rain, just the dance of the trees... I have never forgotten the beauty of it. Whenever it rains I again remember it. It has left such a beautiful impact.

If you look, then each flower is a mystery. From where do those colors come? Every rainbow is a mystery, every moment of life is a mystery. Just to be here... is it not a mystery that you are nowhere else but here?

Once your eyes are clear and your head and heart are no more in conflict, everything starts becoming mysterious. Then you don't want to de-mystify it -- that is absolutely ugly and criminal! The mystery of existence has to be welcomed as it is. Dissecting it, demystifying it, is a violation, aggression, violence.

A man of meditation simply enjoys the flowers, the birds, the trees, the rain, the sun, the moon, the people. It is good that we are all engulfed in a mysterious whole. Life will be utterly boring if every mystery is decoded.

Science's whole effort is to demystify existence. Poetry and art are concerned in rejoicing, in welcoming the mystery of existence.And the mystic, the religious man, lives the mystery -- not from the outside as a poet, but from the very inside of it. He becomes himself mystery.

There is a beautiful story. Unfortunately it cannot be true. I would have loved it to have been true...! In the East there have been many lovers, very famous lovers -- Heer and Ranjha, Sheeri and Farhad -- and the most famous is the third couple, Laila and Majnu.

None of them could meet and live with each other. That is their great fortune; hence they remained loving each other for their whole life.

Majnu was a poor man. Laila was a very rich, super-rich girl, and the parents were not willing to give their only girl into the hands of Majnu, who was nobody at all, just a beggar. Just to avoid him, and to avoid any slander, the parents left the town for another city; they had businesses in many cities and houses in many cities.

The day they left, Majnu was standing outside the city by the side of a tree, hiding himself in the foliage of the tree, just to see for the last time his beloved Laila moving away. He saw Laila on her camel, and the whole caravan was moving away. He went on looking and looking as far as he could, and in a desert you can see very far, there are no obstructions.

Finally, beyond the horizon, they disappeared... but Majnu went on looking. This is where the story becomes a myth, but of tremendous significance. He never left that place.

He trusted his love, and he hoped that one day Laila will return from the same route.

There was no other route going out from the town.

After twelve years, Laila returned. The father was dead and now she was free at last. She never married anyone else; she had insisted that if she was going to marry anyone, she would marry Majnu. Her father had said, "If that is your decision, then my decision is that you will never marry." But when the father died, Laila came.

Now twelve years is a long time. In these twelve years Majnu had been standing by the side of the tree. The foliage had grown much; he had not eaten, he had not drunk water, and by and by he had become joined with the tree. Standing for twelve years was so long... slowly, slowly he became part of the tree.

Laila came and she enquired about Majnu in the town. The people said, "It is a very sad story. He had gone to say goodbye to you, but he never came back. Only once in a while in the deep silences of the night, from a certain tree, a sound comes calling your name:

`Laila, it is too long. When are you going to come back?' -- and people have become afraid of the tree because it seems the tree is haunted by ghosts or something. Nobody comes close to the tree."

Laila went to the tree. She heard the voice, she heard the joyful welcome, but she could not see where Majnu was hiding. She entered into the foliage of the tree. With great difficulty she could figure out that Majnu had become part of the tree.

It cannot be factual... but the mystic becomes part of the mystery of existence. And the story of Laila and Majnu is a Sufi story. Perhaps it is symbolic of the ultimate union with existence.

Not trying to demystify it, but becoming a part of the mystery yourself, that is the only true understanding. The mystery will remain amystery, but by becoming yourself a mystery, you will understand.

That is the only true understanding. All other understandings are only knowledge borrowed from others.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

IS MISUNDERSTANDING NATURAL TO THE HUMAN MIND?

Milarepa, misunderstanding is certainly natural to the human mind. Mind is a misunderstanding, and through mind whatsoever you understand is misunderstanding.

Understanding arises only when mind is absent, because what is mind after all? -- just a collection of thoughts, none of which is your experience. Through that screen of collected thoughts, whatever you see you interpret. You never see what is there, you only see what your mind can interpret. And all interpretations are misunderstandings.

When there is no interpretation, you simply see the fact, the truth... that which is. Then the mind does not distort, does not color, does not give meanings to it. You don't have any mind; you are just an opening, a mirror reflecting reality as it is.

What are the differences in the world between people? What is the difference between a Christian and a Hindu, or a Buddhist and a Mohammedan? Nobody is born as a Buddhist or a Christian or a Hindu. The differences are only of the mind and you don't bring the mind with you when you are born. It is all nurtured.

Your mind is created by the society you are born in, and of course they create your mind for their own purposes. It is not for you but for the society, for the state, for the church.

Your mind is a slave. Whoever has created it has created it for its own purposes -- to exploit you.

Every nation fills your mind with nationality. Every religion fills your mind with the idea that even to die for your religion is the greatest virtue or to kill for your religion is not a sin. All these religions, all these nations, these political, social, religious ideologies, go on conflicting, fighting. Man has not done anything much on the earth except fighting or preparing for fighting. There are only two periods in history: one is preparation for war, and the other is war itself. Man has never known peace.

My history teacher in the high school was at a loss when I told him this, because he was talking about periods of peace when there was no war, and he was dividing history into war periods and peace periods. I said, "I cannot agree with you because what do you do in your peace time? -- you prepare for war. So I would like to divide history into two periods: preparation for war, and war itself."

He was a very nice gentleman, hence he was not angry. For a moment he was silent and then he said, "Perhaps you are right. My whole life I have been dividing history into these two periods... but you seem to be more clear, because if there is a peace period, from where does the war come in?"

The day we will have peace, then there will be no war. But up to now we have not known peace. What is the reason for all this conflict and war and violence and murders and massacres? The mind!

The world will know peace only when we have learnt how to go beyond mind. Then you are not a Christian and you are not an Indian, you are not a Chinese and you are not a communist. Then you are simply a human being. In that utter purity of humanness, the world will come to know exactly what peace is and what a celebration it brings with itself.

Mind as such is nothing but misunderstanding. If you really want to understand, get rid of the mind. But people do just the opposite: in trying to understand they go on strengthening their minds. They think a stronger mind -- more nourished, more reformed, more educated -- will be able to understand. I have seen the most educated people, but their Christianity remains there, their Hinduism remains there. Even the very highly educated culture remains superstitious... and their misunderstanding becomes even deeper. Now they have more refined arguments for their misunderstanding.

One great Christian missionary, Stanley Jones used to stay with me. He had fallen in love with me. He was an old man and a world famous missionary, very educated, very refined and sophisticated. But I asked him one day, "The only thing that puzzles me is that with so much information and so much sophistication, you are still a Christian, you have not yet become just human. Deep down you still think that Christianity is the only true religion, that all other religions are so-so... they may be faraway echoes of truth, but Christianity has the monopoly of truth.

"Even with your understanding you have not been able to see that Jesus Christ cannot be compared to Gautam Buddha. Jesus Christ remains a Jew, dies a Jew. He had no idea that his crucifixion would become the beginning of a new religion. He had never thought beyond the boundaries of Jewish thinking. Gautam Buddha was a rebel. He was born a Hindu, but he renounced Hinduism. By renouncing Hinduism, he renounced the whole mind that the Hindus had given to him. He became clear and pure, just a child again. That makes him a totally unique and different person than all other religious people."

Stanley Jones said to me, "Whenever you argue for anything, you argue well! But there are reasons which cannot be dispelled by argument."

I said, "What kind of reasons?"

He said, "I cannot refute you on this point, but in the deepest part of me I cannot put anybody above Jesus Christ."

I said, "This is what I call the mind. You don't have any argument, but still you have a conditioning so deep... with this conditioning you cannot look around the world with open eyes, unprejudiced, impartial.

"You go on arguing against other religions without any difficulty. You go on finding superstitions in Hindus, in Mohammedans, in Jainas, in Buddhists, but I have never heard you talk about the superstitions of Christians. Do you mean to say that they don't have any superstitions? Or is it simply that your mind cannot conceive of it because it has been created by Christians? In Christian colleges, in theological trainings, your mind has been completely filled with Christian ideas, and you think it is your mind. In fact you are being used."

But this is the situation. People think they need a greater mind to understand. I want you to see it clearly: you need no mind if you want to understand. You need only a meditative silent space.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

AM I REALLY A GOOD THERAPIST?

Prasad, to be a good therapist is a very difficult job. A good therapist has to be immensely compassionate, because it is not his techniques of therapy that help people, it is his love. There is nothing compared to love as far as healing the wounds of a man's being are concerned. All other techniques can be helpful, supportive, but the basic is not a technique but a loving heart.

A therapist cannot be a professional. The moment a therapist becomes professional things start going wrong, because the profession of therapy means that the patient should never be cured. He should be given hope but he should never be cured, because once you cure him you have lost one customer. The physician or the therapist, their profession is very strange.

I have heard about an old doctor. His son came back from the medical college, fresh, and he told the father, "Now you have become old and I can take charge of all your patients.

You can rest. If I need any advice I will ask you."

The father said, "I was waiting for this. You are now well educated. You know more than I know, you know the latest researches in medicine, but if I can be of any help, I will be available."

After three days the father asked the son how things were going. He said, "Great, just great. The woman you have been treating for thirty years for arthritis I have cured within three days."

The father said, "My god! You are an idiot. That woman is so rich, she can afford to remain uncured for her whole life. And how do you think I was supporting you in the university? That woman has provided money for your education, and that woman was going to provide money for your younger brother. That woman was almost a goldmine."

The son was shocked. He said, "What are you saying?"

The father said, "You are young, you don't understand. This profession is a contradiction.

You have to cure, but in such a way that the cure takes as long as possible."

The poor get cured sooner, the richer get cured on a long term basis...!

And psychotherapy in particular is in an even more dangerous contradiction. There is not a single person in the whole world who is totally psychoanalyzed. In the first place, psychoanalysts are making great earnings; they are the most highly paid professionals in the world. They cannot afford to lose rich patients -- and they have only rich patients.

Poor countries don't suffer from any diseases which psychoanalysis can help. When people are hungry, what can psychoanalysis do? Psychoanalysis comes only when people are so rich they don't know what to do with their money. Then psychoanalysis comes in and shows them what to do with it -- be psychoanalyzed!

Prasad, a good therapist is one who avoids being a professional. It should be part of your love, not part of your business; only then can you be a good therapist. And as far as I know, you are one of the best therapists around here. I don't see in you things which lead therapists astray. One is a certain kind of gurudom. A therapist should not become a guru, because the moment you become a guru you start changing your patients into your disciples, you start exploiting their misery for your own aggrandizement, for your own ego. You start playing a role of being superior to you, higher than you.

I have not seen in your eyes that ugly ego which changes helping people into exploiting people. I have seen so many therapists who sooner or later fall into the trap. Because they know something more than the ordinary normal human being, they are in a position to exploit, they are in a position to create a following. That is not the work of the therapist.

The work of the therapist is to help the patient to drop his tensions, to drop his unnecessary problems, to drop his habit of creating problems. Most of the patients that come to you are hypochondriacs; they are not suffering from any real problem. Seventy percent of their problems are just imaginary.

I have seen people looking into medical periodicals, medical encyclopedias to find out what kind of disease they have -- they don't have any disease! But it seems, particularly in the most advanced countries, women are bragging... just as they used to brag in the past about their ornaments, about their mink coats, about their houses, about their luxuries, now they are bragging about psychoanalysis: "Who is your psychoanalyst?" --

some poor guy or some great psychoanalyst, only very few people can afford his services... And it becomes an addiction, particularly in societies where people don't have time to listen to anybody, where everybody is in a rush.

Bertrand Russell mentions in his autobiography, "The way psychoanalysis is growing, I can predict that in the next century, if man still remains on the earth, there will be psychoanalysts on every street in the world."Everybody will need once in a while to go to the psychoanalysts -- not because he has a disease, not that he has some mental problem, but just to talk.Nobody listens, nobody has time. You have to pay the psychoanalyst for listening.

In fact, if you are attentively listening to somebody a subtle help happens. He unburdens himself; things that he cannot say to other people he can say to you, because it is part of your work that you will keep it secret, that you will not start gossiping about it. So in privacy and secrecy he can open his heart, his wounds which he goes on hiding in the society. And by hiding the wounds, you can never cure them. By exposing them to light they are cured.

I have heard about a young psychotherapist who was working as an assistant to a famous old psychoanalyst. He used to get bored because people were coming with the same dreams, the same problems, the same worries... every day from morning till evening you have to listen and listen and listen, and it becomes heavy, so heavy that even in the night you cannot sleep. You have listened so much that until it gets settled you cannot sleep.

But he had never seen the old man ever feeling tired or bored.

So one day, getting out of the office, in the elevator, the young man asked the old psychoanalyst, "What is your secret? You must have been in psychoanalysis for almost sixty years -- sixty years of listening to all kinds of garbage and crap! I have just been here for three months, and I am tired and finished and I am thinking I have to change the profession. These people will drive me crazy!"

The old man laughed and he said, "Who listens? There is no need to listen. Just pretend."

That's why Sigmund Freud has devised a beautiful couch. The patient lies on the couch, and behind the couch -- the patient cannot see -- sits the psychoanalyst. Whether he is there or not does not matter. Once in a while he goes out and comes in, and the psychoanalysis continues. The man goes on talking about his dreams, about his worries, about his problems, uncoiling his mind, and he feels better. The psychoanalyst is not doing anything; he is simply giving his time and pretending to be attentive.

But this becomes an addiction. The patient has to come twice or thrice a week because so much goes on gathering in his head that he has to unburden it. But I will not call that old man a good therapist. He is simply exploiting the weaknesses and the frailties of human beings.

Prasad, be attentive, be respectful, be loving. That makes a good therapist. The patient is not different from you. You are in the same boat. You not only allow him to open his heart, you also open your heart to him to give him a feeling that he is not alone in his suffering, that perhaps everybody in the world is suffering and hiding it.

The good therapist will create a friendliness, a deep intimacy with the patient. He should not remain on a high pedestal, far above, as if he has no problems. The fact is therapists have more problems than anybody else. They have their own problems and they have other people's problems too; hence four times more therapists go insane than any other profession, and four times more therapists commit suicide than any other profession. It is not just accidental.

But if you can be friendly, if you can hold the hand of the patient, if you can tell him that these are your problems too and it is good to have a companion, to have a friend, "We can work it out together. It is not only that you will be helped, I will be helped also..."

Unless a therapist comes to this humbleness, he is not going to help. And I can see in your eyes the possibility of this humbleness.

In the middle of her psychiatric session, Mrs. Blossom suddenly exclaimed, "Doctor, I simply can't resist you! How about a little kiss?"

"Absolutely not!" the doctor replied indignantly. "That would be contrary to the ethics of my profession. Now continue what you were telling me."

"Well, as I was saying," the patient reluctantly resumed, "I am always having arguments with my husband about his father, and just yesterday... I am sorry, doctor, I just can't go on talking. I have this overwhelming impulse. Come on! What harm would there be if you gave me just one little kiss?"

"That's absolutely impossible!" the doctor snapped. "In fact, I should not even be lying here on this couch with you!"

Patients are being exploited sexually, financially, in every possible way. The patient has to be given as much respect and dignity as you can manage. You should be a humble helper, not a savior, then you can help people immensely. You can be a good therapist.

You have to be.

My therapists have to be in a different way than the therapists in the outside world. There they are business people. Here you are helping your fellow travelers, your brothers, your sisters. And by helping them, you are helping yourself because their problems and your problems are not different.

The village idiot was very famous. His name was Elmer. One day a village resident wanted to show a visiting friend just what an idiot Elmer was.

"Watch this," he said. "Hey, Elmer! I have got something for you." He then held out his hand, and on the outstretched palm were a nickel and a dime. "Go ahead, Elmer," he said,

"take one."

So Elmer said, "Thank you, I will take the big one," and picked up the nickel.

The man winked at his friend and then said, "See what an idiot he is?"

But as Elmer shuffled off, the visitor felt sorry for him and ran after him.

"Listen, Elmer," he said earnestly, "don't you know that the small coin is worth twice as much as the big one?"

"Of course I do," said Elmer, "but the first time I pick up the dime, they will stop playing the game."

Even idiots are not so much idiots as you think; they have their own intelligence. Your patients are not just to be treated objectively. You have to bridge yourself with your patient. You have to become a friend before you can be a therapist -- and particularly the therapists who are working in the field of sannyas. Their function is not the same as the function of the psychotherapist in the outside world.

In the outside world, psychotherapy is nothing but a strategy of the society to keep people within their normal limits; the psychologist, psychoanalyst, therapist are all helping the society. Whenever somebody starts going beyond the normal standards, they pull him back down. It is not necessarily helpful... One can go below mind, and then it is good to pull him up. But if somebody is going beyond mind, then to pull him down is not a help.

It is just the opposite of help.

Here within my field therapy is used only as a cleaning process. It is just preparing the ground, taking out the wild weeds, the stones, so that I can manage to bring the roses of meditation into your life. Here therapy is only a preparation for meditation; its function is totally different from in the outside world. There you have to bring the person back into mind. Here you have to help the person to be courageous so that he can step beyond mind.

You are preparing people for me. The ultimate push is going to be through me. You have just to give them courage and encouragement. This can be done not by being special, not by being higher, not by being holier. You are not priests and you are not professionals.

You are just fellow travelers in this vast caravan, and you have to help people, prepare people because now there is a gap that never used to be in the past.

Buddha never needed any psychotherapy for his sannyasins; those people were innocent.

But in these twenty-five centuries, people have lost their innocence, they have become too knowledgeable. People have lost their contact with existence. They have become uprooted.

I am the first person who uses therapy but whose interest is not therapy but meditation, just as it was with Chuang Tzu or Gautam Buddha. They never used therapy because there was no need. People were simply ready, and you could bring the rosebushes without clearing the ground. The ground was already clear.

In these twenty-five centuries man has become so burdened with rubbish, so many wild weeds have grown in his being that I am using therapy just to clean the ground, take away the wild weeds, the roots, so the difference between the ancient man and the modern man is destroyed.

The modern man has to be made as innocent as the ancient man, as simple, as natural. He has lost all these great qualities. The therapist has to help him -- but his work is only a preparation. It is not the end. The end part is going to be the meditation.

As far as you are concerned, Prasad, you are doing perfectly well.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #28

Chapter title: Education for life -- and for death

3 October 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive

code:

8710035

ShortTitle:

PILGR28

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length:

103

mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

I STILL STUDY IN SCHOOL AND I WANT TO KNOW: WHAT IS THE SECRET OF

EDUCATION?

Maya, it may be a little difficult for you to understand the secret of education. But I cannot come down from my vision, so I will tell what I feel is the secret, knowing perfectly well perhaps you may not be able to understand it yet, you are too young. But through you perhaps others may understand, and one day you will also grow up and be in a position to understand it.

The question is very complex and I can see that you have asked it without knowing its implications. It is the question that is one of the most fundamental for the future of man. I would like to begin from the very beginning.

Up to now, man has been living an accidental life. No one knows what your potential is, what you are supposed by nature to be. And the question -- the secret of education --

cannot be decided without knowing what your potential is. Are you going to become a musician? a poet? an engineer? a doctor? Without knowing anything about your possibilities, almost groping in the dark, we go on deciding people's destiny for strange reasons.

The very word education, in its roots, means to draw out. It has the very secret in its root-meaning. Whatever is within you as a seed has to be drawn out, given full opportunity, so that it can blossom. But no one knows what is hidden within you, what kind of soil you need and what kind of gardener, what is the right climate and the right season and the right time for you to be sown.

Parents decide about their children according to their own ambitions. Somebody wanted to be very rich and could not be: he is hoping through his children that his ambitions should be fulfilled. Although he could not manage it, he will manage through his children. Naturally he would not like his children to move in directions where possibilities of becoming rich are scarce. As a musician you cannot earn much; as a flute-player you cannot compete with engineers, with doctors, with politicians, with industrialists.

Naturally the parents who have been interested in money would like to send their children into a certain pattern of education which brings them the right qualification to be rich.

The decision is arbitrary. The person about whom it is being decided, his potential has not even been taken into consideration. He may have the potential of becoming a great dancer, or a great painter, he may not have any greed for money, but you are forcing him into a direction where greed for money is an essential to be successful.

Even if he succeeds... of which there is not much chance, because unless you have an inner urge, an instinct for money, the chances of your success are rare. You will be a failure, and your life will become a long, drawn-out misery. But if by chance you succeed and you become rich, still your misery will not be dropped, because you never wanted to be rich in the first place. This was not your destiny. You are living somebody else's life --

how can you be happy? You are trying to fulfill somebody else's ambition and you are not in a position to fulfill your own nature.

Hence the immense misery in the world: the person who could have been a great musician has become just a pigmy industrialist. A person who could have been a great mystic has been forced to become a mathematician. Almost everybody is in the wrong place. And to be in the wrong place is very painful. You yourself are not aware of why you are suffering, because you yourself are not aware that you have missed your target.

You are following somebody else's idea of what you should be.

So the first thing, according to me, begins with genetic engineering. There lies the secret of all education. Up to now what we have been calling education is a chaos.

People have been consulting astrologers about what their children should be. Now stars are not interested in your children -- I don't see any possibility that stars are even aware of your children. That the congregation of stars in a certain position is going to give your child a certain potential is an unproved hypothesis. Millions of children are born in the world almost at the same moment, but those millions of children cannot have the same destiny although the stars were the same.

It is such a far-fetched idea that stars can decide your life. And if stars are deciding, then they are deciding in an insane way. Life on the earth shows that the decisions made about man are made wrongly, whosoever is making them.

People consult palmists, who decide by reading the lines of the hand. It is all sheer nonsense! Birth-charts cannot say anything about you, but all marriages are made by consulting birth-charts... and you can see what those birth-charts are doing! I used to live in a city for a few years, and just opposite me lived a very famous astrologer who was deciding people's marriages by reading their birth-charts. As we were living opposite each other, it did not take long to get introduced to him.

I told him, "Do you really believe that what you are doing is sane?"

He said, "What do you mean? I am the best astrologer around this area. People come to me from hundreds of miles away."

I said, "That I can see myself. But I also see that your wife beats you. Did you look at your birth-charts when you got married to this woman? And if you could not decide even for yourself, don't you feel ashamed that what you are doing is simply stupid -- and not only stupid, inhuman?"

He was at a loss. I said, "Remember, I am a strange man. I will spread this news to everybody, and I will sit in the front of my garden to prevent people coming to you. I will tell them what is happening in your life."

At that very moment his wife came in from the kitchen and she said, "You are right. I will support you. This man is simply an idiot. He knows nothing; he has destroyed my life, he has destroyed his life, and he is destroying thousands of other people's lives!"

But this goes on. There are people who will consult the I-Ching, who will consult the Tarot cards... But the real thing is somewhere else. And it is known, but religious prejudices are preventing humanity from using it.

The secret is in genetic engineering. Now it is scientifically possible to find the program of each human being, even before his birth. The male sperm carries many of the programs for his life and what he can become; whether he will be male or female, whether he will be a strong-bodied man or a weakling, whether he will live a life of health or will remain continually sick, his resistance against disease, how long he will live... and what kinds of potentialities are hidden in him -- whether he can become a great mathematician or a great painter or a great poet or a great industrialist. Your destiny is written in the biological beginnings of your life, not in the birth-chart, nor in the stars, nor in the lines of your hands.

Now there are scientific openings to a new world: each sperm can be read almost like an open book. You can decide your child's life. Before he is born, you can choose what you want your child to be. To me, the real education begins from there.

In each lovemaking the man releases at least one million sperms, but only one sperm may be able to reach the female egg. It is a marathon race. The small sperm -- which is not visible to the bare eyes -- in proportion to his size, the track that he has to follow towards the mother's egg is almost two miles long, and he has only two hours' lifespan. So if he does not reach within two hours, he will die. Such competition he will never again face in his life.

The whole life will be competitive, but the beginning is the worst competition you can conceive: one million people rushing towards the female egg, and only one is going to win the race! The remainder are going to die.

Rarely it happens that two sperms reach at the same time -- that's why twins are born.

Sometimes even nine children have been given birth to by a woman, because nine sperms reached at the same time. The reason is this: the female egg remains open only for the first sperm reaching to it. The moment the sperm has entered the egg, the egg automatically becomes hard, it is no more porous, so others reaching are rejected. But if two reach at the same time, then their entry is possible because the egg is still porous.

Now it is a blind game -- most probably the idiots will reach first. That's why the world is full of idiots! The idiots will not take any care, any consideration of anybody; they will simply rush blindly with full force. The wiser ones may stand by the side and see what is happening. The really wise ones may not even participate in the race, it is so stupid.

These problems can be solved. But religious superstitiousness is a great barrier in the world for every kind of progress and new idea.

I will be opposed by all the religions -- it does not matter, I have been opposed my whole life -- but my proposal is that every male who wants children should donate his sperms to a hospital and the medical science board should work out for those sperms what the possibilities are.

In those one million sperms there may be Albert Einsteins, Bertrand Russells, Martin Heideggers, great musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, great dancers like Nijinsky, great philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, great novelists like Fyodor Dostoevsky. They can be picked out and the father and mother can choose what they want. When you can choose the great diamonds, why go for the colored stones? And when you can be the chooser, why be accidental?

They can choose, if they want, a Henry Ford, who will make great riches possible.

Money is an art, just as anything else; it has its own geniuses. Everybody cannot be a Henry Ford!

If you want your child to be a Gautam Buddha, then you have to see, according to the genetic analysis, which sperm has the potentiality of being a mystic. The sperm has to be injected, so he need not be in competition with all kinds of fellows in a crowd. From that choice starts your education.

This is only the beginning of genetic engineering. Finally it is going to happen, the work is growing every day... the chosen sperm has a program, but the program can be changed a little bit. It may be possible that he has the mind of an Albert Einstein, but not the body, not the health -- that can be added, the program can be changed a little bit. He may have just a life of fifty years, but that program can be changed. He can be given as long a life as you want -- the maximum lifespan can be almost three hundred years -- and as much health and as much resistance against disease. All these things can be added to the program.

The child now starts the journey with the parents' full awareness of what he is going to become, to what school he should be sent, and what kind of education he should be given according to the genetic code. Then the world will be full of geniuses, talented people, healthy people. It is possible to avoid old age completely... a man can go on living youthfully up to the point of death.

Now these are not fictions, these have become scientific facts. But religions are even preventing these scientific facts from being known to the public, to the people. They are afraid of strange things. Their fear is that morality will be disturbed. So let it be disturbed...! Anyway, what kind of morality exists in the world? Except hypocrisy, there exists no morality.

Genetic engineering can decide even the character, the morality, the discipline of the individual who is going to be born. From there many things become possible. For the child, a clearcut, non-accidental career, and for the parents -- because the child is not be given birth through sex -- sex becomes pure fun. It does not carry any responsibility, any danger.

Now there are one hundred percent safe pills for males. For the women the pill is not one hundred percent safe; she has to take it every day. If she misses one day, because she is not thinking she will make love on that day, then suddenly the husband turns up, or suddenly the husband is gone... either way it works. The opportunity of love arises, and mind tends to take chances. Mind just thinks, "Every time you make love you don't become pregnant."

A man in the ordinary course of his sexual life has intercourse at least four thousand times. That is the norm; I am not talking about sex maniacs! This is the very average shop-keeper... four thousand times means forty million people. Existence is really abundant. The man may have only two or three children out of forty million people. Forty million people can make a whole country.

Now they have developed two other pills. The first pill that they have developed was a great revolution, because it prevented women from becoming pregnant. In the past a woman's whole life was nothing but a factory to produce children. She was continuously pregnant; her life was nothing more than the life of a cow. So the first pill prevented her being pregnant, but it was not one hundred percent safe.

The second pill is a greater revolution, because it can be taken after you make love. The first was before you make love; the second is a great advancement, because now you need not be worried; you can make love whenever, with whomsoever the possibility arises. And one never knows when the possibility will knock on your door -- perhaps in a train, and you may have forgotten to bring your pills and the possibility may not strike again. It is just a stranger and suddenly you feel like this is the man you are made for, he is made for you... although when the next station comes, he will be gone. The next pill is a greater advancement: you can take it afterwards.

The third pill is even more significant: the woman need not take it, the man can take it.

Within these three pills all accidental birth can be avoided. Sex becomes just a playfulness, loses all seriousness that it has carried in the past; and you can get a child of which you can really be proud. You can fill the whole earth with the right kind of people.

Criminals can be avoided, politicians can be avoided, priests can be avoided, murderers can be avoided, rapists can be avoided, violent people can be avoided, or if they have some special quality in them, then their program can be changed, their violence can be taken out. Rather than teaching people not to be violent, not to be thieves, not to be criminals... For thousands of years we have been teaching and it seems to have no effect.

On the other hand, we have been making laws against criminals. The laws goes on becoming more and more complicated -- more courts, more jails, more legal experts --

but nothing has been of any help. Criminals go on increasing. Our whole approach is unscientific. If a child is born with a program of being a murderer, you cannot do anything. No moral preaching is going to help, no legal threat, "If you murder somebody, you will be sent to the gallows," is going to help.

In England in the middle ages it was thought that if criminals were punished in the middle of the town, so that the whole town can see what happens if you steal or if you do something wrong, against the law... Criminals were beaten, naked, and thousands of people were watching them. The idea was that these thousands of people will get the idea that stealing is dangerous: you have to stand naked before your whole town, you lose all your dignity. Not only that, one thousand lashes... your whole body starts losing blood, your skin is broken everywhere, it was sheer humiliation, torture.

But the process had to be stopped, because then it was found that when thousands of people were attentively watching a criminal being tortured, thieves were working in the crowd, picking people's pockets. When it was found that even in that crowd many people had lost the contents of their pockets... they were so attentive that they forgot about pockets and they forgot that there may be thieves.... Finally the government came to the conclusion that this is not going to help. If people are picking poeple's pockets while another thief is being tortured, you cannot teach...!

People have been sentenced to death in thousands, but it has not prevented murderers.

The reason is that the murderer has a program in which he is not able to make any change. It is intrinsic in his biology, in his physiology, in his chemistry, about which he is not able to do anything. It is in every cell of his body, and he will have to fulfill his destiny.

All your laws are stupid, all your courts are idiotic, and all your lawmakers are utterly ignorant people. They want to do something which no individual is capable of and which can be done only before the child is conceived -- not afterwards. The world is full of blind people, crippled people, paralyzed people, deaf people. They cannot respect themselves.

Just the other day I received a letter from England. Now I feel at a loss what to do. A young man... he is a sannyasin... but he is so ugly that people feel a kind of repulsion, sickness, even to be near him. Now his biology demands that he should fall in love with some woman, some woman should accept him. But no woman even comes close to him.

He has written a letter, What should I do?

Now really he is not responsible for his ugly face; his parents should have taken care. He had no necessity to be born; a beautiful face could have been chosen, because even the face, the beauty, the color, everything is in the program... But now it is too late, so what to say to him? No meditation can make him beautiful.

Meditation can help him to go beyond this urge, biological urge, but he does not want to go beyond the biological urge. His question is: "Why am I deprived when everybody else is enjoying the love of somebody? What sin have I committed?" He has not committed any sin, it is just that his parents were ignorant. The only thing that can be suggested to him is to go through plastic surgery.

But there are blind people, there are deaf people, there are crippled people, there are people who are retarded. They don't have any more possibilities of intelligence -- and who is responsible for this? The priests of all the religions have been deceiving humanity.

They are the great deceivers. They have been telling people, "You are suffering from blindness, from crippledness, from paralysis because of your past life's evil acts."

This is not true. The scientific truth is that people are unnecessarily suffering because we are listening to the priests and not to the scientists. The priests are absolutely against interfering as far as human life is concerned. They start great protests immediately that you should not interfere in the work of God.

But I cannot see what kind of work God is doing. Now what about this young man who is created ugly? -- this is God's work? And all these people who are retarded, stupid -- this is God's work? And the priests are not ready to have a different world. They are against family planning, they are against birth control, they are against everything that man is now capable of doing to create a better world, a better humanity.

So this is my first thing: education will never be right unless children are born through genetic engineering, not through the old bullock cart method that you have followed up to now. This is one of the most significant secrets: unless we listen to sanity and intelligence, we are not going to revolutionize human life.

Secondly, a few things about education. I want education to be divided in two parts: the first part should be given in the beginning and the second part should be given at the time a person retires.

The first part of education should be for attaining the highest possible standard of livelihood. It should consist of the art of living and love. It should teach people how to be total in their acts, how to use the opportunity of life without losing anything, to squeeze every drop of juice that existence provides. The first part will be for the young people --

training for life and training for love, training for intensity, training for totality.

The second part will be after retirement, which will depend how long we can allow man to live. It may be according to the present average lifespan, sixty years, seventy years --

but as the person retires. There are people in the area of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan who have passed the one hundred and fiftieth year -- thousands of people. That small area of Kashmir seems to be the most healthy area. They are poor people, with no medical facilities, but even at the age of one hundred and fifty, they are young.

But there are other places also in the world, particularly in the Soviet Union, in Kazakhstan, in Azerbaijan, in the Caucasus, where people have lived even longer -- one hundred and eighty years -- and thousands of people, not just one. They are still working in the fields, in the gardens, in the orchards; you cannot call them old, they are still capable of producing children.

So it will depend... If genetic engineering succeeds in destroying the superstitions of humankind, then the second part will come very late. The second part will be preparation for death. Just as the first part was preparation for life, the second part will be preparation for death -- how to die meditatively, silently, peacefully; how to meet death with a song and a dance and a welcome.

The second part will be basically religious, just as the first part was basically scientific.

The education will be complete, but it has to be at both the ends -- the beginning and the end. Each university should have a double structure: one for the young people who are going to enter into life, and the other for the old people who are going to enter into the unknown world of death.

The first part of education will be of many dimensions -- all sciences, all arts, all kinds of crafts. Somebody is a great carpenter, somebody is a great shoemaker, somebody is a great scientist, somebody is a great moneymaker -- they are all contributing whatever their potential allows them to life, with totality, not holding anything back. Naturally they should have equal opportunity to grow, and they should have equal respect. Just because a man is a president of a country does not mean that he should have respect and the man who makes perfect shoes should not. Both are fulfilling certain needs of the society; both should have the same honor and the same dignity.

This equal opportunity, equal respect will begin from the very world of education. And for education to make all these changes, education will have to go through many changes itself.

For example, examinations should be dissolved, because examinations emphasize people's memory, not their intelligence. Memory is not a great thing; particularly in the future it is not going to be of any importance. You can carry your small computer in your pocket which will have all the memories that you need, and any time... immediately the computer will supply. There is no need to fill your head with unnecessary rubbish.

The computer is going to replace the whole system of education which has depended up to now on memory. Whoever can memorize more comes first class, gets a gold medal, tops the university. But have you ever thought about what happens to these gold medalists in the world? They don't show anywhere any genius. Somebody is just a head clerk, somebody is just a stationmaster, somebody is a postmaster -- what happened to their gold medals? What happened to the great respect that their university paid to them?

In fact the university paid respect to their memories and memories are of not much use in actual life. In actual life you need intelligence. And the difference should be made clear to you. Memory is a ready-made answer. But life goes on changing, it is never ready-made -- so all your ready-made answers are lagging behind life.

Life needs a living response... not a ready-made answer, but a spontaneous response this moment; it needs intelligence.

Up to now education systems have not been creating intelligence at all. Intelligence needs a totally different kind of structure. Examinations are for memory, they are a memory test of how much you can memorize. But if questions are asked which you have not memorized, you are at a loss. You don't have the intelligence to respond to a new question for which the answer has not been memorized before.

The whole system of examinations is futile. A different structure should be created: each student, every day, should get his credit marks from the teacher to show if he is behaving intelligently, if he is answering things intelligently -- not just a repetition of the textbooks, but something original.

Originality should be respected and honored, not repetition -- not being a carbon copy.

And there is no need to wait for one year; if a student can get enough marks within six months, he should pass into a higher standard. There is no question of anybody failing or anybody passing. Just as you start getting closer to the standard beyond your standard...

there is no examination. Just with your teachers watching your responses and your intelligence, you will be moving on. Somebody may come one month later, somebody may come a few months later, but there is no question of a fixed year program. I have been a teacher in the university and I know.... There were students who were so talented that they could have passed the whole course set for one year in two months; now ten months are wasted. Who is responsible for that? And there were retarded students; even one year was not enough for them.

I have seen one person failing ten times in his matriculation examination. You will ask what happened the eleventh time? -- he did not appear in the examination. Enough is enough! He was the most experienced matriculate, although he never passed in ten years continuously. People who had been colleagues with him became his teachers and he was still there -- ready, stable and permanent.

Each individual should be given credit for his own intelligence. There should not be any time limit, because that time limit wastes the more talented, the more genuinely intelligent, the geniuses, and waits for the retarded, for the idiotic and the stupid. It is an ugly system.

Of course with genetic engineering the idiots and the stupid will not be allowed to enter into life. Move somewhere else! -- there are fifty thousand planets in the universe where life exists -- why bother us? Move on, go somewhere else where people are still idiots and still listen to the priests and go to the churches. This planet is no more for you.

The classroom will have a totally different form. It will not be the classroom where the teacher teaches you; although he knows more and you know less, his knowledge is out of date. He has learned everything thirty years ago, when he was a student. In thirty years everything has changed. It is such an insane structure that people who are teaching in the universities are all out of date. What they are teaching is no more relevant.

According to me, the library can be the only classroom. The teacher can only be a guide to help the students to find the latest, the recentmost researches in every subject. In the library the students should be there, and the teacher should be there just to help them, because he is more acquainted with the library, he has been longer in the library, he knows about the new discoveries and the latest inventions which have arrived. His function should be that of a guide to lead the students to the up to date knowledge.

This can be facilitated very easily with computers, with television sets. In the twentieth century you need not teach people geography with a map when television can bring you exactly to the place you are learning about -- New York or London or Peking -- you need not bother yourself looking at maps, looking at pictures, descriptions. On the television screen you can be instantly in New York, and what is seen is remembered more easily than what is heard, than what is read.

The future belongs to the televisions, to the computers, because they are the memory systems. The teacher will have a totally new function that will not be of teaching but only of guidance -- where you can find the right book in the library, where you can find the right video in the library, where you can find the right information in the computer.

Teaching becomes more alive, more colorful, more real. And the day is not far away when television will be three-dimensional. Then it will seem exactly as if people are walking and may come out of the television set any moment. Only two three-dimensional films were made, then the idea was dropped because they were too costly. But they will come back. With better techniques they will not be that costly.

I have seen one of the films. It was a strange experience. A man throws a spear -- and the whole audience in the movie hall gives way, because it is as if that spear is going through the hall. It is three-dimensional; it is as realistic as any actual spear can be. A man comes running on his horse and people shriek and divide to give way to the horse... it is just entering into the hall. It never enters! Slowly they become accustomed, by the end of the film: "Don't be worried. Just sit tight in your seat. Nothing is coming out of the screen. It comes only up to the screen and stops."

When things can be taught in three-dimensional televisions and films, when everything that you need to memorize can be done by a small computer... It can be connected with the national computer, which carries all the knowledge that has been found since man started coming down from the trees. You can get every information, information which will be very difficult to remember.

For example, if I ask you -- and you are all educated people here -- "On what day was Socrates married?"... Now, how educated are you? You cannot remember the date Socrates was married; it was such a great date that he suffered his whole life, and you don't even have compassion enough to remember the date! But your computer can remember all that you want. It can contain whole libraries immediately at hand.

The future of education, if scientifically worked out, is going to be a tremendous adventure. Up to now it has been a kind of enforcement; students have to be forced, bribed.

Education can become so colorful, so actual, so real that you will not need to say to the students, "Be attentive!" They will be attentive automatically.

And the same for the second part of education. All scientific technology can be used to give you experiences very close to death. You can be taught meditations, you can be taught relaxation, you can be taught how to go deeper in your sleep. Hypnotism will play a great role in the second part of education, because you can be hypnotized so deeply that you can almost touch the territory of death.

Hypnotism became condemned by the same people who are always condemning everything that can make man's life more easy, more pleasant, more juicy. The organized religions have been such poisoners. They condemned hypnotism, which is a science in itself and has to be revived again. It is the only way to take you to the whole area that you will pass through when you die.

If you have passed that area many times death will not be anything to be feared. On the contrary, you will be tremendously excited. You have lived, you have lived so fully, you are contented with life; you would love to know what death is... a new challenge, a new beginning, entering into the universal, getting out of the imprisonment of the body, becoming just pure consciousness.

Unless education can teach you both life and death it is not complete education. Unless education can make everybody dignified, self-respectful, neither inferior to anybody nor superior to anybody, it is not education.

So I begin with genetic engineering.

I end up with meditation, enlightenment.

Before death you must realize what tremendous beauty and splendor is contained within your consciousness. Then education covers your whole life, and gives you the most perfect possibility of your growth.

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

THESE DAYS I FEEL LIKE A FRUITCAKE. ALSO I'M READING THE IDIOT BY

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY. DO YOU THINK THERE IS ANY CONNECTION?

Vimal, there is nothing wrong in feeling like a fruitcake. It is really delicious. It is so nice... and it cannot have any connection with the reading of the great masterpiece of Fyodor Dostoevsky, THE IDIOT. THE IDIOT is only the name, but the person he calls the idiot in that great novel... That novel has to be considered one of the ten great novels in the whole world literature. There is no way to think that anything better than Fyodor Dostoevsky's IDIOT can be created.

The idiot is a sage. He is called idiot by the people because they can't understand his simplicity, his humbleness, his purity, his trust, his love. You can cheat him, you can deceive him, and he will still trust you. That's why people think he is an idiot. He is really one of the most beautiful characters ever created by any novelist.

The novel could just as well have been called THE SAGE. His trust is so much that it does not matter that you deceive. It does not matter that you cheat him; that is your problem, it is not his problem. His love, his trust will continue. Dostoevsky's idiot is not an idiot; he is one of the sanest men amongst an insane humanity.

But this is the problem: if you are living in a society where everybody is blind and only you have eyes, you will be in constant difficulty. Those blind people will not believe that you have eyes; those blind people would like to destroy your eyes, because your eyes are giving them constant anxiety and tension. But somebody has something which nobody else has... so most probably they will destroy your eyes.

In an insane world, to be sane is the most difficult situation. If you can become the idiot of Fyodor Dostoevsky, it is perfectly beautiful; it is really a fruitcake! There is no harm in it. It is better than to be a cunning politician, better than to be a cunning priest.

Humbleness has such a blessing.

Simplicity has such a benediction.

Solomon Fiegenbaum came home one evening and was startled to find a young girl ransacking his apartment. Looking at her sternly, he said, "Young woman, you are a thief! I am going to call the police."

"Please, sir," she pleaded, "if I get in trouble again, I will be put away for years. Please don't call the police."

"I'm very sorry, but I have to," replied Sollie.

"Please, sir," she begged him tearfully, "I will do anything for you. I will even give you my body."

Sollie thought for a moment. "Okay," he said, "take off your clothes and get into my bed."

The girl did so and Sollie quickly followed. He tried and tried and tried for about half an hour. Exhausted, he finally gave up.

"It's no use," Sollie cried, "I just can't make it. I will have to call the police."

Such cunning people... but the world is full of them. Be simple like a small child -- that is the idea of Dostoevsky in THE IDIOT.

Elmer, aged nine, was puzzled over the girl problem and discussed it with his friend, Ernie.

"I've walked her to school three times," said Elmer, "and carried her books, and I have bought her an ice cream twice. Now, do you think I ought to kiss her?"

"No, you don't need to," said Ernie. "You have already done enough for that girl."

Children have a beauty, and they have an insight which, as you grow old, you lose.

The village priest approached a group of small boys sitting in a circle around a dog.

When he came up to them, he asked, "What are you doing to the dog?"

Little Ernie answered, "Whoever tells the biggest lie, wins the dog."

"Ah!" exclaimed the priest, "I'm surprised at you boys. When I was young like you, I never told a lie."

There was silence for a while, until little Ernie shouted out,

"Give him the dog!"

The printed sign on the church lawn said, IF TIRED OF SIN -- COME IN. Scrawled underneath in lipstick, IF NOT, CALL THE STAR HOTEL AND ASK FOR LUCY.

Okay Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

Table of Contents

Chapter title: Into the open sky

Chapter title: Suddenly you have blossomed

Chapter title: Expectation breeds frustration

Chapter title: Drunk with awareness

Chapter title: Innocence regained

Chapter title: The alphabet of rejoicing

Chapter title: Cowards cannot enter here

Chapter title: Become the mystery